And the books of the Reformation and Bibles burned..
Here is from the Catholic Encyclopedia with their view of what was to be censored and burned, and more on the setting up of the infamous 'Indices of forbidden books' ...'The First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (325) condemned not only Arius personally, but also his book entitled “Thalia”; Constantine commanded that the writings of Arius and of his friends should everywhere be delivered up to be burned; concealment of them was forbidden under pain of death. In the following centuries, when and wherever heresies sprang up, the popes of Rome and the ecumenical councils, as well as the particular synods of Africa, Asia, and Europe, condemned, conjointly with the false doctrines, the books and writings containing them. (Cf. Hilgers, Die Bucherverbote in Pastbriefen.) The latter were ordered to be destroyed by fire, and illegal preservation of them was treated as a heinous criminal offense. The authorities intended to make the reading of such writings simply impossible. Pope St. Innocent I, enumerating in a letter of 405 a number of apocryphal writings, rejects them as non solum repudianda sed etiam damnanda. It is the first attempt at a catalogue of forbidden books. The so-called “Decretum Gelasianum” contains many more, not only apocryphal, but also heretical, or otherwise objectionable, writings. It is not without reason that this catalogue has been called the first “Roman Index” of forbidden books. The books in question were not unfrequently examined in the public sessions of councils. There are also cases in which the popes themselves (e.g. Innocent I and Gregory the Great) read and examined a book sent to them and finally condemned it. As regards the kinds and contents of writings forbidden in ancient times, we find among them, besides apocryphal and heretical books, forged acts of martyrs, spurious penitentials, and superstitious writings. In ancient times information about objectionable books was sent both from East and West to Rome, that they might be examined and, if necessary, forbidden by the Apostolic See. Thus at the beginning of the Middle Ages there existed, in all its essentials, though without specified clauses, a prohibition and censorship of books throughout the Catholic Church. Popes as well as councils, bishops no less than synods, considered it then, as always, their most sacred duty to safeguard the purity of faith and to protect the souls of the faithful by condemning and forbidding any dangerous book.
During the Middle Ages prohibitions of books were far more numerous than in ancient times. Their history is chiefly connected with the names of medieval heretics like Berengarius of Tours, Abelard, John Wyclif, and John Hus. However, especially in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, there were also issued prohibitions of various kinds of superstitious writings, among them the Talmud and other Jewish books. In this period, also, the first decrees about the reading of translations of the Bible were called forth by the abuses of the Waldenses and Albigenses. '
And we have the history documented of Mediaeval time...'In his recent article, “The Burning of Heretical Books”, University of Oxford historian Alexander Murray examines several questions about the topic. He notes there are over 200 incidences of book burning in the Middle Ages. “There are one or two Carolingian cases,” Murray writes, “a few more in the Gregorian reform and a few more in the ‘twelfth-century renaissance’. It is around 1200 that the pace quickens, and from then on, scarcely a decade passes without a book-burning, the pace rising gradually, but with exceptional spurts between 1232 and 1319 when hitherto immune Jewish books were burned by the cartload. More generally, the acceleration only becomes conspicuous in response to the burst of Wycliffe-Hussite thought in the fifteenth-century, itself – Nota Bene – partly an expression of rising book production.” ....Murray explains it was not actually to destroy the books and obliterate these writings. In many cases the original book was not destroyed, but only a copy. For example, when the writings of Jan Hus were burned after he was convicted of heresy at the Council of Constance (1414-18), it was only copies that were destroyed, while the Pope kept the originals. In other examples, the items that were burnt were ‘lists of errors’ – documents that were created to detail heretical statements that were made by some person. They were actually specifically made in order to be burned....Murray adds that when books were burned (or endured a lesser punishment, such as being cut to pieces), the ideal situation for the church authorities was to have the person who wrote the book to be one who consigned it to the flames. This was seen as an act of public penance, to show that the person had recanted their views. This happened with Peter Abelard, who was accused of heresy at the ecclesiastical council at Soissons in 1121 – to escape the charges, he had to publicly burn his own book On the Divine Unity and Trinity, an act he later disavowed... The post-medieval period would see a massive increase in the instances of book destruction – as secular authorities took over the prosecution of heretics in the sixteenth, they also went after heretical books as well.'
The Catholic Church organized numerous book burnings throughout the medieval period. In the 13th century, Pope Gregory IX ordered the burning of the Jewish theological work The Talmud along with “those books in which you find errors of this sort you shall cause to be burned at the stake..” A papal bull issued on May 29, 1554, specified that while the Talmud and works containing blasphemies of Christianity were to be burned, other Jewish works were to be submitted for censorship. The Talmud was included in the first Index Expurgatorius in 1559. The ban against publication of the Talmud, with certain excisions or without them, under a different name, was temporarily lifted (March 24, 1564) by Pius IV. However, confiscation of Hebrew works continued in Italy, especially in the Papal States, down to the 18th century. The same was the case in Avignon and the papal possessions in France. Renewed interdictions were issued by Popes Gregory XIII (1572–85) and Clement VIII (1593). The burning in Rome was commemorated by an annual public fast day observed on the eve of Sabbath of ḥukkat (Shibbolei ha-Leket 263).
Here is from the Catholic Encyclopedia with their view of what was to be censored and burned, and more on the setting up of the infamous 'Indices of forbidden books' ...'The First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (325) condemned not only Arius personally, but also his book entitled “Thalia”; Constantine commanded that the writings of Arius and of his friends should everywhere be delivered up to be burned; concealment of them was forbidden under pain of death. In the following centuries, when and wherever heresies sprang up, the popes of Rome and the ecumenical councils, as well as the particular synods of Africa, Asia, and Europe, condemned, conjointly with the false doctrines, the books and writings containing them. (Cf. Hilgers, Die Bucherverbote in Pastbriefen.) The latter were ordered to be destroyed by fire, and illegal preservation of them was treated as a heinous criminal offense. The authorities intended to make the reading of such writings simply impossible. Pope St. Innocent I, enumerating in a letter of 405 a number of apocryphal writings, rejects them as non solum repudianda sed etiam damnanda. It is the first attempt at a catalogue of forbidden books. The so-called “Decretum Gelasianum” contains many more, not only apocryphal, but also heretical, or otherwise objectionable, writings. It is not without reason that this catalogue has been called the first “Roman Index” of forbidden books. The books in question were not unfrequently examined in the public sessions of councils. There are also cases in which the popes themselves (e.g. Innocent I and Gregory the Great) read and examined a book sent to them and finally condemned it. As regards the kinds and contents of writings forbidden in ancient times, we find among them, besides apocryphal and heretical books, forged acts of martyrs, spurious penitentials, and superstitious writings. In ancient times information about objectionable books was sent both from East and West to Rome, that they might be examined and, if necessary, forbidden by the Apostolic See. Thus at the beginning of the Middle Ages there existed, in all its essentials, though without specified clauses, a prohibition and censorship of books throughout the Catholic Church. Popes as well as councils, bishops no less than synods, considered it then, as always, their most sacred duty to safeguard the purity of faith and to protect the souls of the faithful by condemning and forbidding any dangerous book.
During the Middle Ages prohibitions of books were far more numerous than in ancient times. Their history is chiefly connected with the names of medieval heretics like Berengarius of Tours, Abelard, John Wyclif, and John Hus. However, especially in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, there were also issued prohibitions of various kinds of superstitious writings, among them the Talmud and other Jewish books. In this period, also, the first decrees about the reading of translations of the Bible were called forth by the abuses of the Waldenses and Albigenses. '
And we have the history documented of Mediaeval time...'In his recent article, “The Burning of Heretical Books”, University of Oxford historian Alexander Murray examines several questions about the topic. He notes there are over 200 incidences of book burning in the Middle Ages. “There are one or two Carolingian cases,” Murray writes, “a few more in the Gregorian reform and a few more in the ‘twelfth-century renaissance’. It is around 1200 that the pace quickens, and from then on, scarcely a decade passes without a book-burning, the pace rising gradually, but with exceptional spurts between 1232 and 1319 when hitherto immune Jewish books were burned by the cartload. More generally, the acceleration only becomes conspicuous in response to the burst of Wycliffe-Hussite thought in the fifteenth-century, itself – Nota Bene – partly an expression of rising book production.” ....Murray explains it was not actually to destroy the books and obliterate these writings. In many cases the original book was not destroyed, but only a copy. For example, when the writings of Jan Hus were burned after he was convicted of heresy at the Council of Constance (1414-18), it was only copies that were destroyed, while the Pope kept the originals. In other examples, the items that were burnt were ‘lists of errors’ – documents that were created to detail heretical statements that were made by some person. They were actually specifically made in order to be burned....Murray adds that when books were burned (or endured a lesser punishment, such as being cut to pieces), the ideal situation for the church authorities was to have the person who wrote the book to be one who consigned it to the flames. This was seen as an act of public penance, to show that the person had recanted their views. This happened with Peter Abelard, who was accused of heresy at the ecclesiastical council at Soissons in 1121 – to escape the charges, he had to publicly burn his own book On the Divine Unity and Trinity, an act he later disavowed... The post-medieval period would see a massive increase in the instances of book destruction – as secular authorities took over the prosecution of heretics in the sixteenth, they also went after heretical books as well.'
The Catholic Church organized numerous book burnings throughout the medieval period. In the 13th century, Pope Gregory IX ordered the burning of the Jewish theological work The Talmud along with “those books in which you find errors of this sort you shall cause to be burned at the stake..” A papal bull issued on May 29, 1554, specified that while the Talmud and works containing blasphemies of Christianity were to be burned, other Jewish works were to be submitted for censorship. The Talmud was included in the first Index Expurgatorius in 1559. The ban against publication of the Talmud, with certain excisions or without them, under a different name, was temporarily lifted (March 24, 1564) by Pius IV. However, confiscation of Hebrew works continued in Italy, especially in the Papal States, down to the 18th century. The same was the case in Avignon and the papal possessions in France. Renewed interdictions were issued by Popes Gregory XIII (1572–85) and Clement VIII (1593). The burning in Rome was commemorated by an annual public fast day observed on the eve of Sabbath of ḥukkat (Shibbolei ha-Leket 263).
