Censorship was an essential element of Portuguese national culture throughout the country's history up until the Carnation Revolution in 1974. From its earliest history Portugal was subject to laws limiting freedom of expression. This was mainly due to the influence of the Church since the time of Ferdinand I, who requested that Pope Gregory XI institute episcopal censorship. Later, the censorship would also apply to the publication of other written works. Portuguese citizens still remember the Estado Novo's censorship policy, institutionalizing strict control over the media, resorting to measures used previously against newspapers and systematic sequestering of books. In fact, every political regime was very careful with the legislation related to the area of press freedom—in most cases restricting it. In the five centuries of the history of Portuguese press, four were marked by censorship.
Portuguese history was marked by many forms of intellectual persecution. Those who dared to freely express thoughts that were contrary to official discourse were frequently punished with prison or public death.
Beginnings of censorship The first books known with some certainty to have been censored by the Portuguese monarchy were the works of Jan Hus and John Wycliff, which were banned, confiscated and ordered to be burned on August 18, 1451, by Afonso V.
Later, there is mention of suppression by Manuel I of the distribution of Lutheran texts, which earned him a commendation from Pope Leo X on August 20, 1521.
Inquisitorial censorship With the start of the Portuguese Inquisition following the papal bull Cum ad nihil magis of May 23, 1536, teaching Judaism to "New Christians", and the use of vernacular translations of the Bible were prohibited. Three types of censorship thus became evident: ecclesiastical, royal, and ordinary.
The earliest existing documentation of publication licences refer to the works of in 1537 as well as to the Cartinha, an introduction to João de Barros' Grammar, in 1539.
On November 2, 1540, Henry I, who had been named Grand Inquisitor by John III, gave to the prior of the Dominicans the authority to verify the type of books sold in both public and private libraries, as well as to prohibit the granting of the Imprimatur, the Church's permission, to any book without prior examination. In 1598, the General Inquisitor António de Matos Noronha conceded this privilege to other clerical orders, as the Dominicans had a monopoly on the review of books.
On July 16, 1547, the restrictions were lessened somewhat due to the directives in the bull Meditatis cordis, although the first edition of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in Portugal appeared in 1515, as a consequence of the Fifth Council of the Lateran. The Index virtually reproduced the lists of books proscribed by the Sorbonne in 1544 and by the Université catholique de Louvain in 1546.
As a consequence of the Inquisition's discovery that foreign-born professors were in possession of prohibited books, monitoring of books was extended to customs. They began to verify the orthodoxy of books entering the country in greater detail. A second edition of the Index was published on July 4, 1551, in which the Portuguese censors expanded the list of works prohibited by the theologians of Leuven to include the books catalogued by the Swiss scholar Conrad Gesner in their Bibliotheca Universalis, in addition to other works, seven folios of Gil Vicente among them. This would be the first Portuguese Index to be created, and would be published in all national territories by the Inquisitors who had, according to Inquisition order, to take in and note all found books and report their owners to the Inquisition itself.
In 1557, Pope Paul IV, due to pressure from the University of Leuven and Charles I of Spain, ordered the creation of the Roman Index, where owners of forbidden books were sentenced to 'latae sententitae' excommunication (implying automatic excommunication) and "perpetual infamy". Such severity, even for those times, brought a wave of panic to European booksellers, dealers, and intellectuals. Portugal was no exception.
In 1561, the Dominican Francisco Foreiro signed a new Portuguese Index, by order of then-Cardinal Henry I, who wrote as introduction to it a letter in which, while not being as hostile as the one by the Holy See, proclaimed the need for "preventive Censorship".
On October 21, 1561, the Grand Inquisitor defined the duties of the "Carrack inspectors", who would inspect the works brought from foreign lands by sea.
Censorship efforts in Portugal were openly recognized by Pope Pius IV, who appointed Friar Francisco Foreiro to head the commission of the Council of Trent, responsible for reviewing Paul IV's Index.
The Portuguese friar was the author of the rules that preceded the Synod's Index, published by Pope Paul V, and that would later be used in all upcoming Indexes. The Index of Trent was published in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon in the same year, with an addendum called Rol dos livros que neste Reino se proibem (Roll of the books which in this Kingdom are forbidden - List of banned books). This list would be added to all subsequent editions of the Index in Portugal.
King Sebastian of Portugal, enacting a law on June 18, 1571, had an important role in censorship legislation defining the civil penalties for Index infractors. He defined a fine of from a fourth to a half of the infractors' legal possessions, plus the penalty of exile in Brazil or an African colony. Death sentences were also not uncommon. Apprehended books were burned and burnings were supervised by clerics.
Portuguese Indexes until the end of the Inquisition
In 1581, Jorge de Almeida, Archbishop of Lisbon, published a new Index in which the Tridentine document is reprinted.
The Holy Inquisition Council's Regulations of March 1, 1570 stated that all local inquisitors no longer had authority over preventive censorship, centralizing their functions on the Inquisitorial Council .
In 1596, Pope Clement VIII publishes an Index, the last one of the century, which was translated and reprinted in Lisbon the next year.
The Philippine Orders of 1603, from Philip II's regency, reaffirm the mandatory character civil preventive censorship, as had been established by King Sebastian.
In 1624, Great Inquisitor Fernando Martins Mascarenhas created, with the help of Jesuit Baltasar Álvares, the first Index of the 17th century, which had a new feature: general guidance - the rules of the Portuguese Catalogue - besides the ones from the Universal Roman Catalogue. The Index consisted, therefore, of three parts: the Tridentine Index, the Index pro Regnis Lusitaniae, and a section detailing the content to be removed from any book published about the Scriptures, philosophy, theology, the occult, and even science and literature. This Index would be in use until the 18th century.
A decree of April 29, 1722 created a memorable and unique exception to this regulations, by freeing the Royal Academy of History from any kind of censorship, especially Inquisitional.
With the establishment of the liberal regime in Portugal, the Inquisition came to an end, and its censorship with it.
Royal Censorial Court
The Marquis of Pombal simplified the process of book censorship by institutionalizing one sole court, called Real Mesa Censória (Royal Censorial Court), and appointing as its president noted linguist and writer Manuel do Cenáculo, the same man who inspired him to found the National Library. He also minimized the censorship against "heretical actions", instead directing the repression against the Freemasons and the Jesuits, both seen as threats to the Royalty. Indeed, the greatest focus in King Joseph I's reign was the utter elimination of any obstacles whatsoever in the way of complete monarchical power. The monarchy was seen as the absolute sovereign authority, with the divine right to rule.
A new law passed on April 5, 1768 reaffirmed the right of "temporal sovereignty" over the prohibition of "pernicious books and papers" in the interest of political defense. This law actually prohibited even certain documents issued by the Holy See like the In Coena Domini bull of 1792 (which reserved exclusively to the Pope powers now claimed by the Monarch) and the Expurgation Indexes.
These indexes, like the one from 1624, were presented as a subversive scheme by the Jesuits of the Colégio de Santo Antão (an important education institution of the time).
It was also through this law that the Real Mesa Censória was instituted, unifying the previous three censorship departments, and directed by "Censores Régios" (Royal Censors), including an Inquisitor from Lisbon and the Vicar-General of the Patriarchy. The Court was presented as a "Junta", with "private and exclusive jurisdiction on anything regarding the exam, approval or reproval of books and papers", publishing regular edicts on listing banned works.
The Regimento da Real Mesa Censória (Charter of the Royal Censorial Court) of May 18, 1768, makes provisions for the inspection of bookshops, libraries and printing presses. Works that conveyed superstitious, atheistic, or heretical ideas were forbidden, even though exceptions were provided for some works by Protestant scholars. Such works were accepted in "well governed and prudent (wise) Roman Catholic States", being tolerated only thanks to the provisions contained in the peace of Westphalia treaties, and because their erudition was recognized and deemed useful for the Portuguese scholars. Works by Hugo Grotius, Samuel von Pufendorf, Jean Barbeyrac, among others, were accepted, although they supported some heterodox views. Voltaire also risked being completely banned in Portugal. That was at least the intent of António Pereira de Figueiredo, but the Dominican friar Francisco de São Bento decided against censoring works of history and theater. Nonetheless, Voltaire's satire Candide was forbidden, due to the way it portrayed Portuguese societey during and after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake.
Liberalism
Mary I's Carta de Lei (law) of 1787 replaced the Real Mesa Censória with the Mesa da Comissão Geral sobre o Exame e Censura dos Livros (Board of the General Commission on the Exam and Censorship of the Books), the Queen having asked Pope Pius VI to provide this organ with the adequate jurisdiction for the censorship works throughout the entire Portuguese Empire. On December 17, 1793 Portugal returned to a system similar to the one in use before the Real Mesa Censória, with the separation of duties between 3 authorities: Pontifical, Royal and Episcopal. This meant that the Inquisition once again set foot on Portuguese lands. These were, however, times of change. Some periodicals, like the Correio Brasiliense (1808), the Investigador Português (1811), and the Campeão Português, managed to evade investigation during this period. During the Peninsular War, a rigorous regime of censorship was instituted by the French authorities, similar to the one in place in France at the time. Despite that, clandestine newspapers were still published. It would be from London, however, that the political refugees, with the support of local Portuguese merchants, would start an abundant literary production and an effort to translate the most important liberal works by John Locke, Adam Smith and Benjamin Franklin, among others, and establish dozens of periodicals, some of them being printed until after the Civil War.