Censorship and favors

requests to read and posses forbiden books in 18th century Portugal

Abstract

This paper analyzes documents from the Real Mesa Censória, in Lisbon – particularly, the letters requesting licenses to read, to own and to publish books whose circulation had been forbidden, both by the Inquisition Index and by the lists the RMC itself had compiled during the second half of the 18th Century. In the letters asking for the privilege to buy or read forbidden books, the people writing the requests present themselves as “knowledgeable”, to whom the reading would not be harmful, while at the same time giving the reasons why they desired to read such books – in general, giving some explanation about the need for “instruction” or “education”, but also about the need to be able to fight against the ideas contained in the forbidden books.(ROS)