Commentary on the Elizabethan Injunctions 1559

Royal Proclamation setting out the manner in which the Elizabethan Church was to be reformed and governed. Injunction 51 of this Proclamation continued in the tradition of Henry VIII's 1538 Proclamation in providing the legal foundation for a system of pre-publication licensing in Elizabethan England.<br/>The commentary describes how, in accordance with the Injunctions, the licensing and censorship of the press was to be carried out, not by the Stationers' Company, but by the Privy Council and Elizabeth's newly established Ecclesiastical Commission (the High Commission). It also details how Elizabeth also continued to rely upon the sporadic use of statutory measures and royal proclamations to respond to seditious or heretical texts. Moreover, it suggests that, in practice, the extent to which the Elizabethan press was subject to regulatory control was much less draconian than has usually been suggested.