Bishops' Ban of 1599 (original) (raw)

On 1 June 1599, John Whitgift (the Archbishop of Canterbury) and Richard Bancroft (the Bishop of London) signed their names on an order to ban a selection of literary works. This act of censorship has become known among scholars as the "Bishops' Ban" and is one of four such acts during the reign of Elizabeth I. Debora Shuger has called the order "the most sweeping and stringent instance of early modern censorship."