Revolution and the Freedom of Press
Early in the parliamentary wars against King Charles I, major factions began to emerge among member of the opposition. Parliament was increasingly dominated by extremists who advocated intolerance – sometimes even extreme intolerance – against dissenting opinion and religious beliefs. These strict Presbyterian puritans opposed many of the positions that Milton either held already or would come to hold in the course of the 1640s – among these the freedom to divorce, theological free will, and anti-trinitarianism. In 1643, Parliament passed an “Ordinance for the Regulating of Printing,” which Milton interpreted in Areopagitica as designed to suppress belief. In 1648 the extremism had taken an even more severe form, when Parliament passed an “Ordinance for the Punishing of Blasphemies and Heresies,” and it became illegal to print certain “heresies” – such as those that Milton upheld.
Manicules in the Rutgers copy of Areopagitica.
Areopagitica, the most famous of Milton’s prose works, is one of the earliest defenses of the freedom to print, as it is also one of the most important defenses of the freedom of religion. Readers' marks frequently provide a revealing glimpse of the way that early modern readers approached texts.
"Wayfaring Christian," or "warfaring Christian"? A Textual Crux in Areopagitica, p. 12
Many copies of Areopagitica, such as the Rutgers copy, have a manuscript correction to the printed word "wayfaring," changing it to "warfaring," and vastly changing the meaning. "Warfaring Christian" is, of course, a provocative, perhaps problematic, contradiction in terms. What kind of emendation is this? Is it a printer's mistake, emended by supervision of the author, or a revision to the original wording?