The Onion co-founder recommends 5 satires that roasted the world (for the better)
In 1599, John Whitgift, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Richard Bancroft, the Bishop of London, issued an edict that became the “most sweeping and stringent” instance of censorship in the early modern period. Now known as the “Bishops’ Ban,” it came with a list of books that should “be taken wheresoever they maye be found” and “bee presentlye brought to the Bishop of London to be brunte.” The list included some unlicensed histories and plays, but satire dominated the auto-da-fé — notably works by Joseph Hall, John Marston, and Thomas Middleton. This made the true target of the Bishops’ ire clear. Less discernible is why the genre provoked such an aggressive response, as Whitgift and Bancroft provided no reason for the censorship. Scholars have their theories: Maybe the Bishops feared the satirists of their day were being too open in criticizing the Elizabethan state. Maybe their attacks on powerful, influential people didn’t sit right with the Bishops. Maybe the works propagated cultural ideologies that the Bishops felt threatened social order. Possibly they were too raunchy …
