Printing Practice Test

A Parisian theologian in the 1550s complains that printed vernacular Bibles and devotional manuals undermine clerical authority, while royal officials argue that controlling presses is necessary to prevent sedition and heresy. The crown establishes licensing requirements and empowers officials to seize unapproved books. Which concept best describes this early modern state response to print culture?

In a German imperial city around 1520, a printer reports that cheap vernacular pamphlets and woodcut broadsheets now sell in the thousands at fairs, while Latin folios still circulate among clergy and university men. City councillors debate licensing presses; preachers complain that “unlearned” readers argue theology from printed tracts; merchants praise faster access to price lists and news. Which development most directly helped create this new, broader reading public?