Gallicanism
GALLICANISM. The political dominance of the papacy during a period of the high Middle Ages was necessarily a temporary phenomenon. In central Europe the political fragmentation that followed Charlemagne's attempt at imperial restoration was not reversed by the efforts of successive German dynasties to establish hegemony and to extend their power beyond the Alps. But in western Europe, territories were consolidated that would ultimately become national states. Their growth in size and complexity, together with developments in secular education, favored the employment of laity rather than ecclesiastics in public office. As the opportunity to build larger state units increased, so did the state's determination to assert its power over agencies within its territory. On the international level this would limit the papacy's capacity to intervene in temporal conflicts; within states, it led to a tightening of lay control over the church's tangible assets.
These changes in the relations of power inevitably brought conflict. In England tensions between crown and church are visible in the twelfth century; in France the harangue of King Philip IV (the Fair) before the first meeting of the Estates General in 1302 is a dramatic statement of the rights of the crown over against the church. In the aftermath of the schism that split the papacy between popes and antipopes, Charles VI spoke of "the traditional liberties of the French church." The fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Spanish monarchy combined centralization with control of the church, and the popes surrendered many ancient prerogatives. In some countries the process of realignment of power culminated in the total control of the church during the Protestant Reformation; in other countries it could promote or retard Catholic reformation. In Roman Catholic countries the doctrine of the state's ascendancy over the church received a variety of names: Gallicanism in France, Febronianism in the German states, cameralism or Josephism in the Habsburg lands, and regalism in Mediterranean countries.
Generically, this swing back to lay dominance in public affairs was a corollary of the growth of modern state power. An early formulation in a decree of the French king Charles VII—the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, 1438—contains the major elements that subsequently would be emphasized first, the supremacy of the king over the pope in the temporal affairs of the French church, with a rejection of the pope's right to intervene in these matters; second, the supremacy of regularly convened general councils over the papacy; and third, the cooperation of the crown and the episcopacy in settling French ecclesiastical issues.
Because the boundary between temporal and spiritual is never unambiguous, and because various interest groups interpreted these "Gallican liberties" to meet their specific needs, it is proper to distinguish several Gallicanisms. Royal Gallicanism sought the extension of state power over ecclesiastical appointments and properties, generally through negotiation. Academic Gallicanism usually enlisted a majority of Sorbonne doctors, who strongly defended the independence of the church and the dignity of the papacy but saw the need for some limitations to papal power. The episcopal Gallicanism of the bishops insisted on the control of their dioceses while accepting the crown's full temporal sovereignty in church affairs and the pope's full sovereignty in spiritual matters. Finally, the parliamentary Gallicanism of the superior courts claimed that the Pragmatic Sanction represented the constitution of the French church and that they were its guardians and interpreters; hence no papal document or agent could enter France without prior approval of the Parlement of Paris, which could also declare its jurisdiction over all church issues (appel comme d'abus).
The classic statement of Gallicanism appeared in a conflict between King Louis XIV and Pope Innocent XI involving royal financial control over vacant dioceses. The assembly of the French clergy in 1682 sought to reestablish peace by clearly defining the respective powers of pope, king, and bishops. The Four Gallican Articles, drawn up by the very orthodox bishop Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet of Meaux, were intended to be conciliatory. In substance they declared that (1) kings are not subject to any ecclesiastical power in temporal matters; (2) the reservations of the Council of Constance (1414–1418) on the spiritual supremacy of the pope still apply; (3) the pope is obliged to heed the customs and canons of the Gallican church in the exercise of his functions; and (4) the pope is supreme in matters of faith, but his decisions are not final unless they are confirmed by the judgment of the episcopacy. Although the popes ignored these decrees, Gallicanism retained considerable influence in eighteenth-century France and was generally taught in the seminaries. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790), so decisive in fixing the religious pattern of the French Revolution, had a strong Gallican flavor, as did the seventy-seven Organic Articles unilaterally appended to the Concordat of 1801 by Napoléon.
The clearest example of parliamentary Gallicanism was its use by the Jesuits' Jansenist enemies, who employed it skillfully in securing the suppression of the Society of Jesus in France in 1764. Although many factors contributed to this condemnation, it could not have happened without the strong Gallican—and hence anti-Jesuit—orientation of the judicial bodies.
Gallicanism reached the flood tide of its political influence in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras; thereafter its strength ebbed. The sufferings and occasionally the heroism of the popes during this prolonged crisis evoked wide sympathy, not exclusively among the Roman Catholic populations. The disappearance or weakening of the Old Regime monarchs, who had been friendly to Catholicism while striving to control it, created a new political atmosphere in which isolated or persecuted Catholics turned to the papacy for protection. Improvements in communications and other features of modernization assisted. Nearly everywhere in the nineteenth century, ultramontanism, the antithesis of Gallicanism, triumphed. It is ironic that during the century when European nationalism reached its culmination, official Catholicism moved toward greater accent on its international features. Although the early stages of the modern national state system favored the development of Gallicanism, the maturation of the national state saw its virtual disappearance.
Ultramontanism.
Bibliography
Martimort, A.-G. Le gallicanisme de Bossuet. Paris, 1953. Traces the development of Gallican ideas among the bishops, the magistrates, and the ministers of the crown. The best account available of the Extraordinary Assembly of the Clergy of France, 1681–1682.
Martimort, A.-G. Le gallicanisme. Paris, 1973. The best introduction to this complicated topic, with the most up-to-date bibliography currently in print. Although brief, it covers an immense span, from Phillip II to the First Vatican Council, with particular attention to the late medieval period. Chapter 7 is useful for its distinctions among the types of Galli-canism.
Martin, Victor. Les origines du gallicanisme. 2 vols. Paris, 1939. Martin apparently intended to encompasss the whole movement but ended his work after reaching the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges. It is an immense mobilization of sources for the earlier period, with an exhaustive index.
Rothkrug, Lionel. Opposition to Louis XIV: The Political and Social Origins of the French Enlightenment. Princeton, 1965. A broad perspective on seventeenth-century conflicts. Chapter 1, "The Intellectual and Religious Opposition to Reform," includes a useful sketch of Gallicanism.
Van Kley, Dale. The Jansenists and the Expulsion of the Jesuits from France, 1757–1765. New Haven, 1975. The best explanation in English of the use made by the Jansenists of the Gallican attitudes of the Parlements. Particularly helpful in distinguishing the varied forms Gallicanism assumed in the eighteenth century. And it makes an exciting story.
JOSEPH N. MOODY (1987)
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