Gallicanism (redirected from Gallican Liberties)

Gallicanism (găl`ĭkənĭz'əm), in French Roman Catholicism, tradition of resistance to papal authority. It was in opposition to ultramontanism, the view that accorded the papacy complete authority over the universal church. Two aspects of Gallicanism are sometimes distinguished: royal Gallicanism, which defended the special rights of the French monarch in the French church; and ecclesiastical Gallicanism, which tried to preserve for the French clergy a certain administrative independence from Rome. Gallicanism in both senses received its theoretical formulation during the crisis of the Great Schism through the conciliar theory, which asserted the supremacy of general councils over the pope. The Council of Basel (see Basel, Council of) further extended the conciliar ideas and in 1438 the French king, Charles VII, legalized these antipapal measures in the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges (see under pragmatic sanction). For additional chapters in the long struggle between monarch and pope for control of the French church see investiture; church and state; Philip IV; Boniface VIII; concordat. The quarrel between Louis XIV and Innocent XI occasioned the famous "Four Gallican Articles," drawn up for Louis by the French bishops (see also Innocent XII). These declare that kings are not subject to the pope, that general councils supersede the pope's authority, that the pope must respect the customs of the local church, and that papal decrees do not bind unless accepted by the entire church. Gallicanism was much encouraged by Jansenism and remained fashionable at court. It was furthered by the followers of the Swiss theologian Thomas Erastus. No French king, however, sought to separate the French church from Rome, as did Henry VIII with the church in England; nor did any French king, despite the development of Gallican theory, ever manage to gain a hold over the church comparable to that exercised by the Spanish kings. The French clergy generally supported Gallicanism and during the French Revolution had little difficulty assenting to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. The First Vatican Council in 1870 established the authority of the pope as a matter of dogma, and Gallicanism continued to live on only in the heretical Old Catholics.

Bibliography

See W. H. Jervis, The Gallican Church and the Revolution (1882).

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Gallicanism

French eccelesiastical and government policies designed to restrict the papacy's power. It affirmed the independence of the French king in the temporal realm, the superiority of an ecumenical council over the pope, and the union of king and clergy to limit the intervention of the pope within France. Gallicanism was opposed to Ultramontanism, which championed papal authority. The doctrine was important in the medieval struggle between church and state. In 1438, after several conflicts between kings and popes, Charles VII issued the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, affirming that a pope was subject to a general council and that his jurisdiction was conditioned by the royal will.

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Gallicanism 

a religious and political movement, the supporters of which sought the autonomy of the French Catholic Church from the papacy and a restriction of papal theocratic claims. The movement involved not only questions of church organization but also problems of the interrelationships of temporal and spiritual power.

Gallicanism arose in the 13th century, when the French king Philip IV the Fair struggled with Pope Boniface VIII for the prerogatives of temporal power. It developed particularly in the 15th century in connection with the strengthening of the French centralized national state, the decline of papal power, and the growth of the council movement. The chief demands of Gallicanism were reflected in the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges of 1438, which established the relative independence of the church in France and proclaimed the supremacy of the church council over the papacy. It also recognized the special rights of royal power in appointing the higher clergy and established the jurisdiction of the secular courts over the French clergy. Under the Concordat of Boulogne (1516)—an agreement between the French king Francis I and Pope Leo X—certain concessions were made to the papacy. However, at the same time the right of the French crown to make appointments to the higher clerical positions was affirmed.

Gallicanism reached its high point in 1682, when the Declaration of the Gallican Church, which was prepared by J. Bossuet, was adopted at a national church assembly that had been convoked on the instructions of Louis XIV. The declaration contained four basic demands: the independence of the crown from church authority in all secular affairs; the subordination of the pope to the ecumenical council; the limitation of papal authority by the laws and customs of the French kingdom and its church; and the nonrecognition of papal infallibility on questions of faith that had not been affirmed by the council. These demands were actually carried out until the end of the 18th century. The Great French Revolution, which destroyed absolutism and eliminated the material base of the French clergy by secularizing its lands, deprived Gallicanism of its former significance. Napoleon based the status of the French state church on the Declaration of the Gallican Church. In the 19th century the growth of the workers’ movement, the spread of the ideas of scientific socialism, and the decline in the influence of the church caused the French clergy to seek an alliance with the papacy, and the ideas of Gallicanism died out. Under present conditions, in line with the growing desire of the French episcopate for greater independence in church administration, the ideas of Gallicanism have been revived in an altered form. This was reflected at the Second Vatican Council in the speeches of the French bishops and in certain decisions taken by them.

REFERENCES

Martin, V. Le Gallicanisme politique et le clergé de France. Paris, 1929.
Martin, V. Les Origines du gallicanisme [vols. 1-2]. Paris, 1939.
Vaussard, M. Jansénisme et gallicanisme. … Paris, 1959.

B. IA. RAMM