We can recognize the working of the.% principles in the opposition which the so called Isidorian decretals (see ISIDORIAN DECRETALS, HINCMAR OF encountered in France; and although the body of the clergy stood aloof, they were carried to their most extreme extent by Philippe le bel (or Philip the handsome) in his contest with Boldface VIII. The conflicting claims of the rival •popes in the western schism (see WESTERN Semsm) tended still more to weaken the papal authority; and the expedient which was then adopted for the extinction of the schism—viz., that of convening a general council to pronounce upon the respective claims of the pretenders to the papacy, gave prominence and significancy to what has since been regarded as one of the leading dogmas of Gallicanism—the superiority in point of authority of a general council to the pope. The details, too, of the disciplinary enactments of the councils of Constance and Basel, which were drawn up in this spirit. were mainly directed towards the limitation of the papal authority in the. exercise of church patronage within the limits of the national church; and these enactments were in the main embodied into the French law by the celebrated pragmatic sanction of 1438. See PRAGMATIC SANCTION.
The pragmatic sanction was superseded in 1512 by the concordat of Leo X. with Francis I. The patronage which the French crown enjoyed under that concordat had the effect of still further nationalizing the French church, and increasing at once the subserviency of the clergy and the jealousy of the crown as to the papal interference. The great jurists, Pailful and Dupin, in asserting the liberties of the church, equally enforced the privileges of the crown. .In the development of the absolutism of the monarchy, which reached its height under Louis XIV., the ecclesiastical prerogative of the crown was enlarged as much as its political authority; and a contest which arose between this monarch and Innocent XL, on the right of the crown to the so-called prod as Regale (see REGALIA), led to the well-known declaration of the French clergy in 1682, which has since been regarded as the charter of Gallicanism. This formulary emanated from an assembly of the French clergy, held by royal authority in 1682, at which the celebrated Bossuet was present. It consists of four articles. The first declares that "the jurisdiction of St. Peter and his successors in the Roman see as vicars of Christ on earth, although divinely bestowed, is confined to things spiritual and appertaining to salvation, and does not extend to civil or temporal affairs." The article therefore declares " that princes are not subject in temporal things to any ecclesiastical authrity ;" • that they cannot be deposed "either directly or indirectly by the power of the keys, and that their subjects cannot be dispensed from their subjection or released from their ullegiauce." The second article renews the declaration of the council of Constance with regard to the superiority of a general council over the pope. and declares that that article is not to be restricted in its application to a period of schism such as existed at the time of the council. The third asserts that the authority of the pope is •• to be restricted by the canons of the universal church," and that " the rules, customs, and institutions of the Galilean kingdom and church remain in full force." This is the article which asserts the celebrated "Gallivan liberties." The fourth article, while it concedes to the pope " the chief part in questions of faith," and professes that " his decrees extend to each and every church," nevertheless maintains " that his judgment is not irreformable, unless it shall have been confirmed by the consent of the entire church." The chief
rules, customs, and institutions of the G. C. referred to in the third article arc, that the G. C. does not receive all the decrees of councils and of popes in matters of discipline, and that those only are in force which are so received; that the G. C. holds itself free to receive or reject the rules of the Roman chancery; that the Roman pontiff cannot levy any impost from the French clergy without their own consent; that he cannot bestow of his own motion on a foreigner any benefice within the French church; that neither he nor his legates can hear French causes in '' the first instance." and that even j in cases of appeal lie is bound to assign native judges to hear the appeal, even when -4 the appellant should be a metropolitan or primate; that the French bishops shall not be required to attend any general council unless with the permission of the crown. The last of these "customs." as also those which make the receiving or not receiving the general canons of discipline optional in France, and which practically throw the deci sion into the hands of the civil power, have been with much show of reason denominated the " slaveries" rather than the "liberties" of the Gallivan church.
This " declaration" was strenuously enforced by Louis XIV.; hut it was in the same proportion distasteful to the popes. It was condemned by Alexander VIII. in 1690, by Clement XI. in 1706, and again by Pius VI. in 1794; but both the acceptance of the articles and their condemnation were understood to be with certain reservations. Within the present century, and especially since the late collision between the civil and ecclesiastical authority, the opinions of the French clergy underwent a decided change. The Galil ean doctrines were much less commonly held, and in a less extreme form, and where the same doctrines were adopted in other national churches, and especially in Germany (see FERRONIANIS31), under Joseph II., they fell into similar discredit with the church party.
The climax of this reaction has been seen in the conduct of the French bishops at the late Vatican council, in which a great body of them were foremost in renouncing the Gallivan articles, and accepting the doctrine of papal infallibility; and even those who contended for the opposite view, in the end acquiesced in the decision of the majority.
The G. C. very at the close of the 18th and the be ginning of the present century, not merely by the enactment of what was called the "civil constitution of the clergy," and which introduced into the constitution of the church a large infusion of the presbyterian, and even the democratic element, but by the concor dat of Pius VII. with Bonaparte as first consul, which reduced the number of sees, brought the ecclesiastical divisions of the country into harmony with its new political distribution into departments, diminished the number of festivals, and confirmed the suppression of the ancient religious establishments and the confiscation of the church property throughout France. De Maistre's De VA:glise Gallicane; Dupin, Les Libertes de t'Eglise Gallicane (Paris, 1824); Puyol, La Renovation du Gallicanism an Com mencement du 170 SiOde (1876).