GALLICANISM, the tendencies, principles, or action of those members of the Roman Cath olic Church in France who, notably in 1682, sought to increase the power of the national church and to restrict in that country the au thority of the Pope. By extension, the tend ency to enlarge the prerogatives of any na tional Church in restriction of the authority of the Roman See. This term takes its derivation from the controversies between the French monarchy at various times and Roman pontiffs in regard to ecclesiastical jurisdiction. It is a mistake to suppose that Gallicanism took its rise in France prior to the 13th century, or that the decrees of Louis IX, including the Pragmatic Sanction, were in any proper sense an attempt to restrict the authority of the Roman pontiffs. So far from this being true, their object was to assure the immunities and franchises accorded to the clergy from the exac tions of the royal officers and feudal lords. In his ordinance of April 1228, Louis IX, or rather his mother, Blanche of Castile, the regent, says not a word about the relations of the clergy or the laity with the Roman pontiff, and Pope Innocent IV, in 1250, in a letter to the queen, thanks her for issuing it.
It was not until the time of Philip the Fair that Gallicanism in any proper sense can be said to have manifested itself. That monarch in his contest with the papacy sowed the seeds of the controversy as to the question of papal jurisdiction, which so long agitated the French Church. As a result of his contest with Boni face VIII, and of the later declarations of the Councils of Constance and Basel, the principles began to be enunciated by the national party; one that the king of France was absolutely inde pendent of the Pope in all temporal matters; the other, that the papal power was not abso lute, must be exercised within the limits of the canons, and was inferior to that of a general council. By the Pragmatic Sanction passed at Bourges in 1438, the Gallican Church, in union with the king, adopted the decrees of the Coun cil of Basel abolishing papal reservations and expectatives, and restricting appeals to Rome to the causce majores. Against this many popes protested, but it was not until the date of the concordat (1516) between Leo X and Francis I, that it was abolished.
During the 16th century there were many customs and privileges of more or less ancient date still extant, which the national party de lighted to call °GaMean liberties? The crisis came in the 17th century, during the reign of Louis XIV, over the question of the royal right of regalia. Two bishops excommuni
cated the crown nominees to benefices in their dioceses. Their Metropolitans canceled their sentences; whereupon they made appeal to Rome, and the Pope annulled the decisions of the Metropolitans. The Crown resented the Pope's decision as an intrusion upon its rights. Louis XIV called an assembly of French bishops (1682) to confirm his position. This assembly formulated the famous Four Articles setting forth the °Gallican liberties? The first declared that the jurisdiction of Peter's suc cessor did not extend to civil and temporal affairs, that kings were subject to no ecclesias tical power in temporals, and denied the depos ing power of the popes. The second ratifies the third and fourth sessions of the Council of Constance as regards the respective authority of the Pope and general councils, and denies that these sessions refer only to times of schism. The third asserts the validity of the laws, cus toms and constitutions of the realm and of the Gallican Church. The fourth declares that al though the Pope has the principal share in questions of faith, and that his decrees regard all and particular churches, still his judgment i is not irreformable, unless the consent of the Church he added.
Afterward, at the command of the king, who subsequently realized the radical character of the Four Articles, the bishops who had signed them individually wrote to the Pope retracting their Declaration. Later Louis himself wrote to Innocent XII, in 1693, stating that he had °given the necessarx orders to the effect that the contents of my edict of 22 March 1682, con cerning the Declaration emitted by the clergy of France, be not observed? . Nevertheless, the spirit of Gallicanism lin ered on in France, finding fresh impetus in Jansenism. During the 18th century its strength rapidly waned, and by the time of the French Revolution (1789) it had ceased to have any vital significance. Consult Jervis, VV. H. P., The Church of France' (2 vols., London 1872) and The Gallican Church and the Revo lution) (ib. 1882) ; Le Roy, (Le Gallicanisme au XVIII siecle' (Paris 1892) ; Valois, P. N., (La France et la grand schisme de l'Occident> (4 vols., Paris 1896-1902) ; Sabatier, P., (France To-Day : its Religious Orientation' (New York 1913).