GALLICAN CHURCH. The National Church of France. The term is frequently used, how ever, not so much in its historical or geographical sense as in the narrower signification attached to the word Gallicanism—a school of thought which asserts certain principles of more or less inde pendent Church government and prerogatives in administration claimed by the National Church as opposed to certain rights of the Pope. The fact that France was the 'eldest daughter of the Church,' one of the countries in which the Christian faith became widely diffused even in the lifetime of the Apostles, gave the adherents of this view a powerful tradition of Church privi leges to which they might appeal. Christianity flourished very early among the Greek colonies in the south of Gaul, as the old tradition of the visit of Lazarus to this region attests. In the numerous and populous towns along the Rhone and its tributaries, there arose important congregations professing Christianity. When per secution came, the Gallic Christians had their full share of hardships. They were closely in touch with those who shared the same faith in other parts of the world, and one of the most touching monuments of early Christian is the letter of the churches of Lyons and Vienne to the brethren in Asia concerning the martyrs of these churches, which Eusebius has preserved in his Ecclesiastical history. The works of Tremens, Bishop of Lyons (died c.202), are im portant contributions to the history of Christian doctrine. In the next two centuries Sulpicius Severus, Hilary of Poitiers, Hilary of Arles, Vincent of L6rins, Prosper, Victor, Eucherius, Salvian, and Gregory of Tours continued a tra dition of great churchmen, of which Gaul was not without reason proud. The hierarchical or ganization of the Church of Gaul was, from the earliest times, the most complete and regular of all Western Christendom. As a result of this tradition of zeal and faith, many privileges were granted to it, and later on, the kings of France began to make themselves more and more felt in ecclesiastical affairs. This was an almost. in
evitable consequence of the close relations be tween the Crown and the Church dignitaries, most of whom held the temporalities of their benefices by the ordinary feudal tenure; the royal authority soon came to assert a correlative claim to certain privileges in ecclesiastical matters.
There were not wanting ecclesiastics who would compound with their consciences in order to up hold the claims of their sovereign, and for several centuries after the death of Charlemagne, kings and bishops at times played into each other's hands.
In order to secure subservient ecclesiastics, monarchs insisted on the privilege of nominating to bishoprics. The wealth of the more promi nent sees was very great, and rulers contrived at times to have their brothers, or even illegiti mate relatives, nominated to them. Where such unworthy prelates ruled their flocks without due regard to Church principles, the only resort was an appeal to Rome; and that usually took a con siderable time, during which abuses seemed to acquire the force of right. As the result of these appeals and their not infrequent decision against the wish of the King, there came a protest against having such causes decided outside the realm. More than one of the French sovereigns engaged in a conflict with the Roman see; and these conflicts naturally called out a division of opinion among the members of the Church of France, one party supporting the Papal claims, while the other maintained the alleged pre rogatives of the French Crown and privileges of the National Church. The great contest be tween Philip the Fair and Boniface VIII. was a turning-point in the constitutional history of Europe—the beginning of a reaction on the part of the laity against ecclesiastical predominance, which, like most reactions, went further in the opposite direction; and the State succeeded in transferring to itself the greater part of the ex ternal dominion enjoyed previously by the hierarchy.