THE PRAGMATIC SANCTIONS OF BOURGES: FRANCO – PAPAL CONFLICT
AND THE INSTRUMENT TO SECURE ROYAL JURISDICTION AND FINANCES

By

Ryan M. Zsifkov Fisher, B.A.
The Pennsylvania State University

A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master
of Arts in History to the Office of Graduate and
Extended Studies of East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania.

August 6, 2021

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ABSTRACT

A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master
of Arts in History to the Office of Graduate and Extended Studies of East Stroudsburg
University of Pennsylvania.
Student’s Name: Ryan M. Zsifkov Fisher
Title: The Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges: Franco – Papal Conflict and the
Instrument to Secure Royal Jurisdiction and Finances
Date of Graduation: August 6, 2021
Thesis Chair: Christopher Dudley, Ph. D.
Thesis Member: Christopher Brooks, Dr. phil.

Abstract

The Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges came at the culmination of a longstanding Franco Papal conflict. This thesis demonstrates the purpose of Charles VII in issuing such
ordinances which benefited the crown and limited the influence of the papacy in France
as it relates to perceived papal overreaches into royal jurisdiction and finances. Primary
source material such as royal ordinances, papal bulls, and the decrees of the Pragmatic
Sanctions of Bourges and ecumenical councils are utilized. The Pragmatic Sanctions of
Bourges secured the crown's jurisdiction with regards to courts and clergy, and
ameliorated it's financial position, while limiting the influence of the papacy in France.
The Pragmatic Sanctions are traditionally viewed through the lens of ecclesiastical
reform; this thesis provides a new context through which to view the Pragmatic
Sanctions and contemporary events, and provides for a fresh perspective to examine later
events of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………….V
Chapter One: The Rising Fever of Gallicanism and Franco – Papal Conflict……….1
A Rising Fever of Gallicanism…………………………………………………2
Franco – Papal Conflict from Philip the Fair to the Council of Basel…………6
The Issuance of the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges………………………...22
Chapter Two: Jurisdiction and Checking the Reach of the Papacy………………...25
Concerning the Hierarchy of the Church……………………………………..29
Elections to Benefices and General Reservations to Prelacies……………….39
Jurisdiction of Courts and Appeals…………………………………………...45
Reflections on Jurisdiction and the Pragmatic Sanctions…………………….46
Chapter Three: Concerning Finances………………………………………………...49
Financial History and Context of France by 1438……………………………50
Franco – Papal Relations Regarding Finances………………………………..55
Decrees of the Pragmatic Sanctions Addressing Finances……………………60
Reflections on Finances and the Pragmatic Sanctions………………………..65
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….68
Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………..76

IV

INTRODUCTION

The Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges were the culmination of more than a centuryand-a-half of a tit-for-tat struggle between kings of France and the Holy See and were
issued at the height of the Gallican movement. They were issued by the French king,
Charles VII, in 1438 as a response to perceived systemic papal abuses dating back to the
thirteenth century. For centuries prior, French Kings swore at their coronation an oath to
maintain the laws and customs of their kingdom, both secular and ecclesiastical. 1 They
were considered authority figures with regards to both temporal and religious matters
throughout their realm, and their coronations were reflective of this duality. To defend
the “ancient Gallican liberties of the church” quickly grew from its original meaning of
preventing encroachments of royal power on the clergy to a promise of the king to defend

1

J. H. Shennan, The Parlement of Paris (Thrupp, Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton, 1998),

151-153.
V

France and the French clergy against the extension of papal overreach. 2 With this, there
was also a longstanding tradition in France of mutual support between French clergy and
the crown, and they would often rely on one another’s support when their interests
conflicted with the pressures and prerogatives of the papacy. The Pragmatic Sanctions of
Bourges were, in a sense, a continuation of this tradition.
Many of the decrees of the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges originated in the
Council of Constance and the Council of Basel, which ended the Great Western Schism
(1378-1417) and another conflict just few decades later following the death of Pope
Martin V in 1431 between the contemporary ecumenical council and the papacy,
respectively. Ecumenical councils were general councils consisting of ecclesiastical
dignitaries within the church, theological experts, and others of high rank such as princes
or royal dignitaries, that would decide on matters regarding the church. With the added
motivations of securing Gallican freedoms, and with the support of the French clergy,
nobility, and laymen, Charles VII issued the Pragmatic Sanctions at the culmination of
more than a century of conflict between the papacy and the French Crown, securing royal
jurisdiction and financial freedoms from the grasping reach of the papacy.
Gallicanism, the style of the Roman Catholic Church in France, asserted that the
church in France ought to be governed primarily by the local clergy and by the crown,
and it was often the motivation of the crown and French clergy to protect the “ancient

2

Joachim Stieber, Pope Eugenius IV, The Council of Basel and thee Secular and

Ecclesiastical Authorities in the Empire: The Conflict over Supreme Authority and Power
in the Church (Leiden: Brill, 1978), 67.
XI

Gallican liberties” of the French church against overreach from Rome. Gallicanism was
born primarily out of conciliarism, a movement which asserted that ecumenical councils
held the highest authority within the church rather than power being secured at the head
of the church (viz. the pope). Both the growth of the Gallican Church in France and the
Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges were the result of perceived systemic papal abuses
dating back to the thirteenth century, so what were the advantages to France and Charles
VII in his Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges? The Pragmatic Sanctions were more than
just an ecclesiastical document, they were a tool of Charles VII by which he could secure
authority and jurisdiction over certain aspects of the local clergy, courts, and finances in
France from the hands of the papacy.
The Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges were certainly indicative of their time, and
the general attitudes in France toward the Roman diocese, by 1438. Kings of France and
the papacy for a long time had walked a fine line between agreeable support and
animosity, and it often boiled over into conflict between the crown and the pontiff.
Conciliarism had also firmly rooted itself within the Roman Catholic Church throughout
Europe and largely inspired the Gallican style of the French church, of which one can see
the influence in the Pragmatic Sanctions; traditionally, the Pragmatic Sanctions are
examined within this context of ecclesiastical reform and the Gallican Church. Some
historians, however, have written separately about the rise of Gallicanism and the FrancoPapal conflict which culminated with the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges, and the
jurisdictional and economic advantages to the French crown in issuing the Pragmatic
Sanctions. This thesis will bring together the contributions from these separate authors in
its interpretation of the Pragmatic Sanctions. In so doing it will provide for an
VII

understanding of the motivations of Charles VII in issuing the Pragmatic Sanctions and
provide insight into the purposes of the particularly pertinent decrees relating to
jurisdiction and finances therein, and Franco – Papal conflict in fifteenth century France.
It also provides for a new context by which to analyze both the contemporary events and
later events of the sixteenth and seventeenth century with regards to both the Gallican
Church and Franco – Papal relations.
Brian Tierney, a professor Emeritus at Cornel until his death in 2019, wrote
extensively on Conciliarism, and his work Foundations of the Conciliar Theory: The
Contribution of the Medieval Canonists from Gratian to the Great Schism is heavily
relied upon for an understanding of the origins, structure, and influences of the
conciliarist movement within the universal church (the entire church as a whole).
Tierney explores in detail some of the major works of conciliarists throughout the ages,
including that John of Paris, an early conciliarist whom Tierney ties to early Gallicanism
and who wrote extensively on Papal-Royal relations. He identifies two major problems
in the later middle ages, namely the centuries-old conflict between regnum (kingdom or
“imperium”) and sacerdotium (the priesthood), and the internal structure of the church
and its hierarchical organization; his focus and the focus of the Gallican clergy, and of
Charles VII, were with regards to the latter. Tierney attempts along the way to define
conciliarism as he explores the ideas of the movement itself. According to Tierney,
conciliarism can be defined as the combination of decretist ecclesiology and decretalist

VIII

corporation concepts. 3 He argues in Foundations of the Conciliar Theory that the works
of the diametrically opposed decretists, canonists who favored a more conciliar
governance of the universal church, and the decretalists, fiercely papalist canonists who
worked tirelessly in the 12th and 13th century to compile the decrees of the various
pontiffs, had unintentionally worked in tandem in laying the foundations for later
conciliar theory in the 14th and 15th century, which also heavily influenced Gallicanism. 4
As pointed out by H. S. Offler, Tierney’s argument for how he defines conciliarism is
somewhat of a generalization, but works sufficiently to aid in understanding the
influences of the movement within the church and it’s conflicts, which contribute to the
overall understanding of Gallicanism. 5
In Pope Eugenius IV, The Council of Basel and the Secular and Ecclesiastical
Authorities in the Empire: The Conflict over Supreme Authority and Power in the Church
Joachim Stieber makes an argument for Charles VII’s efforts to mitigate the authority of
the church within his realm, and secure jurisdiction over certain aspects of the courts and
clergy, through the Pragmatic Sanctions. Stieber also argues for the international
influence of the Pragmatic Sanctions and outlines the role of Charles VII in the larger
crisis in the church between the ecumenical council and the various pontiffs vying for the

3

Brian Tierney, Foundations of the Conciliar Theory: The Contributions of the Medieval

Canonists from Gratian to the Great Schism. (New York: Brill, 1998), 223.
4

Ibid.

5

H. S. Offler, “Review: Foundations of the Conciliar Theory,” The English Historical

Review 71, No. 281 (Oct., 1956). 642-645.
IX

head position within the church. He describes the legacy that established by Charles VII
from his efforts to end the conflict within the church in 1438 and describes the
purposefulness of the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges, especially their role within the
Gallican Church in France. On the international stage, Joachim Stieber details the
influence of the French crown in that he set a precedent by which world powers could
similarly establish secular checks on the authority and jurisdiction of the Roman Diocese
in their respective Kingdoms, such as the Acceptation of Mainz in Germany. More
pertinently, however, Stieber argues that the document was not simply an ecclesiastical
one, and that it differed in several aspects in its scope as compared to the decrees of the
Council of Basel. Stieber describes the Pragmatic Sanctions as a means of Charles VII to
“strengthen his own position… by gaining the support of the French clergy.” 6 Stieber
also states that there were “considerations of secular politics” present in the Pragmatic
Sanctions of Bourges. 7 Jotham Parsons, professor of history at Duquesne University,
also speaks to the jurisdictional motivations of the crown in issuing the Pragmatic
Sanctions of Bourges. A primary argument of Jotham Parsons in The Church in the
Republic: Gallicanism and Political Ideology in Renaissance France is that the
Pragmatic Sanctions were the climax of Franco-Papal relations and Gallicanism and
remained the “touchstone of French resistance [to the papacy] well into the sixteenth

6

Stieber, 70.

7

Ibid., 71.
X

century.” 8 He reviews the longstanding history of conflict between the French Crown
and the papacy, and the perceived overreaches (both jurisdictionally and economically) of
the papacy into the realm of France.
One of Parsons’ arguments is that the Pragmatic Sanctions restricted the papacy’s
ability to draw funds from France. 9 Author Harry Miskimin delves much further into this
specific argument; In Money and Power in Fifteenth-Century France, Miskimin argues
that the French Crown turned its sight toward the Church in the Pragmatic Sanctions of
Bourges as a means of ameliorating the financial harm they had endured throughout the
century prior, especially harm that they could (either perceptually or realistically)
attribute to the Church in Rome. 10 Miskimin details the French monetary system and
coinage minting and output, quantities and directions of French monies that were flowing
out of France, availability of precious metals, and the effects of debasement on French
specie. He also describes the tumultuous relationship between the French crown and
Rome with regard to money, and methods by which the crown attempted to limit the flow
of specie out of France to Rome. 11

8

Jotham Parsons, The Church in the Republic: Gallicanism and Political Ideology in

Renaissance France (New York: Catholic University of America Press, 2004), 20.
9

Ibid.

10

Harry A. Miskimin, Money and Power in Fifteenth-Century France (New Haven: Yale

University Press, 1984), 73.
11

Ibid.
XI

This paper brings all of these ideas together; namely that the Pragmatic Sanctions
were ordained at the culmination of both Gallicanism and Franco-Papal conflict resulting
from perceived overreach by the papacy into Royal jurisdiction and finances; the
Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges served largely to secure the authority of the French
Crown over that of the papacy in these areas within the realm of France. In bringing
together the jurisdictional and financial contexts of the Pragmatic Sanctions presented by
authors such as Jotham Parsons and Harry Miskimin, and the argument that it was a tool
by which Charles VII could strengthen his own position as mentioned by Joachim
Stieber, this paper demonstrates that the Pragmatic Sanctions were more than just an
ecclesiastical document. By bringing these ideas together, and by understanding the
context of the Pragmatic Sanctions within the Gallican Church and as a culmination of a
long history of Franco – Papal conflict, this thesis interprets the Pragmatic Sanctions of
Bourges as a tool by which Charles VII attempted to secure jurisdiction over clergy,
courts, and finances throughout his realm, and mitigate the perceived papal overreach that
had been commonplace since the feud between Philip IV and Boniface VIII. The decrees
were motivated by the long history of unfavorable relations between the crown and the
pope, systemic papal overreach into royal jurisdiction, and by the financial circumstances
of France by the time they were ordained in 1438. Bringing these ideas together also
forms a new lens through which to view and understand the Pragmatic Sanctions and
contemporary events, and the rocky relationship between the French crown and the
papacy. This new perspective can also be applied when studying the later events of
Franco – Papal history into the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in France.

XII

This thesis relies heavily on translated primary source materials, namely The
Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges, decrees of various ecumenical councils, and ordinances
of kings of France. For the translations of the ecumenical councils, Decrees of the
Ecumenical Councils, edited by Norman Tanner, is heavily utilized. The translations in
Tanner’s compendium of the ecumenical councils were provided by twenty-nine Jesuits
whom worked closely with Tanner in the British Isles to translate all of the ecumenical
councils from Nicaea I to Vatican II. 12 Most utilized for this thesis are the translations of
the Council of Basel – Ferrara – Florence – Rome, translated by Joseph Gill, and of the
Council of Constance, translated by Norman Tanner. Tanner also provides an
introduction for each ecumenical council.13
The Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges can be found, summarized and translated, in
several resources. In Church and State Through the Centuries: A collection of historic
documents with commentaries, Sidney Ehler and John Morrall translated a somewhat
summarized version of the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges, without interpretation from
outside authors, and provided only an introduction so as to avoid interpreting the
document on behalf of the readers. Charles VII’s entire introduction to the Pragmatic
Sanctions is therein translated and the decrees translated and summarized. 14 Milton
12

Norman Tanner, ed. Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, Vol. 1: Nicaea I to Lateran V

(Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1990), viii.
13

Tanner.

14

Sidney Ehler, ed. & trans. Church and State Through the Centuries: A Collection of

historic documents with commentaries (London: Burns & Oates, 1954)
XIII

Viorst in The Great Documents of Western Civilization provides a translation of the
introduction, and summary of the decrees of the Pragmatic Sanctions, that comes from
Frederic Austin Ogg in A Source Book of Medieval History: Documents Illustrative of
European Life and Institutions from the German Invasions to the Renaissance. 15 The
original royal decrees of the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges can be found in their
original Latin in Ordonnances des Rois de France de la Troisième Race (Paris, 1772),
Vol XIII. Other ordinances of Charles VII, and kings prior, can be found within the pages
of the Ordonnances des Rois de France de la Troisième Race volumes; these are
accessible online on the Gallica – Bibliothèque Nationale De France digital library
website. 16 Where necessary, apposite sections of royal decrees were translated and
interpreted using translation dictionaries and translation tools if no other translation could
be found.
Chapter One details the long history of conflict between the papacy and the
French crown, and the evolution of Gallicanism, from its beginnings in the thirteenth
century to its height with the issuance of the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges in 1438,
which is necessary to understand the context of, and the precedent for, the ordinances of

15

Milton Viorst, ed. The Great Documents of Western Civilization (New York: Barnes &

Noble Books, 1994) and Frederic Ogg, A Source Book of Medieval History: Documents
Illustrative of European Life and Institutions from the German Invasions to the
Renaissance (New York: American Book Company, 1907), 393-398.
16

Bibliothèque nationale de France. Accessed April 6, 2021.

https://gallica.bnf.fr/accueil/en/.
XIV

the Pragmatic Sanctions. To provide an understanding of Gallicanism, Chapter One
begins with a brief explanation of Conciliarism which heavily influenced the Gallican
style of the Roman Catholic Church in France. It then traces the major conflicts
regarding jurisdictional and financial matters for more than a century-and-a-half between
the French Crown and the papacy from the time of Philip the Fair, through the Avignon
popes, up to the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges in 1438. In so doing, Chapter One
demonstrates the precedence for the Pragmatic Sanctions through the long and
tumultuous relationship between the King of France and the papacy in the French
crown’s struggle for autonomy over jurisdiction and finances in his realm. It also
demonstrates the challenges presented by Charles VII in the fifteenth century and why he
turned his sights toward the church.
Chapter Two is a close reading of the pertinent decrees of the Pragmatic
Sanctions of Bourges which provided a jurisdictional advantage to the King over the
papacy in France. Relying on the history and precedent described in Chapter One, it
demonstrates the purpose and advantages of particularly apposite decrees within the
Pragmatic Sanctions regarding the jurisdictional and authoritative limits placed on the
papacy within the realm of France. For instance, the first two decrees discussed,
Frequens and Sacrosancta, both dictate the frequency of general councils and their
superior authority over the church, even above that of the pope, which reinforced
limitations on the authority of the papacy. The third and fourth decrees of the Pragmatic
Sanctions of Bourges addressed elections to benefices, asserting that elections would only
take place in the local jurisdictions which were being represented, preventing the pope
from appointing loyalists or other non-Frenchmen to local positions within the French
XV

clergy where the opinion of the crown was most favored. This chapter runs through
these, and several other decrees, dealing primarily with checking the authority of the
papacy and the pope’s jurisdiction to the benefit of the French Crown. It also briefly
addresses the significance of such a royal sanction compared to contemporary
ecclesiastical decrees by the Council of Basel. Chapter Two focuses primarily on the
source material, namely the “Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges” and the royal ordinances
of French kings, and uses the history described in Chapter One to understand the
implications of, and motivations for, those decrees, in addition to the clearly stated
motivations of Charles VII in his introduction to the Pragmatic Sanctions. 17
The third and final chapter focuses on the financial aspects of the Pragmatic
Sanctions and describes the advantages to the crown under several decrees with regards
to annates, papal taxes, and other means by which money was carried out of France to
Rome. Chapter Three begins with an examination of the financial circumstances of
France and the relationship between money, kingdom, and pope. The Hundred Years’
War, the Bubonic Plague, debasement, scarce availability of precious metals in France,
and certain fiscal policies led to a dire financial situation in France by the time the
Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges was drafted. Many of these problems were inherited by
Charles VII when he took the throne. The effects of these things on the French economy

17

See Milton Viorst, ed. The Great Documents of Western Civilization (New York:

Barnes & Noble Books, 1994) and Sidney Ehler, ed. & trans. Church and State Through
the Centuries: A Collection of historic documents with commentaries (London: Burns &
Oates, 1954) and Ordonnances des rois de France de la troisieme race (Paris: 1782).
XVI

and French royal coffers were exacerbated by the monies that were sent out of France to
the papacy and the taxes that were levied on local French clergy by the Roman diocese;
thus, in an effort to curb the flow of money out of France, Charles VII turned his sight
toward the papacy and issued through the Pragmatic Sanctions several decrees to regulate
the flow of specie out of France to Rome; these are examined in Chapter Three.
The Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges was a means by which Charles VII, with the
support of the local clergy, could return to those “ancient liberties of the Gallican
Church” that the kings of France had long sworn to protect at their coronations. It was
implemented by Charles VII in an attempt to effectively tip the scales of power with
regards to jurisdiction and finances in France back in the favor of the French crown at the
height of Franco-papal conflict and Gallicanism. They came at a time when the Kingdom
of France was experiencing a dire financial situation and the jurisdictional reach of the
papacy was attempting to expand without the consent of the ecumenical councils. The
effects of the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges were long lasting, and they were heavily
supported throughout France as a means of autonomy for both the crown and clergy.

XVII

CHAPTER ONE
THE RISING FEVER OF GALLICANISM AND FRANCO – PAPAL CONFLICT

The Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges were issued in 1438 by Charles VII at the
height of Gallicanism, and their issuance came at the culmination of more than a centuryand-a-half of conflict between the French Crown and the Papacy. They were issued
primarily as a response to perceived papal overreach into the affairs of France and
encroachment on royal authority. This chapter describes the major conflicts from which
Gallicanism grew and which ultimately led to the issuance of the Pragmatic Sanctions of
Bourges by Charles VII to protect royal interests and authority. It examines what was
perceived as the systemic overreaches of the papacy into French jurisdiction and finances
from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries. In so doing, this chapter demonstrates the
precedence of the issuance of the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges.
Gallicanism largely cemented itself as the form of the Roman Catholic Church in
France by the time the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges were issued; in essence
Gallicanism evolved out of the wider phenomenon of conciliarism, which had already

1

Cemented itself within the universal church. A key aspect of Gallicanism lies in the
sense of royalism among the clergy and canonists within the Gallican Church in France,
where in conjunction with the growing fever of conciliarism there also was a strong and
favorable relationship between the French clergy and the French crown. Simultaneously
with the rise of Gallicanism in France, Franco-Papal relations had taken a turn for the
worse. Conflict between King Philip IV and Pope Boniface VIII had reached a boiling
point over jurisdictional rights to taxation, and so began a long history of conflict
between crown and pope where both parties were vying for jurisdictional control over
certain aspects of the clergy, courts, and finances in France. Franco – Papal relations
remained tumultuous throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, culminating with
the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges at the height of Franco – Papal conflict and at the
peak of Gallicanism in 1438.

A Rising Fever of Gallicanism

In the thirteenth century there were, ostensibly, those in favor of absolute
authority for the pope, just as there were those who were in favor of the authority of a
general council presiding over the church, otherwise known as conciliarism. As
described by Brian Tierney both of the conflicts that he identifies with the church, that of
the conflict between kingdom and priesthood, and the conflict over the internal structure
and hierarchy of the church, were ostensibly connected through the course of their
development. These conflicts within the church over its organization and its hierarchy
inadvertently worked in tandem in laying the groundwork for later conciliarism. One of
2

the earliest such works to come out of this was the Decretum Gratiani (otherwise known
as the Decretum), a compendium of canon law composed by the canonical jurist Gratian
from Northern Italy in the twelfth century, which was heavily influenced the earliest
conciliarists of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries.
Though often referenced by later conciliarists the work is not inherently an antipapal document; in fact, in several “distinctions” the Decretum expressly pronounces the
superiority of the Roman diocese and in some instances ascribes it authority over that of
the other municipalities of the Catholic Church at large. 18 To Gratian and his
contemporaries, where matters of the council in Rome (with the Pope at its head)
disagreed with councils in other dioceses, then it was to be the council in Rome above the
others. Where general councils of the universal church were concerned then it was not
distinctly the council which would be supreme over Rome-and-Pope, as were the
interpolations of later conciliarists and the Gallican Church of France, but rather a
successful general council could only be convened with the explicit consent and inclusion
of the Roman diocese. 19 Gratian spoke often of the unerring indefectibility of the church,

18

Gratian, The Treatise on Laws (Decretum DD. 1-20) with the ordinary Gloss (Studies

in Medieval and Early Modern Canon Law, Volume 2). (Washington D.C.: Catholic
University of America Press, 1993), 41 (DD. 11 C.11.: “What the Roman Church
observes ought to be observed by all”), 42 (DD. 12 C.1 “No one may act, without
consideration of justice, against the discipline of the Roman Church.”)
19

Tierney, 50.
3

though it is important to note that this is in reference to the universal church, not
necessarily the Pope himself. 20
Though the majority of canonists of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
understood the authority of the Pope at the head of the church there was a majority that
also asserted that a Pope could be brought to trial and deposed by a council should they
commit heresies. 21 In the event that a Pope was to be deposed canonists were split on
who would assume the position and responsibilities of the papacy during such a vacancy.
Many turned to the College of Cardinals, whom throughout medieval church history
elected, counseled, and assisted the Pope in the administration of church affairs, both
abroad and within the Roman curia. However, where some turned to the College of
Cardinals to fill the vacancy of an empty See, others did not agree that they held authority
enough to govern the universal church on their own; rather, they could convene a general
council that would decide on church matters until such time a new Pope could be elected.
These same interpolations were applied in practice during the Great Schism by later
conciliarists of the fourteenth and fifteenth century. In France, in the mid-fifteenth
century, these interpretations were taken even further with the French priesthood and
king decidedly working in tandem against papal authority.
Canonists of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries attributed to the pope supreme
authority in almost all matters concerning the church with the only true exceptions being
where the decisions of the Pope were deemed detrimental to the universal church at large.

20

Ibid., 41.

21

Ibid., 60-61.
4

Even this exception was rather muddled, however, as it was often the pope in the middle
ages who determined what was in the best interest of the church.
It is certain that, in your affairs, salvation demands that, when dealing with the affairs of God, you
take care to make the royal will subordinate, not superior, to the priests of Christ and to learn
sacred affairs from the bishops rather than teach these to them. It requires that you follow
ecclesiastical form, neither placing the following of human ordinances above it nor refusing to be
subject to the sanctions of her to whose clemency God commands you to bow your head in pious
devotion. Otherwise, by exceeding the bounds of heavenly dispositions, insult will be offered to
him who established them. 22

To a limited extent, the early canonists of this period also attributed to the Pope an
authority that allowed them to interfere in temporal affairs in certain circumstances if
they in any way influenced, or had the potential to influence, the state of the church or
ecclesiastical matters. This is a distinct difference between Gallicanism and early
conciliarism, namely that under Gallicanism the French clergy often sided with the
French crown over the papacy where there was a conflict, as can be seen in the work of
perhaps the earliest Gallican writer, John of Paris.
John of Paris (1255-1306) was perhaps one of the most adamant conciliarists of
his time and was a contemporary of the significant feud between Philip the Fair, King of
France between 1268-1314, and Pope Boniface VIII; this was a marked point at which
Gallicanism emerged in full with John of Paris as its herald. John of Paris was embroiled
in controversy throughout his life within the church, perhaps most notably after writing
De potestate regia et papali in which he sided with the king over the pope, making it one
of the earliest distinctly Gallican documents to come out the rising fever of French

22

Gratian, 34. (DD10. C.3. “In ecclesiastical affairs the Royal will is to be subordinate to

priests.”)
5

Gallicanism since the turn of the thirteenth century. It is clear that John of Paris
supported the king of France in his conflict with the pope, and felt that the pope was
overstepping in his authority, as evidenced not only by his writings, but also by his name
on a petition to investigate the legitimacy of Boniface’s election and his support of an
ecumenical council to investigate heretical accusations against the pope. 23 John of Paris
held that jurisdiction over temporal matters belonged inarguably to the crown and does
not belong to “prelates by reason of their state and by reason of their being vicars of
Christ and successors of the apostles.” 24 Such jurisdiction in the hands of the church,
according to John of Paris, can only exist if “something of this kind was conferred by
princes out of devotion, or if church prelates possessed it from some other source.” 25

Franco – Papal Conflict from Philip the Fair to the Council of Basel

John of Paris’s De potestate regia et papali was written in response to the
previously mentioned dispute between Philip of France and Pope Boniface VIII, one of
the major causes of which was the Crown’s assertion of his right to tax the clergy in

23

William J. Courtenay, “Between Pope and King: The Parisian Letters of Adhesion of

1303,” Speculum 71, No. 3 (July 1996): 577-605.
24

Arhur P. Monahan, trans. On Royal and Papal Power: A Translation, with

Introduction, of the ‘De Potestate Regia et Papali’ of John of Paris. (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1974), 4.
25

Monahan, 4.
6

France as French subjects to fund the continued wars with the English throughout the
French countryside and along the borders. After Boniface’s denial that a king could issue
such a proclamation Philip forbade any transfer of funds to Rome out of France. French
courts and royal administrators whose responsibilities it was to implement the King’s
policies were particularly attracted to this new Gallican way of dealing with the church,
as they themselves were often engaged in battles with ecclesiastical courts over sundry
property, financial, and jurisdictional disputes. 26 The French crown and his royalist
supporters argued as part of their reasoning for their request to tax the clergy in France
that papal taxes were causing large sums of French monies to be carried out of the
Kingdom and were not being used for French interests. 27
Not long after the onset of the dispute, Philip the Fair went on the offensive
launching a public campaign against Boniface VIII throughout his realm and accusing
Rome of abusive collations and taxation throughout France. 28 Philip knew, however, that
he needed the support of the church in France, just as he relied on the support of the
aristocracy to maintain his authority. Indeed, governing France would have been difficult
without the professional skills and knowledge of the church possessed by local bishops,
archdeacons, and canonists who filled his court. 29 Philip set several goals for his

26

Parsons, 18.

27

Ibid.

28

Ibid., 19.

29

Joseph Strayer, The Reign of Philip the Fair (Princeton: Princeton University Press,

1980), 237.
7

campaign against Boniface VIII; he aimed to draw on the financial and human resources
of the French church to aid in the government and defense of the realm, limit the
jurisdiction of ecclesiastical courts that represented papal interests, and reform what he
perceived as abuses of the personal privileges of the papal-appointed clergy. Philip also
wanted to garner control over transfer of land and other rights in France which had for a
long time belonged to the church and had been administered out of Rome. 30 There was a
general agreement among royalists in France that the church had long been trying to
increase its jurisdiction over temporal matters and that it needed to be checked. The
French clergy and aristocracy alike had much more confidence in the royal government
than the papal curia and decided that it was in their interest to let the king make
nominations for elections to benefices rather than the pope. Where the king would elect
Frenchmen for benefices in France, the pope was more likely to elect Italians or other
non-local representatives. 31
In addition to his complaints against the pope for taking money out of France and
overstepping in the transfer of land and appointments of benefices, Philip the Fair also
argued that the church was corrupt and encroaching on the secular jurisdiction of the
crown in other areas. He pointed to the merchants and usurers that had tonsured
themselves and claimed clerical privilege in France to avoid taxes and other
administrative necessities, and to the ecclesiastical judges that tried secular cases that
should be handled in the royal courts. He also claimed that the church abused and

30

Ibid.

31

Ibid., 239-241.
8

excessively threatened the punishment of excommunication, and that the greed of the
church curtailed the devotion of the French people to Christianity. Philip was determined
to preserve his sovereign power as he defined it without interference from the pope or
Rome. When threatened he countered with legal arguments made on his behalf by his
courts and royalists from the University of Paris, and he applied political pressure on the
pope through invectives against the clergy and propaganda against the Roman diocese. 32
In 1290 Philip went so far as to put in place an ordinance by which the clergy of France
could be brought only to parliament for their “ordinary causes,” stripping the ability of
the church to oversee cases regarding temporal matters even where their own clergy were
involved. 33 This was a clear distinction of jurisdiction by which Philip made a statement
that only the Royal courts will oversee all secular matters and any matters that are not
uniquely related to the church.
The rivalry between the French crown and the papacy escalated in 1296 when
Philip IV asked for additional funds from the French clergy. This began a longstanding
tit-for-tat between Philip IV of France and Pope Boniface VIII that escalated the tensions
between king and pope and firmly cemented Gallicanism as the style of the Roman
Catholic Church in France. It was not unusual for the king of France to request tithes or
grants of large sums to fund crusades and other wars, especially with the English still
ravaging the countryside of France and occupying lands along its borders. Just prior to
32

Strayer, 250-253.

33

Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ordonnances des roy des France de la troisieme

race (Paris: 1723), I. Accessed April 6, 2021 at https://gallica.bnf.fr/accueil/en/, 318.
9

Philip’s request in 1296 the king had already willingly received grants from the clergy.
For the clergy it was often in their interest to provide the king with the requested tithes
and grants, and in exchange they would receive certain privileges and preferential
treatment. In 1296, in response to the request for additional grants of money, the clergy
asked for even more privileges from the king.
Pope Boniface VIII was not supportive of the arrangements between the French
crown and the French clergy. More money being funneled to the king to support the wars
against the English or other French matters meant less money being channeled to Rome
and to the coffers of the papacy. The coin stayed in France and only those in France
benefitted; their support for the crown and sense of royalism grew exponentially and
Boniface VIII was not blind to it. In his papal bull he accused the crown not only of
heavily and unduly taxing the clergy and confiscating their property, but also of
attempting “in many ways to subject [prelates] to slavery and reduce them to their
sway.” 34 Boniface also directed his papal bull to those prelates whom, agreeing to pay
the requested tithes in return for privileges, were said to be guilty of “fearing where they
ought not to fear, seeking a transitory peace, dreading more to offend the temporal than
the eternal majesty, without obtaining the authority or permission of the apostolic chair,
do acquiesce, not so much rashly, as improvidently, in the abuses of such persons.” 35
Boniface declared that any such person, no matter their status or title, who should impose

34

Boniface VIII, “Clericus laicos” in Ernest Henderson, Select Historical Documents of

the Middle Ages (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1921), 433.
35

Ibid.
10

or receive payments of any kind from prelates “shall incur, by the act itself, the sentence
of excommunication.” 36
In response to the papal bull Clericus laicos Philip issued ordinances that forbade
the export of precious metals from the kingdom, effectively ending the movement of
specie from France to Rome. Philip also escalated his smear campaigns against the pope
in efforts to demonize him in the eyes of the French clergy. Oftentimes even the French
clergy themselves exacerbated these efforts, having learned that support of the crown
came with its own rewards. 37 As tensions escalated, Boniface countered again with
another papal bull, Unam sanctam, in 1302. Prophetic in verse and it’s interpretation of
the Christian scripture, Unam sanctam describes the power passed through Peter down to
the one bishop, the Pope, and that both “swords” of power, namely the spiritual and the
temporal, “ are in the power of the church; the one, indeed, to be wielded for the church,
the other by the church; the one by the hand of the priest, the other by the hand of kings
and knights, but at the will and sufferance of the priest.” 38 Furthermore, Boniface
explicitly stated that “one sword, moreover, ought to be under the other, and the temporal
authority to be subjected to the spiritual.” 39 The “theory of two swords” to assert and
defend papal intervention in secular affairs was first used by Pope Innocent III and was a

36

Ibid.

37

Strayer, 253-254.

38

Boniface VIII, “Unam sanctam” in Henderson, 436.

39

Ibid.
11

traditional argument made by the church in Rome to justify it’s authoritative reach into
royal or other temporal matters. 40
Philip IV refused to concede to Boniface’s claim of temporal jurisdiction and
authority, and in fact leveraged it in his continued public offensives against him. After
receiving no direct response from Philip regarding Unam sanctam and having realized
clearly that the matter had not been settled, Boniface attempted to excommunicate the
king. In response Philip convened a general council with the support of both the French
nobility and the French clergy to garner their support in his continued efforts against the
Pope. In a bold escalation, royalists, with the assistance of the powerful Colonna family
in Italy, attacked the papacy in Anagni and ransacked the papal treasury, leaving an aged
and weary Boniface shocked and filled with anxiety. He died within weeks of returning
to the Vatican from stresses related to the events that unfolded.
Boniface’s immediate successor, Benedict XI, forgave and resolved all grievances
against Philip, having decided that the papacy was better off with the support of the
French crown after having been left to deal with the fallout of a tumultuous feud between
pope and king. He restored all privileges and granted a two years’ tenth and three years’
annates to Philip. Soon after Benedict’s death, Clement V was elected Pope and moved
the papacy to Avignon, a territory of Provence that bordered France. In addition,
Clement V absolved the agents of Philip who attacked Boniface at Anagni and elected
members of the Colonna family to the College of Cardinals. In fact, Clement V

40

Joelle Rollo-Koster, Avignon and its Papacy 1309-1417 (London: Rowman &

Littlefield, 2015), 24-25.
12

transformed the composition of the College of Cardinals such that a majority were French
in an attempt to appease their new neighbors and avoid falling into conflict with the
French crown, such as was seen with his predecessor, Boniface VIII. 41
With newfound support in the papacy, and influenced largely by financial
reasons, Philip began to turn his sights inward on the church, targeting the knights
templar within France, a religious order that was extremely active in banking, raising
funds, and capitalizing on the crusades. 42 The crown had debts that it owed to the church
through the order, and to the order itself, for moneys lent to fund campaigns against the
English and to defend the borders of France. Philip also had hopes of attaining additional
wealth from the order. As was often the case in the middle ages when a king had an
outstanding debt that it could not repay, Philip attacked his debtors and seized their
assets, affectively erasing the original debt. The religious order, and others like them,
had fallen under severe scrutiny since the loss of Acre around 1250. The rumors
surrounding them were exacerbated by Philip and royalists and had been compounded to
a point where the church could no longer afford to ignore them. Philip IV, having a
strong relationship with the inquisition in France and frequently using them as a check on
the members of the clergy in France whom were loyal to the papacy, was asked by
Clement to investigate the charges and accusations of heresy and criminal behavior of the

41

Rollo-Koster, 34-35.

42

Strayer, 288-290; Rollo-Koster. 38-40.
13

Templar Order. Philip took things even further than just an investigation, arresting
members of the order in secrecy through the night, which Clement initially denounced. 43
To Philip’s dismay, however, their assets were mostly absorbed by the church and
remained in the hands of the papacy, and their wealth was more miniscule than Philip had
hoped. Clement officially disavowed the Knights Templar having succumbed to the
pressure of the campaign mounted in large by Philip. 44 Even though the French king was
already traditionally an important figure within the Gallican Church, the move
strengthened the position of the crown both among the French clergy and within the
universal church at large. 45 Philip did not secure the wealth he had hoped from the
seizures of the Order’s assets, but the campaign was still a success in that it erased his
debts owed to the religious order and at the end Philip was portrayed as a “champion of
orthodoxy, quicker than the pope to detect the heresy and far more zealous in suppressing
it” among the French clergy. 46 Clement V himself issued the papal bull Rex gloria
during the Council of Vienne (1311-1312) praising the “dear son in Christ, Philip, the
illustrious king of France” for his religious zeal. 47
Clement V’s papacy marked the first of many Avignon popes, but from the time
of his death in 1314 onward conflict crept back into the relationship between the French

43

Strayer, 285-288.

44

Ibid., 288-290.

45

Strayer, 290.

46

Ibid.

47

Tanner, “Council of Vienne – 1311-1312,” 337.
14

and the papacy. The Avignon papacy began with hopes of mitigating conflict with
France, but Clement V’s successor, John XXII, began a pattern of increasing the wealth
of the papacy and centralizing its authority in matters both ecclesiastical and secular,
which continued until the papacy was returned to Rome in 1377 by Pope Gregory XI.
Nearby French regions were more heavily burdened with papal taxes in the pope’s efforts
to transform Avignon into a new Rome. Later Avignon popes continued this practice by
any means necessary, in some instances even by military force. 48 Nepotism and simony
both increased exponentially, especially in nearby France, and began a marked increase
in the interference of both elections to benefices and temporal matters in nearby regions.
The papacy at Avignon was brought to its end at the onset of the Great Western
Schism, a nearly four-decade long schism that saw several claimants to the papacy at the
same time. The schism also represented an opportunity for the French crown and the
clergy in France to return to the “ancient liberties of the Gallican church” and emphasize
more autonomy within the church in France. Upon election Pope Gregory XI moved the
papacy from Avignon back to Rome only to die a few months after his arrival. After his
death, under pressure from Roman mobs to elect an Italian pope, Urban VI was elected,
to the discontent of the French cardinals, of whom there were eleven out of the sixteen in
the conclave that elected the new pope. The French cardinals, angry at having been
pressured into voting for Urban VI, retreated from Rome to Anagni and posted their
Declaratio on the gates of its cathedral. 49 In it the French cardinals declared that the

48

Rollo-Koster, 72-73.

49

Rollo-Koster, 241.
15

election was of a conspiratorial nature and that they were pressured by the conspirators,
and by the violent Roman mobs, to hand the election to Urban VI so as to keep the city of
Rome in the hands of an Italian. 50 They declared on 2 August 1378 that “the Apostolic
See is vacant,” and that they did not recognize the legitimacy of the newly elected pope. 51
The increased efforts to expand papal revenues and to centralize authority during
the leadership of the Avignon popes led to general corruption within the church
leadership that did not go unnoticed by the universal church, especially by those in Rome
who largely blamed it on an increasing French influence within the church so as to argue
for the return of the papacy to Rome. This, perhaps, is one reason why they were so
adamant to install a Roman after the death of Gregory XI, or at least an Italian. Not long
after the election of the Neapolitan, Urban VI, the French cardinals who had published
their descension against the Roman pope, along with others in France, elected a new and
separate pope, Clement VII, who took office in Avignon. The election of the second
pope effectively began the Great Western Schism within the church in 1378, with two
papacies (Rome and Avignon) vying for legitimacy and control of the universal church.
Avignon’s history of increasing authority within the church and their increased revenues
and influence made them a rather formidable opponent to their Roman counterpart. 52

50

Archbishop of Bari Anagni, Declaration of the Cardinals at Anagni against

Bartolomeo, ed. John Adams (1378), accessed April 06, 2020,
http://www.csun.edu/~hcfll004/Declaration_Cardinals_1378.html
51

Ibid.

52

Rollo-Koster, 249-290.
16

Having been heavily taxed and burdened by the papacy during its reign in
Avignon, the French clergy called on the king to withhold payment of taxes to the papal
curia and to avoid supporting either claimant to the holy see. 53 The French prelates had
hoped that doing so might end the practice of papal reservations of benefices throughout
France in addition to diminishing papal taxes on French clergy and laymen. 54 The king
supported the French prelates, as was customary, and issued two particular ordinances
that supported the desires of the French assemblies in light of the schism. They
established that the “Gallican church should remain in the liberty which it used to have
from its foundation according to the sacred canons.” 55 The “ancient liberties of the
Gallican Church,” those “sacred canons” to which are referred, were sworn by the king to
be upheld throughout the Kingdom of France at his coronation and promised to the
French clergy certain privileges, particularly that of self-government, which directly
opposed the papal practice of intervening in local elections to benefices. 56
The Great Western Schism lasted until the Council of Constance successfully
ended it in 1417 by deposing two of the popes, forcing the third to resign, and electing in
their place a single pope, Martin V, for whom it was decided would take up permanent
residency in Rome. The Council of Constance effectively established the superiority of

53

Stieber, 68.

54

Ibid., 68.

55

Ordonnances des roy des France de la troisieme race (Paris: 1750-1755) VIII, 327 as

found in Stieber, trans. 68.
56

Shennan, 166-168.
17

the council over the pope and declared through the decrees frequens and sacrosancta that
councils were not only superior to the will of the pope, but should take place at regular
intervals to decide on matters pertaining to the universal church and its organization. In
France it had long been the practice of the Gallican church to assemble French clergy and
the king to decide on matters pertaining to the church in France, with French
representation in the Council of Constance their influence and the influence of the king
now extended to the universal church on a much grander scale. Unique to the Council of
Constance was that this ecumenical council was comprised not only of clergy and highranking members of the church, but also included secular envoys of princes and kings
who represented their respective kingdoms in the council. For the French, the will of the
French clergy and the French king were virtually the same; in defending the superiority
of the council and deposing the Avignon claimant to the papacy they assured that the
popes influence over France was much more limited and indirect than under the previous
popes, and that the French clergy could regain those privileges promised by the king of a
return to the ancient Gallican liberties of the French Church. This continued a
longstanding tradition of mutual support between French clergy and the crown, who
relied on each other’s support in times of dispute.
Only a short time later the authority of ecumenical councils as established by the
Council of Constance was challenged by Eugenius IV, the successor of pope Martin V. In
1431 the Council of Basel was set to begin as established at the previous council of Pavia
– Siena (1423-1424) according to two papal bulls of Martin V, and a legate was appointed

18

by Martin V to act and speak in his stead shortly before his death in that same year. 57
Martin V, in his bulls, also laid out the purpose of the council: they were to reform the
clergy, find a way to reincorporate the eastern church, establish the preservation of
ecclesiastical freedom, preserve the peace of the kingdoms of Latin Christendom, and take
measures against the Bohemians. 58 Somewhat ironically, the reactionary fears of Eugenius
IV that the council was a dire threat to papal power and supremacy led to a majority of the
council’s efforts being steered into resolving a conflict with the standing pope. Eugenius
IV feared that the council would strip too much power from the papacy; as pointed out by
historian Loy Bilderback, there were obvious downsides to conciliarism for the papacy:
“At best it would have to share power with the proposed councils and at worst it could find
itself totally subjugated to them.” 59 Eugenius IV initially confirmed the acts of Martin V
and allowed the council to begin, but later that same year he issued the papal bull Quoniam
alto which dissolved the council. 60 Eugenius then moved the council to Ferrara, then
Florence, and then Rome; traditionally, councils held in Italy were not well attended by
clergy outside of Italy, and Italian clergy were typically much more supportive of the
papacy and the absolute authority it was working toward within the church. 61 If the nations

57

“Council of Constance” in Tanner, 453.

58

Stieber, 10-11.

59

Loy Bilderback. “Eugene IV and the First Dissolution of the Council of Basle,” Church

History 36, no. 3 (Sep. 1967): 243-253.
60

Ibid. See also Stieber, 12-13. See also Tanner, 453.

61

Stieber, 13.
19

north of the Alps that were in attendance at Basel were absent when the council was
translated to Italy, then Eugenius IV assumed that he would have a majority of the support
in the room during his efforts to invalidate the first meetings of the Council of Basel.
Ultimately, the vast majority of the clergy in the church strongly opposed the attempts of
the pope to dissolve the council at Basel, and the council at Basel also had the support of
powerful secular entities, namely Germany and France. 62
Eugenius’s efforts to transfer the council to Italy as previously described coincided
with his appeals to secular princes in an attempt to garner support for his version of the
papacy, one that was absolute and without the hinderance of general councils. 63 In his
papal bull, Libellus apologeticus, Eugenius took particular issue with the claim of the
Council of Basel to hold the highest ecclesiastical authority over the universal church, the
abolition of annates, a more independent College of the Cardinals, and the granting of
indulgences under the authority of the council. He attempted to use Libellus apologeticus
as a tool to discredit the council and present them as a revolting group of lower clergy
within the church. 64 Whatever support Eugenius was successful in mustering was not
enough, the general council at Basel continued its meeting and initiated legal proceedings
against the Pope, eventually suspending Eugenius unless he agreed to backtrack on
translating the council to Ferrara in Italy. Eugenius proceeded in the transference of the
council to Ferrara and was subsequently suspended by the said Council of Basel.

62

Ibid., 14-15.

63

Ibid., 26.

64

Stieber, 28-29.
20

Of utmost importance to the direction of both the council and the pope during this
conflict was the support of the powerful secular rulers of Latin Christendom. France took
the lead in deciding with whom their support laid, and many other powerful Christian
kingdoms and principalities followed suit, notably save England and Burgundy. 65 Upon
receiving notice of the translation of the Council of Basel to Ferrara King Charles VII of
France immediately rejected the summons and vowed his support for the Council of Basel.
He proclaimed France was to “give it all help and favor… for the causes clarified by the
decrees of the holy councils which were celebrated at Constance.” 66 Additionally, Charles
VII, in his ordinance of 23 January 1438, ordered that “no prelates, of whatever state or
condition, of our Kingdom and Dauphine, should be sent to the said place of Ferrara for
the said summons.” 67 The king continued to send representatives and support to the council
of Basel to continue their deliberations and work toward their efforts of reforming the
universal church. At the same time, the French conflict with England, the Hundred Years
War, was still front and center in the mind of the king. Unlike nations such as France,
where the clergy and others educated in their universities are taught from the beginning of
the universal superiority of the council, the English were more inclined to follow the
predispositions of their King, Henry VI, who continuously supported Eugenius IV. Henry
65

Ibid., 40.

66

Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ordonnances des roy des France de la troisieme

race (Paris: 1782), XIII. Accessed April 6, 2021 at https://gallica.bnf.fr/accueil/en/, 255256.
67

Ibid.
21

VI’s support of Eugenius was decidedly in opposition of the French who were just starting
to gain the upper hand in the ongoing Hundred Years War and had begun to reacquire more
of their lands from the control of the English. 68

The Issuance of the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges

In 1438, the same year that Charles VII issued his ordinance in support of the
Council of Basel and prohibited prelates from acknowledging the legitimacy of its
transference to Ferrara, the king also summoned a synod to Bourges to advise him on his
next steps with regards to the council – pope conflict. When Charles VII came to power,
he inherited a mostly weakened throne due to war efforts and continued occupation by
the English, the fiscal policies of his father (Charles VI), and emptied royal treasuries, as
will be seen later in Chapter Three. With this, and the recent ill memories of the Avignon
popes and the more than a century-old struggle between pope and king in France since
the time of Philip IV, Charles quickly seized the opportunity to turn the tide on many
fronts and solidify his authority in France over the papacy, particularly with regards to
jurisdiction and finances. No one but the King, according to Charles VII, “possessed
rights over the church in the Kingdom of France, unless those rights were delegated by
the king,” and no one but the king could tax the people of France. 69 In what was
arguably the climax of a rising fever of Gallicanism and Franco – Papal conflict, he

68

Stieber, 62-63.

69

M.G.A. Vale, Charles VII (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), 15-18.
22

issued the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges of 1438, ordaining legal authority throughout
France to enforce certain decrees of the Council of Basel in royal courts as well as those
additional decrees set forth in the Pragmatic Sanctions; these decrees worked almost
universally in the King’s favor and in the favor of local clergy, whom as mentioned
previously were notably loyal to the crown. They were aimed at securing authority for
the crown within his realm from the papacy, and strived to restrict papal overreach with
regards to both jurisdiction and finances. Gallicanism was largely backed by French
political society and after the Pragmatic Sanctions it emerged as a fully formed ideology
of a return to a more spiritual and less temporal abundance in the church. French
authority was “left effectively unchallenged [by the papacy] after the Pragmatic
Sanctions had codified both the economic and jurisdictional sides.” 70
Charles VII issued the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges in 1438 as a response to
the perceived papal overreach into royal jurisdiction within France with regards to courts,
clergy, and finances. The tumultuous Franco – Papal relations in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries coincided with a rising fever of Gallicanism where French clergy and
the crown could count on one another’s support when it came to protecting their interests
from papal overreach. The conflict within the church over where the ultimate authority
over church matters laid, viz. with the ecumenical councils or with the Roman diocese,
also came to a head and Charles VII ostensibly supported the councils over that of the
pope; thus, many of the decrees of the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges reflected the
decrees set forth by the Council of Constance (1417) and the Council of Basel (1438). In

70

Parsons, 23-24.
23

some instances, those decrees that mirrored the decrees of the ecumenical councils were
in-and-of-themselves checks on the jurisdictional authority of the papacy, while other
pertinent decrees of the Pragmatic Sanctions provided particular jurisdictional advantages
to the crown.

24

CHAPTER TWO
JURISDICTION AND CHECKING THE REACH OF THE PAPACY

Having had royal representation present at the Council of Basel, and in
conjunction with the French clergy, political leaders, and representatives of the
University of Paris, Charles VII issued the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges in 1438,
which codified in secular law certain decrees of the Council of Constance and the
Council of Basel with the addition of caveats that worked in the favor of the French
clergy and the crown. By issuing the Pragmatic Sanctions as a royal decree, it meant that
any breech of those decrees by anyone in France could have been subject to secular
judgement in the royal courts, rather than just by the papacy or an ecumenical council.
This was a huge step forward not just for Gallicanism, which was strengthened by the
already healthy relationship between the French clergy and the King of France, but also
for the autonomy and authority of the French crown over that of the pope within French
territory. As was seen in the conflict between King Philip the Fair and Pope Boniface
VIII, and with the Avignon popes, conflict with the French crown was often the result

25

when the pope attempted to centralize and expand authority at the head of the church and
extend his reach into secular affairs in France.
Many of the decrees of the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges ensured that the
authority and autonomy of the papacy was checked by the general councils of the
universal church, and limited the pope’s jurisdiction in several areas, and in others
strengthened the influence and jurisdiction of the crown, such as with elections to
benefices and jurisdiction over aspects of the royal courts. These decrees aimed to steer
authority over temporal matters back into the hands of the crown and address some of the
specifically stated accusations against the papacy that Charles VII outlined in his
introduction to the Pragmatic Sanctions; this increased the influence of the king in
elections to local benefices and ensured the “hierarchy of the church” was such that the
pope was not the supreme ruler of the universal church, and that there was a method
oversight that could check the jurisdiction and authority of the papacy.
The pertinent decrees of the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges issued by Charles
VII that limited the jurisdiction of the pope, and addressed the concerns of hierarchy
within the church and the authority of the papacy, can be categorized as addressing three
separate issues. First, some decrees of the Pragmatic Sanctions established where the
ultimate authority was held within the church (viz. general ecumenical councils) and
implemented a system of oversight over the pope through the College of Cardinals.
These decrees include Frequens and Sacrosancta dealing primarily with general councils,
and Cum summon pontifici dealing primarily with the College of Cardinals and the
qualifications of the cardinals that could be elected to the Sacred College. These
26

Cardinals were also tasked with oversight of the papacy, ensuring that he was living up to
the expectations of the general council. Second, Charles VII established, or in some
cases reestablished under royal authority, certain decrees addressing the rights of general
reservations of benefices and expectatives claimed by the papacy, and set standards for
local elections to benefices. They were established in a manner such that the influence
from the pope was more limited with regards to elections or appointments to benefices in
France while simultaneously increasing the influence of the crown within the Gallican
Church in France. These decrees include Sicut in construenda, Licet dudum, Et quia
multiplices, Placuit divinae, and Quaecumque non violentes which all dealt with elections
to benefices, reservations of benefices, and expectatives. Finally, the third jurisdictional
issue addressed was with regards to the courts and the influence of the Roman curia over
matters that Charles VII and the Gallican Church felt should be dealt with in local
ecclesiastical and royal courts. Decrees Ecclesiasticai sollicitudimis and Ut lites citius
addressed these concerns directly, especially with regards to appeals made to the Roman
curia out of France. This chapter goes through each of these decrees and demonstrates
how they address each of Charles VII’s concerns over jurisdiction and authority in the
same order that they are stated above.
Charles VII clearly expressed these jurisdictional motivations in his introduction
to the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges, as well as his worries about the reach of the
papacy in temporal matters. Charles forwardly accused the papacy and its administration
of “intolerable encroachments and particularly the reservations to prelacies and other

27

ecclesiastical benefices.” 71 “Reservations to prelacies and other ecclesiastical benefices”
referred to the practice of the papacy reserving the right for himself to appoint individuals
to ecclesiastical positions within the church, regardless of if their position was outside of
Rome or Avignon. Initially, reservations to benefices were seldom held by the papacy
for positions outside of the holy see, and applied only to those positions in which the
holder had died within a certain distance of the Roman diocese. Under the Avignon
popes this reach was exponentially magnified and the pope reserved the rights to
benefices nearly universally. 72 By the time the papacy returned to Rome from Avignon
in 1376 there were very few, if any, collations throughout Latin Christendom that
escaped the grasp of the papacy. 73
Charles also accused the papacy of “the multiplying and innumerable conceding
of very exorbitant expectative to benefices… and other most serious and important
burdens, by which the churches and ecclesiastical persons of our said Kingdom and
Dauphine appear nowadays to be gravely afflicted, oppressed and reduced almost to
extreme exhaustion.” 74 An expectative to a benefice was a method of reserving a
benefice in which a successor was appointed to a position before that position had

71

“Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges enacted by Charles VII, King of France, July 7,

1438” in Ehler, ed. & trans., 116.
72

Ann Deeley, “Papal Provision and Royal Rights of Patronage in the Early Fourteenth

Century.” The English Historical Review 43, No. 172 (Oct. 1928): 497-527.
73

Ibid.

74

Ehler, 116.
28

become vacant. Upon the death of the individual currently holding the office the position
would immediately be filled by the chosen successor. Charles asserted that “prelates and
other lawful collators are deprived of their rights of collation and of their ministry” and
that the “hierarchy of the church is confounded, and many other things are similarly
perpetrated against divine and human laws leading to the ruin of souls, and oppression
and treading under foot of our often-mentioned Kingdom and Dauphine; at the same time
the rights of our Crown are greatly abased” 75 With the pope claiming rights to
reservations of benefices and expectatives Charles VII felt his influence and rights were
diminished with regards to elections to benefices throughout France, which had
traditionally been yielded to the king. Additionally, Charles VII was concerned with the
“hierarchy of the church,” which primarily in the fifteenth century flowed downward
from the pope. Since the Avignon popes the authority and reach of the papacy had
drastically increased, which troubled Charles VII.

Concerning the Hierarchy of the Church

The decrees sanctioned in the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges certainly addressed
the above-stated accusations. Decrees addressing the ultimate authority of the church, the
first of the three jurisdictional issues addressed in the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges,
began with the reestablishment of the first two decrees of the Council of Basel, Frequens

75

Ibid.,117.
29

and Sacrosancta, under royal authority in the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges. This was
crucial for establishing the supremacy of the authority of general ecumenical councils in
the hierarchy of the church. The members of many of the contemporary general councils
certainly represented the interests of the king. Many of the members of the ecumenical
councils at both the Bishopric of Constance and at Basel, and of the synod at Bourges,
were representatives of both ecclesiastical and temporal offices; the temporal positions
were often ones appointed by the crown himself. They also consisted of many Doctors of
Law and Theology, especially from the University of Paris, which in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries was heavily supported by royal funds and had long been heavily
involved in drafting solutions to contemporary problems within the church. 76 The
relationship and collegiality between the French Clergy, the University of Paris, and the
crown was a longstanding one that was strengthened over time and, as was the case
during the Great Western Schism and the Council of Constance, they often decided in
tandem on the best way to move forward with regards to Franco – Papal relations. 77
The first decree, Frequens, served to ensure that general council meetings such as
those that took place at Constance and Basel would continue to take place regularly. It
declared that “frequent holding of general councils is the chief means of cultivating the

76

Walter Ullmann, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Though: Universities,

Academics and the Great Schism. (London: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 202-207.
77

Louise Loomis, The Council of Constance: The Unification of the Church (New York:

Columbia University Press, 1961), 14-16.
30

Lord’s field.” 78 General ecumenical councils were revered by the Gallican Church in
France, and by Charles VII, as a natural method of checking the papacy and a means “by
which the briars, thorns and thistles of heresies, errors and schisms are extirpated,
excesses corrected, deformities straightened, and the Lord’s vine made to bear the fruit of
full fertility.” 79 In other words, general councils held authority enough to ensure the
direction of the church, regardless of the trajectory that the papacy had in mind. Under
Frequens, the first general council was to be held five years following the Council of
Basel, and the second one seven years after that. Subsequently, general councils were to
be convened at regular intervals of ten years in perpetuity. It was the responsibility of the
Pope, under Frequens, to establish the location of the next general council within a month
of the conclusion of the most recent meeting. If the pope failed to notify the council and
publish a location for the next general council meeting, then the council itself would do
so. The synod at Bourges also established that, per the decree, the Council of Basel was
the legal continuation of the Council of Constance in the line fixed by the decree. 80 The
support and codification of Frequens by a royal synod came as no surprise as
conciliarism was at the heart of Gallicanism in France, and there was a longstanding
tradition of the French crown’s support of clerical councils such as was seen during the
Great Western Schism in 1378. Councils could ensure that papal authoritarianism over
French subjects and overstep into what the crown considered his jurisdiction might

78

“Decree frequens,” in Ehler, 106.

79

Ibid., 106.

80

Ibid., 106.
31

remain limited, ultimately avoiding confrontations such as what occurred between Philip
IV and Boniface VIII, or with the Avignon popes, especially considering the royalists
often present in the councils.
The synod at Bourges, in accordance with the decree established at the Council of
Basel, further specified that the Pope cannot change at the last minute the location or time
which such a council was to be held, unless under extenuating circumstances as specified
in the decree, and only with the explicit permission of the council. They decreed that
“the place fixed for holding a future council should not be changed without evident
necessity… in which it would be deemed necessary to change that place, for example
because of siege, war, plague or something similar, then the Supreme Pontiff is to be
entitled to substitute – with written consent of his aforesaid brothers or of two-thirds of
them – for the former one another place which would be nearby and suitable and within
the same nation” 81 This ostensibly was in response the translation of the Council of
Basel to Ferrara south of the Alps by Pope Eugenius. Additionally, the pope was to
publish the change of the location at least one year in advance so that there was adequate
time for the prelates throughout Europe to be made aware of the change and prepare
accordingly. In Eugenius’s attempt to transfer the council meeting from Basel to Ferrara
he had hoped that he would benefit from a majority of support in his efforts against the
Council of Basel as they would have had low representation because of the last-minute
change to a location that was more difficult to get to south of the Alps, and which was
closer to Rome. Meanwhile, at Ferrara, Eugenius wrote in an attempt to discredit the

81

Ibid.
32

Council of Basel that they were “scorning the letter of the said translation and everything
contained in it, and piling evil upon evil… [the Council of Basel] rejected our reasonable
translation made for the said most just and urgent reasons,” and that they “even dared
with renewed obstinacy to warn us to withdraw the said translation… to force us to
abandon the prosecution of such a holy work so much desired by all Christians.” 82
Undoubtedly the synod at Bourges were heavily influenced by these events when they
reestablished the decree Frequens in the Pragmatic Sanctions.
The second decree of the Pragmatic Sanctions reestablished under royal authority
another decree from the Council of Constance, decree Sacrosancta, and recognized that
this decree, too, had been renewed at Basel. Decree Sacrosancta established the ultimate
authority of the general council over that of any ecclesiastical dignitary, even that of the
Pope, and declared the assembly to be a lawful one representing the Catholic Church in
which it aims to reform. It declared that it is “lawfully assembled in the Holy Spirit,
constitutes a general council, represents the Catholic Church and has immediate power
from Christ to which anyone, of whatever status and condition, even if holding the Papal
dignity, is bound to obey in matters pertaining to the Faith, extirpation of the schism and
reformation of the said Church in head and members.” 83 In true conciliarist fashion,
having granted final authority on all matters of the church and its clergy to the general
councils, it further expounded on the declaration of their authority by establishing that all
those, even the pope, who violate Sacrosancta were to be punished to an extent as seen fit

82

“Council of Ferrara,” in Tanner, 518.

83

“Decree Sacrosancta,” in Ehler, 105.
33

by the council for their contraventions. Anyone “who will contumaciously disdain to
obey the orders of statutes, ordinances or instructions made or to be made concerning the
aforesaid subjects or matters pertaining to them by this holy synod or by any other
lawfully convened general council, shall be, unless he comes to his senses, subjected to
appropriate penance and duly punished, and recourse shall be had, if necessary, to other
resources of the law.” 84 As the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges were a royal ordinance,
under the Pragmatic Sanctions the “other resources of the law” included the French royal
courts should such violations occur within their jurisdiction. Again, as with Frequens, by
supporting the authority of the council over that of the pope the French crown could
ensure that the interests of the king and the local clergy were represented and that there
was a check on the authority of the papacy.
Decree Cum summon pontifici regulated the number and qualifications of
cardinals, as well as the means of electing cardinals. This decree also levied a
responsibility on the Sacred College to monitor and hold accountable the supreme pontiff
to his duties to the church and outlined the duties and responsibilities of the cardinals
themselves. Additionally, Cardinals were required to reinvest a tenth of their income into
their titular churches and were required also to make an annual visit to their titular church
in person and address the concerns of their clergy and parishioners. They were to ensure
that they were conducting themselves in a manner deemed acceptable by the Roman curia
and the general ecumenical council. Popes, and their supporters within the clergy, could

84

Ibid.
34

no longer ignore the needs of their local churches or place the needs of Rome above their
“flock,” which meant more support for the local clergy throughout France.
Responsibilities for the governance of the church were divided among the three
orders of cardinals; these responsibilities were to be shared by the pope with Sacred
College rather than the papacy owning them entirely. The first order, cardinal-bishops,
were responsible for inquiring “about what regions are infected with new or old heresies,
errors and superstitions.” 85 Cardinal-bishops are at the top of the three orders and were
tasked with bringing to resolution most of the issues or concerns presented to the Sacred
College. Cardinal-priests, second among the three orders of cardinals, were tasked with
ensuring that the conduct of the titular churches was in line with the ideals and canon law
of the church, and “inquire where the observance of the commandments and
ecclesiastical discipline are lax.” 86 Cardinal-deacons, the lowest-ranking of the cardinal
orders, were charged mostly with monitoring the international affairs of kings, princes,
and all “peoples troubled by actual or possible wars.” 87 All cardinals were to assist the
pope in settling quarrels and advise in such a manner that is devoid of favoritism, and
were to present themselves publicly with dignity and modesty so as to avoid a “source of
scandal.” 88 This ensured that the pope himself could not decide on any matters
concerning international politics, but rather the responsibilities of overseeing matters

85

Ibid., 503.

86

Ibid.

87

Ibid.

88

Ibid., 504.
35

regarding international politics or conflict, or other matters such as transgressions against
the church, were to be shared by the papacy with the College of Cardinals.
This decree also established expectations, and a method of oversight, for the pope.
“As the common father and pastor of all, [he] should have investigations made
everywhere not only when requested to do so but also on his own initiative and he should
apply salutary medicines, as best he can, for all the illnesses of his children.” 89 The
supreme pontiff was, for all intents and purposes, still the head of the church, but under
decree Cum summon pontifici he was held more accountable for how he represented the
church and for his conduct with regards to both his duties and demeanor. He remained
under the watchful eyes of the kings and princes of Latin Christendom, and of the
cardinals who were charged with holding him accountable should they ever notice that he
“is negligent or remiss or acting in a way unbefitting his state” 90 Should they ever find
that the pope was not living up to his responsibilities as determined by the council they
were to first “beg him to live up to his pastoral office, his good name and his duty.” 91 If
the supreme pontiff did not change his behaviors in a manner deemed appropriate by the
Sacred College then they were to first give him a warning that should the pattern of
behavior continue they will report him to the next general ecumenical council. In order
to report the pope to next general council they would need to do so collegially and with
the support of “notable prelates” who were familiar with the behavior that was being

89

Ibid., 503

90

Ibid.

91

Ibid.
36

reported. For his part, the pope was also to hold accountable the cardinals whenever they
were acting “wrongly and reprehensibly.” 92 The pope was tasked with correcting them,
“always with paternal charity and according to the evangelical teaching.” 93 This system
of “check-and-balance” between the cardinals and pope served to prevent the pope or
other notable prelates from centralizing too much power at the head of the church, and
ensured that they were abiding by the wishes of the general council.
Cum summon pontifici further decreed the makeup and qualifications of the
members of the College of Cardinals, whom they charged with oversight of the papacy,
which ensured that each person elected to the Sacred College was agreeable to the
general ecumenical council. “Henceforth their numbers shall be so adjusted that it is not
a burden to the church, which now, owing to the malice of the times, is afflicted by many
serious inconveniences or cheapened by being too large.” 94 It was settled that the Sacred
College should consist of no more than twenty-four cardinals, and no nation should hold
more than one-third of the cardinals elected to the college. This meant that Italian
Cardinals could not largely outnumber those from other nations and there was more equal
representation within the College of Cardinals. Often, as was seen with Boniface VIII
during the reign of Philip the Fair, the selection of Cardinals was influenced primarily by
the pope and was often based on their nationality matching that of the Pope, or their
family. Each diocese was not permitted more than one Cardinal for their region. The

92

Ibid.

93

Ibid.

94

Ibid., 501.
37

cardinals elected should be men, outstanding in knowledge, good conduct and practical
experiences, at least thirty years of age, and should be “masters, doctors, or licentiates
who have been examined in divine or human law.” 95 At least a third of the cardinals
elected should be “masters or licentiates” specifically in holy scripture. 96 Additionally,
“a very few of them may be sons, brothers or nephews of kings or great princes” with an
“appropriate amount of education” and with a consideration to their “experience and
maturity of behavior.” 97
The concession of “a very few” Cardinals to be sons, brothers, or nephews of
princes or kings allowed for the opportunity for royal representation within the leadership
of universal church, or at the very least a loyal seed in the College of Cardinals.
Meanwhile, nepotism under decree Cum summon pontifici was strictly abolished. Under
the Avignon papacy nepotism was rampant, with the popes often appointing familial
individuals to positions of power within the local clergy in the nearby French regions,
and elsewhere throughout the universal church. Any nephews of the Roman pontiff, or of
any living cardinal, was not permitted to be elected to the Sacred College. In addition, all
physically handicapped individuals, “bastards,” or any person “stained by a reputation of
crime or infamy” could not hold the position of cardinal. The election of cardinals was to
be made by a combination of oral votes and a collegial agreement signed by the
electorate and agreed upon by a majority of the existing cardinals, and whose ballot was

95

Ibid., 501.

96

Ibid.

97

Ibid.
38

made public prior to the election. Once elected, the cardinal was required to don an
“insignia of their dignity” and publicly take an oath before a bishop commissioned by the
Sacred College before they could assume their new role, an oath which was determined
by the general council. 98

Elections to Benefices and General Reservations to Prelacies

The second function of the pertinent decrees of the Pragmatic Sanctions of
Bourges with regards to jurisdiction was to limit the influence of the papacy in elections
to benefices, and to restore the privileges of the king and local clergy with regards to
local elections and reservations of benefices. The third and fourth decrees of the
Pragmatic Sanctions, decree Sicut in construenda and decree Licet dudum, restricted the
privileges which the papacy had granted himself over matters of canonical elections to
benefices. Decree Sicut in construenda and decree Licet dudum were both first
established by the Council of Basel and ordained by Charles VII in the Pragmatic
Sanctions.
The first of these, decree Sicut in construenda, abolished general papal
reservations in elective benefices and regulated the mode and procedure of elections. 99
This was one of the primary points of opposition for pope Eugenius IV during the
Council of Basel, who protested the authority of a council to strip the right of appointing

98

Ibid.

99

Ehler, 118.
39

individuals to benefices from the papacy. When first established at the Council of Basel
in its twelfth session of 13 July 1433, Sicut in construenda implemented restrictions on
the pope and enhanced the authority of the council in elections and confirmations of
bishops and prelates. It also established the basis by which an individual was authorized
to be elected, and placed restrictions on electorates with regards to giving and receiving
gifts in an attempt to ensure that elections were entirely devoid of simony. Simony, the
act of selling ecclesiastical positions to wealthy individuals for money, gifts, or other
favors was rather commonplace in the medieval church and was practiced heavily under
the Avignon popes; it was heavily frowned upon by the universal church as well as by
many secular entities.
Per the synod at Bourges, the authority of the council and churches to hold their
own ecclesiastical elections was divine providence: “The office enjoined on prelates
manifestly shows how great care should be taken in their election… Therefore the sacred
canons, promulgated under the Spirit of God, providentially established that each church
and college of convent should elect a prelate for itself.” 100 The council further
established that the Roman pontiff, under this new provision, should not attempt on his
own to elect dignitaries or take advantage of “general reservations” where all
metropolitan, cathedral, collegiate, and monastic churches existed except where they
existed in an area under the immediate direction of the Pope, viz. the Roman Diocese. In
an attempt to alleviate their trepidations that the pope might bypass the council they “also
decree[d] that it will be in conformity with reason and beneficial for the common good

100

“Council of Basel,” in Tanner, 469.
40

that the Roman pontiff should attempt nothing contrary to this salutary decree, except for
an important, reasonable and manifest cause, which is to be specified expressly in an
apostolic letter…the same holy synod wishes that, among other things that the Roman
pontiff shall profess on assuming office, he shall swear to observe inviolably this
decree.” 101 The general councils declared that the pope should include in his oath of
office that he would abide by Sicut in construenda.
The elections to benefices were to be carried out in the church within the
jurisdiction where the prelate would take office, and those who were electing the prelate
were to swear an oath in the church where the election was to be held that they will “elect
the person who [they] believe will be the more useful to the church in spiritual and
temporal things, and not to give a vote to anyone who [they] think is procuring the
election for himself by the promise or gift of some temporal thing, or by making a request
in person or through another, or in any other way directly or indirectly.” This part of the
decree ensured that elections took place so that even if a bishop or other prelate was
nominated from outside of France, such as from Rome for example, to represent a certain
region within French territory they would be forced to show representation in their
locality during the election process and beyond. It also ensured that the elections were
conducted fairly and that wealth or other temporal influence would not determine the
outcome of the election. The nominees also had to meet certain requirements as set forth
by the council: “Thereupon let them elect to said prelacy a man of lawful age, of serious
character and adequate education, already in sacred orders and suitable in other respects

101

Ibid., 470.
41

in accordance with canonical regulations.” 102 This limited the likelihood of unqualified
prelates being elected or supported by a Pope that did not meet a set of expectations as
outlined by the general council; in other words, the council determined who could, and
who could not, be elected to positions within a church by determining their necessary
qualifications.
When Sicut in construenda and Licut dudum were codified in the Pragmatic
Sanctions of Bourges a caveat was added that granted additional privilege to the crown.
In the original decree established by the Council of Basel the electorate could not be
influenced by any outside source, be it another prelate, the pope, or a temporal leader
such as a prince or king. Under the Pragmatic Sanctions the royal influence on elections
of prelates in the Kingdom of France was considered legal: “the said synod of Bourges
does not consider it as reprehensible if the King and the princes of his kingdom
sometimes use benign and benevolent recommendations in favour of persons who are
meritorious and zealous for the common weal of the Kingdom and Dauphine.” 103 This
ostensibly granted additional privilege over prelate elections to the King in France
whereas the influence of the pope in these matters remained diminished by the general
council.
The fifth decree of the Pragmatic Sanctions, Et quia multiplices, prohibited papal
reservations of non-elective benefices, viz. all appointments. It also prevented the pope

102

Ibid., 471.

103

Ehler, 118.
42

from nominating any individuals to these positions. 104 There were a few exceptions to
this edict; the papacy held certain reservations and could declare nominations in
benefices which fell directly within the domain of his diocese, such as in Rome, but to the
benefit of the French crown this influence was far from the Gallican Church in France.
This edict also theoretically applied to all temporal positions as well. A longstanding
habit of Popes was to take it upon themselves to determine who would inherit
ecclesiastical benefices, leaving local clergy powerless and voiceless in elections to
positions of influence over their region. This practice was especially prevalent among the
Avignon popes, who would also often influence local secular elections in the immediate
regions around Avignon. Et quia multiplices prevented these interferences in
appointments and elections to local secular positions.
Decree Placuit divinae abolished the long-held tradition of expectatives, which
were a major concern within both the conciliar movement and Gallicanism. Expectatives
were anticipated appointments given to individuals for an office or position that was not
yet vacant, but expected to be so either from the death, removal, or reassignment of the
person currently holding that office or position. This practice was one that, for a very
long time, did not sit well with the French clergy, or the king; expectatives were one of
the “corruption of morals” mentioned in the introduction to the Pragmatic Sanctions
when Charles VII the purpose of the sanctions in reforming various aspects of the church.
Placuit divinae not only ended this practice but also set the standards and qualifications
by which someone could be elected to a benefice. Local electors, or collators, elected or

104

Ibid.
43

appointed nominees to benefices within their local jurisdictions. A concession was
granted, however, that should any collator in the kingdom of France control ten or more
benefices then one was to be left to the discretion of the pope. If a collator controlled
fifty or more benefices, then the pope was granted two. 105 Nonetheless, the number of
concessions (one-in ten, or two-in-fifty) was so minimal that Placuit divinae certainly
still provided an advantage to the local Gallican clergy and the crown over ecclesiastical
elections within France.
Decree Quaecumque non violentes restricted the protest of holders of certain
benefices and other positions within the church. Under this decree, if a benefice had been
in peaceful possession of a holder for at least three years then no one could legally
challenge his position. The possession of the title must have come peacefully, without
violence, and without a lawsuit. Possessors of such positions could not be challenged
“except in the case of warfare or some other legitimate impediment, which he must
protest and intimate in accordance with the Council of Vienne.” 106 As pointed out by
Norman Tanner in his compendium Decrees of Ecumenical Councils the Council of
Vienne did not actually decree anything about this. 107 This decree, however, does
prevent those who have peacefully obtained their positions from being challenged or
ousted by the any other single ecclesiastical dignitary or the Pope. It was often the case
that popes would replace certain members of the clergy with those whom they preferred

105

Ehler, 118.

106

Tanner, 489.

107

Ibid.
44

to hold the position, such as when Avignon popes put many of their relatives and close
contacts in positions traditionally held by local clergy in the proximate French regions.
Under Quaecumque non violentes French prelates serving their local jurisdictions could
not be replaced at the whim of an Italian collator, or the pope.

Jurisdiction over Courts and Appeals

Addressing the third concern of the jurisdiction of appeals out of France to the
Roman Curia and jurisdiction over courts within the realm of France were decrees
Ecclesiasticai sollicitudimis and Ut lites citius. Decree Ecclesiasticai sollicitudimis
controlled the appeals process to the Roman curia. The curia is the governing body of the
church out of Rome which directly assists the pope in governance of the church. Under
this decree no appeals were allowed to be made to the papal curia from places distant
more than four days from Rome. The Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges reduced the
distance to two days for all those areas outside of Italy. In addition to the distance
restrictions, it was determined in the Pragmatic Sanctions that no appeal could be made
at all out of France before a sentence had been rendered there, and no appeal could be
made from France with the omission of an intermediate ecclesiastical court of appeals.
This gave the French clergy in the Gallican Church immediate jurisdiction over appeals
that were coming out of the Kingdom of France and limited the appeals that could be sent
for consideration by the Roman Curia.108 Furthermore, it provided an opportunity for the

108

Ehler, 119.
45

royal courts to try cases under the Pragmatic Sanctions before they were sent out of
France to the papacy, ensuring that they could render the first verdict.
Decree Ut lites citius added to Ecclesiasticai sollicitudimis additional restrictions
regarding appeals. Ut lites citius, originally published by the Council of Basel, forbade
certain forms of abuse of appeals to the Papal curia. Specifically, second appeals for the
same grievance, or appeals against sentences which have not yet entered into legal force,
were not allowed. For any individual that made “frivolous appeals” or “unjust appeals”
before “the final judgement, shall be condemned by the appeal judge to pay to the party
appealed against the sum of fifteen gold florins of the treasury, in addition to the
expenses, damages and interest.” 109 This limited the appeals that could be made out of
France to Rome about judgements that were rendered in French courts before they could
enter into force, and implemented a system of punishment to discourage attempts to make
such appeals.

Reflections on Jurisdiction and the Pragmatic Sanctions

By addressing all three of these concerns regarding the jurisdiction and authority
of the papacy, with certain concessions to the crown and local clergy (namely papal
reservations to benefices and expectatives, local elections to benefices, and instituting a
method of oversight which would ensure the papacy was not exceeding his authority and
that he was abiding by the expectations of the general council), Charles VII hoped to

109

“Council of Basel,” in Tanner, 488.
46

directly address the “oppression and treading under foot of our often-mentioned Kingdom
and Dauphine” and ameliorate “the rights of our Crown” which were perceived as being
“greatly abased.” 110 The concessions specifically granted to the king in some of the
decrees, such as in Cum summon pontifici and Sicut in construenda, allowed certain
privileges to the French crown with which he could influence, to a certain extent,
elections to benefices within his realm. The influence of the king is already noted where
general councils are concerned as they often consisted of local Gallican clergy (whom
were loyal mostly to the king), political leaders of whom many were appointed by the
crown, and Doctors of Law and Theology from the University of Paris which was heavily
funded by royal coffers. Thus, it is no surprise that as one method of ensuring that the
authority of the papacy remained limited, Charles VII supported the supreme authority of
general councils where royal influence already existed. By limiting the appeals to Rome
out of France, and ensuring local ecclesiastical and royal courts had priority where any
trepidations against the decrees set forth by the Council of Basel or in the Pragmatic
Sanctions of Bourges were concerned, Charles VII ensured matters both temporal and
ecclesiastical were dealt with locally in France under his own influence, and the
jurisdiction of the papacy over such matters in France was limited.
Jurisdiction over courts and clergy, and checking the authority of the papacy,
were not the only motivations of Charles VII, however, in his issuing the Pragmatic
Sanctions of Bourges. France found itself in a dire financial situation during the reign of
Charles VII, with large amounts of monies being carried out of France to Rome. While

110

Ehler, 116.
47

there were several things that lead to the worrisome financial circumstances of France by
1438, Charles VII nonetheless turned his sights toward the church in an attempt to
ameliorate the emptying royal coffers and the flow of monies out of France through
several decrees in his Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges.

48

CHAPTER THREE
CONCERNING FINANCES

In addition to his jurisdictional motivations for the Pragmatic Sanctions of
Bourges, as well as his worries about the reach of the papacy in temporal matters, Charles
VII was also motivated by the financial condition of France and the diminishing royal
coffers when he issued the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges in 1438. The Pragmatic
Sanctions provided financial and economic advantages to the crown while decreasing
French losses to the Roman pontiff; in so doing they decreased the amount of French
monies and resources that were being carried out of France to Rome. There were several
ways in which the crown was able to do this, and the direct financial and economic
implications of the Pragmatic Sanctions were indicative of the financial circumstances of
France by 1438 when they were established.
This chapter describes the financial circumstances of France by 1438 and
demonstrates the relevancy of pertinent decrees within the Pragmatic Sanctions that
provided financial advantages to the crown, and diminished the financial resources that

49

were carried out of France to the Roman diocese. It begins by exploring the various
fiscal, economic, and monetary problems facing Charles VII by 1438 in order to provide
context for the pertinent decrees in the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges. France had been
ravaged by The Hundred Years War, disease and famine, poor fiscal policies, and other
monetary problems relating to the availability of specie and precious metals, as well as a
greatly diminished tax base. These problems were further exacerbated by the large
amounts of monies that were being carried out of France to the papacy. Charles VII
turned his sights toward the church in his efforts to ameliorate some of these monetary
problems through the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges. In his introduction to the
Pragmatic Sanctions he explicitly stated his concerns with the “cupidity” of the church
and of the drainage of French fiscal resources by the papacy, which he worried was
leaving France in an intentionally vulnerable position. Charles VII, through several
decrees in the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges, addressed these stated concerns. A quick
look at the financial circumstances of France after 1438 demonstrates the positive effects
of some of these decrees.

Financial History and Context of France by 1438

The Hundred Years War against the English, aptly named as the war lasted
approximately a century (1337-1453), as well as constant skirmishes with the
Burgundians, both of whom were supported by the pope in their claims to the disputed
French territories, had already had a drastic effect on the French economy and royal
finances before other hardships presented themselves. The war had been sparked by
50

Edward III’s claim to French territory through a deal that had been struck with Charles’s
grandfather and predecessor Philip VI. Philip reneged on the deal infuriating Edward III.
Initially, Philip VI’s army outnumbered Edward’s two to one, yet Philip refused to enter
into war with England and its allies. Edward continuously attacked the border and
countryside of France, but was expelled each time by French forces until 1339. The
campaigns in 1339 were especially significant as they proved to be a turning point in the
war for the English in which they gained the upper hand. In English medieval warfare a
central goal of war was to cause as much damage as possible to towns, villages, livestock,
and the general populace in order to weaken the enemy. Having perfected pillaging and
destruction during their campaigns against the Scots, the English transferred these skills
to their conquests in France. The English wreaked havoc on the countryside, killing
many of the civilians they encountered, destroying crops and cattle, and diminishing trade
routes, towns, and hamlets to ash and rubble. An exchange between a French Cardinal
and his English captors during the war paints a somber image: “Does it not seem to you
that the silken thread encompassing France is broken?” as the French Cardinal viewed the
countryside burning in all directions from atop a tower. “At this, the Cardinal fell down
as if dead, stretched out on the roof of the tower from fear and grief.” 111 For the next

111

As quoted in Desmond Seward, The Hundred Years War: The English In France

1337-1453 (New York: Penguin Books, 1999), 38.
51

century the English continued their campaigns of chevauchée, devastating French morale
and the French economy and infrastructure. 112
France had initially provided for its defense through a feudal tradition by which
localities were called upon by the king to provide service, or in many instances were paid
by the king to provide service. As the Hundred Years War from the French perspective
was largely defensive, the king could not mobilize or finance support quickly enough to
defend the borders against the relentless attacks of the English. At the same time, there
was a concurrent conflict with the Burgundians, whom largely sided with the English in
their claims to the French throne, which meant that no or little support from those
immediate regions of France where Burgundian influence was superior to the influence of
the French crown could be garnered. Wars were typically funded through fines and
traditional patronages to the crown, though it quickly became apparent in the fourteenth
century during the Hundred Years War that these means were not a quick enough
solution for raising enough financial support to fund a defensive war. Wars were
expensive, and France was losing territory along its borders and in some regions were
struggling with the Duchy of Burgundy; money needed to be raised more quickly,
especially as the royal coffers were largely strained. 113 Kings of France, and England for

112

Chevauchée was a medieval method of warfare in which one would burn, pillage, and

destroy towns and objectives during military raids in order to reduce productivity and
weaken the overall strength of an enemy.
113

Christopher Allmand, Hundred Years War: England and France at War C. 1300-C.

1450 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 93-96.
52

that matter, during the Hundred Years War turned to taxation of their subjects to fund the
war; war taxation in France increased exponentially as the royal coffers began to empty,
with the war efforts accounting for nearly one-half to two-thirds of all expenditure by the
mid fifteenth century, a huge burden on both the royal treasury and the people of the
Kingdom of France. 114
During the Hundred Years War another unexpected killer made its way to Europe
that radically changed the demography and further weakened the financial situation in
France. The Bubonic Plague spread from its place of origin in Asia, through
Constantinople, toward Western Europe, and had decimated the taxpaying population of
France by 1350. 115 Fleas that fed on rodents which were infected with Bubonic Plague
transmitted the disease to the other mammals that they bit, such as humans. The disease
was quickly able to spread along trade routes and on ships in the blood of its host since
the bacterium is able to survive long periods of time in mammals. 116 The Bubonic Plague
epidemic wiped out nearly 60% of the fiscal hearths in France. 117 In medieval France a
Hearth Tax was a tax levied on each hearth throughout the realm by the crown, in essence
a property tax of medieval France for each hearth owned. With a mortality rate of
approximately 60% of these taxpayers throughout France, royal revenues from taxes

114

Ibid., 102-111.

115

Ole Benedictow, The Black Death 1346-1353: The Complete History (Woodbridge:

The Boydell Press, 2004), 332-337.
116

Ibid., 96-124.

117

Ibid., 332-337.
53

which, as mentioned previously, were used to fund the expensive Hundred Years War,
were drastically decreased by more than half. 118 Both the Hundred Years War and the
Bubonic plague had devastated France. The French countryside had been destroyed and
more than half of its tax paying population perished from disease, warfare, and famine.
Both its infrastructure and its economy had been greatly damaged. France was left with a
demand for both workers and capital. Those who found themselves to be surviving
victims of the war or plague were without resources or money, and France had to deal
with a shortage of laborers which made recovery in infrastructure and the economy slow
and arduous.
During the first two decades of the fifteenth century the French monarchy, with
assistance from the parlements, began taxing the exports of wool products and borrowed
large sums of money from Italy to pay for the war efforts along the borders, and the
reconstruction of France; that debt and bleeding economy were inherited by Charles VI,
father of Charles VII, who managed to close the economic wound, but only in the short
term. Charles VI, with the aid of a quickly assembled administration, utilized
debasement, the practice of decreasing the intrinsic value of currency while maintaining
its face value; this was done in an effort to increase seigniorage revenue to raise enough
money to fight back against the advancing English and Burgundians and halt the
declining economic climate in France. 119 Seigniorage revenue is the revenue generated

118

Ibid.

119

Nathan Sussman, “Debasements, Royal Reveneus, and Inflation in France During the

Hundred Years’ War, 1415-1422,” The Journal of Economic History, 53, no. 1, (March,
54

by the sovereign as a result of debasement, the minting process, and inflation. Charles VI
was able to do this by decreasing the amount of precious metal used during the minting
process, thus lowering the cost of producing the coin and acquiring the metals. The royal
administration also enforced reminting policies that replaced currency that was already in
circulation with newly reminted currency of a greater face value and a lower intrinsic
value. For example, if the currency that was in circulation which was to be replaced was
worth one cent, and the newly reminted coin was worth five cents, then the
administration would collect the one-cent coins and remint them into five-cent coins.
This nearly eliminated the cost of materials. These processes increased the seigniorage
revenue generated by the crown, but also drastically sped up inflation. 120 By the time
Charles VII inherited the throne, inflation had increased drastically and royal revenue had
declined. The long-term effects of the economic policies of Charles VI damaged Charles
VII’s relationship with the nobles and dukes throughout France and Italy, and, more
notably, with the Roman diocese.

Franco – Papal Relations Regarding Finances

The efforts of debasement by Charles VI proved to be short-sighted and only
fruitful for a limited time; it quickly escalated into a failed experiment which increased
the overall inflation in France and decreased the real value of French specie. The

1993): 44-70.
120

Sussman, 44-70.
55

weakened money returned as a result of debasement meant weakened money paid out as
taxes to the royal administration. 121 Additionally, France was faced with an overall
shortage of coinage and precious metal resources throughout the fifteenth century. Royal
policy makers quickly turned their sights toward the church in their efforts to increase the
real tax base and conserve bullion; bullion is the real gold, silver, or other precious metals
which determines a monetary value, or in this case the strength of French specie. 122
During the twenty-one year period between 1378-1398, shipments of actual cash,
primarily gold, to the papacy drained forty-seven percent of the total French gold coinage
from France’s money supply. 123 This drainage came primarily in the form of
ecclesiastical taxes and fees paid out to the papacy, such as annates (taxes paid by local
clergy to the Roman diocese upon entering into an ecclesiastical position), as well as
other more subsidiary forms of papal revenue, such as simony.
During the Great Western Schism of 1378-1417 Pope Benedict XIII threatened
excommunication to extract fees and revenues from France, but Charles VI forbade the
movement of any French specie from France. Charles VI recognized that the papacy was
draining France of important financial resources, impoverishing the French clergy, and
diminishing their already limited supply of bullion. Charles VI issued ordinances that
forbade any French subject from paying to “Benedict, to his collectors, or officers nor to
his other accomplices or adherents any part of the revenues or emoluments that he draws

121

Miskimin, 73.

122

Ibid.

123

Jean Favier “Les Finances,” in Miskimin, 76.
56

in our kingdom and Dauphine.” 124 Shortly after the ordinances were issued, France was
forced to realign themselves with Pope Benedict XIII after he escaped from besiegement
at Avignon in 1403. Between the years of 1404 and 1408 papal transfers for French
money to Avignon averaged a little more than fifty-three percent of the total gold coinage
output. 125 Additionally, no gold was produced in France in the year 1406. 126
Charles VI once again took to the pen and wrote two letters that accused the
papacy of using reservations and annates to extort financial resources from the kingdom
of France and the French clergy; he asserted that as a result, France was left drained of
money. 127 In his second letter, Charles VI ordered the taxes levied on the French clergy
by the pope, cardinals, and the pope’s officers be stopped and asserted that “the work of
God is burdened with debt, defrauded and ceases, subverting the intentions of the
founders while the kingdom is deprived of money and wealth, impoverishing many, and
giving rise to infinite and unspeakable temptations.” 128 Charles VI also accused the
pope, cardinals, and pope’s officers out of Rome of diminishing the wealth of French
subjects through excessively high costs of appeals for benefices, of which the pope
reserved rights, otherwise known as simony. At the end of the Great Western Schism in

124

Ordonnances des rois de France de la troisieme race (Paris: 1750), VIII: 258-68 as

found in Miskimin, 78.
125

Favier, “Les Finances,”474 in Miskimin, 78.

126

Ibid.

127

Miskimin, 80.

128

Ordonnances des rois de France de la troisieme race (Paris: 1755), IX: 183-85.
57

1417 Charles VI recognized the new pope, Martin V, while maintaining the “ancient
Gallican liberties” of the French church and upholding his positions of 1407-1408. 129
On 2 April 1418 Charles also prohibited the transportation of gold, silver, jewels “or
other things, for Annates, or other expeditions of the Court of Rome” out of France. 130
Charles VI wanted to avoid at all cost a return to such a dramatic drain of French specie
and precious metals as was seen prior to 1408.
Gold mintage in France only began to climb just prior to the 1430’s under Charles
VII, but immediately and sharply declined in the early 1430’s, and by the time the
Pragmatic Sanctions were ordained in 1438 very little gold was being minted. This
pattern of little to no resource mining and minimal minting of precious metals continued
until approximately the sixteenth century. 131 The limited production of bullion, the dire
state of the French economy after consistent battles with the English and the plague, the
fiscal policies of Charles VI, and the massive payouts to the papacy throughout the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries left Charles VII with plenty of motivation to address
finances directly in the decrees of the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges.
In his introduction to the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges, Charles VII explicitly
stated among his motivations “the wickedness of a reprehensible ambition and the
insatiable appetite of a detestable cupidity, which is the root of all evils” within the

129

Miskimin, 81. See also Ordonnances des rois de France de la troisieme race (Paris:

1763), X: 445-447.
130

Ordonnances des rois de France de la troisieme race (Paris: 1763), X: 447-449.

131

Miskimin, 83.
58

church. 132 The “cupidity” to which Charles VII refers began before the reign of Charles
VII, when the papacy centralized authority and resources during the reign of the Avignon
popes and increased the wealth of the papacy; as the church continued to demand more in
the midst of diminishing French monies and resources Charles VII wanted to directly
address what he perceived as greed of money by the papacy, and he wanted to curb the
effect it had on both him and his kingdom financially. He asserted that the wealth of the
church and of ecclesiastical benefices was “held in the hands of unworthy men and
sometimes of foreigners” and accused the Roman church of appointing men to benefices
who carry the wealth away from their titular regions, which was an affront to the “flock
committed to them.” 133
Charles VII did not stop there, in his introduction to the Pragmatic Sanctions he
also stated that “the rights of our Crown are greatly abased and the revenues of our said
Kingdom and Dauphine are exported into foreign countries, perhaps with the purpose that
this Kingdom and Dauphine would be enfeebled so as to surrender weakly in adversities
with depressed clergy and exhausted treasury.” 134 Charles VII perceived the roman
pontiff, and generally the supporters of the Roman diocese, as a threat to the security of
France and directly accused them of draining French monies from both the kingdom as a
whole and the royal treasury, while asserting that they are doing so in order to weaken the
king and the kingdom.

132

“Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges,” in Ehler, 116.

133

Ibid.

134

Ibid., 116-118.
59

Simony was also certainly on Charles VII’s mind, having stated that there were
“pestiferous abuses of horrible kind which is besprinkled with the stains of simony”
within the church. 135 Simony, especially since the time of the Avignon popes, became a
large source of income for the church in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and a
method by which monies were carried out of kingdoms to Rome. Charles VII’s
conjectures for the malevolent motivations of the Roman diocese, while they cannot be
proven to be true, fit within the context of contemporary France and the dire financial
situation by 1438 when the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges were ordained. During the
reign of Charles VII France had been plagued by the Hundred Years War with the
English, skirmishes with the Burgundians, a literal plague (the bubonic plague), and a
weakened economy due in part to the band-aid fiscal policies of his predecessors. With
money consistently being carried out of France to the Roman diocese in increasing
quantities, it is no surprise that Charles VII addressed his concerns with the church in
several decrees of the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges in an attempt to regain some
control over the flow of specie from France, and to curb the emptying of the royal
coffers.

Decrees of the Pragmatic Sanctions Addressing Finances

The third and fourth decrees of the Pragmatic Sanctions, Sicut in construenda and
decree Licet dudum, restricted the power of the pope in matters of canonical elections to

135

Ibid., 117.
60

benefices, both of which placed financial restraints on the pope in addition to the
jurisdictional ones discussed in Chapter Two. The first of these, decree Sicut in
construenda, abolished the general papal reservations in elective benefices and regulated
the mode and procedure of elections. 136 Sicut in construenda implemented restrictions on
the pope and strengthened the authority of the general council in elections and
confirmations of bishops and prelates. It also established the basis by which an
individual is authorized to be elected and restrictions on electorates with regards to giving
and receiving gifts, affirming that elections were to be entirely devoid of simony. In his
letters levying charges against the pope that the Roman church was using reservations to
extort the subjects of France, Charles VI was referring to the costly gifts and payments
that the public were paying to the pope, cardinals, and pope’s officers for influence in
elections to benefices.
Where simony, generally speaking, was concerned with buying and selling
ecclesiastical preferment, ecclesiastical pardons, or other things considered to be sacred,
including church offices, it was the sale of ecclesiastical offices where the papacy saw its
largest benefit from simony. 137 The sale of ecclesiastical offices by the papacy had in
fact brought in so much revenue to the Roman diocese by the fifteenth century that they

136

Ibid., 118.

137

Robert B. Ekelund, Jr., Robert F. Hébert and Robert D. Tollison, “An Economic

Model of the Medieval Church: Usury as a Form of Rent Seeking,” Journal of Law,
Economics, and Organization, 5, no. 2 (Autumn, 1989): 313-314.
61

had increased papal staff to oversee the influx of these funds. 138 As mentioned
previously, simony was a common practice, though frowned upon, throughout the
medieval church. Charles VII hoped to ensure through the Pragmatic Sanctions that the
practice would be ended in France. He ordained that should anyone be elected by means
of simony, or should the elected prelate be “of a different kind of person [than] the
above” then the election is invalid and null by law. 139 The elected and all those who
participated in the election are deposed and permanently barred of the right of electing
anyone to any ecclesiastical positions. If they are found guilty by a general council of
simony then the accused are additionally excommunicated from the church, unless they
voluntarily step down from their positions, and are thereafter permanently disqualified
from holding any position within the church. The members of the synod at Bourges
agreed that ridding the church of this practice was a necessary step to ensure that the
prelates were “clean and without blemish or even a suspicion of it.” 140 Under the
Pragmatic Sanctions the authority to try all those whose trepidations included simony was
granted by the king. This meant that in addition to the sanctions from the general
ecumenical council, those whose trepidations included simony could also be tried in
French royal courts with an added motivation of protecting French financial resources,
and curbing French subjects from transferring funds to the Roman church unnecessarily
in their attempts to purchase influence. Licut dudum directly abolished papal reservations

138

Ibid., 314.

139

Tanner, 470.

140

Ibid., 471.
62

to benefices, which further prevented the papacy from filling vacancies in local clergy
throughout France, thus diminishing the opportunity for the papacy to receive any form
of payment or gift for those ecclesiastical offices throughout the realm. 141
While simony certainly accounted for the influx of a substantial amount of monies
into the coffers of the papacy, it was papal fees and taxes, particularly annates, which
accounted for the largest amount of papal revenues and the largest flow of specie out of
France. Annates, the largest of the benefice taxes, was a means of garnering income from
local clergy throughout Latin Christendom by claiming rights to their first year’s income
as holders of any given ecclesiastical office. 142 Traditionally, annates taxes were paid out
directly to the papacy, but in certain circumstances a type of annates tax, fructus medii
tempori, was paid out to the bishops overseeing local clergy; even a portion of these funds,
though, were typically reserved for the maintenance of the papacy. 143
Decree Statuit haec sacra abolished all annates and other papal taxes connected
with conferring or confirming benefices. The general council at Bourges decreed:
that in future, both in the Roman curia and elsewhere, for the confirmation of elections, admission
of postulations and provision of presentations, even if made by lay folk, institutions, installations
and investitures, in respect of cathedral and metropolitan churches, monasteries, dignities, benefices
and any ecclesiastical offices whatsoever, and for sacred orders, blessings and pallia, nothing
whatsoever is to be exacted, either before or after, for sealing the bull of the letters, or for common
annates, minor services, first fruits or dues, or under any other title or name, or on the pretext of any
custom, privilege or statue, or for any other reason or occasion, directly or indirectly. 144

141

Ehler, 118.

142

W.E. Lunt, “The Financial System of the Medieval Papacy in the Light of Recent

Literature,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 23, No. 2 (Feb, 1909): 284-287.
143

Ibid., 290.

144

Ibid., 488.
63

When the decree was established under Royal authority by the synod at Bourges they
included an addition that only a fifth of other Papal taxes levied in France before the
Council of Constance was conceded to Pope Eugenius IV ad personam. 145 The remaining
four-fifths would, in effect, remain with the French clergy in France rather than those
financial resources being carried out of the country to Rome. This was substantially less
than the previous drain on the French by the papacy, which as noted above accounted for
a loss of approximately half of French specie, precious metals, and other valuables by 1408.
Other decrees in the Pragmatic Sanctions provided more indirect benefits which
aided in ameliorating the financial situation in France. Decree Cum summon pontifici,
though having dealt primarily with the number and qualifications of cardinals and the
means of electing said cardinals, also outlined the required monetary reinvestments of the
cardinals into their local churches. 146 In the medieval Roman church it became a practice
that cardinals would be assigned a church for which they oversaw and represented in the
Roman curia. Under this particular decree, cardinals not only represented their titular
churches, but had to “leave to his titular church either in his lifetime or at his death, enough
for the upkeep of one person.” 147 If these mandatory donations did not amount to what
was deemed to be an appropriate amount during his lifetime, then his belongings were
sequestered upon his death by the authority of the crown and the Gallican Church until the
debt was paid in full. Even if the cardinal resided in Rome, if their titular church was in

145

Ehler, 119.

146

Tanner, 502.

147

Ibid.
64

the realm of France then Cum summon pontifici ensured that at least some of the funding
came from the Roman church itself for its upkeep, and the flow of that specie remained
primarily in France.

Reflections on Finances and the Pragmatic Sanctions

Charles VII, in his Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges, certainly considered the
financial circumstances of both France and the royal coffers in 1438. At the same time that
France was being roiled by a multifaceted financial disaster stemming from a hundred years
of war with the English, a literal plague which decimated the tax paying population, and
band-aid fiscal solutions of Charles VI, the papacy was extracting large sums of money
from France via direct papal taxes, such as annates, and through more indirect means such
as simony. The treasury of the king had been largely diminished and the financial situation
in the kingdom thrown into disarray. As mentioned previously, flow of specie and financial
resources to the Roman diocese accounted for nearly half of the expenditures in France by
the time Charles VII ascended to the throne in 1422. 148
It is no surprise, then, that Charles VII turned his sights toward the church in an
effort to diminish the flow of monies out of France and increase the real tax base in his
Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges, during a time at which the lack of specie was “painfully
and immediately obvious.” 149 The increase in the real tax base, as evidenced by an increase

148

Jean Favier “Les Finances,” in Miskimin, 76.

149

Miskimin, 92.
65

in royal tax receipts by the death of Charles VII in 1461, meant a financially strengthened
royal administration. 150 By the time the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges were ordained by
Charles VII, simony throughout Europe was well on its way to accounting for nearly onesixth of “normal papal revenue.” 151 While no direct evidence could be found that this
practice was curbed as a direct result of the Pragmatic Sanctions, Charles VII directly
addressed his concerns regarding the widespread practice of simony within the church, and
the sale of ecclesiastical offices was thereafter limited until the latter half of the fifteenth
century. 152 After ending papal annates through the Pragmatic Sanctions, only twenty
percent of the remaining ecclesiastical taxes administered throughout the realm of France
were reserved for the papacy while the remaining eighty percent stayed in France;
additionally the overall amount of papal taxes administered on the local clergy when they
were reinstated a couple of decades later decreased permanently by fifty percent as
compared to the same taxes pre-Pragmatic Sanctions. 153 The effects of these decrees, as
established by both the Council of Basel and through the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges,

150

Ibid.

151

Ekelund, 314.

152

William Lunt, Papal Revenues in the Middle Ages, Vol. 1. (New York: Columbia

University Press, 1934): 135.
153

Ibid., 88.
66

resulted in a notable loss of taxation income for the Roman diocese by the time of Pope
Sixtus IV (1471-1484), after they ended the respective “papal abuses.” 154

154

Phillip Stump, “The Reform of Papal Taxation at the Council of Constance (1414-

1418),” Speculum, 64, No. 1 (Jan., 1989): 104-105.
67

CONCLUSION

The Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges were issued at the culmination of a long titfor-tat between crown and pope, and a long struggle over authority with regards to certain
aspects of the courts, clergy, and finances in France. It was the culmination of a rising
fever of Gallicanism and conflict that lasted more than a century-and-a-half. From the
conflict between King Philip IV and Pope Boniface VIII onward, the French clergy and
king supported and benefitted from one another in their efforts to secure their
independence from the authority of the pope. The Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges,
issued at the height of the Gallican movement in France, was a continuation of this
tradition and echoed it’s contemporary conciliarist counterpart, the decrees of the Council
of Basel, in its ordinances. The Pragmatic Sanctions was so much more than just an
ecclesiastical document, however; it was a strategic political tool of Charles VII to secure
his authority over the papacy in France with regards to both jurisdiction and finances
through royal ordinances.
The struggle between the French crown and the papacy, beginning with king
Philip IV and Pope Boniface VIII, over jurisdiction and rights to taxation, as well as the

68

ultimate authority over temporal matters and the hierarchy within the church, seemingly
subsided with the capitulation of Clement V when he moved the papacy from Rome to
Avignon and issued papal bulls which praised the king. Eventually, however,
predecessors of Clement V made it a goal to turn Avignon into a new Rome, and the local
French clergy, king, and subjects of the French crown were often the ones left at a
disadvantage when the pope extended his reach into the pockets, courts, and other affairs
of the nearby French regions. The papacy claimed the ultimate authority over elections
to benefices, and in trying all ecclesiastical matters through the Roman Curia even where
they occurred in France. In some instances, the pope would even attempt to influence
temporal matters, especially during the Avignon papacy. The French crown grew
increasingly frustrated with papal overreach since the time of Boniface VIII, and the
pressures on French subjects only increased by the time of the Great Western Schism.
Nepotism was rampant in elections to benefices, the right to which was traditionally
reserved to local clergy and the crown and which was increasingly reserved by the pope.
Individuals with no ties to French localities and without qualifications were often
appointed to positions of power within the church in France because of their familial ties
to the Holy See. Papal taxations, such as annates, were also rampant and were a large
burden on the already limited financial resources of France.
The French crown was left with diminished influence and authority over several
aspects of his local jurisdiction. Traditionally, kings or princes had influence in the local
elections to benefices within their realm. They also had influence in matters pertaining to
the church through representation on ecumenical councils, an influence that ostensibly
only worked in the crown’s favor if the ecumenical councils held authority over the
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papacy within the church. The Pragmatic Sanctions directly addressed these perceived
papal overreaches; under the Pragmatic Sanctions the local clergy, whom as mentioned in
Chapters One and Two were mostly loyal to the crown, held a majority of the
reservations to benefices and the king could directly influence, to a certain extent,
elections to prelacies. Additionally, by ordaining many of the decrees of the Council of
Constance and Council of Basel under royal authority, any violations of those decrees
could be tried in royal courts, as well as ecclesiastical ones, within France. The
Pragmatic Sanctions also prevented appeals to the Roman curia before cases could be
tried locally and the verdicts rendered there. Additionally, it established the
qualifications of prelates that were eligible to be elected to benefices, pledged support for
the authority of general ecumenical councils, and reestablished other decrees of the
Council of Constance and the Council of Basel that provided a means of oversight of the
papacy.
Prior to the Pragmatic Sanctions, the French were taxed by the papacy through
annates and other costs for obtaining benefices at enormous rates and had little to no say
in who would be elected to those same benefices which represented their respective
regions. Oftentimes the Pope or other non-French collators would elect non-local
prelates to represent French regions, and these regions were sometimes ignored and left
unattended, while still being taxed. The revenues collected by the papacy throughout
France were enormous, as seen in Chapter Three they accounted for approximately fifty
percent of the total movement of monies out of the Kingdom by the mid-fifteenth
century. These funds were carried out of France to Rome at a time when France was
experiencing a dire financial situation; this dire financial situation was caused largely by
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the Hundred Years War, the bubonic plague, and the fiscal policies of Charles VI. Per
Charles VII, the church was holding France hostage with the threat of excommunication,
extorting the kingdom and its people, and draining France of its money and resources
“perhaps with the purpose that this Kingdom and Dauphine would be enfeebled so as to
surrender weakly in adversities with depressed clergy and exhausted treasury.” 155
It is no surprise, then, that Charles VII turned his sights toward the church to curb
the flow of specie out of France and ameliorate the emptying royal coffers. By the time
Charles VII had ascended to the throne France was already ravaged by the Hundred
Years War and the Bubonic Plague. The Hundred Years War was an enormous expense
and a massive drain on royal finances, and new taxes had to be implemented to raise
money quickly enough to fund the largely defensive war against the English and the
struggles against the Burgundians, but the taxpaying population was ever decreasing.
The Plague alone wiped out approximately sixty percent of the hearth tax-paying
population in France, this was on top of the economic and infrastructural damage France
had experienced from the war. Additionally, France was feeling the effects of inflation
caused by the band-aid fiscal policies of Charles VI (father of Charles VII) at the same
time that there was an extremely limited supply of precious metals and very little coinage
being minted.
To attempt to keep monies in France and ameliorate the financial situation
Charles VII issued several pertinent decrees in his Pragmatic Sanctions. The Pragmatic
Sanctions of Bourges under Charles VII and the decrees of the Council of Basel both

155

Ehler., 116-118.
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ended papal annates for benefices. Under the Pragmatic Sanctions any papal officers
attempting to collect said annates could be tried by royal courts. The Pragmatic
Sanctions also established the criteria by which prelates could be elected to benefices and
made simony, which accounted for an increasing proportion of regular papal revenues by
1438, a punishable crime by both ecclesiastical and secular courts. The Pragmatic
Sanctions also declared that those elected to benefices in France had to reinvest a
percentage of their material wealth into their titular churches, and return regularly to tend
to their flocks, which made sure that local churches in France and their jurisdictions were
cared for both spiritually and financially, rather than emptied of their income by Rome.
The effects of these decrees were rather noticeable; as mentioned in Chapter Three there
was a noticeable increase in the real tax base, as evidenced by royal tax receipts. 156
Additionally, approximately eighty percent of the remaining papal taxes stayed in France,
while only twenty percent were carried away to the Roman Diocese. 157 The effects of the
decrees of the Council of Basel and the Pragmatic Sanctions were certainly felt by the
papacy as well; they lead to a significant decrease of taxation income for the Roman
Curia. By the time of Pope Sixtus IV (1471-1484) there was a notable decline in papal
revenues generally, and only thirty-one percent of that income was derived from taxes
compared to approximately seventy percent in the decades prior. 158

156

Miskimin, 92.

157

Lunt, 88.

158

Stump, 104-105.
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The French clergy and nobility both lauded the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges
issued by Charles VII, however, the advantages to the crown with regards to both
jurisdiction and finances demonstrate the intentions of the crown to limit the jurisdiction
of the papacy over courts, clergy, and finances in his realm through several pertinent
decrees. As pointed out by Stieber, the absence of two significant decrees of the Council
of Basel in the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges indicate that motivations were not
entirely in the name of the “ancient Gallican liberties” of the French church. 159 The first
is the XXIIIrd decree which required the pope to take an oath of office swearing that they
will abide by all decrees of the general councils, and the second is the XXXIst decree in
which the Council of Basel suspended Pope Eugenius from office. Instead, Charles VII
worked tirelessly to peacefully resolve the dispute between Eugenius IV and Nicholas V,
whom were both laying claim to the papacy in the years following the issuance of the
Pragmatic Sanctions, which worked to Charles VII’s benefit in that he was revered as a
champion of Christianity. In placing the needs of his kingdom at the forefront while
working to end the internal church conflict, it bettered his position both within France
and on the larger stage of Latin Christendom, leading by example on how best to check
the Pope. In fact, other powerful secular entities followed suit, issuing their own secular
proclamations against papal overreach, such as the Acceptation of Mainz in Germany. 160
Louis XI, son of Charles VII, eventually abrogated the Pragmatic Sanctions of
Bourges, likely to better position himself in his dealings with the Pope and strengthen his

159

Stieber, 70-71.

160

Ibid., 64-71, 155-173.
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already notable relationship with powerful families in Italy. 161 The abrogation was done
to the dismay of the French clergy and many of the nobility. Louis XI had already
abolished the Pragmatic Sanctions in the Dauphine prior to his ascension to the throne in
1461. 162 Known for his duplicity, Louis XI’s policy of temporarily rescinding the
Pragmatic Sanctions as a bargaining tool with the church and Italy worked as intended for
a short time, but it also sparked concern about the future of French independence and the
effects on the financial health of the kingdom. In their remonstrance the members of the
parlement expressed their worry that there would be confusion in ecclesiastical
appointments in the absence of royal control, the kingdom would be depopulated, there
would be a significant loss of gold and silver, and the churches in France would be left to
ruin. “As for the third [point] which concerns the draining off of money from the
kingdom, for the prevention of which the said constitutions were enacted, it is a critical
issue in which the king and all his subjects have great interest and which touches them
visceraliter.” 163 Parlement felt strongly that a major purpose of the Pragmatic Sanctions
was to protect France financially, and their abrogation would leave them fiscally
weakened. More than a decade after the abrogation of the Pragmatic Sanctions, Louis
XI, at the behest of a convention of the parlements and the French clergy, reinstituted the
Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges in 1475.

161

Potter, 221.

162

Potter, 221.

163

“The Remonstrance of Parlement de France of the abrogation of the Pragmatic

Sanctions by Louis XI (1461-1464)” in Miskimin, 74.
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Viewing the Pragmatic Sanctions as a royal tool to secure both jurisdiction and
finances from the reaching hands of the papacy also provides a fresh lens through
which to view later aspects of Franco – Papal relations throughout the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. Traditionally, the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges is viewed
through the lens of ecclesiastical reform, or in reference to the Gallican Church. By
viewing it as a political tool a new context can be applied in analyzing later events such
as the Concordat of Bologna in 1517 and the post-reformation revival of Gallicanism in
France in the late seventeenth century under Louis XIV. The Pragmatic Sanctions of
Bourges effectively remained the touchstone of Franco – Papal relations well into the
sixteenth century and beyond. 164

164

Parsons, 20.
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