FRANCE
109
FRANCE
Charles VI, or even the last years of Charles V, dates
the custom of giving to the French kings the exclusive
title of Rex Chrislianissimus. Pepin the Short and
Charlemagne had been proclaimed "Most Christian"
by the popes of their day; Alexander III had con-
ferred the same title on Louis VII ; but from Charles
VI onwards the title comes into constant use as the
special prerogative of the kings of France. " Because
of the vigour with which Charlemagne, St. Louis, and
other brave French kings, more than the other kings
of Christendom, have upheld the Catholic Faith, the
kings of France are known among the kings of Chris-
tendom as 'Most Christian'." Thus wrote Philippe
de Mdzieres, a contemporary of Charles VI. In later
times the Emperor Frederick III, addressing Charles
VII, wrote : " Your ancestors have won for your name
the title Most Christinn, as a heritage not to be sepa-
rated from it." From the
pontificate of Paul II
(1464) the popes, in ad-
dressing Bulls to the kings
of France, always use the
style and title Bex Chris-
tianissimus. Furthermore,
European public opinion
always looked on Bl. Joan
of Arc, who saved the
French monarchy, as the
heroine of Christenilom,
and believed that the Maid
of Orleans meant to lead
the king of France on an-
other crusade when she h:id
secured him in the peaceful
possession of his own coun-
try. France's national
heroine was thus heralded
by the fancy of her con-
temporaries, by Christ iiii'
de Pisan, and by that \'(-'-
netian merchant whose
letters have been preserve 1
for us in the Morosini
Chronicle, as a heroine
whose aims were as wide as
Christianity itself.
The fifteenth century, during which France was growing in national spirit, and while men's minds in France were still conscious of the claims of Christen- dom on their country, was also the century during which, on the morrow of
the Great Schism and of the Councils of Basle and of Constance, there began a movement among the powerful feudal bishops against pope and king, and which aimed at the emancipation of the Galil- ean Church. The propositions upheld by Gerson, and forced by him, as representing the University of Paris, on the Comicil of Constance, would have set up in the Church an aristocratic regime analo- gous to what the feudal lords, profiting by the weak- ness of King Charles VI, had dreamed of establishing in the State. A royal proclamation, in 1418, issued after the election of Pope Martin V, maintained in opposition to the pope "all the privileges and fran-
king a right of patronage over 500 benefices in his
kingdom. This was the beginning of the practice
adopted by the French kings of arranging the gov-
ernment of the Church directly with the popes
over the heads of the bishops. Charles VII, whose
struggle with England had left his authority still
very precarious, was constrained, in 1438, during the
Council of Basle, in order to appease the powerful
prelates of the .Assembly of Bourges, to promulgate the
Pragmatic Sanction, thereby asserting in France those
maxims of the Council of Basle which Pope Eugene
IV had condemned. But straightway he bethought
him of a concordat, and overtures in this sense
were made to Eugene IV. Eugene replied that he
well knew the Pragmatic Sanction — " that odious act"
— was not the king's own free doing, and a concordat
was discussed between them. Louis XI (1461-83),
whose domestic policy
aimed at ending or weak-
ening the new feudalism
which had grown up dur-
ing two centuries through
the custom of presenting
appanages to the brothers
of the king, extended to
the feudal bishops the ill
will he professed towards
the feudal lords. He de-
tested the Pragmatic Sanc-
tion as an act that strength-
ened ecclesiastical feudal-
ism, and on 27 November,
1461, he announced to the
pope its suppression. At
the same time he pleaded,
as the demand of his Par-
liament, that for the future
the pope should permit the
colk^tion to ecclesiastical
benefices to be made either
wholly or in part through
the civil power. The Con-
cordat of 1472 obtained
from Rome very material
concessions in this respect.
At this time, besides " epis-
copal Gallicanism ' ', against
which pope and king w'ere
working together, we may
trace, in the writings of
the lawyers of the closing
years of the fifteenth cen-
tury, the beginnings of a
"royal Gallicanism "which
taught that in France
Cathedral of Sainte-Cecile. Albi
the State should govern the Church.
The Italian wars undertaken by Charles VIII (1493- 98), and continued by Louis XII (1498-1515), aided by an excellent corps of artillery and all the resources of French furia, to assert certain French claims over Naples and Milan, did not quite fulfil the dreams of the French kings. They had, however, a threefold result in the worlds of politics, religion, and art. Politically, they led foreign powers to believe that France was a menace to the balance of power; and hence arose alliances to maintain that balance, such, for instance, as the League of Venice (1495) and the Holy League (1511-12). From the point of view of chises of the kingdom", put an end to the custom of art they carried a breath of the Renaissance across annates, limited the rights of the Roman court in col- the Alps. And in the religious world they furnished
lecting benefices, and forbade the sending to Rome of
articles of gold or silver. This proclamation was a.s-
sented to by the young King Charles VII in 1423, but at
the same time he sent Pope Martin V an embassy ask-
ing to be absolved from the oath he had taken to up-
hold the principles of the Galilean Church and seeking
to arrange a concordat which would give the French
France an opportunity on Italian soil of asserting for
the first time the principles of royal Gallicanism.
Louis XII and the Emperor Maximilian, supported by
the opponents of Pope .Julius II, convened in Pisa a
council that threateneil the rights of tlie Holy See.
Matters looked very serious. The understanding be-
tw'een the pope and the French kings hung in the bal-
