History of the Rise of the Huguenots, Vol. 1

by Henry Martyn Baird

The Council of Bourges.

The Council of Basle had not yet concluded its protracted sessions when Charles the Seventh summoned the clergy of France to meet him in the city of Bourges. The times were troublous. The kingdom was rent with intestine division. A war was still raging, during the progress of which the victorious arms of the English had driven the king from his capital and deprived him of more than one-half of his dominions. The work of reinstating the royal authority, though well begun by the wonderful interposition of the Maid of Orleans, was as yet by no means complete. Undaunted, however, by the unsettled aspect of his affairs, Charles—the "King of Bourges," as he was contemptuously styled by his opponents—made his appearance in the national council convened in his temporary capital. He was attended by the dauphin, the Dukes of Burgundy and Brittany, the Count of Maine, and many other noblemen, as well as by a goodly train of doctors of civil and canon law. Awaiting his arrival were five archbishops, twenty-five bishops, and a host of abbots and deputies of universities and chapters of cathedrals. In the presence of this august convocation, in which all that was most prominent in church and state was represented, Charles published, on the seventh of July, 1438, an ordinance which has become celebrated under the name of the "Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges"—by far the more important of the two documents of similar nature emanating from the French throne.[52]

The Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges.

The Pragmatic Sanction, as it is often called by way of pre-eminence, is the magna charta of the liberties of the Gallican Church. Founded upon the results of the discussions of the Council of Basle, it probably embodies all the reformatory measures which the hierarchy of France was desirous of effecting or willing to accept. How far these were from administering the needed antidote to the poison which was at work and threatened to destroy all true religious life—if, indeed, that life was not already too near extinction—may readily be understood when it is discovered that, with the exception of a few paragraphs relating to ecclesiastical discipline and worship, the following comprise all the important provisions:

The Pragmatic Sanction establishes the obligation of the Pope to convene a general council of the church at least every ten years. The decisions of the Council of Basle are declared to be of perpetual force. Far from deriving its authority from the Holy See, the Œcumenical Council, it is affirmed, depends immediately upon Christ, and the Pope is no less bound than all other Christians to render due obedience to its decisions. The right of appeal from the Pope to the future council—a claim obnoxious in the last degree to the advocates of papal supremacy—is distinctly asserted. The Pope is declared incapable of appointing to any high ecclesiastical dignities, save in a few specified cases; in all others recourse is to be had to election. The pontiff's pretensions to confer minor benefices are equally rejected. No abuse is more sharply rebuked and forbidden than that of expectatives—a species of appointment in high favor with the papal chancery, whereby a successor to ecclesiastical dignities was nominated during the lifetime of the incumbent, and in view of his decease.

The Pragmatic Sanction restricts the troublesome and costly appeals to Rome to cases of great importance, when the parties in interest reside at a distance of more than four days' journey from that city. At the same time it prescribes that no one shall be vexed by such appeals after having enjoyed actual possession of his rank for three years. Going beyond the limits of the kingdom, it enters into the constitution of the "Sacred College," and fixes the number of the cardinals at twenty-four, while placing the minimum age of candidates for the hat at thirty years. The exaction of the annats is stigmatized as simony. Priests living in concubinage are to be punished by the forfeiture of one-fourth of their annual stipend. Finally the principle is sanctioned that no interdict can be made to include in its operation the innocent with the guilty.[53]

So thorough a vindication of the rights of the Gallican Church had never before been undertaken. The axe was laid at the root of formidable abuses; freedom of election was restored; the kingdom was relieved of a crushing burden of tribute; foreigners were precluded from interfering with the systematic administration of the laws. The clergy, both regular and secular, received the greatest benefits, for, while they could no longer be plundered of so large a part of their incomes, their persons were protected from arbitrary arrest and hopeless exile beyond the Alps.

The council had not adjourned when the tidings of the transactions at Bourges reached the city of Basle. The members were overjoyed, and testified their approval in a grateful letter to the Archbishop of Lyons. But their exultation was more than equalled by the disgust of Pope Eugenius the Third. Indeed, the pontificates of this pope and his immediate successors were filled with fruitless attempts to effect the repeal of the Pragmatic Sanction. A threat was made to place France under an interdict; but this was of no avail, being answered by the counter-threat of the king's representative, who proposed to make a practical application of the instrument, by appealing from his Holiness to a future general council. So the Pope, having a vivid recollection of the perils attending a contest with the French crown, wisely avoided the hazardous venture.[54]

Louis XI. consents to its abrogation.

In Louis the Eleventh the papal court seemed to have found a more promising prince to deal with. Animated by hatred of his father, and disposed to oppose whatever had met his father's approval, Louis had, while yet dauphin, given the Pope's agents flattering assurances of his good intentions.[55] On ascending the throne, he permitted his father's memory to be treated with disrespect, by suffering a nuncio to pronounce absolution over the corpse for the heinous sin of originating the Pragmatic Sanction. Later, on receiving the assurance of the Pope's support for the house of Anjou in Naples, he consented to repeal the hateful ordinance. A royal declaration for this purpose was published in 1461, contrary to the advice of the king's council.[56] It met with universal reprobation. The Parliament of Toulouse would register the document only with an accompanying note stating that this had been done "by the most express command of the king." The Parliament of Paris absolutely declined to admit it in its records, and sent a deputation to Louis to set forth the pernicious results that were to be expected from the overthrow of his father's wise regulations.[57] The University made bold to appeal to a general council of the Church.