Читать книгу The Rise and Fall of Renaissance France - R. Knecht J. - Страница 29

The French or Gallican church faced a serious crisis at the end of the Middle Ages, which was constitutional as well as moral. The papacy had become an absolute monarchy: it controlled appointments to ecclesiastical benefices by means of ‘provisions’ and ‘reservations’ and it taxed the clergy by means of annates, tenths, and so on. All this caused much discontent among the clergy. Cathedral and monastic chapters resented the loss of their traditional right to elect their bishops and abbots; the clergy begrudged paying taxes to the papal Curia. The demand arose for the reform of the church in its head and its members. But who was to carry out that reform? Could the papacy be trusted to reform itself?

During the fourteenth century some churchmen began to argue that the responsibility for reform lay not with the papacy but with a General Council. The Dominican John of Paris put forward the theory that a council, since it represented the whole church, was superior in authority to the pope and might depose him if he misused his power. Marsilio of Padua, in his Defensor Pacis, denied Christ’s institution of the papal primacy and argued in favour of the superiority of a council since it represented the people. Supporters of the conciliar theory were able to put it into practice following a disputed election to the papacy in 1378. The only way of solving the problem of two rival popes seemed to be to call a General Council. This offered a chance, not merely of healing the Great Schism, but also of bringing about reform through a limitation of papal authority. The Council of Constance (1414–18) managed to heal the schism, but otherwise was a disappointment. It issued two decrees: one laid down that a General Council derived its authority directly from Christ; the other provided that such a council should meet at regular intervals. Both decrees represented a victory for the conciliar party, but not a decisive one. It was difficult to see how a General Council, meeting occasionally, could assert its authority over a permanent and powerful papacy. The traditional concept of the papacy remained intact, and the new pope, Martin V, did not confirm the decrees of the council. By banning appeals from the pope to another tribunal, he implicitly rejected the doctrine of conciliar supremacy.

This, however, was not the end of attempts to put a General Council above the pope. The decisive battle between the pope and the conciliarists was fought at the Council of Basle (1431–49). In May 1439 it declared as a dogma of the Christian faith that ‘the General Council is above the pope’. It deposed Pope Eugenius IV, replacing him with Felix V; it abolished annates and reservations; and it passed a decree providing for regular provincial and diocesan synods. Yet it failed to defeat the pope for two reasons. First, the radicalism of the council alienated some of its best members; many bishops withdrew when they saw representatives of the lower clergy and universities gaining the ascendancy. Secondly, the princes of Europe failed to give the council their full support, knowing that they could secure more political advantages from the pope than from a council. A few European states, including France, adopted some of the reform decrees of the Council of Basle without even considering the papacy.

Representatives of the Gallican church, meeting at Bourges in 1438, drew up a constitution called the Pragmatic Sanction, which King Charles VII promulgated in July. It declared a General Council to be superior in authority to the pope, abolished annates, forbade appeals to Rome before intermediate jurisdictions had been exhausted, abolished papal reservations, except in respect of benefices vacated at the Curia, and restored the election by chapters of bishops, abbots and priors. The papacy was allowed to collate to a small proportion of benefices, but all expectatives were banned save in respect of university teachers and students. The Pragmatic Sanction guaranteed the latter a third of all prebends while regulating their rights. It also tried, albeit more timidly, to protect the church from royal interference in its affairs: the king was asked to avoid imperious recommendations and to desist from violence in supporting his protégés. Yet he was allowed to present ‘benign solicitations’ from time to time on behalf of candidates showing zeal for the public good.

The Pragmatic Sanction, however, was not strictly applied after 1438. The French crown used it to check papal pretensions without showing respect for the liberties it enshrined. The king commonly disposed of benefices as he wished, his ‘benign solicitations’ all too often being brutal commands. Louis XI abolished or restored the Pragmatic for his own political ends. A delegate at the Estates-General of 1484, after the accession of Charles VIII, complained that under the late king the church had declined: elections had been annulled, unworthy people had been appointed to benefices, and holy persons had been relegated to a ‘vile and ignominious’ condition. The deputies demanded the restoration of the Pragmatic Sanction, but the government of the Beaujeus was unwilling to renounce Louis XI’s authoritarian ways. Equally opposed to the Pragmatic were the bishops who owed their sees to royal favour. In May 1484 the Beaujeus sent a delegation to Rome with the aim of securing a Concordat. The pope, however, insisted on a formal condemnation of the Pragmatic Sanction; and in November 1487, Innocent VIII demanded its abolition. The French crown was unwilling to give way – the Pragmatic was potentially useful against the papacy without seriously threatening royal authority – and the talks with the Holy See accordingly foundered. In the absence of an agreement, the crown did as it wished, sometimes allowing the Pragmatic to operate, sometimes conniving with the papacy at its violation.

Meanwhile, the idea of a General Council lived on. During the second half of the fifteenth century people in many European countries demanded one. The appeal to a council in France came mainly from two directions: first, from the Gallican church whenever the king for political reasons violated the Pragmatic Sanction or threatened to replace it by a Concordat with the papacy; secondly, from the crown itself, whenever it wanted to put pressure on Rome. This had unfortunate consequences: the more the conciliar idea was exploited for political ends, the less the papacy felt inclined to call a council, fearing that it would revive the old question of authority in the church. In 1460, Pius II forbade any future appeal to a council in the bull Execrabilis.

On 12 November 1493, King Charles VIII summoned a reform commission to Tours. The members, who were drawn from abbeys and university colleges where discipline had been maintained or restored, called for the enforcement of the Pragmatic Sanction, but failed to get the support of high-ranking churchmen who had a vested interest in the old order. In 1494 the Gallican church was as sick as it had been at the end of Louis XI’s reign. The pope and the king continued to dispose of benefices without regard for the rights of chapters or patrons. While rival candidates for benefices fought each other in the parlements, the benefices themselves were sometimes left vacant for years. Bishops, who were often primarily courtiers, soldiers and diplomats, enriched themselves by accumulating benefices, including monasteries which they could hold in commendam.

Charles VIII wrote to the French bishops from Italy on 29 October 1494: ‘We hope to go to Rome and be there around Christmas. Our aim is to negotiate over the Gallican church with a view to restoring its ancient liberties and to achieving more if we can.’ In Florence he met Savonarola, who urged him to rescue Christendom from its current distress, and in Rome he was pressed by Cardinal della Rovere to depose Pope Alexander VI and call a General Council. But the king’s position in Italy was too precarious to allow him to tackle church reform seriously. Louis XII was also hamstrung at the start of his reign. He needed the pope to obtain the annulment of his marriage to Jeanne de France, and was therefore obliged to give up the idea of a General Council at least for the time being. He was also unwilling to allow free elections to church benefices or to abstain from imposing his own candidates on chapters. His chief minister, Georges d’Amboise, archbishop of Rouen, belonged to one of those rich bourgeois families which were accustomed to securing the finest abbeys and wealthiest bishoprics for their members. He was devoted to the king’s person and opposed any reduction of his authority.

In March 1499 an Assembly of Notables, meeting at Blois, was asked by Louis to look into ways of improving the administration of justice; but the ordinance that resulted from its deliberations failed to address the questions of burning concern to church reformers. While proclaiming the king’s determination to uphold ‘the fine constitutions contained in the sacred decrees of Basle and the Pragmatic Sanction’, it made no mention of elections, reservations, expectatives and commends. When the parlement registered the ordinance, the university, whose objections had been disregarded, went on strike. The chancellor ordered the strike to be lifted unconditionally and the parlement imposed sanctions on the university, which appealed directly to the king without success. In the end the university capitulated and the sanctions were lifted.

A matter of serious concern to Gallicans was the authority conferred on Georges d’Amboise as papal legate. The parlement registered his powers in December 1501, provided he undertook in writing not to prejudice the king’s rights and prerogatives. In February 1502 the legate made a speech in the parlement in which he declared his commitment to monastic reform. By so doing he may have hoped to gain support for his candidature to the papacy following the death of Alexander VI; but he was unable to rally enough support within the Sacred College. After the brief pontificate of Pius III, Giuliano della Rovere became Pope Julius II. As a consolation prize, Amboise asked for more than a limited extension of his legateship. Julius duly obliged by extending it indefinitely, thereby conferring on Amboise an almost absolute authority over the Gallican church.

On 19 March 1504 the university opposed registration of the legate’s new powers by the parlement and pressed the court to foil any attempt by Amboise and other prelates to give benefices to their own protégés. The parlement refused to extend the legate’s powers beyond the limit previously set by Alexander VI and demanded his written consent to the limitations previously imposed on him. But Louis XII insisted on the papal bull being registered without further discussion or delay. On 20 April the parlement confirmed the legate’s powers, but made them depend on the king’s pleasure. Amboise was asked for a written undertaking that he would respect the Gallican liberties and the Pragmatic Sanction. During the last six years of his life he carefully avoided offending Gallican feelings. His powers, however, were merely tolerated and the old animosities of the French clergy towards the Holy See continued to feed on the same grievances as before.

Meanwhile, agitation for a new council continued, forcing the popes to take evasive action. They developed the idea of a council of selected prelates under papal control in Rome. The popes could not ignore the demand for a council. Even within the college of cardinals there was a strong movement of opposition to papal absolutism. In 1511, as we have seen, a group of mainly French cardinals summoned a General Council to Pisa and, after proclaiming its own superior authority, suspended Julius II. But the pope took the wind out of its sails by calling a council of his own at the Lateran. The question was no longer ‘council or no council?’ but ‘which council?’ The majority of Christendom declared in favour of the Lateran council, and the council of Pisa petered out.