Declaration of the French Clergy
| Declaration of the clergy of France | |
|---|---|
| Created | March 19, 1682 |
| Author(s) | Charles Maurice Le Tellier, archbishop of Reims; Gilbert de Choiseul Duplessis Praslin, bishop of Tournai; and Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, bishop of Meaux |
| Signatories | 1681 Assembly of the French clergy |
The Declaration of the clergy of France was a four article document of the 1681 Assembly of the French clergy promulgated in 1682 which codified the principles of Gallicanism into a system for the first time in an official and definitive formula.
The 1516 Concordat of Bologna between the Holy See and the Kingdom of France repealed and explicitly superseded the 1438 Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges and was confirmed by the contemporaneous Fifth Lateran Council. The concordat was registered by the Parlements in 1518, and defined, according to Roger Aubenas, in The New Cambridge Modern History, "a logical division of prerogatives, but one which involved discontinuance of elections." Under the terms of the concordat, the election of bishops by canons and abbots by monks was discontinued; the right of presentation of a candidate for appointment as a bishop, abbot, or prior, was conceded to the king; and the right of confirmation of a candidate, right of devolution, and the right of reservation, were conceded to the pope. Since he had to present a suitable and qualified candidate, "the king's choice was not to be purely arbitrary." The concordat also stipulated annates and other matters.
In 1663 the College of Sorbonne solemnly declared that it admitted no authority of the pope over the king's temporal dominion, nor his superiority to a general council, nor infallibility apart from the Church's consent.
In 1673, King Louis XIV of France, an absolute monarch, extended the droit de régale throughout the Kingdom of France. There were two types of régale: régale temporelle and régale spirituelle. Prior kings of France affirmed the droit de régale as their right by virtue of the supremacy of the Crown over all episcopal sees, even those previously exempt from the assertion of this right. Under Louis XIV, these claims to appropriate revenues of vacant episcopal sees and to make appointments to benefices were vigorously enforced. The Parlements were pleased and most bishops yielded without serious protest; only two prelates, Nicolas Pavillon, bishop of Alet, and François de Caulet, bishop of Pamiers, both Jansenists, resisted against the royal encroachment. Both unsuccessfully appealed to their metropolitan archbishop, who sided with Louis XIV, and they appealed to Pope Innocent XI in 1677.
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