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THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF

the church, by procuring to the cleans and chapters of eachdiocese the restoration of their ancient right of electing thebishop, and to the monks of each abbacy that of electingthe abbot. The re-establishing of this ancient order wasthe object of several statutes enacted in England during thecourse of the fourteenth century, particularly of what iscalled the statute of provisors; and of the Pragmatic sanc-tion established in France in the fifteenth century. In orderto render the election valid, it was necessary that the sove-reign should both consent to it beforehand, and afterwardapprove of the person elected ; and though the election wasstill supposed to be free, he had, however, all the indirectmeans which his situation necessarily afforded him, of in-fluencing the clergy in his own dominions. Other regula-tions of a similar tendency were established in other parts ofEurope .' But the power of the pope in the collation of thegreat benefices of the church seems, before the reformation,to have been nowhere so effectually and so universally re-strained, as in France and in England. The Concordat af-terward, in the sixteenth century, gave to the kings of France the absolute right of presenting to all the great, or what arecalled the consistorial benefices of the Gallican church.

Since the establishment of the Pragmatic sanction and ofthe Concordat, the clergy of France have in general shewnless respect to the decrees of the papal court than the clergyof any other catholic country. In all the disputes whichtheir sovereign has had with the pope, they have almost con-stantly taken part with the former. This independency ofthe clergy of France upon the court of Rome, seems to beprincipally founded upon the Pragmatic sanction and theConcordat. In the earlier periods of the monarchy, theclergy of France appear to have been as much devoted tothe pope as those of any other country. When Robert, thesecond prince of the Capetian race, was most unjustly ex-communicated by the court of Rome, his own servants, it issaid, threw the victuals which came from his table to thedogs, and refused to taste any thing themselves which hadbeen polluted by the contact of a person in his situation.They were taught to do so, it may very safely be presumed,by the clergy of his own dominions.

The claim of collating to the great benefices of the church,a claim in defence of which the court of Rome had frequentlyshaken, and sometimes overturned the thrones of some of