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 LAICIZATION

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LAICIZATION

pire, particularly that of Meaux (845), striving to end it. In the tenth century, when the papacy had grown weak and was unable to counterbalance the civil power, the dignities and property of the Church were invaded by the creatures of kings and emperors: the Othos and their successors made the popes and, at times, the antipopes; they invested the dignitaries with crosier and ring, symbols of ecclesiastical juris- diction. Such secularization would soon have proved fatal to the necessary independence of the spiritual power. The liberation of the Church from secular control was accomplished by Gregory VII. After long years of struggle, the separation of the two powers grew more marked; the dispute about investi- tures was ended by the Concordat of Worms (1122); lay influence was eliminated from the elections of popes and l_iishop.s, from ecclesiastical trials, synods, and, to a large extent, from the administration of chxirch property ; and under the great popes who suc- ceeded Gregory VII it seemed for a while as if the ideal of the Christian world was realized, the Catholic na- tions forming one family under the high suzerainty of the pope, the representative of God upon earth, among nations and individuals.

This was the apogee: the movement towards secu- larization began forthwith. In the twelfth century, under the influence of Irnerius, the school of Bologna witnessed a revival of the Roman Law; the laws of the Cfesars became the basis of the claims of the secular power; and, while the canonists, finally systematizing the ecclesiastical laws, were establishing the thesis of pontifical power, indirect or even direct, over empires and kingdoms (the Bull " Unam sanctam"), the im- perial and royal jurisconsults were building up the op- posite thesis, and claiming for secular princes entire independence in temporal matters, authority in ec- clesiastical matters not strictly spiritual, and eventu- ally a Divine origin for their power. In the opinion of these jurisconsults ecclesiastical privileges and im- munities were graceful concessions of the civil authori- ties, who could, consequently, withdraw them. From that time laicization had begun, thenceforward carried into effect, not by expedients or by violence, but on principle; it was a battle of systems, in which the secu- lar power, becoming more and more centralized and conscious of its strength, was destined always to prevail.

The struggle which, as before, centres around the temporal goods of the Church, begins with Philippe le Bel (1285-1314) and Boniface VIII. The king im- posed taxes on church property ; after having resisted as a matter of principle, the pope authorized their im- position, provided it was done with his consent. In this way the canonical immunity of ecclesiastical property was violated. Later it was the jurisdiction of the Church in mixed matters which yielded little by little to that of the royal courts: these adjudicated, not only in questions arising out of marriage — e. g. inher- itances, legitimacy of children, adultery — but also in most cases relating immediately to matrimony or benefices, whether presenting questions of fact or in- volving bare right of possession; further, the system of appealing against so-called abuse of ecclesiastical power {appel comrne d'abus) permitted almost all ec- clesiastical acts to be brought, if the State so chose, under the cognizance of the royal judges. Papal Bulls and decrees of councils were recognized only after examination and in virtue of royal authorization; moreover, they had to be ratified in order to obtain the force of laws. In regard to benefices, the pontifical laws were openly resisted; the royal prerogative of nomination to vacant benefices was exercised, and the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, under Charles VII (14.38), applying in I'"niMci'tl]ci|uasi-soliisiiiatical prin- ciples of I5asli-, refused to ackninvlcdgi' tiic papal right of reservation and lorbadr din-ct appeals to Honic. If the principle of sjiiritual jurisdiction was safeguarded

by the Concordat of 1516 between Leo X and Francis I, this agreement, nevertheless, abandoned to the civil power all control of the temporal possessions of the Church. The clergy of France came to depend more on the king than on the pope: Louis XIII forbade the holding of ecclesiastical assemblies and councils with- out royal permission; Louis XIV put into practice the most advanced principles of Gallicanism, and regu- lated the affairs of the Church almost as if he were a Justinian; liis parUamentary courts, his grand conseil adjudicated in all ecclesiastical affairs, except ques- tions of dogma and purely spiritual matters. In a word, while the Church was treated with favour and enjoyed numerous privileges, it was only by reason of her yielding to the State all authority in temporal or mixed affairs.

Other Catholic countries followed in the same path. The extreme limits of this encroaclmient of secular power was reached by the minute ecclesiastical regula- tions of Joseph II of Austria. In other countries the Reformation greatly advanced the policy of seculari- zation. The privileged situation of the Church in the matter of temporal property had been weakened by the errors of John Hus and Wyclif, and the troubles resulting therefrom. Soon the leaders of the Refor- mation placed themselves under the protection of the princes and gave them, with the property of the Chiu-ch, an almost absolute authority over the new religious bodies. In many German principalities, in England, and in the countries of Northern Europe, the Church disappeared, her goods were confiscated, pil- laged, or else transferred to the new religious organiza- tions. It suffices to recall the secularizations of the Teutonic Knights and their property and then, in Eng- land, the confiscation of the monasteries and churches under Henry VIII and his successors. Ecclesiastical jurisdiction was also secularized and taken over by the kings and the civil courts, or at most left in some small degree with the clergy, who were entirely dependent on the civil power. A little more, and the two powers would have blended into one.

To return to the Catholic Church, the most complete secularization was that effected by the French Revo- lution; if the movement seemed at first to Ijc to the ad- vantage of the "constitutional church", a creation of the civil power, and afterwards to that of a vaguely Deistic form of worship, it was to the profit of the sov- ereign State, freed from all religion, rationalistic if not atheistic. The facts are well known: church property was confiscated and sold; the clergy divided into "ju- rors", or "constitutionalists", and " non-j urors "— an absolute proscription of the Catholic religion. The functions confided for ages to the Church were again assumed by the State: schools, hospitals, registration of births, marriages, and deaths, marriage itself, and even worship — all was secularized. And when, after the storm, the Concordat of 1801 restored the Church to her official position, everything or almost every- thing remained secularized. The property that had been confiscated and sold was not returned to her; the places of worship left at her disposal still remained the property of the civil authorities: public teaching had become a function of the State, whose permission she had to obtain for her few schools; civil lifeand marriage were regulated independently of her, while awaiting the re-estalilishment of divorce; her tribunals were no longer acknowledged; the members of her hierarchy were officially recognized, but only as functionaries in strict accordance with the articles organiq%ies — in spirit at least, a survival of the old regime; her former im- munities were restricted and finally aliolished.

Like the other developments of t he Hevolution, the policy of secularization was iniitatcMl by the different Slates in varying degrees. Tlie ecclcsiastii'al |>rinci- ))aliticsf the (ierman Empire which had survived the Hcforinatioii were secularized at the bcgiiuu'ng of the nineteenth century, and the movement cuhninatetl in