canonization by the
Roman Church. Louis the Ninth had witnessed with alarm the rapid strides
of the Papacy toward universal dominion. His pride was offended by the
pretension of the Pontiff to absolute superiority; his sovereign rights
were assailed when taxes were levied in France at the pleasure of a
foreign priest and prince. He foresaw that this abuse was likely to take
deep root unless promptly met by a formal declaration placing the rights
of the French monarch and nation in their true light. For this reason he
issued in 1268 a solemn edict, which, as emanating from the
unconstrained will of the king, took the name of the "_Pragmatic
Sanction_ of Saint Louis."

The preamble of this famous ordinance, upon the authenticity of which
doubts have been unnecessarily cast,[50] declares the object of the king
to be to secure the safety and tranquillity of the church of his realm,
the advancement of divine worship, the salvation of the souls of
Christ's faithful people, and the attainment of the favor and help of
Almighty God. To his sole jurisdiction and protection had France ever
been subject, and so did Louis desire it to remain. The provisions of
the Pragmatic Sanction were directed chiefly to guarding the freedom of
election and of collation to benefices, and to prohibiting the
imposition of any form of taxes by the Pope upon ecclesiastical
property in France, save by previous consent of the prince and
clergy.[51]

In this brief document had been laid the foundation of the liberties of
the Gallican Church, not under the form of novel legislation, but of a
summary of previous usage.

[Sidenote: Philip the Fair and Boniface.]

Political reasons, not long after the death of Louis, gave new vigor to
the policy of opposition to which this king had pledged France. His
grandson, the resolute Philip the Fair, found fresh incitement in the
extravagant conduct of a contemporary Pope, Boniface the Eighth. The
bold ideas advanced by Hildebrand in the eleventh, and carried into
execution by Innocent the Third in the thirteenth century, were wrought
into the very texture of the soul of Boniface, and could not be
concealed, in spite of the altered condition of mediaeval society.
Intolerant, headstrong, and despotic, he undertook to exercise a
theocratic rule, and commanded contending monarchs to lay down their
arms, and submit their disputes to his arbitrament. To such a summons
Philip was not inclined to submit. The crafty and