The great Estates of Tours in 1484 showed the trend of feeling, both lay and ecclesiastical. The Estate of the Church demanded the restitution of the Pragmatic Sanction. And the third Estate speaks feelingly of the “evacuation de pecune” resulting from the papal exactions, and prays for reform. The Bishops indeed protested in defence of the authority of the Holy See. But the King’s Council took no decisive step. The old confusion continued; it was impossible to say whether the Pragmatic was or was not in force. Louis XII on his accession confirmed the Pragmatic, and the Parle-ment as before seized every opportunity to enforce it by its decisions. But so long as the King and the Pope were on good terms no serious question arose; for Amboise held continuously the office of legate for France and was in effect a provincial Pope. Julius promised to nominate to prelacies in France only titularies approved by the King. After the breach between Louis and Julius the kingdom was in open disobedience, and the law was silent. It was left for Francis I and Leo X to put aside the principle of free election so long defended by Parlement and clergy, and to agree upon a division of the spoils, which ignored the liberties of the Gallican Church, while conferring exceptional privileges on the King of France.
The result was the Concordat of 1516. Elections were abolished. The King was to nominate to metropolitan and cathedral churches, to abbeys and conventual priories, and if certain rules were observed the papal confirmation would not be refused. Reservations and expectative graces were abolished. The third of benefices was still reserved to University graduates. The regular degrees of jurisdiction were to be respected, unless in cases of exceptional importance. By implication though not by open stipulation annates were retained. The Lateran Council accepted this agreement. The Pragmatic was finally condemned. Although the Parlement and the University of Paris protested energetically, resistance was in vain. No power in France could withstand this alliance of King and Pope, by which the material ends of each were secured, without any conspicuous tenderness being shown for the spiritual interests of the Church.
During the same period the proud independence of the University of Paris was successfully attacked. In 1437 the exemption from taxation claimed for its numerous dependents was abolished. In 1446 it was first made subject to the jurisdiction of the Parlement. In 1452 the Cardinal d’Estouteville, acting in concert with the King and the King’s Parlement, imposed upon it a scheme of reformation, and its independence of secular jurisdiction was at an end. Under Louis XII the old threat of a cessation of public exercises was used in resistance to royal proposals of reform. The scholars soon found that the King was master, and were like the rest of the kingdom obliged to submit. The condemnation of the Nominalists by Louis XI is a grotesque but striking proof that even the republic of letters was no longer exempt from the interference of an alien authority.
The Church, whose independence was thus impaired by progressive encroachments, could not claim that its privileges were deserved by virtues, efficiency, or discipline. Plurality, non-residence, immorality, neglect of duty, worldliness, disobedience to rule, were common in France as elsewhere. Amboise did something for reform in the Franciscan, Dominican, and Benedictine Orders; but far more was needed to effect a cure. Unfortunately the Concordat of Francis I tended rather to stimulate the worldly ambitions and interests of the higher clergy, than to aid or encourage any royal attempts in the direction of reform.
Passing to those secular authorities that were in a position to refuse obedience to the King, we have first to notice the appanaged and other nobility of princely rank. The successful Wars of 1449-53 drove the English from the limits of France, extinguished the duchy of Aquitaine, and left only Calais and Guines to the foreigner. The English claims were still kept alive, but the only serious invasion, that of 1475, broke down owing to the failure of cooperation on the part of Burgundy. The duchy of Aquitaine was revived by Louis XI as a temporary expedient (1469-72) to satisfy the petulant ambition of his brother, while separating him by the widest possible interval from his ally of Burgundy. On the death of Charles of Aquitaine the duchy was reoccupied. But during the English Wars a Power had arisen in the East which menaced the very existence of the monarchy. In pursuance of that policy of granting escheated or conquered provinces as appanages to the younger members of the royal house, which facilitated the transition from earlier feudal independence to direct royal government, John had in 1363 granted the duchy of Burgundy to his son, Philip, and the gift had been confirmed by Charles V. By marriage this enterprising family added to their dominions Flanders, Artois, the county of Burgundy, Nevers and Rethel, Brabant and Limburg; by purchase Namur and Luxemburg, and, mainly by conquest, Hainault, Holland, and Zeeland. Enriched by the wealth of the Low Countries, fortified by the military resources of so many provinces, animated against the house of France by the murder of his father (1419), released from his oath of allegiance and further fortified by the cession of the frontier fortresses along the Somme by the Treaty of Arras in 1435, during thirty years after the conclusion of that treaty Philip the Good (1419-67) had been content to maintain a perfect independence, and to gather his strength in peace. Then, as the old man’s strength failed, his son’s opportunity came. Enraged that Louis had been allowed in 1463 to repurchase the towns on the Somme under the terms of their original cession, Charles the Bold contracted a League with the discontented princes and nobles of France, and in 1465 invaded the kingdom, and with his allies invested Paris.
The Treaties of St Maur des Fosses and of Conflans dissolved the League of the Public Weal, but restored to Burgundy the Somme towns, and established Charles of France in the rich appanage of Normandy. Then in four campaigns Liege and the other cities of her principality, which in reliance on French support had braved the power of Burgundy, were brought low, and in 1468 the episcopal city was destroyed in the forced presence of the King of France. Meanwhile, in 1467 Charles the Bold succeeded to the duchy whose policy he had controlled for two years, and in 1468 he married the sister of Edward IV, the hereditary enemy of France.
The fortunes of Charles of Burgundy perhaps never stood higher than at the fall of Liege. Louis XI, his prisoner at Peronne, had been forced to promise Champagne to Charles of France, the ally of Burgundy, which would have made a convenient link between the northern and the southern dominions of Charles the Bold. But in the war of intrigue and arms that filled the next four years Louis on the whole gained the advantage. Charles of France was persuaded to give up Champagne. The old League was almost, but never quite, revived. The death of Charles of France in 1472 came opportunely, some said too opportunely, for his brother the King. Charles the Bold, who had recently established a standing army of horse and foot, determined to force the game and invaded France. But Louis avoided any engagement, and Charles consumed his forces in a vain attack on Beauvais. He retreated without any advantage gained. Meanwhile Britanny had been reduced to submission.
From that time Charles’ ambition seems to look rather eastwards. In 1469 he had received from Sigismund of Austria, as security for a loan, the southern part of Elsass with the Breisgau. In 1473, after the conquest of Gelders and Zutphen, he entered on fruitless negotiations with the Emperor Frederick III with a view to being crowned as King, and recognised as imperial Vicar in the West. He even hoped to be accepted as King of the Romans. In 1474 he interfered in a quarrel between the Archbishop of Cologne and his Chapter, and laid siege to the little town of Neuss. Eleven months his army lay before this poor place. Imperial hosts gathered to its relief, and Charles was-baffled. Meanwhile his chance of chances went by. When, as the result of long-continued pressure, Edward IV at length invaded France, Charles, who had just raised the siege of Neuss, was exhausted and unable to take his part in the proposed operations. Edward made terms with Louis and retired. In the autumn (1475) Charles scored his last success by overrunning Lorraine. At length his northern and his southern dominions were united.
But meanwhile his acquisitions in Elsass and the Breisgau had involved him in quarrels with the Swiss. Swiss merchants had been ill-treated. The mortgaged provinces were outraged by the harsh rule of Peter von Hagenbach,