Parliament of the clergy

The Assemblée of the clergy is an ecclesiastical assembly of the France of Ancien Mode.

The Église of France always profited under the Ancien Mode from a tax immunity and a certain independence towards Rome. What does not want to say that it did not have any financial reporting with the king nor which it turned the back to Rome. In this triangular relation, the essential institution of the Church of France as from the 16th century is the Parliament of the clergy.

The Church needed indeed is protection of the king, in particular of his military protection. “Philippe Auguste had requested the chapter of Rheims some donation cash. The chapter refused in the name of the saints decrees, promising besides that it would help the king of its prayers. At some time from there, the counts de Rethel and of Coucy invaded the goods of the chapter, which called upon Philippe Auguste. The king answered the chapter that it would help it of his prayers, and it wrote to the invaders. Those were not particularly moved by it. The canons understood and promised to the king subsidy that they had refused. Then the prince sent his people war to put the plunderers at the reason. ”

François Ier obtains the lifting of a Décime to make the war with the Turks, it empoche the ten-per-cent tax and forgets the war.

The first Parliament of the clergy subscribes what one called the Contrat of Poissy into 1561 which regulates the financial reportings between the Church and the king. The payments of the church for the extinction of the national debt are supposed to be completed with its auditing. It is the need for controlling this auditing which provides the pretext to the assemblies to meet and with the king to grant the right to them to do it. These meetings took little by little their final periodicity, every five years, as from 1625.

The question of the free gift was mentioned at all the assemblies. The clergy initially poured with the king this free gift intended to free of debts the State. In fact, the debt did not decrease and the free gift functioned, without in being one, the made-to-order of a tax of Capitation negotiated. It is this feature which made the Parliament was exonerated from the Capitation when Louis XIV resorts to it during the winter 1693. But at the beginning, the wars of religion contributed to the institutionalization of the free gift. The Church of France could not preach against the Hérésie and refuse financial means to destroy it. Thereafter, the Parliament never blamed the principle of the gift, but negotiated the counterparts until it waited and its amount.

There are two kinds of assemblies:

the assembled accounts or small assembly : an assembly on two, is devoted to examine the accounts of the general receiver of the Parliament. She brings together 32 deputies. Two by province (manpower slightly varied according to the number of the ecclesiastical provinces). Each province sends two deputy, one first order (bishop or Archevêque) and the other of the second order (Chanoine, Abbé or to profit). Each order elects its deputy. With the use, many delegated of the second order bishops finish later.
the large assemblies of the clergy bring together 64 deputies (the province S send four deputies according to the same procedure and the same distribution that for the small assemblies) and regulate, in addition to the amount of the free gift, the questions of the moment: relationship with Rome, the attitude to be observed towards the Huguenot S, the defense of the Gallicanisme, treatment of the Jansénisme (in 1653 bubble Cum causes ), recurring question of Régale, but excited by the quarrel around the Jansénisme, the Quiétisme, the reflections morals of Quesnel (the bubble Unigenitus and the conflict with Noailles, archbishop of Paris)…

It is what makes of the Parliament of the Clergy a draft of Concile of France. Indeed, since the Concile of Thirty raises a question of principle: the Concile of Thirty must it be received by the ecclesiastical and laic institutions to pass in the French right? By posing similar problem, the Assemblies of the clergy, during more two centuries, came very close to usurpation, tried which they were to assume of the conciliar capacities. Thus developed a complex triangular relation: if the Parliament linked her forces with those of the king against Rome, it was also to prevent it from “ putting the hand at the censer ”, to take again the formula of Pierre Blet.

Between the sessions, the general receiver of the ten-per-cent taxes manages financial flows of the Church of France and his relations with the king.

The general Agent of the clergy of France, future prelate, indicated for five years, is used as permanent secretary to the Assemblies.

The last assembly was held in 1788.

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