Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges Issued

Timeline

1. 1431–1438Bourges and Basel · FranceThe Council of Basel asserted the authority of a general council over the pope and issued reform decrees limiting papal appointments and taxation. Charles VII, while recovering royal territory and rebuilding royal authority, hoped to adopt those provisions favorable to royal finances and control of church offices without openly siding with the schismatic faction deposing Eugenius IV.
2. 1438Bourges · Centre-Val de LoireCharles VII issued the Pragmatic Sanction as a royal statute: it required that general councils be held regularly and hold authority superior to the pope; that French church offices be filled by election rather than papal appointment; it barred the pope from profiting from French church offices and restricted annates; it prohibited direct appeals to the Curia from places more than two days' travel from Rome; and it forbade placing cities under interdict unless the entire city was at fault.
3. 1438–1449Kingdom of France · FranceThe edict freed the French Church substantially from Rome in matters of appointment and finance, reducing papal revenues. The conciliar faction itself split with the dissolution of Basel. Thereafter the pope repeatedly pressed for its repeal, while the French crown treated promises of repeal as leverage to secure Curia support for its Italian policies, until the Concordat of Bologna in 1516 superseded the edict.