On August 18, 1516, in Rome, King Francis I and Pope Leo X signed the Concordat of Bologna, an agreement that would govern relations between the French monarchy and the Holy See until the French Revolution, and gave the king unprecedented power over the Church for a Catholic sovereign.
An agreement sealed in the prestige of Marignan
Riding high on the prestige of his victory at Marignano in September 1515, Francis I met with Pope Leo X in December of the same year in Bologna, where the broad outlines of the agreement were negotiated. The text, largely drafted by the humanist Jean de Pins and finalized by Chancellor Antoine Duprat, was finally signed in Rome on August 18, 1516, during the Fifth Lateran Council.
The concordat cancels the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, promulgated in 1438 by Charles VII, which until then affirmed the superiority of French national councils over the authority of the pope in matters of ecclesiastical appointments.
Royal power extended to the high clergy
In exchange for recognizing his supremacy over national councils, the Pope granted the King of France the right to directly appoint the holders of the kingdom's ecclesiastical sees—abbots, bishops, and archbishops—through an extension of the commendatory system. This provision permanently created a division within the Church of France, between a high clergy composed of courtiers close to the royal power and a lower clergy who remained poor and disadvantaged.
Ratified by Francis I in May 1517 and then registered by the Parliament of Paris the following year, not without resistance from the University of Paris and the Chapter of Notre-Dame, this concordat remained in force for nearly three centuries, until its unilateral abolition by the Constituent Assembly in August 1790.
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