Pragmatic Sanction of 1438

an act issued on July 7 by the French king Charles VII in Bourges that established the status of the church in France.

The Pragmatic Sanction proclaimed the supremacy of church councils over the pope and established that bishops and abbots were to be elected by their chapters and monasteries, although it was stipulated that the king and the seigniors had the right to recommend candidates. The Pragmatic Sanction abolished annates and papal distribution of church benefices and prohibited appeals to the papal court before a case had been considered in a French court. It legally provided for a limited independence for the Gallican Church from the papacy and subordinated the church, to a certain extent, to royal authority. The Pragmatic Sanction of 1438 remained in force until the Bologna Concordat of 1516.