Civil Constitution of the Clergy
The National Assembly reorganised the French church by statute in July 1790 and split the country in two. The measure followed from money. The state was bankrupt, church lands had been nationalised in November 1789 to back a new paper currency, and having taken the property the Assembly had to provide for the clergy — which meant deciding how many there were, where, and on what salaries. The Civil Constitution redrew the dioceses to match the new departments, reducing them from about 135 to 83, made bishops and parish priests elected by the same assemblies that elected civil officials, put them on state salary, and forbade any recognition of foreign jurisdiction, meaning Rome. Much of it was in the reformist tradition of French Catholicism and might have been accepted. What broke it was the oath. In November 1790 the Assembly required every clergyman to swear to uphold the constitution, and made refusal a matter of losing his living. The clergy divided almost exactly in half — around fifty-five per cent refused — and the geography of the split maps closely onto the geography of counter-revolution for the next five years, the west and the north-east refusing and the Paris basin swearing. Pius VI condemned the constitution and the oath in March 1791. The king, who had signed it under pressure and regarded himself as damned for it, attempted to flee three months later. The Vendée rose in 1793 over conscription and the priests together. The rupture is arguably the single most consequential act of the Revolution's first phase. It converted a large body of ordinary Catholics who had welcomed 1789 into opponents of everything that followed, and the division between clerical and anticlerical France outlasted the monarchy, the empire and three republics.
- Year: 1790 CE
- Category: Political
