ABSTRACT
In the midst of the religious turmoil of the sixteenth century, the Gallican Church may seem to have played a pacifying role, even to have served as an intermediary between the conflicting confessions. 'Gallicanism' — a word that was coined in the nineteenth century and is applied retrospectively to the realities of the ancien régime, not without some problems of definition — would therefore have borne within it a vision of the Church that could have provided a meeting ground for the warring brothers of the sixteenth-century religious reforms. From the mid-1550s onwards, such short-sightedness was no longer in order and the kingdom seemed to be the European country worst hit by heresy. Nevertheless, confidence in the defence of the Gallican Liberties as the best hope for reconciliation remained intact. The various Gallican projects of concord offered a great diversity, from an agreement with the Protestants on essential points of dogma to simple measures of disciplinary reforms for the clergy.
