ABSTRACT
Under the ancien régime in Europe, Catholicism as an established church was
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embedded in civil society, since its laws governed so much of the life of the people, marriage, education, and the provision of medical care and poor relief etc., a sort of ‘cradle to grave’ material and spiritual welfare state.1 Moreover, possession of such rights of citizenship as existed under the ancien régime was restricted to those who conformed to the state religion (which was, of course, also true in Protestant states). Monarchs exercised varying degrees of control over ‘national’ churches, at the expense of the papacy, utilised their legal structures (canon law) as part of their rule and appointed their servants and friends to the highest ecclesiastical offices as rewards. In broader terms, those offices were a happy hunting ground for careers for large sections of the nobility, the parochial clergy being largely drawn from the urban and rural middle class, and the peasantry.2
