Looking Across the Mountains

Since the time of Constantine, state control of the Church has always been an issue. In France this problem was known as Gallicanism, the term being derived from the Latin for “French Church” (ecclesia gallicana). Basically, it meant that the King was the unofficial head of the Church in France, controlling all appointments and overseeing its finances. Unlike Henry VIII, the French monarch had no need to form a separate church; he already had complete control. But the nineteenth century saw the rise of an opposing movement called Ultramontanism, coming from the Latin for “across the mountains” (ultra montes). Ultramontanists in France and elsewhere looked across the mountains (in this case the Alps) to the Pope as the head of the Church, not the King. As the nineteenth century progressed, Gallicanism declined and Ultramontanism rose.

Today marks the death of Count Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821), diplomat, author, and leading Ultramontanist. Born to a French familiy living in the Italian kingdom of Sardinia, he was a confirmed royalist with a deep-set hatred for the principles espoused by the French Revolution. De Maistre served as the Sardinian Ambassador to Russia and later as a member of the king’s court. In 1819 he wrote a treatise titled The Pope, which was a strong contribution to the growth of Ultramontanism. He was an enthusiastic believer in the power of monarchical authority, political and religious, and he saw the two as going hand in hand. (Notice the decoration he’s wearing in this portrait.) Such statements were in harmony with the general tenor of Europe during the reactionary era that followed the end of the Napoleonic Wars. De Maistre has been a significant figure in the history of conservatism in Europe and to some extent in the United States.