Lot Essay
Cardinal Bellarmin's 'Mirror of Christian Princes', determining the duties of a Christian ruler, was enormously successful and retained its popularity until the 18th century. The Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, issued by the French clergy in 1483 while the Council of Basel was in session, was a statement of Gallicanist principles, upholding the right of the French Church to administer its temporal property independently of the Papacy and disallowing Papal nominations of vacant benefices. Nicholas Sanders (c. 1530-81), Catholic historian and controversialist, fled to the continent after the accession of Elizabeth, was ordained priest at Rome in 1560, became professor of theology at Louvain but died a fugitive after failing to cause an insurrection in Ireland. In his last unfinished work, edited posthumously, he writes about Catholic persecution under Henry VIII and Elisabeth, including under 'Diarium Rerum Gestarum in Turri Londinensi', a list of prisoners in the Tower of London and their fate in chronological order. Nicolas de Clamenges (c. 1367-1437) was a friend of John Gerson and one of the leaders of the reform movement at the great schism and the church councils. The last of the three treatises is probably not by him, as it originated during the Council of Basle which he did not attend.