594 Portuguese expansion and trade
reprint, New York: Columbia University Press, 2001);
Peter Linehan, “Castile, Portugal and Navarre,” in The
New Cambridge Medieval History. Vol. 5, c. 1198–c. 1300,
ed. David Abulafia (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1999), 668–699; Bailey W. Diffie and George D.
Winius, Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415–1580
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1977); C. R.
Boxer, The Portuguese Seaborne Empire (London:
Hutchinson, 1969); A. J. R. Russell-Wood, A World on the
Move: The Portuguese in Africa, Asia and America,
1415–1808(Manchester: Carcanet, 1992).
Portuguese expansion and trade SeePORTUGAL.
poverty SeeCHARITY AND POVERTY; POVERTY, VOLUNTARY.
poverty, voluntary Voluntary poverty, traditionally
one of the three vows of religious life, had various forms
before 1500. Voluntary or spiritual poverty was based on
the GOSPELinviting Christians to follow the example of
Jesus and renounce material goods. They impeded the
gaining of salvation and lessened trust in the good provi-
dence of GOD.BENEDICTINE MONASTICISMmade poverty
obligatory on the individual monk but authorized the
ownership of goods by the monastic community.
With the new prosperity arising from agrarian and
commercial revolutions between 1000 and 1300, spiritual
poverty became a new fundamental and external way of
life through the MENDICANT ORDERS. There were attacks
on clerical wealth throughout the 12th and 13th cen-
turies, both by orthodox reformers and by heretics. Vol-
untary poverty was one of the main aspects of the
mendicant idea as founded by FRANCISof Assisi. The
quick relaxation of his original austere practices created
divisions within the Order of Friars Minor, especially
among the SPIRITUALFRANCISCANS. Pope JOHNXXII con-
demned their doctrine of Christ’s poverty in 1323.
Further reading:David Burr, Olivi and Franciscan
Poverty: The Origins of the Usus Pauper Controversy
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989);
Jan G. J. van den Eijnden, Poverty on the Way to God:
Thomas Aquinas on Evangelical Poverty(Louvain: Peeters,
1994); David Flood, ed., Poverty in the Middle Ages(Werl:
D. Coelde, 1975); Lester K. Little, Religious Poverty and
the Profit Economy in Medieval Europe(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cor-
nell University Press, 1978); Michel Mollat, The Poor in
the Middle Ages: An Essay in Social History,trans. Arthur
Goldhammer (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press,
1986).
Praemunire The Statutes of Praemunire were issued
by English kings to protect their rights from encroach-
ment by the PAPACY and as an effort to assert royal
sovereignty over the church in ENGLAND. The first such
statutes were issued in 1353, 1365, and 1393. That of
1353 forbade appeal to the papal court of cases usually
and traditionally kept within the purview of the king’s
courts. That of 1393 forbade EXCOMMUNICATIONof a per-
son or issuance of a papal bull without royal assent.
See alsoPROVISIONS, ECCLESIASTICAL.
Further reading:May McKisack, The Fourteenth Cen-
tury, 1307–1399(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959); W. A.
Pantin, The English Church in the Fourteenth Century
(1955; reprint, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1963).Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges The Pragmatic Sanc-
tion was promulgated as a royal decree by King CHARLES
VII in 1438 at Bourges, to regulate relationships among
the Crown, the French church, and the PAPACY. There had
been much conflict between Pope EUGENIUSIV and the
COUNCILof BASEL. The king of France tried to follow a
policy of neutrality. Largely influenced by Gallican bish-
ops and the traditional antipathy to papal pretensions
from at least the reign of PHILIPIV THEFAIR, Charles
called an assembly of the clergy at Bourges. There most of
the conciliar decrees of Basel were adopted, including the
council’s superiority to the pope, the suppression of cer-
tain taxes, annates, and limits on appeals to the court of
ROMEand on papal influence on and control of the distri-
bution of clerical BENEFICES. To these were added a series
of prescriptions on the sacraments and a long treatise on
the necessity of reform of the church. These ideas were
not all acceptable to the clergy of France and naturally
aroused strong opposition from the Holy See. King LOUIS
XI played politics and abrogated the ordinance in 1461,
restored it later, and eventually in 1472 reached an agree-
ment with Pope Sixtus IV (r. 1471–84) in the concordat
of Amboise. It was finally abrogated by the concordat of
BOLOGNAin 1516. Its effect was always to replace papal
power over the French church with that of the monarchy.
It has been considered the foundational charter of a Galli-
can church independent of the Holy See.
See alsoPROVISIONS, ECCLESIASTICAL.
Further reading:Paul Murray Kendall, Louis XI: The
Universal Spider(New York: W. W. Norton, 1970); P. S.
Lewis, Later Medieval France: The Polity(London: Mel-
bourne, 1968); Malcolm G. Vale, Charles VII(Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1974).Prague(Praha) Prague, the capital of BOHEMIAand the
present capital of the Czech Republic, is situated in the
Prague basin over both banks of the river Vltava. Slavs set-
tled there toward the end of the sixth century and in the
course of the next two centuries erected there numerous
fortresses. On the site of one of these forts, a PREMYSLID
prince, Bohvoj I (r. 870–895), built a CASTLEand made it
the political center of his duchy. In the ninth century
churches were built, including the church of the Holy