Frachet, Gerard de, a monkish ecclesiastical historian, was born at Chains (Limousin), in France, about the beginning of the 13th centur}^ and died at Limogas Oct. 4, 1271. He entered the Dominican or- der in 1225, and filled in succession the posts of prior of the convent of Limoges (1233-45), then of that of Marseilles, provincial of Provence (1251-9), and (1266) was chosen assistant (definileur) provincial by the chapter of Limoges. He wrote (according to Lacor- daire), by the order of the chapter general which as- sembled at Paris in 1256, Vita Fratrum ordinis Pradi- caforum (Douay, 1619, and Valence, 1657) : — Chronicon ab initio Mundi; and left, besides, some manuscripts. — Hoefjr, Nour. Biog. Gin. xviii, 421-2. (J.W. M.)
Fragment.s of WolfenbiitteL See Wolfen-
BIJTTEL FrAG.^IENTS.
Frame is the rendering in the A.V. of '^'^'j, ye'- tser, form (usually spoken figuratively of imagitia- tion), e. g. the bodily formatiori (Psa. ciii, 14 ; "thing framed," Isa. xxix, 16) ; and n'Z'2, mibueh', building, e. g. of a city (Ezek. xl, 2).
France, a countrj' of Europe, having an area of 209.428 square miles, and in 1866 a population of 38,192,094 inhabitants.
I. Church History. — (L) From the first Establish' meni of Christiani'y until the 16th Century. — -France, or, as it was formerly called, Gaul, was among the first of the European countries in which Christian churches were founded. Roman Catholic writers tell us that the apostle Peter ordained bishops for Limoges, Tou- louse, Bordeaux, Rheims, Aries, Sens, le Mans,Vienne, Chalons, Bourges. Clermont, and Saintes. This state- ment is not historical ; but it is certain that Christian- ity was planted in many parts of Gaul at least as early as the 2d century. The first Christians in Gaul doubtless came from Asia Minor. We may as- sume as certain that the number of cliurclies was al- ready tolerably large at the time of Irenieus (q. v.).
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"who in 108 presided at three provincial synods, and seems to have established a school of catechists at L3'- ons. At tlic beyinniiiL; of the 4th century there was no province in (Jaul as to which -ire have not accounts of bishoprics, or at least of Christian churches. Of' the nations which founded new kingdoms in Gaul in the 5th century, the Burgundians were already Chris- tians when they left the southern districts of Germany, and settled between tlie rivers Saone and lihone and the Alps, before the j'car 417. Among the Franks, king Clovis (q. v.) first embraced Christianitj^, togetlier witii mOre than 3000 soldiers, after the battle of Tolbiacum, in 490. In the mean time Christianity became so gener- alh- extended in all parts of the country, in the north as well as in the south, that Church provinces began to be formed everj'where, the capital of each political province generally becoming also the seat of the me- tropolitan. The Franks, embracing the Catholic faith wliile a considerable part of Europe was still under the rule of the Arians, began , soon to be regarded as the chief Catholic nation of Europe. Through the es- tablisliment of the empire of Cliarlemagne, France seemed for a time to become only a part of the union of all the German nations, but soon after the division of the empire in 843 it recommenced its development as an independent state. King Lothaire I was obliged to liumble himself before the pope, as tlie hostile princes of his own famih' stood ready to execute the papal threats, and the Prankish bishops did not object to have the spurious decretals [see Pseudo-Decre- T.\Ls] used for the first time against Hincmar (q. v.) of Kheims, for they thought it better to obey a distant pope than a threatening metropolitan at home. But when, after the death of Lothaire I (809), Hadrian II attempted to interfere in the political and ecclesiastical controversies of France, Hincmar gave him to under- stand tiiat in France a wide distinction was made be- tween spiritual and secular power, and that the bishops of older times had had independent privileges. The emperor Charles the Bald compelled the French bish- ops to acknowledge Ansegius, archbishop of Sens, as tlie primate and papal vicar for Gaul and Geimanj'; but, under the counsel of Hincmar, they persisted in obej-ing the hoh' fatjier only as fiir as was consistent with the rights of all the metropolitans and with the laws of the Church. In general, the bishops of France, as well as the kings, resisted more energetically than any other nation the ever-growing claims of the popes, and their unceasing efibrts to establish an ab- solute sway over all bishops, synods, and kings. The Gallican Church stands forth in Church History as the prominent defender of national and episcopal rights against papal usurpations. Urban II, at the Council of Clermont (1095), excommunicated king Philip for his adulterous connection with the countess Bertrade, and, aided by the sj^mpath}- of the people, compelled him to give up his paramour. Louis IX (q. v.), though so firmly attached to the doctrines and usages of his Church that, after his death, he was de- clared a saint, confirmed the rights of the nation by the Pragmatic Sanction in 1269, the great palladium of the Gallican Church. See Gali.icanism. In op- position to pope Boniface VIII, who declared every one a heretic who did not believe that the king in tem- poral as well as in spiritual matters was subject to the pope, the three estates of France, convened in a Gen- eral Diet (1302), were unanimous in maintaining the independence of the French kingdom. The pope pro- nounced an interdict upon the whole of France, but popular opinicm effectually protested against all at- tcmjits to blend the sjjiritual witli the secular author- ity. In 1303 the king of France even succeeded in having a pope elected who took up his residence at Avignon (q. v.), and for more than a hundred years (until 1408) the papacy remained a tool '\n the hands of the French kings. The concordat which Martin V projxised to France was rejected in 1418 by the Par-