Placitum Regium

Placitum Regium (called also Placet, Exequatur, Lettres Patentes) is an act or instrument executed in virtue of the privilege claimed by the government in certain kingdoms to exercise a supervision over the communications of the Roman pontiff with the clergy and people of those kingdoms, and to suspend or prevent the publication of any brief, bull, or other papal instrument which may appear to contravene the laws of the kingdom, or to compromise the public interest. The early Christian emperors, it is well known, freely extended their legislation into the affairs of the church; and one constant cause of conflict between church and state in the mediæval period was the attempt on the part of the sovereigns to control the free intercourse of the pope. In the Pragmatic Sanction in France, and in the similar legislation of Spain, Portugal, Sicily, and the Low Countries during the 15th century, the claims of the state are asserted; and among the so-called 'liberties' of the later Gallican Church (q.v.) was a certain subjection to the state in this particular. But it was in the German states that the claim was most formally embodied in the constitutional law. In England the statute of Præmunire (q.v.) was an example of the same tendency.