Gallicanism is the belief that popular civil authority—often represented by the monarch's or the state's authority—over the Catholic Church is comparable to that of the Pope.

What is meant by the term Gallicanism?

: a movement originating in France and advocating administrative independence from papal control for the Roman Catholic Church in each nation.

What is Gallicanism and why is it significant in the history of the church?

Gallicanism was the theory that the power of monarchs is independent of the power of popes, and that the church of each country should be under the joint control of the pope and the monarch. The opposite doctrine is known as Ultramontanism.