The Pragmatic Sanction establishes the obligation of the Pope to convene a general council of the church at least every ten years. The decisions of the Council of Basle are declared to be of perpetual force. Far from deriving its authority from the Holy See, the Œcumenical Council, it is affirmed, depends immediately upon Christ, and the Pope is no less bound than all other Christians to render due obedience to its decisions. The right of appeal from the Pope to the future council--a claim obnoxious in the last degree to the advocates of papal supremacy--is distinctly asserted. The Pope is declared incapable of appointing to any high ecclesiastical dignities, save in a few specified cases; in all others recourse is to be had to election. The pontiff's pretensions to confer minor benefices are equally rejected. No abuse is more sharply rebuked and forbidden than that of _expectatives_--a species of appointment in high favor with the papal chancery, whereby a successor to ecclesiastical dignities was nominated during the lifetime of the incumbent, and in view of his decease. The Pragmatic Sanction restricts the troublesome and costly appeals to Rome to cases of great importance, when the parties in interest reside at a distance of more than four days' journey from that city. At the same time it prescribes that no one shall be vexed by such appeals after having enjoyed actual possession of his rank for three years. Going beyond the limits of the kingdom, it enters into the constitution of the "Sacred College," and fixes the number of the cardinals at twenty-four, while placing the minimum age of candidates for the hat at thirty years. The exaction of the _annats_ is stigmatized as simony. Priests living in concubinage are to be punished by the forfeiture of one-fourth of their annual stipend. Finally the principle is sanctioned that no interdict can be made to include in its operation the innocent with the guilty.[53] So thorough a vindication of the rights of the Gallican Church had never before been undertaken. The axe was laid at the root of formidable abuses; freedom of election was restored; the kingdom was relieved of a crushing burden of tribute; foreigners were precluded from interfering with the systematic administration of the laws. The clergy, both regular and secular, received the greatest benefits, for, while they could no longer be plundered of so large a part of their incomes, their persons were protected from arbitrary arrest and hopeless exile beyond the Alps.