Investiture Controversy

Myers, Philip Van Ness (1905), A medieval king investing a bishop with the symbols of office

The Investiture Controversy or Investiture Contest was a conflict between church and state in medieval Europe over the ability to install high church officials through investiture. By undercutting imperial power, the controversy led to nearly 50 years of civil war in Germany. According to historian Norman Cantor, the Investiture Controversy was "the turning-point in medieval civilization", marking the end of the Early Middle Ages with the Germanic peoples' "final and decisive" acceptance of Christianity. More importantly, it set the stage for the religious and political system of the High Middle Ages.

It began as a power struggle between Pope Gregory VII and Emperor Henry IV in 1076. There was also a brief but significant investiture struggle between Pope Paschal II and King Henry I of England from 1103 to 1107. The conflict ended in 1122, when Pope Callixtus II and Emperor Henry V agreed on the Concordat of Worms, which differentiated between the royal and spiritual powers and gave the emperors a limited role in selecting bishops. The outcome was largely a papal victory, but the Emperor still retained considerable power.

Background

In the 11th and 12th centuries, a series of popes challenged the authority of European monarchies about who had the authority to appoint ("invest") local church officials such as bishops of cities and abbots of monasteries.

After the decline of the Western Roman Empire, investiture was performed by members of the ruling nobility despite theoretically being a task of the church. Many bishops and abbots were themselves usually part of the ruling nobility. Given that most members of the European nobility practiced primogeniture, and willed their titles of nobility to the eldest surviving male heir, surplus male siblings often sought careers in the upper levels of the church hierarchy. This was particularly true where the family may have established a proprietary church or abbey on their estate. Since Otto the Great (936–72) the bishops had been princes of the empire, had secured many privileges, and had become to a great extent feudal lords over great districts of the imperial territory. The control of these great units of economic and military power was for the king a question of primary importance due to its effect on imperial authority. It was essential for a ruler or nobleman to appoint (or sell the office to) someone who would remain loyal.

Since a substantial amount of wealth and land was usually associated with the office of a bishop or abbot, the sale of church offices—a practice known as "simony"—was an important source of income for leaders among the nobility, who themselves owned the land and by charity allowed the building of churches.

Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII

The crisis began when supporters of the Gregorian Reform decided to rebel against simony by forcefully taking the power of investiture from the ruling secular power, the Holy Roman Emperor, and placing that power wholly within control of the church. The Gregorian reformers knew this would not be possible so long as the emperor maintained the ability to appoint the pope, so their first step was to forcibly gain the papacy from the control of the emperor.

When six-year-old Henry IV became King of the Germans in 1056, the reformers seized the papacy while the king was still a child. In 1059, a church council in Rome declared, with In Nomine Domini, that leaders of the nobility would have no part in the selection of popes and created the College of Cardinals as a body of electors made up entirely of church officials. Having regained control of the election of the pope, the church was now ready to tackle investiture and simony.

In 1075, Pope Gregory VII composed the Dictatus Papae. One clause asserted that the deposal of an emperor was under the sole power of the pope. It declared that the Roman church was founded by God alone – that the papal power (the auctoritas of Pope Gelasius) was the sole universal power; in particular, a council held in the Lateran Palace from 24 to 28 February the same year decreed that the pope alone could appoint or depose churchmen or move them from see to see. By this time, Henry IV was no longer a child, and he continued to appoint his own bishops. He reacted to this declaration by sending Gregory VII a letter in which he withdrew his imperial support of Gregory as pope in no uncertain terms: the letter was headed "Henry, king not through usurpation but through the holy ordination of God, to Hildebrand, at present not pope but false monk". It called for the election of a new pope. His letter ends, "I, Henry, king by the grace of God, with all of my Bishops, say to you, come down, come down!", and is often quoted with "and to be damned throughout the ages", which is a later addition.

The situation was made even more dire when Henry IV installed his chaplain, Tedald, a Milanese priest, as Bishop of Milan, when another priest of Milan, Atto, had already been chosen in Rome by the pope for candidacy. In 1076 Gregory responded by excommunicating Henry, and deposed him as German king, releasing all Christians from their oath of allegiance.

Enforcing these declarations was a different matter, but the advantage gradually came to be on the side of Gregory VII. German princes and the aristocracy were happy to hear of the king's deposition. They used religious reasons to continue the rebellion started at the First Battle of Langensalza in 1075, and for seizure of royal holdings. Aristocrats claimed local lordships over peasants and property, built forts, which had previously been outlawed, and built up localized fiefdoms to secure their autonomy from the empire.

Henry IV requests mediation from Matilda of Tuscany and abbot Hugh of Cluny

Thus, because of these combining factors, Henry IV had no choice but to back down, needing time to marshal his forces to fight the rebellion. In 1077, he traveled to Canossa in northern Italy to meet the pope and apologize in person. As penance for his sins, and echoing his own punishment of the Saxons after the First Battle of Langensalza, he wore a hair shirt and stood barefoot in the snow in what has become known as the Walk to Canossa. Gregory lifted the excommunication, but the German aristocrats, whose rebellion became known as the Great Saxon Revolt, were not as willing to give up their opportunity and elected a rival king, Rudolf von Rheinfeld. Three years later, Pope Gregory declared his support for von Rheinfeld, and excommunicated Henry IV again.

Henry IV then proclaimed Antipope Clement III to be pope and Rudolf von Rheinfeld died in 1080, effectively ending the internal revolt against Henry. In 1081, Henry invaded Rome for the first time with the intent of forcibly removing Gregory VII and installing a friendlier pope. Gregory VII called on his allies, the Normans in southern Italy, and they rescued him from the Germans in 1085. The Normans sacked Rome in the process, and when the citizens of Rome rose up against Gregory, he was forced to flee south with the Normans. He died soon thereafter.

The Investiture Controversy continued for several decades as each successive pope tried to diminish imperial power by stirring up revolt in Germany. These revolts were gradually successful. Henry IV was succeeded upon his death in 1106 by his son Emperor Henry V, who had rebelled against his father in favor of the papacy, and who had made his father renounce the legality of his antipopes before he died. Nevertheless, Henry V chose another antipope, Gregory VIII. Later, he renounced some of the rights of investiture with the Concordat of Worms, abandoned Gregory VIII, and was received back into communion and recognized as legitimate emperor as a result.

English investiture controversy (1102–07)

At the time of Henry IV's death, Henry I of England and the Gregorian papacy were also embroiled in a controversy over investiture, and its solution provided a model for the eventual solution of the issue in the empire.

William the Conqueror had accepted a papal banner and the distant blessing of Pope Alexander II upon his invasion, but had successfully rebuffed the pope's assertion after the successful outcome, that he should come to Rome and pay homage for his fief, under the general provisions of the "Donation of Constantine".

The ban on lay investiture in Dictatus Papae did not shake the loyalty of William's bishops and abbots. In the reign of Henry I, the heat of exchanges between Westminster and Rome induced Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, to give up mediating and retire to an abbey. Robert of Meulan, one of Henry's chief advisors, was excommunicated, but the threat of excommunicating the king remained unplayed. The papacy needed the support of English Henry while German Henry was still unbroken. A projected crusade also required English support.

Henry I commissioned the Archbishop of York to collect and present all the relevant traditions of anointed kingship. On this topic, the historian Norman Cantor would note: "The resulting 'Anonymous of York' treaties are a delight to students of early-medieval political theory, but they in no way typify the outlook of the Anglo-Norman monarchy, which had substituted the secure foundation of administrative and legal bureaucracy for outmoded religious ideology."

Concordat of London (1107)

According to René Metz, author of What Is Canon Law?, a concordat is a convention concluded between the Holy See and the civil power of a country to define the relationship between the Catholic Church and the state in matters in which both are concerned. The concordat is one type of an international convention. Concordats began during the First Crusade's end in 1098.

The Concordat of London (1107) suggested a compromise that was later taken up in the Concordat of Worms. In England, as in Germany, the king's chancery started to distinguish between the secular and ecclesiastical powers of the prelates. Employing this distinction, Henry gave up his right to invest his bishops and abbots while reserving the custom of requiring them to swear homage for the "temporalities" (the landed properties tied to the episcopate) directly from his hand, after the bishop had sworn homage and feudal vassalage in the commendation ceremony (commendatio), like any secular vassal. The system of vassalage was not divided among great local lords in England as it was in France, since the king was in control by right of the conquest.

Concordat of Worms (1122)

On the European mainland, after 50 years of fighting, the Concordat of Worms provided a similar but longer-lasting compromise when it was signed on September 23, 1122.

It eliminated lay investiture, while allowing secular leaders some room for unofficial but significant influence in the appointment process. While the monarchy was embroiled in the dispute with the Church, its power declined while the localized rights of lordship over peasants increased. This eventually led to:

• Increased serfdom that reduced rights for the majority
• Local taxes and levies increased, while royal coffers declined
• Localized rights of justice where courts did not have to answer to royal authority

Legacy

In the long term, the decline of imperial power would divide Germany until the 19th century. Similarly, in Italy, the investiture controversy weakened the emperor's authority and strengthened local separatists.

On the other hand, the papacy grew stronger. Marshalling for public opinion engaged lay people in religious affairs increasing lay piety, setting the stage for the Crusades and the great religious vitality of the 12th century.

However, the dispute did not end with the Concordat of Worms in 1122; future disputes between popes and Holy Roman Emperors continued until northern Italy was lost to the empire entirely. The church would Crusade against the Holy Roman Empire under Frederick II. As historian Norman Cantor put it, the controversy "shattered the early-medieval equilibrium and ended the interpenetration of ecclesia and mundus". Indeed, medieval emperors, which were "largely the creation of ecclesiastical ideals and personnel", were forced to develop a secular bureaucratic state whose essential components persisted in the Anglo-Norman monarchy.

Cultural references

Science fiction writer Poul Anderson wrote the novel The Shield of Time, depicting two alternate history scenarios - one in which the imperial power completely and utterly defeated the Papacy, and the other in which the Papacy emerged victorious with the imperial power humbled and marginalized - and both ending with a highly authoritarian and repressive twentieth century, completely devoid of democracy or civil rights. The conclusion stated by a protagonist is that the outcome in actual history - in which neither power gained a clear victory, and both continued to counter-balance each other - was the best from the point of view of human liberty.

See also

• Cluniac Reforms
• First Council of the Lateran
• Petrus Crassus

References

Bibliography

Primary sources

Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor (1076). "Henry IV.'s Answer to Gregory VII., Jan. 24, 1076". In Henderson, Ernest F. (ed.). Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages. Translated by Henderson, Ernest F. London: George Bell and Sons (published 1903). pp. 372–373. Retrieved 13 October 2017.

Pope Gregory VII (1076). "First Deposition and Banning of Henry IV. by Gregory VII., February 22, 1076". In Henderson, Ernest F. (ed.). Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages. Translated by Henderson, Ernest F. London: George Bell and Sons (published 1903). pp. 376–377. Retrieved 13 October 2017. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Slocum, Kenneth, ed. (2010). "The Investiture Controversy". Sources in Medieval Culture and History. Boston: Prentice Hall. pp. 170–175. ISBN 978-0-13-615726-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Secondary and tertiary sources

• Blumenthal, Uta-Renate (1988). The Investiture Controversy: Church and Monarchy from the Ninth to the Twelfth Century. University of Pennsylvania Press. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Cantor, Norman F. (1958). Church, Kingship, and Lay Investiture in England, 1089–1135. Princeton University Press. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
•  ———  (1993). The Civilization of the Middle Ages. HarperCollins. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Cowdrey, H. E. J. (1998). Pope Gregory VII, 1073–1085. Oxford University Press. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Floto (1891). "Gregory VII". In Schaff, Philip (ed.). Religious Encyclopedia: or Dictionary of Biblical, Historical, Doctrinal, and Practical Theology. Vol. 2 (3rd ed.). New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company. pp. 910–912. Retrieved 13 October 2017. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Fuhrmann, Horst (1986). Germany in the High Middle Ages c. 1050–1200. Translated by Reuter, Timothy. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press (published 2001). ISBN 978-0-521-31980-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Hearder, H.; Waley, D. P., eds. (1963). A Short History of Italy: From Classical Times to the Present Day. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Jolly, Karen Louise (1997). Tradition & Diversity: Christianity in a World Context to 1500. ME Sharpe. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Löffler, Klemens (1910). "Conflict of Investitures". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 8. New York: Robert Appleton Company. pp. 84–89. {{cite encyclopedia}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)

McCarthy, T. J. H. (2014). Chronicles of the Investiture Contest: Frutolf of Michelsberg and His Continuators. Manchester: Manchester Medieval Sources. ISBN 978-0-7190-8470-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Metz, René (1960). What Is Canon Law?. The Twentieth Century Encyclopedia of Catholicism. Vol. 80. Translated by Derrick, Michael. New York: Hawthorn Books. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Morrison, Karl F., ed. (1971). The Investiture Controversy: Issues, Ideas, and Results. Holt McDougal. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Rubenstein, Jay (2011). Armies of Heaven: The First Crusade and the Quest for Apocalypse. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-01929-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Tellenbach, Gerd (1993). The Western Church from the Tenth to the Early Twelfth Century. Cambridge University Press. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Thompson, James Westfall; Johnson, Edgar Nathaniel (1937). An Introduction to Medieval Europe, 300–1500. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Further reading

Primary sources

Halsall, Paul, ed. (2007). "Selected Sources: Empire and Papacy". Internet Medieval Sourcebook. New York: Fordham University. Retrieved 13 October 2017.

Henderson, Ernest F., ed. (1122). "Concordat of Worms, Sept. 23, 1122". Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages. Translated by Henderson, Ernest F. London: George Bell and Sons (published 1903). pp. 408–409. Retrieved 13 October 2017. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Pope Gregory VII (1078). "Decree of Nov. 19th, 1078, Forbidding Lay Investiture". In Henderson, Ernest F. (ed.). Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages. Translated by Henderson, Ernest F. London: George Bell and Sons (published 1903). p. 365. Retrieved 13 October 2017. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

 ———  (1080). "Second Banning and Dethronement of Henry IV., through Gregory VII., March 7th, 1080". In Henderson, Ernest F. (ed.). Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages. Translated by Henderson, Ernest F. London: George Bell and Sons (published 1903). pp. 388–391. Retrieved 13 October 2017. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

 ———  (1903). "The Dictate of the Pope". In Henderson, Ernest F. (ed.). Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages. Translated by Henderson, Ernest F. London: George Bell and Sons. pp. 366–367. Retrieved 13 October 2017. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Secondary and tertiary sources

Blumenthal, Uta-Renate (2016). "Investiture Controversy". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 13 October 2017.

"Investiture". The Columbia Encyclopedia (6th ed.). New York: Columbia University Press. 2007. Archived from the original on 21 February 2009. Retrieved 13 October 2017.

Nelson, Lynn H. "The Owl, the Cat, and the Investiture Controversy". Lectures for a Medieval Survey. On-line Reference Book for Medieval Studies. Archived from the original on 15 February 2015. Retrieved 13 October 2017.

Schroeder, H. J. (1937). "The Ninth General Council (1123)". Disciplinary Decrees of the General Councils: Text, Translation, and Commentary. St. Louis, Missouri: B. Herder Book Co. pp. 177–194. Retrieved 13 October 2017.

Van Hove, Alphonse (1910). "Canonical Investiture". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 8. New York: Robert Appleton Company. p. 84. {{cite encyclopedia}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)