Transcript Investiture Contest

Investiture Contest
This is the struggle for supremacy between the
papacy and the secular rulers of Europe.
This controversy began in the 11th and 12th centuries
from the church reforms initiated by Henry III, which
came from his belief of there to have been a
corruption of the church, such as the acts of Simony
and Clerical marriage, and also his belief that his
authority extended to the Church clergy and the
investiture and deposition of bishops and
archbishops, even to the bishop of Rome, the Pope.
Henry III set out to stop this corruption of the church
and appointed a series of reform minded German
popes. Of these reforming popes was Pope Leo IX
(1049-1054) who campaigned vigorously against
simony and clerical marriage.
Another of these appointed popes was Hildebrand who
became Pope under the name Gregory VII (10731085). After the death of Henry III, a set of
reformers including Pope Gregory VII asserted the
“Dictatus Papae” which declared that the Roman
church was founded by God alone - that the papal
power was the sole universal power, also in this was
the “Papal Election Decree” which stated that only
cardinals could elect the pope and that only the pope
could elect cardinals.
Henry IV also insisted on his authority as ‘divinely
appointed sovereign’ and reacted to this decree of
Papal authority by sending a letter to Gregory VII a
letter in which he withdrew his imperial support of
Gregory as Pope, 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 be
damned throughout the ages.
Henry IV successfully drove Gregory from Rome and
installed an Antipope. When Gregory heard of this he
excommunicated Henry IV and declared he was no
longer emperor and absolved his subjects from the
oaths they had sworn to him. The excommunication
of the King made a deep impression both in Germany
and Italy.
After the excommunication of Henry IV, rival claimants
to the throne started to rise which prompted Henry to
try to gain his absolution from Gregory. At first he
tried this by an embassy, but when Gregory rejected
this, he went to Italy in person. Henry tried to force
the Pope to grant him absolution by doing penance
before him at Canossa.
Gregory lifted the excommunication, after this Henry IV
broke many of his promises made in Canossa, as
Henry IV proclaimed the Antipope Clement III to be
Pope which led to the excommunication of Henry IV
again. In 1081 Henry IV captured and killed Rudolf
von Rheinfeld, a rival King elected by the German
nobility and supported by Gregory after his victory at
‘Flarchheim’, this rebellion from the German
aristocracy toward the king became known as the
‘Great Saxon Revolt’.
Henry IV then invaded Rome trying to forcibly remove
Gregory VII and installing a more ‘friendly’ pope.
Henry, now in a much more powerful position than
Gregory, gained surrender from Rome and Guibert of
Ravenna was enthroned as Clement III (24 March
1084). Gregory was then forced into fleeing and did
this through his allies the Normans in southern Italy.
The Investiture Controversy continued for many decades
with each succeeding Pope wishing to diminish
imperial power by stirring up revolt in Germany. But
this controversy was concluded in the ‘Concordat of
Worms’ in which Henry IV's son, Henry V (11061125), who rebelled against the views of his father in
favor of the papacy and who had made his father
renounce the legality of his antipopes before he died ,
forged a compromise between himself and Pope
Calixtus II (1119-1124).
In the Concordat, Henry V gave up lay investiture and
the Pope conceded to the emperor the privilege of
bestowing the ‘symbols of territorial and
administrative jurisdiction’, this meant that Bishops
and abbots were to be chosen by the clergy, but the
emperor was to decide contested elections. Those
selected were to be invested first with the powers and
privileges of their office as vassal (granted by the
emperor) and then with their ecclesiastical powers
and lands (granted by church authority). This led to
Henry V back into communion and recognized as
legitimate Emperor as a result.