Investiture Controversy

Investiture Controversy, conflict during the late 11th and the early 12th century involving the monarchies of what would later be called the Holy Roman Empire (the union of Germany, Burgundy, and much of Italy; see Researcher’s Note), France, and England on the one hand and the revitalized papacy on the other. At issue was the customary prerogative of rulers to invest and install bishops and abbots with the symbols of their office. The controversy began about 1078 and was concluded by the Concordat of Worms in 1122.

Background

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century ad, significant changes took place within the churches of the Germanic successor states, which generally ceased to look to the pope in Rome or to ecumenical councils for guidance. Instead, nobles and, especially, anointed kings assumed numerous Christian duties, including the protection and foundation of churches and abbeys, which they had often built and endowed. Although the canon law declaring that bishops were to be elected by the clergy and people of their future diocese was never abrogated, it was ignored. Bishops and abbots were nominated and installed by rulers in a ceremony known since the second half of the 11th century as investiture. The consecration of the newly minted bishop by his ecclesiastical superior then usually followed.

When investing a bishop, the king presented him with a crosier (staff) and, since the reign of Emperor Henry III (1039–56), with a ring, saying “receive the church.” By church was meant not only the episcopal office (spiritualia) but also the pertinent rights and properties (regalia). In return the prelate swore fealty to the ruler, an action described since the late 11th century as homage (hominium or homagium). Homage obliged the bishop or abbot to assist the ruler both spiritually and materially by fulfilling the requirements of “service to the king” (servitium regis), including the payment of fees, distribution of ecclesiastical fiefs (benefices) to royal supporters at the king’s request, hospitality, military support, and court attendance as an adviser and collaborator.

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Italy: The Investiture Controversy

As early as the 10th century, the interdependence of rulers and ecclesiastics had become particularly pronounced in the Ottonian empire. The chapters of royal collegiate churches formed something of a training ground for bishops, and the kings themselves became honorary canons at the most important cathedrals of their realms. Especially favoured churchmen were even entrusted with the office of count as well as with the rights and properties pertaining to the counties they administered. Investiture was the outward symbol of their authority. The ceremony drew the bishops closer to the emperor and made them a more reliable instrument of government than the ambitious nobles who frequently revolted against the monarchy.

Events

Until the Gregorian Reform of the 11th century, these arrangements worked most often to the benefit of all concerned and were accepted by everyone, including the popes. By midcentury, however, nominations of bishops by temporal rulers, especially those for Italian dioceses, became controversial. In large part this was due to the revival of ancient canon law and the emphasis on its universal and contemporary applicability by the resurgent papacy. Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida (died 1061) sharply criticized the contemporary method of episcopal and abbatial elections in 1058, pointing out that it completely reversed the order envisioned by the Church Fathers, which involved notification of the emperor at the end of the process. Pope Gregory VII (1073–85), however, still accepted lay investiture at the start of his papacy, but his increasing estrangement from King Henry IV (1056–1105/6) over the sovereign’s refusal to obey papal commands eventually disrupted the traditional harmony between the two offices. In January 1076, at the assembly in Worms, Henry IV and the German and northern Italian bishops renounced their obedience to the pope and called on him to abdicate. As a result, Gregory deposed the king and excommunicated him and the bishops in February 1076. Despite a reconciliation in January 1077 at Canossa, where Henry appeared as a penitent sinner seeking the pope’s forgiveness, tensions continued, and Henry was deposed and excommunicated again in 1080.

Gregory VII eventually banned completely the investiture of ecclesiastics by all laymen, including kings. The prohibition was first promulgated in September 1077 in France by the papal legate Hugh of Die at the Council of Autun. At a council in Rome in November 1078 Gregory himself announced that clerics were not to accept lay investiture and extended and formalized the prohibition in March 1080. The renunciation of this customary prerogative was problematic for all rulers but especially for Henry IV. He now found himself opposed by an alliance of papal supporters and German princes bent on his removal from office. Civil war resulted, along with the princes’ election of an antiking, Rudolf of Rheinfelden, and Henry’s elevation of the antipope Clement III. Gregory was driven from Rome and died in exile in Salerno under the protection of his Norman vassal Robert Guiscard.

Settlement

The prohibition of investiture, however, was maintained and even extended under Gregory’s successors. In fact, the controversy became a struggle for supremacy between the institutions of the church (sacerdotium) and monarchy (regnum). Finally, under Pope Paschal II (1099–1118) the differentiation between the spiritual and the temporal-secular (regalia) aspects of the episcopal office, first adumbrated in the 1090s by the famous canon lawyer Bishop Ivo of Chartres, enabled the opposing parties to reach a compromise. For France, this was informally agreed upon in 1107; in the same year, King Henry I of England (1100–35) formally agreed to abandon the practice of investiture but was allowed to retain the right to homage from ecclesiastics for the temporalities (regalia) of a bishopric or abbey.

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The dramatic capture of Paschal II by King Henry V of Germany in 1111, after negotiations over investiture failed, delayed a truce for the empire. The dispute over the procedures for the election, installation, and ordination of bishops there was not effectively ended until the pontificate of Calixtus II (1119–24), when the papacy and empire reached agreement at Worms in September 1122. According to this “concordat,” which was reluctantly ratified by the first Lateran Council in 1123, Emperor Henry V renounced investiture with ring and crosier and agreed to the free election of bishops and imperial abbots. Pope Calixtus II in turn permitted these elections of German prelates to take place in the presence of the king. In this compromise ceremony, the king, using a sceptre as a symbol, would invest the prospective bishops and abbots with the temporalities of their future sees prior to their consecration. Burgundian and Italian bishops were to be invested in this manner after their consecration. In Germany the constitutional consequences of the Concordat of Worms were far-reaching. The authoritative influence of secular and ecclesiastical princes dominated the future development of the much-weakened monarchy.