Investiture Controversy

Uh, bishoprics were routinely bought and sold like anything else, and then when a bishop had purchased that status, he would then sell other things in order to recoup the cost, you know, selling sacraments, selling blessings, ordinations.

In the eleventh century, there was what is known as the Investiture Controversy.

If you've ever studied church history, you may have come across this.

I know that I did, but then kind of went through, uh, went into one ear and out the other because I didn't really have a reason to hang on to any of this stuff.

If King Louis VI thought Henry's diplomatic masterclass was finished, he was sorely mistaken.

Back in the year 1101, in Germany, as we know on this show, the investiture controversy was raging still.

Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV's beef with Pope Gregory VII and Countess Matilda of Canossa exploded far beyond what even Gregory assumed it would.

And Henry IV, by the turn of the century, was battling not only the shifting winds within the empire's clergy and nobility, but also Pope Pascal II and still his old nemesis, his cousin who he tortured as a young brat.

Well, the old man fell ill.

It apparently was a pretty horrible way to go as it lingered for weeks.

And on August 7th, 1106, the man who had kick-started and spurred on the investiture controversy, Henry IV, was now dead.

To give credit where it's due, Henry IV sent his royal sword to his son as reconciliation before he died, which did go a long way in smoothing over the various factions inside Germany.

Henry finally died of a broken heart.

After further strife between the representatives of the rival powers, this first stage of the great struggle known as the Investiture Contest was brought to a close in 1122 by the Concordat of Worms, which applied a reasonable remedy to the evil which Hildebrand had attempted to eradicate in so drastic a fashion.

There followed a few years of peace, and then the great house of Hohenstaufen appeared upon the scene and took up the gauge against the aggressor of the imperial rights.

End of section 1.

In Western Europe, the rule of law took a highly unique, institutionalized path that would eventually lay the foundation for modern secular legal systems.

The turning point was the Investiture Controversy of the eleventh century.

At the time, secular rulers, such as Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV, claimed the right to appoint bishops and the pope.

Pope Gregory VII launched a massive reform movement asserting the spiritual independence of the Catholic Church from secular authority.

When Urban became pope in ten eighty-eight, he inherited a fight that had nearly destroyed his predecessors.

The popes of his generation were locked in a bitter struggle with the Holy Roman Emperor, the most powerful ruler in the West, over a simple but explosive question: who had the right to appoint bishops—the pope or the emperor? This quarrel, which historians call the Investiture Controversy, had grown so vicious that the emperor had once driven the pope out of Rome and set up a rival pope of his own.

For a time, Urban could not even safely live in his own city.

He governed a divided, embattled Church from the road, moving through Italy and France, building alliances, looking for some way to restore the authority and the prestige of his office.

So the odd one out here is the Latin West, because I mean, as you just mentioned, there is, there are tensions, right? There are big tensions here.

Um, in particular in the 11th century, there's a, a big clash between rulers and popes, which your listeners may, may have heard of, right? This is the so-called Investiture Controversy between Henry IV, the Emperor, and Gregory VII.

There's always a strand in Christianity which is suspicious of political authority and the secular world.

I mean, that is actually kind of what monasticism's all about, right? That's what monks, that's what, that, that, that's what monks do.