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See also:INVESTITURE (See also:Late See also:Lat. investitura) , the formal See also:installation into an See also:office or See also:estate, which constituted in the See also:middle ages one of the acts that betokened the feudal relation between suzerain and See also:vassal. The suzerain, after receiving the vassal's See also:homage and See also:oath of fealty, invested him with his See also:land or office by presenting some See also:symbol, such as a clod, a banner, a See also:branch, or some other See also:object according to the See also:custom of the See also:fief. See also:Otto of See also:Freising says: " It is customary when a See also:kingdom is delivered over to any one that a See also:sword he given to represent it, and when a See also:province is transferred a See also:standard is given." As feudal customs See also:grew more stereotyped, the sword and See also:sceptre, emblematic respectively of service and military command and of judicial prerogatives, became the usual emblems of investiture of laymen. The word investiture (from vestire, to put in See also:possession) is later than the 9th See also:century; the thing itself was an outcome of feudal society.
It is in connexion with the See also: The See also:emperor See also: In time the Church came to perceive how closely lay investiture was bound up with simony. The See also:sixth See also:decree of the Lateran synod of 1059 forbade any cleric to accept Church office from a layman. In the following See also:year this decree was reaffirmed by synods held at See also:Vienne and Toulouse under the See also:presidency of a See also:legate of See also:Nicholas II. The See also:main investiture struggle with the See also:empire did not take place, however, until See also:Hildebrand became See also:Pope See also:Gregory VII. To Gregory it was intolerable that a layman, whether emperor; king or See also:baron, should invest a churchman with the emblems of spiritual office; ecclesiastical investiture should come only from ecclesiastics. To the emperor Henry IV. it was highly undesirable that the advantages and revenues accruing from lay investiture should be surrendered; it was reasonable that ecclesiastics should receive investiture of temporalities from their temporal protectors and suzerains.
Although the full See also:text of the decrees of the famous Lenten synod of 1075 has not been preserved, it is known that Gregory on that occasion denounced the See also:marriage of the See also:clergy, ex-communicated five of Henry IV.'s councillors on the ground that they had gained church offices through simony, and forbade the emperor and all laymen to See also: Urban's immediate successor, See also:Paschal II., stirred up the See also:rebellion of the emperor's son, but soon found Henry V. even more persistent in the claim of investiture than Henry IV. had been. Several attempts at refused to consecrate newly-chosen bishops who had received See also:settlement failed. In See also:February 1111 legates of Paschal II. met Henry V. at See also:Sutri and declared that the pope was ready to surrender all the temporalities that had been bestowed on the clergy since the days of Charlemagne in return for freedom of election and the abolition of lay investiture. Henry, having agreed to the proposal, entered Rorne to receive his See also:crown. The bishops and clergy who were See also:present at the See also:coronation protested against this surrender, and a tumult arising, the ceremony had to be abandoned. The king then seized pope and See also:curia and See also:left the See also:city. After two months of See also:close confinement Paschal consented to an unqualified renunciation on his See also:part of the right of investiture. In the following year, however, a Lateran council repudiated this compact as due to violence, and a synod held at Vienne with papal approval declared lay investiture to be See also:heresy and placed Henry under the See also:ban. The struggle was complicated throughout its course by See also:political and other copsiderations; there were repeated rebellions of See also:German nobles, See also:constant strife between See also:rival imperial and papal factions in the Lombard cities and at Rome, and creation of several See also:anti-popes, of whom See also:Guibert of See also:Ravenna (See also:Clement III.) and Gregory VIII. were the most important. Final settlement of the struggle was retarded, moreover, by the question of the See also:succession to the lands of the See also:great Countess See also:Matilda, who had bequeathed all her See also:property to the See also:Holy See, Henry claiming the estates as suzerain of the fiefs and as See also:heir of the allodial lands. The efforts of See also:Gelasius II. to See also:settle the strife by a general council were rendered fruitless by his death (1119). At length in 1122 the struggle was brought to an end by the See also:concordat of Worms, the provisions of which were incorporated in the eighth and ninth canons of the general Lateran council of 1123. The settlement was a See also:compromise. The emperor, on the one hand, preserved feudal See also:suzerainty over ecclesiastical benefices; but, on the other, he ceased to confer ring and crozier, and thereby not only lost the right of refusing the elect on the grounds of unworthiness, but also was deprived of an efficacious means of maintaining vacancies in ecclesiastical offices. Few efforts were made to undo the compromise. King See also:Lothair the Saxon demanded of See also:Innocent II. the renewal of lay investiture as See also:reward for See also:driving the antipope Anacletus from Rome, but the opposition of St See also:Bernard and the German prelates was so potent that the king dropped his demand, and Innocent in 1133 confirmed the concordat. In fact, the imperial control over the election of bishops in See also:Germany came later to be much curtailed in practice, partly by the tacitly changed relations between the empire and its feudatories, partly by explicit concessions wrung at various times from individual emperors, such as Otto IV. in 1209 and See also:Frederick II. in 1213; but the principles of the concordat of Worms continued theoretically to regulate the See also:tenure of bishoprics and abbacies until the See also:dissolution of the empire on 18o6. In See also:France the course of the struggle was somewhat different. As in the empire, the king and the nobles, each within his own See also:sphere of See also:influence, claimed the right of investing with ring and crozier and of exacting homage and oaths of fealty. The struggle, however, was less bitter chiefly because France was not a See also:united See also:country, and it was eventually terminated without formal treaty. The king voluntarily abandoned lay investiture and the claim to homage during the pontificate of Paschal II., but continued to interfere with elections, to appropriate the revenues of vacant benefices, and to exact an oath of fealty before admitting the elect to the enjoyment of his temporalities. Most of the great feudal lords followed the king's example, but their concessions varied considerably, and in the See also:south of France some of the bishops were still doing homage for their See also:sees until the closing years of the 13th century; but long before then the right of investing with ring and crozier had disappeared from every part of France. See also:England was the See also:scene of an investiture contest in which the See also:chief actors were Henry I. and See also:Anselm. The archbishop, in obedience to the decrees of Gregory VII. and Urban II., not only refused to perform homage to the king (I too), but also investiture from Henry. The dispute was bitter, but was carried on without any of the violence which characterized the conflict between papacy and empire; and it ended in a compromise which closely foreshadowed the provisions of the concordat of Worms and received the See also:confirmation of Paschal II. in rro6. Freedom of election, somewhat similar in See also:form to that which still exists, was formally conceded under See also:Stephen, and confirmed by See also: Benz, Die Stellung der Bischofe von See also:Meissen, See also:Merseburg and See also:Naumburg im Investiturstreite unter Heinrich IV. and Heinrich V. (See also:Dresden, 1899); W. See also:Martens, Gregor VII., sein Leben and Wirken (2 vols., Leipzig, 1894); H. See also:Fisher, The See also:Medieval Empire, c. lo (See also:London, 1898). For France, see P. Imbart de la Tour, See also:Les Elections ipiscopales dans l'iglise de France du XIe au XII' siecle (See also:Paris, 1891); A. See also:Luchaire, Histoire See also:des institutions monarchiques de la France sous les premiers Capitiens 98g—118o (2nd ed., Paris, 1891); P. See also:Viollet, Histoire des institutions politiques et administratives de la France (Paris, 1898) ; Ibach, Der Kampf zwischen Papstlum and Konigtum von Gregor VII. his Calixto II. (See also:Frankfort, 1884). For England, see J. F. See also:Bohmer, Kirche and Staat in England and in der Normandie in XI. and XII. Jahrhundert (Leipzig, 1899); E. A. See also:Freeman, The Reign of See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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