Medieval Christianity: The Investiture Controversy

The conflict, also known as Gregorian reform, was only one symptom of a broad movement for religious reform and a renewal of popular piety. "The Investiture Controversy" traces the central issues in the reform movement from its early roots through the different movements within the church, the open struggle between Gregory VII and Henry IV of Germany, and the agreement of Worms in 1123. Blumenthal presents the set ideals, in their contemporary political, social, and cultural context, that effected the radical transformation of 11th-century European society. Subdivided and annotated bibliographies at the end of each chapter provide an introduction to the extensive historiography pertaining to the various topics addressed in the text. "The Investiture Controversy" will be a valuable resource for scholars and students of medieval and church history. A new volume in the Middle Ages Series.

The monastic reform movements in France and Germany in the tenth and early eleventh centuries revived the study of Church law and from 1049 on, a series of German Popes began to apply the moral and legal principles of these movements to the clergy at large. Two particular abuses were the marriage or concubinage of clergy (Nicolaitism) and simony, the purchase of Church offices or sacraments by money or by illicit obligations. To uproot these practices and restore cononical order, the reformer popes forbade lay investiture, which had long been a practice; this allowed lay magnates to install newly elected prelates to secular rights and possessions of their churches. This turned into the right to invest into the power to appoint, which subverted the process of canonical election, and sold the offics to the highest bidder to those who could be counted on for fiscal or political support. This controversy, which was very complex and involved, raged, until settled in 1122 with the Concordat of Worms. (Information from the Introduction.)

The late eleventh century witnessed the first major conflict between the Church and the secular power in Western Europe. For centuries churchmen and kings had enjoyed a relationship of harmonious co-operation, kings protecting the persons and property of the clergy, churchmen conferring legitimacy on royal government. In the 1070's, to the bewilderment of many contemporaries, churchmen began to preach rebellion against royal government, and the Salian king of Germany and Italy, the most powerful ruler of the West, sought to depose the Pope and punish churchmen who opposed royal control over the Church. The subsequent conflict over lay investiture inspired the first pamphlet war of the Middle Ages, the ideas of which continued continued to be influential until the Reformation (when many of the eleventh-century polemics were printed by opponents and supporters of the Papacy). This war of ideas is the subject of this book. Dr. Robinson examines the political thought of the late eleventh century as revealed in the polemics composed in the imperial territories and identifies the various interests - papal, royal, episcopal, aristocratic - defend there. Problems of authorship, dating and context of the polemics are treated in the course of the study, which ranges from the "official" propaganda of Rome and the Salian imperial court to the local polemics of Saxony, Swabia, Lotharingia, Tuscany, Lombardy and the Exarchate.-Flap cover.