Pope Gregory VII & Emperor Henry IV: The Investiture Conflict
By: Gia Biello
The Investiture Conflict was a disagreement between the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor over who was allowed to appoint church officials. Pope Gregory felt entitled to appoint the church officials, as he had been raised in the church, and felt that the Emperor having the right to do so wouldn’t be fair. Emperor Henry felt that it was his right as emperor to choose bishops and other church officials. The investiture conflict began when Pope Gregory announced that the King could no longer appoint bishops. When Emperor Henry found out, he retaliated by sending a strongly worded letter to Pope Gregory saying that the Pope was in no position to make that claim. The
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At the age of 6 Henry’s father, Emperor Henry III, died. This left Henry to have power in name, but his mother, Agnes of Poitou, to be regent. Pope Victor was the advisor for Henry’s mother and helped her through the tasks of ruling. When Pope Victor died, Henry’s mother made a series of mistakes which led to a good portion of Henry’s kingdom being given to rebellious young princes. Anno, the Archbishop of Cologne, kidnapped Henry and fought to gain control of the kingdom. Seeing as Henry was so young, Anno gained control easily. At the age of 15, Henry was finally able to gain back control and sought to prove his imperial authority among anyone in power. However, Henry wasn’t aware that by doing so, he would anger Pope Gregory VII and inadvertently cause The Investiture …show more content…
This angered Henry as he had already had the right to choose the Pope taken away from him as a child; because of this Emperor Henry ignored Pope Gregory’s ruling and therefore made the Pope mad. The Pope threatened Henry with disposition. When Henry heard of this, he quickly acted by threatening the Pope with disposition in turn. Pope Gregory was furious and he excommunicated Henry, saying that he could not return unless he achieved absolution. Emperor Henry didn’t argue that time and instead made the long journey across the alps bare foot and begged for his power back. The Pope agreed to let him back in the office as Henry’s humiliation was enough for Gregory to forgive him. Henry had won back the respect of the pope, but a group of rebels weren’t happy with the way Henry was ruling. They declared Duke Rudolf of Swabia to be the new king of Germany. This resulted in Germany being thrown into civil war. During the time of war, Pope Gregory decided to remain neutral. However, later on he chose to side with Duke Rudolf and once again excommunicated Henry. This caused Henry to lose power again, and Duke Rudolf took over Germany. After struggling a bit, Henry was able to win over a very large group of people, including many Italian and German bishops, who helped him take over Germany once again and for the last time.
Assessment of the View that Henry VIII’s Wish for a Male Heir Was the Main Reason for the Break with Rome
When we look at Henry as a king we have to look in the context of
war often, for the sake of his country, but when he did he put in a
land which England was too narrow a field for his vast ambition. He aspired to be the arbiter of Europe. He threw England’s influence on the side of the Holy Roman emperor, Charles V, in the latter’s rivalry with Francis I of France. He expected thereby to enlist the emperor’s aid for his own aspirations to become pope. Wolsey maintained the kings favour until he failed to secure an annulment of Henry’s first marriage.
Now, Henry had an heir to the throne, his son Edward. As time would pass, the future king of England was getting more and more weak and sicker. Henry passed on,
Henry V is not a simple one as it has many aspects. By looking into
The war started out as a dispute over a declaration by Duke Ferdinand and escalated to a large-scale war between Catholic versus Protestant, Calvinist, and Lutheran religions. While the war began due to religious motivation, the war ultimately ended up being a political tool used to limit the Hapsburg power in Spain. France, a Catholic power, and other anti-Catholic entities throwing their support behind Gustavus Adolphus, who was a deeply religious Protestant fighting the largely Catholic Spain. This led to a division of the Holy Roman Empire and left Germany divided as Sweden, France, and the Catholic Church carved out their territories through political means to increase their own party’s
At the age of just two years old Henry was named Constable of Dover Castle, and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. When he was three years old, he was created the Duke of York. As a child Henry VIII was an all around, well mannered, respectful child. His parents were Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, and he was their second son. His siblings consisted of Arthur (1486-1502), Margaret (1489-1541), and Mary (1496-1533).
Between 1197 and 1218 the Holy Roman Empire became a medieval soap opera. The main characters were Pope Innocent III, Fredrick II, Phillip of Swabbia, and Otto IV. King Phillip of France would also play a major role along with Constance, mother of Fredrick II. The background from this period of 21 years was riveting. In 1197 Henry VI, king of Sicily, and the Holy Roman Empire died leaving his two year old son Fredrick II as king of Sicily. However Phillip of Swabbia and Otto IV would vie for the throne in the Holy Roman Empire. A double election concurred and both Otto and Phillip were elected. The two had a war which was ended in 1204 by the Pope, naming Otto the king. Yet in 1207, the kingship would change again and Phillip of Swabbia would become king. However just over a year after becoming king Phillip would be booted from the throne in 1208. Otto would take over as king of the Empire. However in 1211 Otto IV, would no longer be king of the Holy Roman Empire as he would be replaced by the young Fredrick II. Interestingly enough Fredrick II was raised by Pope Innocent III giving the pope some major power inside the Holy Roman Empire. During this time during the rule of Otto and Otto (after Phillip died in Otto’s second reign), two crusades were going on in which Otto participated in. During 1204 a crusade was brought forth by Innocent during the same time as a war over the throne was being fought. My essay is on the Holy Roman Empire between the death of Henry and the return of Fredrick II back to Germany in 1220. We will start in 1197 after Henry VI has died.
After letting the church convince him to go war something changed in henry. His mood changes because he was ready for war after the unexpected gift of tennis balls from the Dauphin. Henry stated whatever happens it’s the will of God. Yes, the childish gift from the Dauphin offends him but instead of conquering France out of anger. The Church influences him to fight with God on his side and God will lead him to victory. As Henry put all his trust in God that demonstrated another characteristic of an ideal Christian king. Regardless of what he might face, he has no fear because he knows that God is with him.
He was a human that had emotions, he experienced grief with the multiple miscarriages and deaths of his sons and the betrayals of his wife’s, Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard. Also the death of Jane Seymour, the only wife to give him a male heir, brought him into a depression. These events changed Henry’s perspective of his own self, that he was without a legal heir, his health was horrendous and he was being betrayed by those closest to him. Lipscomb describes the transformation of Henry from the popular prince to the tyrant king know today. As shown, “the last decade of his reign, Henry VIII had begun to act as a tyrant. The glittering, brilliant monarch of the accession, toppled into old age by betrayal, aggravated into irascibility and suspicion as a result of ill health and corrupted by absolute power, had become a despot”. Henry is not thought of as the good Christian, but Lipscomb writes throughout this book that Henry was very serious about his religious affiliations. Lipscomb portrays Henry VIII as, “a man of strong feeling but little emotional intelligence, willful and obstinate but also fiery and charismatic, intelligent but blinkered, attempting to rule and preserve his honor against his profound sense of duty and heavy responsibility to fulfil his divinely ordained role”. In other words he was an emotional mess that did not know what to do with his feelings, so he bottled them up and south to seek
In Medieval England the Church was all powerful. The fear of going to Hell was very real and people were told that only the Catholic Church could save your soul so that you could go to Heaven. The head of the Catholic Church was the pope based in Rome. The most important position in the church in Medieval England was the Archbishop of Canterbury and both he and the king usually worked together.
Passage Analysis - Act 5 Scene 1, lines 115-138. Shakespeare’s ‘King Henry IV Part I’ centres on a core theme: the conflict between order and disorder. Such conflict is brought to light by the use of many vehicles, including Hal’s inner conflict, the country’s political and social conflict, the conflict between the court world and the tavern world, and the conflicting moral values of characters from each of these worlds. This juxtaposition of certain values exists on many levels, and so is both a strikingly present and an underlying theme throughout the play.
Pope Urban II, just like many popes before him, was a part of the Investiture Controversy, which stemmed from a dispute between King Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII. For the duration of the 11th and 12th centuries, religious leaders like Urban faced conflict with the ruling class of Europe, and this sense of contention impacted and fueled many of Urban’s decisions, including the choice he made to so strongly encourage the Crusades. Due to the fact that there were “political forces at work… since the Crusades were also tied to the Investiture Controversy” and because Urban attempted to and succeeded at “usurp[ing] the prerogative most secular rulers had claimed traditionally to declare an enemy and muster troops for battle,” it is undeniable that he was caught up in – and winning – a political battle, which means that he must have been acting with politics in the forefront of his mind (Crawford). Furthermore, Pope Urban II used the crusades as a way of undermining the king's authority while simultaneously increasing his own – now he was the one who was calling the shots and sending the European people off to war, when usually, that job belonged to the king. Although this may seem insignificant, the pope knew that if the king could not even control his own people, he would have no power left. The pope's decision to rally the people up for a crusade was a meticulously calculated one that effectively and purposefully resulted in him becoming the most politically powerful person in Europe, when previously almost all of his power stemmed from
The Reformation, a schism that took place around the start of the 14th century, occurred due to people being fed up with the Catholic Church’s misuse and exploitation of power. The Church had run into this power through issues that occurred centuries earlier. Following a major disagreement between Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII over who had the right to appoint clergymen in the year 1075, the church and the state fell into a great power struggle. The conflict, which had tarnished the relationship between the two, was finally resolved in 1122 by Pope Calistus II and Henry V. This resolution was sealed between the church and the state by a peace agreement called the Concordat of Worms. Ultimately, however, the Concordat of Worms failed to fix the outstanding issues between the two parties. In fact, it actually brought more theoretical power to the church. As a result, the Church attempted to restructure their control of