The Investiture Conflict

The Investiture conflict was based off of the desire that secular rulers expand their authority by allowing the church officials to be dependent upon them for their lands and religious offices. With this development underway it caused the effect of the state to increase its power but only at the expense of taking power away from the church. With this effect taking place it did not sit well with the pope nor other churches causing them to fight against it. The movement from the secular began under Otto I, who forced the current pope to crown him emperor of The Holy Roman Empire, causing the religious backlash in earnest as a result of the reforms which developed out of the monastery at Cluny. In 1073, Pope Gregory VII took office, he was against

A couple of years later Pope Gregory VII forbade any more involvement in the investiture. Along with his demand for baying the investiture involvement Gregory induced any secular leaders who tried to invest in someone with a clerical office would suffer excommunication. Henry IV, who was underneath the pressure of the church refused to accept the change leading to a rapture of ordeals. Henry at the time had to deposed the bishop of Milan and invest into someone else with the

Excommunication was sought out by Pope Gregory, this effect caused all of the oaths sworn by Henry to become meaningless. Henry was put into an unbelievable predicament, he sought out the forgiveness of Pope Gregory trying to beg to be forgiven but Pope Gregory was not too keen on the idea of that just yet. With Henry continuing to beg for forgiveness this demonstrated to the world that the religious leaders had authority over secular leaders. Henrys son, Henry V was not sufficiently satisfied with the outcome of his father’s embarrassment, he took a pope named Callistus II captive in order to force a compromise which was more sympathetic to his own political position. This was known as the Concordat of Worms, it was established so that the church had the right to elect bishops and invest them with their religious authority of the ring and staff. All of these events led to the separation of the church and state, it was the principle that government must maintain an attitude of neutrality toward religion to balance out the political powers that were