The Church and the Empire: Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304Medley, D. J. (Dudley Julius)
Religion
The Church and the Empire: Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304
Medley, D. J. (Dudley Julius)
Church history -- Middle Ages, 600-1500
Henry's bold action was not altogether without reason. For some years
there had been growing up within the ranks of the advocates of reform
a moderate party which, while opposed to simony and clerical marriage,
saw in the continued and close union of Church and State an
indispensable guarantee of social order. They aimed therefore at
conserving the rights of the Crown no less than at recovering those of
the Church. This party is found especially among the French clergy.
One of its chief spokesmen, the Canonist Ivo, Bishop of Chartres, who
had suffered much for his enthusiasm for reform, insists in his
correspondence even with the Pope himself, that the prohibition passed
upon lay investiture is not among the class of matters which have been
settled by a law for ever binding, but among those which have been
enjoined or forbidden, as the case might be, for the honour or profit
of the Church, and he appropriately bids the papal legate beware lest
the Roman clergy should incur the charge of taking tithe of mint and
rue while they omit the weightier precepts of the law. Moreover, both
he and his friend Hugh of Fleury, in a treatise dealing with the
"Royal Power and Priestly Office," maintain that the King has the
power, "by the instigation of the Holy Spirit," of nominating bishops,
or at least of granting permission for their election; and that, while
the royal investiture, however made by word or act, pretends to bestow
no spiritual authority, but merely estates or other results of royal
munificence, it is for the archbishop to commit to a newly elected
prelate the cure of souls.
[Sidenote: Settlement in England.]
This distinction, repugnant as it was to the extremists, soon found
practical application. Lanfranc's successor in the See of Canterbury,
Anselm, was, like his predecessor, an Italian, transferred from
Normandy to England. He had to contend with the typical King of an
unrestrained feudalism in the person of William II. A succession of
quarrels ended in Anselm's retirement to Italy. Recalled by Henry I,
he took back with him the maxims of the reformers about investiture,
and refused to do the required homage to the new King. Henry was not
an unreasonable man, and he sent Anselm to bring about some
arrangement with the Pope. However, it was not until a rupture was
imminent that Pope Pascal was persuaded to acquiesce in an agreement
on the lines advocated by Ivo of Chartres and his party. By this
Concordat (1107) Henry I agreed to give up his claim to invest with
the ring and staff, while Archbishop Anselm allowed that the elected
bishop might do homage for his lands to the King.
[Sidenote: Pascal II (1099-1118).]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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