A
Discussion of Papal Authority in the High Middle Ages
The
following paper will discuss papal authority as viewed by Ivo of
Chartres and will include a discussion on the Concordat of Worms as
read in: Miller, Maureen C..Power and the holy in the age of the
investiture conflict: a brief history with documents. Boston:
Bedford/St. Martins, 2005.
Power
in Europe in the 11th
and 12th Centuries
was split between the nobility and the church in a murky power
arrangement that neither side clearly understood. In the latter half
of the 11th
century the Bishops of Rome began to accumulate more direct power
over the various sees in Western Europe placing them in direct
conflict with the presiding Emperors and Kings. The most notable of
these transgressions was with the Holy Roman Emperors of the German
States which erupted into a wider battle with both sides claiming the
right to appoint bishops and other church officials. What has been
termed ‘The Investiture Conflict’ would culminate in the
Concordat of Worms in 1122 with the Emperor Henry V coming to terms
with Pope Calixtus II.1
In the agreement the Emperor gives up all claims to investing Bishops
in his lands with symbols of spiritual power and returns all lands
and goods taken from the church by himself and his father. In return
he was granted the right to invest bishops with secular power.2
Some years previous to this Ivo of Chartres raised a few fundamental
points on the relationship between King and Church in his letter of
rejection sent to one Hugh of Lyon, an apostolic legate appointed by
the Pope. In his letter he states that papal authorities have been
asserting the power of the Bishop of Rome in ways that hinders the
church or does not improve the church at all. He further states that
it would be much easier for the local councils to vote for new
bishops themselves rather than have them appointed to their posts by
the Pope. Ivo also argues against the entire investing conflict
because he does not see the harm in a king instating a bishop as it
does not involve preforming any sacraments.3
While all these claims were made in Ivo’s Correspondence the only
one actually addressed in the Concordat is the issue of the actual
investing of bishops therefore, the issues presented by Ivo of
Chartres were, for the largest part, left unaddressed in the
Concordat of Worms.
In
Ivo’s letter to the papal legate he asserts many points. The first
and most important of these is the request not to be bound so tightly
by papal laws that, according to Ivo, are not necessarily within the
canonical laws that are exercised by the bishop of Rome. One may view
this as a sign that while the Church was united they did not yet view
the Bishop of Rome as the supreme power of the church. This is in
spite of the fact that The Dictatus papae was
written almost 30 years prior claiming more widespread authority for
the Pope.4
This neglecting of the Pope’s authority can provide the historian
with a glimpse into how the church in the High Middle Ages worked.
Judging by the fact that many German bishops during the 1070s and
1080s rejected the authority of Gregory VII and called actively for
his abdication until his death in 1085, one might say that the church
was not centrally controlled by Popes at the time.5
This is fundamental to understanding why this conflict came about in
the first place. In Ivo’s opinion the Pope was overstepping his
authority by trying to broadly increase his authority not only over
Emperors like Henry but also over bishops like Ivo. Central to the
Pope’s aims was his claiming succession from St. Peter. In the eyes
of Gregory VII this gave him the power to bar kings from heaven,
appoint bishops from afar, and create new canon law. According to Ivo
and his view on earlier church fathers, this should not be the case
but rather the see of Rome should act in reference to the writing of
predecessors instead of making up laws which benefit itself instead
of the entire church.6
The
second point made by Ivo inquires whether or not investiture by kings
is truly a problem. This almost argues for the king to appoint the
bishops otherwise, in effect, the church was saying that the kings
and emperors were not holy. This was a direct contradiction to the
populist ideas of the time as promulgated by Guibert of Nogent
shortly after the letter by Ivo. In this account kings were able to
miraculously heal their subjects with the slightest touch.7
This is powerful evidence for the social acceptability of Kings
investing bishops. If kings were holy how could you deny them that
power? At the same time Ivo states that it shouldn’t matter whether
or not kings took part because in the end the bishop was invested by
God himself. In this objection the historian may see why so many
bishops supported the German Emperor in the first place. If the King
or Emperor were seen as a holy figure in and of themselves as
suggested by the tomb of Edward II and subsequent description in
which bones of dead rulers where dispersed amongst his kingdom, the
Bishops of his territory would naturally support him as: A-he was the
one to invest them originally and B- They saw him as a way to contact
god, as with saints.8
Ivo also argues that it is the power of the local
clergy to appoint a bishop by election and that the pope should not
interfere with this right unless that power had been granted by
ancient rights of church fathers, which it had not. 9
Later, this power will be usurped by the pope as shown in the account
of a disputed election in Auxerre. In other words the power of the
popes is almost insured by the vague wording in the Concordat. Any
power not expressly denied to the pope is still open for Papal rulers
to somehow take as their own.
In
the Concordat of Worms, the king gives up his ability to invest
members of the clergy with symbols of Divine power such as the Staff
and Ring. By doing this he has now limited his power to strictly
temporal possessions and is therefore reliant on the church to
provide him with divine absolution. In return for his cessation of
investing with divine symbols Henry receives the ability to invest
church officials in a more secular way with a scepter representing
the power he is giving them over his lands. In this sense the clergy
have now separated themselves further from the nobility by retaining
more power for themselves in the form of divine investment which is
done at the cost of the Kings and Emperors. The clergy will now
solely hold the power to allow people into heaven. This is seen when
Gregory VII excommunicates Henry IV, in essence barring him from
heaven as the Pope is the direct successor to St. Peter, the
Gatekeeper of Heaven.
In
addition to the Emperors not investing clergy with divine symbols,
the Concordat also states that any property that was seized by Henry
or his father was to be given back to the church.10
This is actually a major setback for the nobility because large
tracts of land that were previously granted to the nobility have
since fallen into the hands of the Church through bequeathments and
wills. This only served to strengthen the demands that the church
made on the nobility.
Adjudicating
the dispute between the church and the nobility is not an easy task
for the brightest of men at the time of The Investiture Conflict and
Ivo of Chartres is no exception. While many of his points about the
differences in opinion between the two parties is spot-on the only
actual point that is resolved in the Concordat of Worms is in regards
to investment of actual bishops and leaves unresolved the issues of
Papal authority, clergy autonomy, and the holiness of kings.
1
Miller, Maureen C. “The Agreements of Worms” Power
and the holy in the age of the investiture conflict: a brief history
with documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins,
2005. 120-121
3
Miller, Maureen C.”A Letter to the Apostolic Legate Hugh of
Lyon”Power and the holy in the age of the investiture conflict:
a brief history with documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins,
2005. pp. 115-119
4
Miller,
Maureen C.. "Pope Gregory VII, The Dictatus papae." In
Power
and the holy in the age of the investiture conflict: a brief history
with documents.
Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2005. 81.
5
Miller, Maureen C. Power and the holy in the age of the
investiture conflict: a brief history with documents. Boston:
Bedford/St. Martins, 2005. p. 105
6
Miller, Maureen C.”A Letter to the Apostolic Legate Hugh of
Lyon”Power and the holy in the age of the investiture conflict:
a brief history with documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins,
2005. pp. 115-119
7
Miller, Maureen C. “On Royal Powers” Power and the holy in
the age of the investiture conflict: a brief history with documents.
Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2005. pp. 162-163
8
Miller, Maureen C. “The Tomb of Edward II, Foreword” Power
and the holy in the age of the investiture conflict: a brief history
with documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2005. pp. 168-170
9
Miller, Maureen C.”A Letter to the Apostolic Legate Hugh of
Lyon”Power and the holy in the age of the investiture conflict:
a brief history with documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins,
2005. pp. 115-119
10
Miller, Maureen C. “The Agreements of Worms” Power and the
holy in the age of the investiture conflict: a brief history with
documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2005. pp. 120-121
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