17) From the Death of Pope Gregory VII (25th May 1085) to the Concordat of Worms (23rd September 1122)

Gregory's successor, Victor III, spent most of his pontificate in Monte Cassino where he had been abbot before his election. Though his election took place in Rome, neither the Roman nor countess Matilda were able to secure the city for Victor.

Gregory's pontificate had been a disaster for the reformers, but a series of able successors rescued their cause, namely Pope Urban II, Pope Paschal II and Pope Calixtus II.

Urban II gradually rebuilt the authority of the 'reform papacy' and his rule saw a rehabilitation of the reformers' cause. With this reversal in the tide of events, it appeared that God was on the reformers' side. The success of the First Crusade in bringing about the liberation of Jerusalem heaped tremendous glory on the papal reform movement, even though Urban didn't quite live long enough to see this. But, the empire of the eastern Franks still continued with its series of antipopes, although their cause was now guaranteed to fail.

Urban's other contribution to the rehabilitation of the papacy's position was to redefine what was at stake in the conflict with the empire. He re-focused the debate on the issue of 'investiture', a practice Gregory VII had banned. He renewed this prohibition at numerous synods, but this was probably just to direct attention away from other problems that were occuring.

Later, Urban went further, this time forbidding clerics of all kinds from making acts of homage to laymen. He argued that the hands of priests that create God in the rite of Eucharist, are descrated when they are enclosed in hands which are soiled by sex and the shedding of blood. He allowed the issue of who was the supreme authority of Christendom (king of Germany or pope) to slip into the background.

Even though Urban had rebuilt the authority and credibility of the reform papacy, the workable settlement was left to his successor, Paschal II, and Henry IV's successor, Henry V in Germany. Henry tried to negotiate a deal with Paschal between 1109 and 1111. He was willing to make concessions for his coronation at the hands of Paschal, who people saw as the true heir of St Peter due to the success of the crusade. He allowed a tract to be published in c.1109 which signalled his willingness to give up the granting of the ring in the act of investiture, but not of the staff. Kings had to have some say in the appointment of bishops, and Henry seems to have been as insistent as his father that he should have access to all the proper tools required for investiture, especially the staff.

In early 1111, Paschal gave Henry the radical proposal that, if Henry renounced any further participation in the investiture of spiritual leaders, then the pope would pledge under threat of excommunication that his bishops would no longer try to control the regalia. This proposal had far-reaching implications as Paschal was suggesting that the archbishops and bishops should give up their offices and rites that were the basis of their power as territorial princes. The papacy conceded though that many of the positions in the church weren't necessary or secular and were willing to give them up. Henry V accepted this scheme, but he knew it wasn't plausible as the bishops wouldn't play along. Henry seems to have been playing for time in order to get what he wanted: entry into the city and an imperial coronation at the hands of the genuine pope. The scheme invoked outrage with the bishops and their households dismayed at the prospect of an immense loss of status and power. The assembly where it was read out led to a riot.

Henry ordered his men to take the pope into custody after seeing all hope was lost at reaching a genuine agreement. He extracted a new agreement from the pope, 'the Pravilege', in which the pope granted Henry the right to invest bishops and all the other powers over the Church that were in dispute. Then, still acting under duress, the pope crowned Henry emperor. As it was under duress, the pravilege solved none of the core issues and was soon repudiated by Paschal. Eventually, the pravilege was revoked.

But, these events did reframe and clarify the issues in ways that contributed to the settlement eventually reached in 1122. Some obstacles still remained though including: the king couldn't afford to dispense with the secular services provided by the bishops, and the bishops wanted to retain their 'regalities', their secular privileges. Bishops then relied on nearness to the king to maintain their status and resources. The bishops wanted to serve both the king and the pope, but it was their hostility and mistrust that was the main obstacle.

The main problem in 1110 wasn't Henry's refusal to compromise, but the fears of the pope that the papacy would turn them into its servants. The papacy's desire to establish itself as the directing force in western Christendom was in direct opposition with the aspirations of the bishops who wanted to build up and manage their churches, and participate in royal business (they derived status, protection and wealth from serving the king). For a settlement, the bishops or the pope would have to compromise, and though a few were willing to submit to the papacy, most weren't. The papacy now had to set aside its great ambitions and focus on more gradual things for a while.

Calixtus II was a passionate supporter of the reform movement. His predecessors were all monks who had been appointed to key positions at the papal court by Gregory VII and Victor III. Calixtus was formally Archbishop Guy of Vienne and was a member of one of the most wealthy and influential families in Europe. He had served Paschal as a legate, but had also long served as the head of a great secular cathedral, so he well understood the aspirations and anxieties of the great prince-bishops of the empire.

After Paschal died, Henry V's Italian allies set up a new antipope, Gregory VIII. The cardinals in Cluny, in despair at their expulsion from Rome, decided to elect Guy of Vienne as the next pope. Calixtus opened negotiations with Henry almost immediately. But Henry, sensing the strength of his hand, was at first unwilling to make concessions. But there was a sharp change of attitude in 1121 when the princes put pressure on the king to reach a deal with the pope as part of a general effort to resolve the many issues that were tearing the empire apart.

The bishops who were driving the negotiations on Henry's behalf were determined to preserve their role as servants of the crown. So, the deal reached at Worms protected their interests without actually resolving the core issue: where ultimate authority resided in Christendom. But, since the king could still demand an oath of fealty from the bishop elect, he would remain their temporal lord and retain a decisive say in episcopal elections despite conceding the right to grant the ring and staff. But, the papacy conceded the most and they failed to detach the bishops from the emperor's service. But Henry did grant them the freedom to develop their own territorial principality.

The Concordat of Worms was an agreement that bishops should be allowed to maintain their former independence, emerging from the conflict with even more autonomy than they had before. The reformers agreed for the time being to abandon their efforts to turn the bishops into their servants. The issue of who held supreme authority over Christendom played little part in the debates surrounding the final settlement.