INVESTITURE, the formal installation into an office or estate, which constituted in the middle ages one of the acts that betokened the feudal relation between suzerain and vassal. The suzerain, after receiving the vassal's homage and oath of fealty, invested him with his land or office by presenting some symbol, such as a clod, a banner, a branch, or some other object according to the custom of the fief. The sword and sceptre, emblematic respectively of service and military command and of judicial pre rogatives, became the usual emblems of investiture of laymen. The word investiture is later than the 9th century; the thing itself was an outcome of feudal society.
It is in connection with the Church that investiture has its greatest historical interest. The Church quite naturally shared in feudal land-holding; in addition to the tithes she possessed immense estates which had been given her by the faithful from early times, and for the defence of which she resorted to secular means. The bishops and abbots, by confiding their domains to laymen on condition of assistance with the sword in case of need, became temporal lords and suzerains with vassals to fight for them, with courts of justice, and in short with all the rights and privileges exercised by lay lords.
Investiture of ecclesiastics by laymen had certain serious effects which were bound to bring on a conflict between the temporal and spiritual authorities. In the first place the lay authorities often rendered elections uncanonical by interfering in behalf of some favourite, thereby impairing the freedom of the electors. Again, benefices were kept vacant for long periods in order to ensure to the lord as long as possible the exercise of his regalian rights. And, finally, control by temporal princes of investiture, and indirectly of election, greatly increased simony. The main investiture struggle with the empire took place when Hildebrand became Pope Gregory VII. (q.v.). To Gregory it seemed intoler able that a layman should invest a churchman with the symbols of office. To the emperor Henry IV. it was highly undesirable that the advantages and revenues accruing from lay investiture should be surrendered ; it was reasonable that ecclesiastics should receive investiture of temporalities from their temporal protectors and suzerains. Although the full text of the decrees of the famous Lenten synod of 1075 has not been preserved, it is known that Gregory on that occasion denounced the marriage of the clergy, ex communicated five of Henry IV.'s councillors on the ground that they had gained church offices through simony, and forbade the emperor and all laymen to grant investiture of bishopric or inferior dignity. The struggle was complicated throughout its course by political and other considerations; there were repeated rebellions of German nobles, constant strife between rival imperial and papal factions in the Lombard cities and at Rome, and creation of sev eral anti-popes, of whom Guibert of Ravenna (Clement III.) and Gregory VIII. were the most important. Final settlement of the struggle was retarded, moreover, by the question of the succession to the lands of the great Countess Matilda, who had bequeathed all her property to the Holy See, Henry claiming the estates as suzerain of the fiefs and as heir of the allodial lands. The efforts of Gelasius II. to settle the strife by a general council were rendered fruitless by his death (I 19). At length in 1122 the struggle was brought to an end by the concordat of Worms, the provisions of which were incorporated in the eighth and ninth canons of the general Lateran council of 1123.
In France the course of the struggle was somewhat different. As in the empire, the king and the nobles, each within his own sphere of influence, claimed the right of investing with ring and crozier and of exacting homage and oaths of fealty. The
struggle, however, was less bitter chiefly because France was not a united country, and it was eventually terminated without formal treaty. The king voluntarily abandoned lay investiture and the claim to homage during the pontificate of Paschal II., but continued to interfere with elections, to appropriate the revenues of vacant benefices, and to exact an oath of fealty before admitting the elect to the enjoyment of his tempo ralities. Most of the great feudal lords followed the king's example, but their concessions varied considerably, and in the south of France some of the bishops were still doing homage for their sees until the closing years of the 13th century; but long before then the right of investing with ring and crozier had disappeared from every part of France.
England was the scene of an investiture contest in which the chief actors were Henry I. and Anselm. The archbishop, in obedience to the decrees of Gregory VII. and Urban II., not only refused to perform homage to the king (I ioo), but also refused to consecrate newly-chosen bishops who had received investiture from Henry. The dispute was bitter, but was carried on without any of the violence which characterized the conflict between papacy and empire; and it ended in a compromise which closely foreshadowed the provisions of the concordat of Worms and received the confirmation of Paschal II. in 1106. Freedom of election, somewhat similar in form to that which still exists, was formally conceded under Stephen, and confirmed by John in Magna Carta.
Many documents relating to the investiture struggle have been edited by E. Diimmler in Monumenta Germaniae historica, Libelli de lite imperatorum et pontificum saeculis xi. et xii. (3 vols., 1891-1897). See Ducange, Glossarium, s.v. "Investitura." On investiture in the empire consult C. Mirbt, Die Publizistik im Zeitalter Gregors VII. (Leipzig, 1894) ; E. Bernheim, Das Wormser Konkordat (Breslau, 1906), and Quellen zur Geschichte des Investitur streites (2 vols., 1907) ; R. Boerger, Die Belehnungen der deutschen geistlichen Fiirsten (Leipzig, 1901) ; K. E. Benz, Die Stellung der Bischofe von Meissen, Merseburg und Naumburg im Investiturstreite unter Heinrich IV. und Heinrich V. (Dresden, 1899) ; H. Feierabend, Die politische Stellung der deutschen Reichsabteien wahrend des Investiturstreites (1913) ; W. Martens, Gregor VII., sein Leben und Wirken (2 vols., Leipzig, 1894) ; H. Fisher, The Medieval Empire, c. 10 (London, 1898). B. Schmeidler, Kaiser Heinrich IV. und seine Helfer im Investiturstreit (1927) ; W. Schum, "Kaiser Heinrich V. und Papst Paschalis II. im Jahre 1112 ; Eine Beitrage zur Geschichte des Investitur-Streites," Preussische Akad. gemeinniitziger Wissen schaften zu Erfurt. Jahrb. (1877). For France, see P. Imbart de la Tour, Les Elections episcopates dens l'eglise de France du XIe au siecle (1891) ; A. Luchaire, Histoire des institutions monarchiques de la France sows les premiers Capitiens 987-5280 (2nd ed., 1891) ; P. Viollet, Histoire des institutions politiques et administratives de la France (1898) ; Ibach, Der Kampf zwischen Papsttum und Konigtum von Gregor VII. bis Calixto I!. (Frankfort, 1884) ; A. Dantzer, "La querelle des investitures dans les eveches de Metz, Toul et Verdun de 1075 au Concordat de Worms, 1122," Annales de l'Est annee 6 (1902). For England, see J. F. Bohmer, Kirche und Staat in England und in der Normandie im XI. und XII. Jahrhundert (Leipzig, 1899) ; E. A. Freeman, The Reign of William II. Rufus and the Accession of Henry I. (1882) ; H. W. C. Davis, England under the Normans and Angevins (19o5) ; T. Klemm, Der Englische Investiturstreit unter Heinrich I. (188o) ; M. Schmitz, Der Englische Investiturstreit (1884).