INVESTITURE, the act of investment implying the right to give possession of an office, honor, benefice or manor. In the medi mval or feudal law, it was the open delivery of a feudal or a right to lands and hereditaments, by a lord to his vassal, thus, by external proof, affording evidence of proprietorship. To use the words of Blackstone, °Investitures, in their original ruse, were probably intended to demon strate, in conquered countries, the actual posses sion of the lord, and that he did not grant a bare litigious right, but a peaceable and firm possession. At a time when writing was seldom practised, a mere oral gift, at a distance from the spot that was given, was not likely to be long or accurately retained in the memory of bystanders, who were very little interested in the grant.° For this reason investiture was performed by the presentation of some symbol to the person invested, as a branch of a tree, etc. In the primitive church, after the election of a bishop, and his consecration, the early Chris tian emperors claimed a right of confirmation. Charlemagne is said to have introduced this practice, and to have invested the newly con secrated bishop by placing a ring and crozier in his hands. Graben, indeed (Distinct. 63 cap. Adrianus), directly affirms that Pope Adrian positively conceded to the emperor the power of electing, even to the papacy, in 774; but neither Eginhard nor any other contemporary writer mentions this fact.
The custom, however, existed, nor does it appear to have been objected to or opposed during the lapse of two centuries from his reign. The disorderly state of Italy, which succeeded the death of Charlemagne, frequently interrupted the exercise of this right by the Carlovingians; but even so late as 1047, when the empire had passed to another line, Henry III received an explicit admission of his pre rogative, and repeatedly used it. The investi
ture in the lesser sees followed as a matter of course. Alexander II issued a decree against lay investiture in general, which was revived by Gregory VII (Hildebrand), who, having suc ceeded in annulling the prerogative of the em perors to nominate or confirm popes, sought to disjoin entirely the ecclesiastical from the civil rule. It was not, however, until the papacy of Calixtus II, in 1122, that the question was ter minated, as it appears, materially to the advan tage of the holy see. In France, even under the papacy of Hildebrand, the right of investiture does not appear to have been made a subject of open quarrel. In spite of the protests of the holy see, the kings exercised the power, but at length relinquished the presentation of the ring and crozier, and contented themselves with conferring investiture by a written instru ment, or orally, upon which they were left in peaceable possession of the power. But in Eng land Paschal II was engaged in a contest little less fierce than that which he maintained with the emperor. Anselm, the primate, refused to do homage to Henry I for his see. The Icing seems to have asserted an unqualified right of investiture, which the Pope, who was appealed to, as unqualifiedly denied. After a protracted struggle, and continued threats of excommuni cation, the controversy ended in England, as it did afterward in Germany, by compromise. Paschal offered to concede the objections against homage provided Henry would forego the cere mony of investiture. To this he agreed (1107).