INVESTITURE (Lat. inrcaliturn, from in teslire, to invest, trorn in. in er.elir, to clothe, from restig, garment : connected with Ok. h•viwrzt, heft nynai, Skt. ras, Coth. Irasjnn, 011(1., A!-:. forma, Eng. ortur). In feudal and ecclesiastical history, the act of giving corporal possession of a manor, 'alive, or benefice, acemoopanied IT a cer lain ceremonial, sueli as the delivery eof a branch, a 11011111er, or an instrument of office, more or less to signify the power or authority which it was supposed to convey. Time chief interest is in ecclesiastical investitures, and the contest arose concerning them is so interwoven with the Ilbule course of medieval history that a brief account of its nature and origin is indispen. sable to a right understanding .of many of the most important events of that period. The sys tem of feudal tenure had become so universal that it affected even the land held by ecclesiastics, :did attached to most of the higher eeclesiastical dignities., monastic as well as secular. Accord ingl•, ecclesiastics who, in virtue of the eeelesi astical office which they held, cattle into posses sion of the lands attached to such offices, were regarded as becoming by the very fact feudatory to the suzerain of these lands; and as a not un natural result, the suzerains thought themselves entitled to claim. in reference to these personages, the same rights which they enjoyed over the ot her Ionia torie: of t heir domains. .1inong these right s was that of granting solemn investiture. In the ease of bishops, abbots, and other Church digni thries, the form of investiture consisted in the delivery of a pastoral staff or erosier, and the placing of a ring upon the linger: and as these badges of office were emblematic—the Otte of Spir itual rare of S01114. the other of the espousal,. as it were, between the pastor and his church or monastery—the possession of this right by the lay princes, which they had held since the time of Charles the (:resat. be•anie in the latter part .of the eleventh century a source of disquietude to the Churelo. On the part of the suzerains it was maintained that they did not claim to grant by this rite the spiritual powers of the office. their functions being solely to grant inosse,sion of its temporalities. and of the rank thereto an. flexed. But the ('lurch party urged that the eeremonial involved the granting of spiritual powers; insonmeh that. in order to prevent the clergy from chilling to a see when vacant, it was the practice of the emperors to take possession of the crosier and ring. until it should he their own pleasure to grant investiture to their favorites. 'flue investiture strife was complicated by the rebellions of the nobles in Germany; by the strife between rival parties in the Lombard cities: IT the conflict Of parties in hone; and specifically he the question of the property of Countess Ma tilda of Tioseany. (See i\IATtritt; CtERNIANV;
IIPNRY IV.) The disfavr'.r in which the practice of investiture was held by the clergy found its most energetic expression in the person of Greg ory VII.. who, having. in the year 1074, (quieted most stringent measures for the repression of simony. pro•eeded. in 1075, to condemn, tinder exeommunical t he practice of lay investitures, as almost necessarily connected with simony. or to it. This prohibition, however. only regarded investiture in the objectionable form in which it was then practiced, or investiture of whatever form. the office had been ob tained •imoniacally. But other members of the •lergy went much further, and a pope of the some century. Urban 11. (1095), absolutely and entirely forbade, not alone lay investiture, but the taking of an oath of fealty to a lay suzerain by an ecclesiastic, even though Molding under him by the ordinary feudal tenure. The contest lasted from 1075 to 1122. In the be ginning of the twelfth century it assumed a new form, when Pope Paschal 11. actually agreed, in 1111, to surrender all the possessions which the Church had been endowed, and which alone formed the pretext of the claim to investiture on the part of the Emperor, on condition that the Emperor Henry V. give up that claim to investi ture. This, however, never had any practical effect; hut, the other subjects of contention being removed, the contest was finally adjusted by the celebrated Concordat of Worms in 1122, by the terms of which the Emperor agreed to give up the form of investiture with the ring and pastoral staff, to grant to the clergy the right of free elections, and to restore all the pos stssions of the Church of 'Rome which had been seized either by himself or by his father; while the Pope, on his part, consented that the election should be held in the presence of the Emperor or his representative; that investiture might be given by the Emperor, but only by the touch of the sceptre: and that the bishops and other Church dignitaries should faithfully discharge all the feudal duties which belonged to their fief.
For the investiture troubles in Germany, con sult: Nirlit, Die Publizistik inn Zeitaltcr Gregors (Leipzig, 1894) in England. Hamer, Kirche and Stant in England nod in der Nor mandie inn ll. and dahrhundert (Leipzig, 1899) ; for those in France: Imba•t de la Tour. Les elections episeopales dans l'Cglisr de Prance du an XIIhne sierle (Paris, 1891) ; lbach,Der Kampf zwischen Papsttum und Konig tum von Gregor his Cali.rtus H. (Frankfort, 1884).