Topic > Investiture Clash: King Henry IV - 961

Since the beginning of the Christian church, there have been multiple clashes over what powers go to the state and what powers go to the church. One of the most important controversies was in the late 11th century over which party could appoint bishops and other ecclesiastics, otherwise known as investiture. The church and Pope Gregory VII believed they had the right to exclusively choose churchmen because they believed the church and the pope were omnipotent. Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor, however wanted this power to protect the state. When Henry IV became emperor he was young, which gave Pope Gregory the opportunity to take advantage of Henry and change the church. As Henry grew up knowing this, he grew tired of Gregory's intentions and always paid attention to his actions. Regarding the endowment, the state had the more convincing argument because it had good evidence while the church opposed the values ​​they stood on and ultimately abandoned their claims. The state had the better initial argument because it wanted to separate the church and state while still maintaining a say in who became bishops and the church wanted to have complete control of the state as well as the church. As much as the State would have liked to separate itself completely from the Church, they realized that the State still had to be able to support their choice of new bishops. At the time of the Investiture Controversy most bishops had great influence in civil government. Although the state wanted to separate from the church completely, the bishops would remain an influential part of the civil government regardless of whether church and state were separate because they were the nobles of the Roman Empire. The State argued that St. Ambrose “of… in the middle of the paper… the argument seemed secondary to the State's argument, but ultimately proved minor when the Church deserted the facts by resorting to exile. The State used good evidence to support its case, as well as strategized well enough to understand exactly what would be most beneficial. Although the State wanted to be completely separate from the Church, it realized that the most convenient plan would be to be almost completely separate from the Church. On the other hand, the church was too lonely and greedy to give the state any power, let alone share power with the church. Eventually the church overcame its greed and agreed to share some of the endowment power. Furthermore, by demonstrating that the state's arguments were more convincing, the state finally succeeded in being able to present the names from which the pope would choose the bishops..