THE INVESTITURE CONTEST

Four months after his accession Pope Gregory VII wrote to the powerful German prince, Rudolf of Rheinfelden, duke of Swabia and kinsman by marriage of King Henry IV, about the means

This idea was drawn from the most influential of early medieval statements of the relations of empire and papacy, the writings of Pope Gelasius I (492–6). ‘The world is chiefly governed by these two: the sacred authority of pontiffs and the royal power.’ ‘Christ … separated the offices of both powers according to their proper activities and their special dignities.’ The emperor's office is to ‘rule over the human race in dignity’; but he must ‘devoutly bow the neck to those who are placed in charge of religious matters and seek from them the means of [his] salvation’. Papacy and empire were a divinely ordained duality, governing the Christian people side by side, each with a distinct function but dependent on the other, ‘so that Christian emperors need pontiffs in order to attain eternal life and pontiffs have recourse to imperial direction in the conduct of temporal affairs’.