In Our Time - The Concordat of Worms

Episode Date: December 15, 2011

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Concordat of Worms. This treaty between the papacy and the Holy Roman Empire, signed in 1122, put an end, at least for a time, to years of power struggle and bloodshed. The wrangling between the German kings and the Church over who had the ultimate authority to elect bishops, use the ceremonial symbols of office in his coronation and even choose the pope himself, was responsible for centuries of discord. The hatred between the two parties reached such a pinnacle that it resulted in the virtual destruction of Rome at the hands of the Normans in 1084.Nearly forty years later Emperor Henry V and Pope Calixtus II came to a compromise; their agreement became known as the Concordat of Worms, named after the town where they met and signed the treaty. The Concordat created a historic distinction between secular power and spiritual authority, and more clearly defined the respective powers of monarchs and the Church. Although in the short term the Concordat failed to prevent further conflict, some historians believe that it paved the way for the modern nation-state.With:Henrietta LeyserEmeritus Fellow of St Peter's College, University of OxfordKate CushingReader in Medieval History at Keele University John Gillingham Emeritus Professor of History at the London School of Economics and Political Science Producer: Natalia Fernandez.

Thanks for downloading the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com.uk, forward slash radio four. I hope you enjoy the program. Hello on to 23rd of September 1122 in a town on the west bank of the River Rhine known as Vorms, an agreement was signed between Pope Calixas II and the German Emperor, Henry V. This treaty, the Concordat of Vorms, hoped to mark the end of a long-running, bitter and bloody dispute between church and state over who had the right

to appoint bishops and even the Pope himself. This right was politically significant and it brought with it enormous wealth and power. The roots of the struggle between the two institutions lay in the Bible, in particular the verse, render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and render unto God that which is gods. The ensuing dispute saw the imprisonment of a Pope,

a king kneeling barefoot in the snow for days and the destruction of the city of Rome. And its resolution marked the arrival of a new era in the relationship between the rulers of church and state. Will me to discuss the Concordat of Worms are Henrietta Eliza, Emeritus Fellow of St. Peter's College, University of Oxford, Kate Cushing, reader in medieval history at Keel University, and John Gillingham, Emeritus Professor of History

at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Henryette, Eliza, before we get to the Concorda, there's a bit of a long run-up to the Concorda, can you give us some idea of what North and Central Europe look like in the 11th century? Well, it looks very different from today in that there are no nation-states really. There is a huge empire. This has become what we now call a German empire

since 962 when Otto the first was crowned as the successor of Charlemagne. His empire is absolutely enormous. It's made up of a number of duchies. Every single duchy is about the same size as the territory that the ruler of France had at the time under his control or indeed the ruler of England. So it's a pretty tough task.

as the Duchies in Germany, he also claims in the 11th century Burgundy and indeed northern Italy. So it's a lot of territory and it's very important for him to have control of the church because it's basically the church through which he governs. So what you're saying, we've got a German empire there and the German empire consists of a lot of Dutches and city states. How do they, how does he hold them together? Are they systems tributes? Well, he holds them together through basically his sacral power, through having taken over the title of emperor from, so to say, the Carolingians. Charlemagne was Crown Emperor in 800. Otto I at the first is Crown Emperor in 962.

He doesn't have a big bureaucracy or anything of that kind. Most of the nobility are illiterate, and he governs very much through the church and through his sacrality. He is seen as God's appointed on earth. and it's from God that he gets his power and the sacrality of his rule is emphasised even further by Otto III who is emperor in the year a thousand and this is a terrific sort of moment if you like in Europe

and Otto who is a big good friend of the Pope at the time very much sees himself as introducing a new rule of Christ on earth and he is Christ's deputy on this earth So it's a bit of a problem with the Pope in one way But let's talk Does the German emperor have the biggest army In what we can let's call it Europe What's going to mean?

Yes, he does, he does That counts as well after you He's got a very big army He's got a lot of wealth He is developing his wealth And this becomes important in the struggle really Through the Silver Mountain Saxony And one of the problems if you like

Is that we'll probably be considering Is that the power of the German kings To begin with in the 10th century is very much based in Saxony and they have control of the silver there and subsequently the dynasty moves and Saxony becomes a point of rebellion

rather than the power base of the emperor. In terms of size and powers, anything else in Europe that can begin to match the power of the German emperor? No, though of course they are always looking slightly towards the east. They are aware that there is still a Byzantine empire and one of the things they caught on and off is a relationship with the Eastern Empire

as a way of further glorifying their own status and of proving that they really have, that they really deserve this imperial title and majesty. And they are, they rule, they don't rule through the written word, as we might imagine. They rule through relics. It's one of the reasons why it's so important to have access to Italy and to Rome

is also one of the reasons why their relationship with the Eastern Empire is so important. They look, they get a relic of the true cross. They get a foot of the true cross. And they rule through this possession of a sacred relic which takes them back to the days of Christ. They are Christ's deputy on earth. So when we talk about church and state, in any modern connotation of the word, it's not... It's really anachronistic.

We talked about time when religion was political. Yes, yes, yes. Kate Cushing, at the heart of this subject, something known as the investiture controversy. Can you just tell us what that is? Essentially, at the most basic level, it is about a clash of different understandings of the nature of secular and ecclesiastical power and their relationship. I would also suggest, though, that it's very much a contest about perception. Now, in the early Middle Ages, Episcopal office, or a basial office, is at once secular and religious because of the rights and properties that the abbot or bishop supervises and administers for the king or the emperor. So as well as being a religious person is a huge landowner with a lot of wealth and has duties in that direction too? Absolutely.

This is bishops we talk about. These are bishops and also royal abbots in the German empire. Now, lay investiture is a peculiar ceremony. A bishop-elect comes before the king, swears homage to the king and is then invested with the temporal properties or rights that have been donated to his bishopric. And the king presents or invests the bishop-elect by means of the ring, the episcopal ring, and the pastoral staff. And this is a symbol of the transfer of those rights. It is clearly an important indication of the role of the king and emperor as a Christian

King involved in the life of the church. But you can see here there's a problem of perception. Now, a bishop-elect will still need to be consecrated by other bishops, but in a society where gesture and ritual are so important, it clearly looks as if the king is somehow making a priest a bishop, as if the bishopric is in his gift, which, of course, in fact, it was in practice. So there is a very murky blurring here between these separate spheres. And so we're talking not only about, because this is obviously very important to people at that time, what the religious, what the sacred nature of this is, but who gets access to all this wealth and power?

Absolutely. Which is enormous. This is an enormous problem. And it's interesting that the first real concerns about this practice of lay investiture come relatively late in the 1050s, Humberd of Silver. Candida, a former monk from La Thuringia, writes a treaties called

Three Books Against the Simonyaks. And he takes a very rigorous position. Now the Simoniacs are people who buy offices. Named after Simon in the Bible who suggested that the apostles could sell their story and he was condemned as a dreadful man and

Simone Simoniac was named after him. A lot of people thought this was corrupt just as Nipotism was corrupt. It's beyond corrupt. It's also considered a heresy. Right. What Humbert does very interestingly is he is really his interest is on condemning simony, but he's led to demand the prohibition of lay investiture because he sees that it makes, the practice makes simony and corruption inevitable among the clergy. So it's bubbling away there. We're having a long run. It's like a bowler going to the boundary before he comes up

to a wicker, but we need it for this. Now, let's go back. to Henry the 3rd and his contribution in the investment. What was significant about that? And can you give us some dates? Yes. Henry the 3rd is a very pivotal figure in this, ironically. When his father, Conrad II, dies in 1039, Henry has been king or associated king already for 10 years. Now, Henry the 3rd clearly aspires to and symbolizes a theocratic style of rule.

He sees his role as the representative of God on earth in both secular and ecclesiastical affairs. And we can see Henry III taking a very, very keen interest in regulating, in appointing and supervising his bishops. So the argument is coming to a head again. It debs and flows, doesn't it? And this is a flow. They're at each other again.

Absolutely. But what happens here, what Henry III does is he extends this to the papacy. Right. In 1046, Henry makes his... his first Italian expedition, both from political motives. He wants to be crowned emperor and also to make connections with reformers. Now, there has been some problems in the papacy, and there were sort of three rival claimants.

When Henry, the recognized Pope Gregory the 6th, meets with Henry on his way south to Rome, and Henry III receives him with all due honor. The problem is that rumors reach. him that the Pope may have entered the papal office through Simony. Henry III summons all three popes to a synod at Sutry in 1046. He

deposes all three, and three days later, his own candidate, the Bishop of Bamberg, is elevated as Pope. So there's no messing, really, is there? To get rid of three popes at a blow. Right, John Gillingham, let's move on a bit, to Henry the 4th

and Pope Gregory the 7th. What is the... Pope Gregory the 7 was known as the Holy Satan As I understand it, he was a powerfully bent on some sorts of reformed. Henry IV was an extremely determined German emperor. What happened there? Well, I think we have to begin with a contrast between those two men

whose clash was going to dominate the later 11th century as perceived throughout Christendom. And perhaps the most important thing there is the fact that Henry IV was king because he was his father's son, and he'd been king since he was a very small boy. Gregory, by contrast, became Pope because for previous 25 years or so, he had been an influential, indeed many people said, a dominating figure in the politics of Rome and the church.

Henry was there simply because of heredity and the accident of birth. Gregory was there because he was a man of great talent, great amphibus. of huge determination. Tremendous contrast between the two men as leaders of their own societies. Similar, though I think, in the sense that both were utterly determined. Henry IV was determined to hold on to his ancestral rights as the king and hopefully emperor. Gregory determined to bring about a revolution in the relationship between empire and papacy, and neither would admit defeat,

even though it seemed to really were all contemporaries that towards the end of their life both had been defeated, both died, fighting to the last, determined grimly to go on and on. Before they die, let's talk about them a little more. What did Gregory want to do that was so radical, Pope Gregory? Well, in the context of a programme of reforming the church and churchmen, of making

churchmen give up, sex and money, as it were, in purifying churchmen. Because chastity wasn't enjoined at that time, it was preferred, but he wanted to make it it come up. You could certainly put it like that. He was much, much more hardline on the notion that

the priests should be celibate. Do away with their wives, their mistresses, things which, on the whole, they had, many of them had taken for granted, and people hadn't made a big fuss about. But in the generation of Gregory, this issue became extremely important

and went together with the notion... May I interrupt? Was this theologically based on Gregory's part? Or was it another power play of his? I don't think it's possible to answer that. I mean, I think that it was a dominating thought within the mind of Gregory and many of his contemporaries. And in order to bring it about,

it was necessary. They felt it necessary to insist that as Pope, Gregory and one or two of his predecessors, had a great deal of authority over other churchmen in particular. That was disconcerting enough for the other churchmen. Bishops were used to being considered figures of great moment and authority, and when the Pope starts ordering them around in order to make them celibate or their priest celibate, they didn't much like it. When we see most graphically religion and politics, One example is happening all the time. Senator said it in her opening remarks is when it comes to the election of the Bishop of Milan,

and that's the beginning of a stout clash, isn't it? Yes, well, as Henry IV and... As Henry VIII said, Henry VIII was having trouble with the Saxon. Saxony was now a focus of rebellion within the German Empire. He just won a great victory, which was unusual for Henry. he kept going to war and kept losing, but he won a great victory in 1075,

felt really confident and thought, now is the time to sort out the business of Italy. I am the rightful ruler of Italy. I must appoint, I must now get round to cleaning up, in my sense, the Italian church, in particular Milan. And he appoints, and therefore is willing to invest, an archbishop of Milan, Gregory immediately responds by saying,

No, this is not to be. The appointment of bishops is really a matter for the top churchmen, i.e. me. And this is a very interesting milestone along the way to the concord. I must remind our listeners is what we're going to talk about. So can you just, Henry Oter-Lyzer, can you give us some notion to sharpen the political conflict, religious political conflict, power conflict between these two and how Henry was strapped and what the Pope, what the Pope had, and had not in terms of forces?

Well, it's particularly complicated because a number of different things happen at the same time as John has said. There's this vacancy in Milan. And Milan is, well, it's on the way to Rome. And of course, although he can claim to be an emperor, he can't actually be an emperor until he's crowned. And the crowning, the coronation has to happen at Rome. So he's got to have access to Rome.

Milan itself is infirment at the moment because there is a group of very radical reformers. I mean, one of the interesting things about the reform papers is that they aren't really leading reform necessarily or not all the time. Sometimes they're being pushed by extremists and there are some extremists at Milan who really, really want to purify the church

who really, really think all the things that have been going on before to do with sex and money and whatever are terrible. And so the Pope is, finds himself sort of caught by being, if he's not careful, there are going to be people almost more radical than he is. So he wanted to get control

of the sort of revolution that's going on in Milan, which is one of the reasons why it's so important for him that it's his guy and not Henry the fourth guy who becomes bishop there. There are further problems in the south of Italy where the Normans have just turned up and the alliance that there will be between the Papacy and the Normans is very interesting and will remain interesting throughout the period we're talking about because the Normans are potentially people who will cause a lot of trouble for the Pope, but they may also be, and they prove to be.

Yeah, but they're also the Pope's allies, and the Pope ends up relying on the Normans rather than relying as he has done previously on the Emperor for protection and for an army. Not what happens next, but that is impossible. We haven't got 17 weeks to know what happens next. But what happens is one of the best known events in this story. Henry IV walked to Connoisseau, which took place in 1077.

Now that's 1077. We have to get to 11, 20, 20, and at the moment it's 919. So we have to shift on. Okay. Can you tell us about Henry the horse walk to Canossa and what that signified? Because it did become important and legendary and so. It is. It's a very important event.

After the Milan situation, Gregory writes a very sharp letter in December 1075 to the king. Henry responds by summoning a synod at Worms in January 1076. at which he commands the Pope to descend. He doesn't depose him. He tells him to step down.

The German bishops renounce their obedience to the Pope. Gregory responds by excommunicating him. I'm sorry. I don't just more. Presumably there were masses of German bishops. So when you say the German bishops, it isn't 17s right over Europe, the German bishops wherever you look.

No, but it's a large gathering of people who had formerly been supporters of the Pope because they've made an oath to the king. Some of them, you know, say that they were there and didn't participate. This is their answer. When Henry is excommunicated by Gregor the 7th, the Lenten Synod of 1076, Henry absolves everyone from their oaths of fidelity, and he denies Henry the kingship.

This is a tremendous thing. Henry had clearly overestimated the strength of his position. So he's been excommunicated. And everyone runs for cover. I mean, this is the strength of Gregory's excommunication. communication is such that the German nobles move to the papacy, the bishops come back to seek pardon from Gregory. It's worth a pause, isn't it? But the act of excommunication, he regains tremendous power.

He does. Because he has this unique authority to let them through the gates of heaven. He does. And this is a serious matter. Yes. And so we still haven't got the walk to Connoisse. But because of this, Henry is for. to agree to really anything humiliating terms.

He agrees to participate in a synod that will be presided by the Pope at Augsburg in February 1077. Then in a masterful stroke, Henry slips across the Alps to meet the Pope before he gets to Augsburg, and they meet at Canossa. And Henry, apparently, it's a very legendary story, stands as a penitent, kept waiting three days in the snow, begging the Pope to soften his heart. This is a castle of Matilda, the most richest landowner in Italy at the time, and a very powerful woman.

Yes, and she is an ardent supporter of the papacy, but also technically a vassal of the king of Henry the 4th. So quite tricky. So through the intervention of Matilda and Abbot Hugh of Clooney, Gregory is persuaded that he must receive the king back into communion. And so Gregory receives the king back into communion, but he says he does not restore. him to the kingship that the kingship still must be decided by a synod at Augsborg.

Really what happens is Gregory's face with a moral dilemma. He must absolve a penitent, but Henry IV scores a massive victory at Canossa. You wanted to come in there, John, John Gillian. Well, it was to slightly qualify the notion that merely by excommunicating someone, the Pope could, as it were, win the power play. I mean, it made a huge difference in this case, but precisely because Henry already had a great deal of trouble, not only with the Saxon nobility,

but also with the most powerful magnates in southern Germany, they were already champing at the bit, as it were, to take up arms, to risk taking up arms against Henry V. So when the Pope excommunicates this man with whom they have many, many issues, Of course, they feel let off the leash, encouraged to risk their lives and limbs, and that is what transforms excommunication.

In a vacuum wouldn't do it. It's because he's already in trouble. And so much in trouble is Henry IV, back in Germany with the princes there, that even though Gregory releases him from this excommunication and wants them to wait before, until this conference occurs in Germany, over which he will preside and decide who is going to be the next king,

they won't wait. They go ahead straight away, really, and they decide, they elect one of us, Rudolph, as the real king in Germany, they say. And that is the most decisive event in medieval German history is to determine things for many centuries to come. Perhaps we might return to that. No, I don't want to return.

Can we just tell it why it's decisive while we know what you were talking about? Well, I know what you're talking about. Why is it so decisive? It's because Henry IV was king because he was his father's son. Throughout Europe, monarchy generally means hereditary monarchy. An heir succeeds predecessor on the throne by electing someone who was not the heir on the grounds that they were better equipped,

more suitable to the task, not at all from the same family. It's a whole new foundation to a monarchy. and in effect from 1077 onwards the German monarchy becomes an elective monarchy and remains so until Napoleon's time whereas every other monarchy in Europe is a hereditary monarchy except because the papal monarchy and for some reason or other we think it's natural that Pope's papal monarchy should be elected

but we think it's natural as in our current dear royal family that it should be hereditary. So the change introduced into the monarchical system in Germany is to be very profound for Germans. Henrietta Eliza, is this a benefit to the man who succeeded Henry the 4th who was Henry the 5th.

Well, Henry The 5th... But wasn't his father Henry the 4th? Yes, indeed. So didn't this slightly qualify what you've just said, John. I'm... Well, I mean, I think John's absolutely right to point out that this is one of the many strands

of the conflict is about the nature of kingship in Germany, and Henry the 5th realises that the only way he can possibly save the salians is actually by deserting his father. And so he tricks his father. The salians is the salient dynasty, that's right. As opposed to the Saxons who would be in the base before. In the 10th century, yes.

So he thinks and he's persuaded in a way that the best chance of getting rid of Henry VIII is for him to go to his father and say, oh I'm terribly sorry, I know I've been in rebellion but really I'm a good and faithful son and they embrace and they make up and then he betrays him. But this is seen as, I mean some chronicers even think that

the whole thing is a put-up job and it is a way of preserving the Salian dynasty against this outsider Rudolph who otherwise is going to you know well actually by that time

Rudolph's dead by that time so but I mean so the whole elective business is sort of parked if you like, because there is this continuation of Henry VIII who's taken over from Henry IV. It's been established, which is the point, yeah. Now, we've got our horse now because Henry VIII was the emperor who went to the Concordat of Verms in 1122. So, briskly, what sort of emperor was he?

Well, as I say, he gets a bad press because he betrays his father. But equally he's also very careful because I think he knows what the game is. So he's very careful actually during one of the protracted negotiations with the papacy, which don't work as far as the investiture controversy is concerned, but he nevertheless gets absolution for his father, and he manages to get him reburied with considerable dignity at Chbara Cathedral.

So there is, as I said, there are so many different fights going on. So I think Henry V does what he can for imperial dignity. Fine. Now we're going to drive towards this, the concordered through the investiger controversy, John Gillingham. The Pope at the time of Henry V's coronation was Pascal II, and Henry tries to strike a deal with him over the investiger controversy, which Kate explained earlier in the programme. Can you just say what moves they made?

Well, because Henry V had managed to rescue his dynasty, the family dynasty, by portraying himself as a man, and willing to make peace with the popes, unlike his father, a man very sympathetic to the cause of church reform. It was obviously, in order to follow logically with that, he had to come to terms, negotiate with the Pope Pascal II. And the obvious occasion to do that is when he wants to be emperor, wants to get crowned in Rome.

And so in the year 1110, he marches south with a huge army, perhaps the biggest army that the German emperors ever had, thanks to a lot of money he had got from England because he had been betrothed to Matilda, the daughter of Henry I. And with all that money, he goes south with a huge army

and meets the Pope's envoys not very far out of Rome at the beginning of February 1111. And they come to an extraordinary deal. The deal is that the emperor will give up all investiture of all churches. And in return, and on the day of the emperor's coronation in St. Peter's, the Pope will order all bishops to give up their governmental rights, their counties, their rights to mint money, their rights to collect tolls,

their rights to rule provinces. What they called in the language of the time, their regalia. In other words, the bishops will be able to concentrate on pastoral duties, looking after their parishioners, their dioceses. They won't be immersed in the whole business of the secular political world. That's the deal. It's going to happen when the emperor goes into St. Peter's on the 11th of February, 12th February, to be consecrated and crowned.

It's an extraordinary deal because why should many bishops give up all these powers? and authorities, which bring them in great resources. And we don't really know why that deal was made. But it's possible that Henry V, coming to the throne, as a reform candidate, had an inner circle

of secular advisors who said, well, why not? Let's agree with the Pope, let's purify the bishops. We will make this deal. And then what happened? Kate Cushing. Well, when the agreement is publicised on the 12th of February, on Henry's coronation day, there is an uproar in St. Peter's. Inside the Basilica. The clergy, the magnets are horrified.

Henry V then refuses to sign the documents. Pascal refuses then to crown him. In the uproar, with his very large army, Henry V, seizes as many cardinals, magnets, priests, and the Pope as he can. He holds them for two months. In prison. In prison? and he wears down his resistance. And he extorts from the Pope the Treaty of Ponte Mamalow,

which is henceforth known as the Prav Legium, the Evil Agreement, in which the Pope concedes investiture with a ring and staff to the Emperor. He promises never to excommunicate him, and we are back at square one. When this news is publicized, the uproar is unbelievable, very strong ecclesiastical opposition that we're back giving the emperor

what he'd always had. And Pascal is forced to revoke the grant in 1112. And we're back at the worst state of the relationship between the papacy and the empire. But we come to Pope Calixtus II after Pascal the second, Henry Adeliza, and he finally managed,

to come to a compromise 150 and we finally managed to get the concord out of verbs. Now can you take us there please? Well by this time everybody across Europe if you like has sort of realised that this has become a row about nothing

although there are huge issues behind it all. The actual business of investiture isn't really a big deal so it's already been sorted out in England the Archbishop Anselma Henry the first have made up. In France, the

king has again made up and it's accepted that Investiture really is it's not forgiving anything sacramental. So really, why not just get on with it and accept that this is not really going to

alter relationships between the kingdom and the priesthood? It's, we can do it and it'll all be all right. In fact, of course, that is eventually what happens. But it has to be negotiated in such a way that it doesn't look as if one side or the other is climbing down. So back to the negotiating table at firms? So we're back to the negotiating table.

But it's a very grudging sort of agreement in the end. It is allegedly just for Henry V in his lifetime. And it's this way, this sort of saves the Pope's face. But I think, you know, by this time, everybody's really exhausted. Kate, do you want to comment on that? Kate Cushing before I move over to John. Yeah, it's just, I think what's interesting is that the charters are very brief, and what's extraordinary are the number of details that are not settled.

The emperor renounces investiture with the ring and staff. He is given the right in Germany to be present at Episcopal elections, or to have his representatives there. So nobody had moved much away from his choice, don't it? If he's there. He's there. If there is a contested election, he has the right to intervene. The king is able to invest candidates in Germany with the regalia,

not with the ring and staff, but with the scepter. So he's still exercising a very visual ritualistic gesture. And he can do this before, Consecration. Elsewhere in Imperial Germany and Burgundy, the transfer takes place after consecration. John Gillingham, what about the Pope? Is there a feeling that he's been roundly defeated? Among enthusiastic and hardline churchmen, he has been roundly defeated. You can certainly argue, if you wish, as many of them did, that everything which Pope Pascal had conceded to Henry V in 11 11, under extreme duress,

Calyxtus had now given... I mean being in prison. Being prison, yep. And, well, yes. You could go like you. Well, you see, Gregory the 7th would not have crumbled, held in prison.

He would have insisted that if I am martyred, it will be a victory for the church. Pascal preferred not to be martyred, talked about the damage that was being done in and around Rome, I must look after my flock, sadly against my will I will concede to the emperor everything he wanted extreme duress

Calixtus was certainly free to negotiate and he came to an arrangement which in effect said the same thing that is to say the emperor will be allowed to invest bishops through a symbolic

ceremony and in effect that will let the emperor choose his bishops which is what kings generally throughout Christendom were doing. They held that decisive influence in the selection of most bishops in most parts of Christendom.

No, I was only going to say that indeed at the Lateran Council when the Curia asked to endorse the decision, they all shout out a known placate, we don't like it, and the Pope has to say, the Pope has to say, don't worry, it's just for now, it'll be all right. That was the next year, 1123.

In 1123, yeah, when the deal is read out to all the Assembly Cardinals, they say, you are caving in, but he says it's all right, don't worry. And there's already in Rome at the same time the Archeryruch of Canterbury elect, William of Corbe, who has been elected and invested and chosen with the king being present and very much the king has counted it. So it's a very tricky situation, actually, for the Pope, in a sense. There are always more than one thing going on in this contest. He really has to stick with the agreement that he's made in 1122,

even though many of the Cardinals don't like it. Kate Cushing. Yeah, just and also, though, he's able to cement agreement, even in spite of the opposition, with this first ladder in council, with this very strong program of reform. So he's able to appease the hardliners with that they're taking church reform forward.

Henry O'Dariser, can you just take a minute or so out? Just to remind the listeners, the wealth and power involved in these deals. The bishops were massive landowners. They had great treasures. They were endowed by people who left it wealth to them in order that they were speeded up to heaven and so and so forth. So we're talking about sort of money play, aren't we?

John, John Gillard, do you want to speak about this? Well, I just wanted to draw attention to one aspect of the agreement at Forbes, the Concordat, which we haven't mentioned at all so far, which we've just focused on the control of bishops and appointment of bishops, but an very important part of the agreement was the emperor promised to help the Pope get back, control of the papal patrimony, the papal states in central Italy. That had been a recurrent warry of popes from Gregory the seventh time onwards throughout.

All these negotiations, people interested in permanent principles of the relations between church and state have focused on appointing senior prelates. But as much as anything else, the Pope's worried about their power, their control, their regalia, as they called it, in Italy. They worry about their wealth, aren't there? They're putting in. They believe that they, in order to be independent and free,

they should have huge resources in terms of wealth, control over people. They're fighting for that. And that's because the emperor also has authority, he says, and sometimes lands up with a big army in Italy, that's why the emperor and the Pope are at loggerheads in a much more violent way than, say, the Pope and the King of France or the Pope and the King of Germany and the King of France. No, just to go back right to the historical roots of the Empire and the waste,

it's basically set up, really, to protect the papacy. I mean, that's the whole deal, right with the Carolingians. In 800, Charlemagne. Yes, and even before Charlemagne, there's this guarantee that the Carolingians, when they take over from the Mera Vingians in the mid-eatly century, that they will be the Pope's allies, that they will protect him, because the Pope always has enemies,

and the Pope has no legions. And so the Pope desperately needs a secular ruler. He desperately needs a good relationship. And, you know, he looks around and he allies with the Normans, and he actually gives the ruler of Sicily enormous privileges. So there are very different deals going on with different rulers across Europe, about investiture. And about investment?

And investment, absolutely. Yes, because the Pope is always, as we've seen, it's very easy, actually, to make the Pope a prisoner. It's very easy to chase him out of Rome. It's very easy to sack Rome. So the Pope is always a worried man. And one slightly unexpected consequence of this, but a very important one for us,

is the development after the investiture controversy of polemical writing, of public polemics, and into the development of universities, Can you just refer to that case? Yes, one of the things that we see is while, throughout this, is a war of propaganda. And these treaties

are spreading across Europe. They're clearly designed mostly to preach to the converted to create bolster one's own supporters. But what's interesting is there is internal evidence that they are different authors are responding to existing treaties.

And these little books of struggle, as they're called the Libelli DeLie. are using the same authorities and trying to argue opposite sides of the cases. What we see, their significance is this increasing sophistication in the development of language of disputation that will feed into the law schools, into the emerging schools in Paris. You think people like Peter Abelard. And what's very interesting is that we know that these treaties are copied throughout the 12th century after the political battles are over,

not because of any interest in the content, but as models for how to establish a case. Come back to the Concordat itself, John Gillingham. It's been credited by Francis Fukuyama as having created a unique balance between royal power and religious tradition. Do you agree with that? No, I would say it simply confirmed

the usual traditional balance. between secular power and papal religion. It does appear to create a balance because people were, as Henry had to say, thoroughly fed up with this endless confrontation between Pope and Emperors. And so a period of peace does follow. But the 30 years or so of peace that follows

occurs because, on the one hand, the Pope and their lot won't push it to confrontation anymore. And secondly, because the emperors, follow are too weak within Germany to march into Italy in great strength. And so the root cause of the problem between these powers doesn't emerge again until Frederick Barbarossa takes over in the 1150s is strong enough and then at once you get the whole thing breaking out again with papal schism, the emperor choosing his own pope and so on. So finally, Henrietta, despite all the sounds and trumpets and agreements and imprisonments

and the sacking of Rome which you haven't about time to refer to, it didn't change much? No, not really, because it's an insoluble problem in some sense and that's so, you know, the other text that comes up again and again from the Gospels is here are two swords and the Lord says it is enough and people worry forever about quite what that means. Well, thank you very much indeed

for talking about something that didn't change much. So intriguingly for so long. Next week it's Robinson Crusoe. Yes, Robinson Crusoe. Thanks for listening. Thank you for listening to this Radio 4 podcast. If you've enjoyed it, you might like to try others like it, such as Start the Week or Thinking Aloud,

which are both available from the Radio 4 website.