Digital Continent Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul 2016 | Page 71

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investiture as a means to appoint those who paid for their ecclesiastic offices. During the papal
synod of 1073, before Hildebrand became pope, a handful of the king’s counsellors were
excommunicated as those responsible for such simoniacal practices. Henry’s later letter gave the
new pope no cause for concern and instead fueled his optimism about carrying out reform.
However, the king’s amicable tone was inspired by the threat of the Saxon rebellion and
inaugurated a pattern of behavior whereby he would avoid crises by means of supplication.136
The pope was eager to mend any possible rift between the monarchy and the Church
early during his pontificate and did not, at that time, blame the king for the strain. However,
Henry’s contact with his excommunicated advisers were a thorn in the side of the pope. In his
letters to the king he continued to refer to Henry in complimentary fashion as the future Holy
Roman Emperor and remained optimistic. By the following spring, Henry’s excommunicated
advisers had been absolved and the hopeful Gregory VII recognized the tradition of the German
monarchy to invest the bishops with their dioceses but proceeded with caution concerning
consecrations.137
It was the royal investiture of several northern Italian bishops that set off the almost
immediate struggle between king and pope and questioned the nature of a proper relationships
between secular and priestly power. Henry insisted upon his traditional right to appoint the
archbishop of Milan and also appointed men who were strangers to the pope as prelates to the

136

Robinson, The Papacy: 1073-1198, 399-400.

137

Blumenthal, The Investiture Controversy, 114.