Digital Continent Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul 2016 | Page 9

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The salvation of souls necessitated
reform. By mid-eleventh century, the conflict
over the problematic practice of investing placed
the papacy in the position of openly battling what
it had once accepted but came to perceive as a
threat to the mission and integrity of the
universal Church. The pontificate of Pope
Gregory VII was the crossroad of history where
the foundational elements of this controversy
came together and from whence they set off
toward true reform. This turning point in the
Pope Gregory VII

history of the Church inspired a colorful and

dramatic struggle with King Henry IV, the Salic ruler of the Germanic lands, which to this day
inspires debate over whether or not supreme power was the true motivation behind the conflict.
What must be understood in conjuncture with this situation is the true position of the pope and
why events unfolded as they did, lest false assumptions about his motivations and goals be made.
The beginning of the Investiture Controversy, most dramatically illustrated by the eleventh
century conflict between Pope Gregory VII and the German monarch Henry IV, was not a papal
grab for temporal power as many have formerly claimed, but in fact was the unavoidable result
of the necessary church reform movement which was interpreted as a threat to the power and
position of the Salic dynasty and its supporters.
The Development of the Relationship between Papacy and Christian Royal
Authority