History II / The Renewal of Christendom, Eleventh to Thirteenth Centuries
Practice question · Put in order

Arrange the stages of the Investiture Contest in order.

Hints
  1. The dispute begins with a change in how popes are chosen.
  2. The compromise is the last step, forty-five years after the penance.
Show the answer
  1. The cardinals take control of papal elections from the Roman nobility and the emperor
  2. Gregory VII claims in writing that a pope may depose an emperor
  3. Henry IV and Gregory declare each other deposed
  4. Henry appears as a penitent at Canossa and is absolved
  5. Decades of intermittent war follow and Gregory dies in exile
  6. A compromise divides spiritual from temporal investiture
Why

The shape is worth holding: an escalation, a dramatic scene that settled nothing, a long war, and a technical compromise that both sides could live with. The drama is at step four and the substance is at step six, which is the reverse of how the story is usually told.

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