Investiture Controversy Between The German King Otto I And King Henry IV

After reading Machiavelli’s The Prince and watching Shakespeare’s Henry V in class, one begins to notice similarities between the authors’ idea of what a “perfect king” should be. The patterns between the ideal ruler of Shakespeare and the ideal ruler of Machiavelli can be seen in numerous instances throughout this story. For the duration of this essay, I will compare the similarities in both pieces to give the reader a better understanding of how Shakespeare devised his view of what a “perfect king” should be.

He proclaimed a jubilee year, in which thousands of pilgrims came to Rome, leaving massive amounts of money behind. Then the papacy began to unravel; Pope Boniface VIII excommunicated Philip IV, King of France, who in turn kidnapped the Pope and held him hostage. As a result of his captivity, Pope Boniface VIII died miserably. His successor, Benedict XI, lived for only a short while, and after his death the papal election was deadlocked. The College of the Cardinals finally elected Clement V, a Frenchman, as pope. He then moved to Avignon, which was essentially in France. Seven successive popes ruled out of Avignon; their reigns lasting almost 70 years. Pope Gregory XI then moved to Rome, ending the Avignon papacy. The College of Cardinals then selected Pope Urban VI as pope, but then they regretted it and elected another pope, Pope Clement VII, who moved back to Avignon. The rival popes and their successors continued to rule separately until Pope Martin V was elected by an ecunemiel council. The events of the 14th century weakened the papacy, and some started to see its hypocrisy. The stage was set for an attack on papal power, but not merely its temporal power, as before. The spiritual authority of the Pope as the Vicar of Christ, was about to be under

How did the kings attack the church in this period? Contrast these events with ones in earlier ones in which the pope dominated rulers.

emperor would eventually go along with the election of Severinus. Up to Gregory III the Pope had to

Clovis I, son of Childeric I of the Salian Franks, unified the Frankish people under one king. He ruled from 481 CE to his death in 511. In 496, he became the first Germanic king to convert to Catholicism. Other Germanic rulers had converted to Christianity before Clovis, but the majority of them held the Arian doctrine, condemned as heresy by the Catholic Church during the Council of Nicaea in 325. This led to widespread conversion among the Frankish people of Gaul. Although labelled a model for Christian kingship by Gregory of Tours, Clovis’ conversion had less to do with newfound Christian devotion and more to do with the potential political advantages of being part of the Church.

The Success of Henry VII in Improving Royal Finances Henry VII was a political realist, he knew he needed a good financial base from which to run the country, but on a more personal note, he also saw the need to create a strong financial situation upon which to secure his reign and dynasty. As Caroline Rodgers states 'Henry was acutely aware of the importance of strong finances if he was to remain safely on the throne.' However, it has often been said of Henry, 'No man has ascended to the throne with such a lack of financial experience and resources as Henry VII.' S. B. Chrimes.

Throughout the central Middle Ages, Europe was characterized by the power struggle between the secular and the ecclesiastic. The question of rule by God or by man was one which arose with unwavering frequency among scholars, clergy, and nobility alike. The line which separated church and state was blurry at best, leading to the development of the Investiture Conflict in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and the attempts to undermine the heir to the throne in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Four men stand out among dozens in this effort to define the powers of the lay versus that of the spiritual: Emperor/kings Henry IV and John of England, and the popes who aggressively challenged their exertions of authority, Pope Gregory VII

After Carloman died in 771, Charlemagne became king of the Franks, and went to Rome and strenghten his support of the pope. Charlemagne then began military campaigns to expand the Frankish kingdom.

From The Catholic Church: Our Mission in History (white book by the window) on pages 126-128. How did the different kings of the 400s effect The Christian faith? What were the positives and negatives of each?

The negative effects of Charlemagne being crowned by the Pope was it caused a larger separation between Constantinople and the Roman Church. Popes gave European kings the title “Roman Emperor”. His new title meant that he was the Protector of All Christianity. It also gave him more powers.

"In the later eleventh century, mystically enchanted war turned into a categorical and cozy concern of the ameliorated papacy, one which was to transmute Christian states of mind and practices for an immensely colossal portion of a thousand years." The vicissitude was gone for ecclesiastical reinforcing and decontamination of the ministry including another procedure for the decision of incipient popes and assaulting indecencies, for example, administrative espousement and the purchasing and offering of religious workplaces. Pope Gregory VII was the primary impact behind ecclesiastical change. "With nervy tenaciousness, he distinguished what he accepted to be the main driver of the Church's issues the dirtying impact of the people and afterward start assaulting it with close out of control tirelessness, in what has been termed the 'Instatement Controversy'." For every one of his prospects and objective in ecclesiastical change and endeavoring to coalesce the Latin Church, when he kicked the bucket and Pope Urban II took office, the Church was powerless and defenseless. In the terminus however, Urban did instaurate ecclesiastical power probably in light of the fact that he was a "much more aptitudinal ambassador then his forebear, in his dealings with the mainstream and clerical forces of Europe." He had a more adaptable way to deal with change than Gregory and that availed him win back backing for the ecclesiastical reason. In 1095, the year prior to the First Crusade, the papacy was incrementing a plethora of its glory back. When he was requested avail by the Byzantines against the Turks the pope's preparatory replication was "to enhearten 'numerous to ensure, by taking a vow, to avail the sovereign most reliably to the extent they were capable against the agnostics'." This did little to motivate the masses, yet it had planted the

Charlemagne’s father, King Pepin (the short), officially put an end to the Merovingian line of kings to become King of the Franks, and willed that Francia be divided between both Charlemagne and his brother Carloman upon his death in 768. The divided rule was short lived, ○“Carloman had succumbed to disease after ruling two years in common with his brother, at his death Charles was unanimously elected King of the

Shakespeare’s ‘King Henry IV Part I’ centres on a core theme of the conflict between order and disorder. Such conflict is brought to light by the use of many vehicles, including Hal’s inner conflict, the country’s political and social conflict, the conflict between the court world and the tavern world, and the conflicting moral values of characters from each of these worlds. This juxtaposition of certain values exists on many levels, and so is both a strikingly present and an underlying theme throughout the play. Through characterization Shakespeare explores moral conflict, and passage three is a prime example of Falstaff’s enduring moral disorder. By this stage in the play Hal has

The Thirty Years War that spanned most of the Holy Roman Empire drawing in most of the European superpowers of the time started off as a much smaller rebellion in the Kingdom of Bohemia in the east of the Empire. The Bohemian revolt started with the Defenestration of Prague where two Catholic regents and a secretary were thrown out of a window by a group of frustrated Protestants. The regents had been placed in control of the city by the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia, Matthias to rule until his successor, Ferdinand of Styria, was elected to replace him. The Protestants were frustrated because their petitions to Matthias asking

In Henry IV, Part One Shakespeare revels in the opportunity to suggest the idiosyncracy of character through his command of a wide range of both verse and prose. As a result the play is full of rich and different character parts (Wells 141). Two in particular, Falstaff and Hotspur, hold diverse beliefs concerning the main theme of the drama, honor. In Shakespeare’s time, honor was defined as the special virtues which distinguish those of the nobility in the exercise of their vocation–gallantry in combat with a worthy foe, adherence to the accepted code of arms, and individual loyalty to friends, family, and comrades in arms (Prior 14). Throughout the play, honor plays an important role in