Abstract

In sharp contrast to his dealings with Germany, Pope Gregory VII never came into prolonged and open conflict with the Capetian monarchy or with any major element in the French church, whether secular or monastic. Gregory pursued his campaign against lay investiture that he subsumed in an endeavour to exclude lay control altogether from ecclesiastical appointments great and small, more resolutely in France than in any other part of Latin Christendom. Yet during and after his pontificate, no sustained ‘investiture contest’ or even ‘investiture controversy’ broke out in France. This chapter examines Gregory's objectives in France; his relationships with the French laity, lay magnates, French church and clergy; his use of legates; the extirpation of simony; the question of lay investiture; the problem of free elections; the enforcement of clerical chastity; and peace and the defence of the unprotected.

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