Concordat of Worms

On 23 September 1122, outside the walls of the German city of Worms, representatives of Pope Callixtus II and the emperor Henry V concluded a compromise over who should appoint the bishops and abbots of the Holy Roman Empire. The settlement, also called the Pactum Callixtinum, brought to a close the Investiture Controversy, half a century of conflict between popes and emperors. The philosopher Leibniz later called it the oldest concordat in German history.

From the mid-eleventh century, reformers in the Church sought to free it from control by lay rulers. Pope Gregory VII, elected in 1073, insisted that kings must not appoint clergy, a practice known as investiture. The emperor Henry IV, who routinely installed the bishops and abbots of his realm, rejected this, and the struggle outlived both men. Henry's son, Henry V, sought a settlement but failed for years. In 1111 he struck a deal with Pope Paschal II at Sutri, and when it collapsed he imprisoned the pope for two months and forced concessions from him, which Paschal disowned the next year.

Callixtus II, a Burgundian elected in 1119, reopened talks. In the autumn of that year papal envoys met Henry at Strasbourg, where he agreed in principle to give up the ceremony of handing new bishops a ring and a crosier. A planned summit at Mouzon collapsed when the pope changed his terms at short notice, and a church council at Reims excommunicated the emperor.

By 1121, however, German nobles led by Archbishop Adalbert of Mainz were pressing Henry to make peace, and many churchmen were ready to compromise. In February 1122 Callixtus wrote to the emperor in a conciliatory tone, blaming his advisers rather than Henry himself. Envoys worked out terms over the summer, with the main talks apparently held at Mainz while Henry waited at Worms.

The agreement took the form of two short charters, one issued by each side. Henry gave up investiture with ring and staff, the symbols of spiritual office, and accepted that churches throughout his lands should hold free canonical elections. He promised to restore church property seized by himself or his father. In return, Callixtus allowed elections in the German kingdom to take place in the emperor's presence, let him decide disputed elections with the advice of the bishops, and permitted him to grant each new bishop the lands and rights of his see in a separate ceremony using a sceptre. In Germany this was to happen before consecration; in Burgundy and Italy, within six months after. Much was left deliberately vague.

Many reformers felt the pope had conceded too much, and Adalbert of Mainz complained that the Church would remain as enslaved as before. When the First Lateran Council met in March 1123 to ratify the agreement, some members objected, and Callixtus told them they need not approve it, only tolerate it. The pope nonetheless presented the outcome as a victory, having the emperor's charter painted on a wall of the Lateran Palace. The original imperial charter survives in the Vatican archives.

Historians agree that the concordat ended the long struggle, though they differ on who gained most. Some argue it showed that the emperor, however powerful, had no religious authority; others note that in practice the king kept much of his influence over German bishops. Henry V died in 1125, and later emperors such as Frederick I continued to shape episcopal elections. The arrangement remained largely in force until the empire was dissolved in 1806.

Our 1100 map shows the empire and the Papal States in the years of the dispute.