290 Readings in European History VII. THE FORMAL SETTLEMENT OF THE QUESTION OF INVESTITURE In the year mi, during the negotiations between Henry V and Pope Paschal II in regard to the adjust- ment of the long-standing controversy over investitures, the pope agreed for a moment that the bishops should give up all the governmental powers and privileges which they clearly owed to the emperor. The emperor would then no longer have his old excuse for meddling in the elections of the prelates. The opposition was too strong to permit so revolutionary a settlement to be carried out, but the document in which the plan is set forth gives as clear a statement as exists of the situation of the mediaeval prelate. 116. A pro- Bishop Paschal, servant of the servants of God, to his beloved son Henry and his successors forever : It is forbidden by the provisions of divine law, and inter- dicted by the holy canons, that priests should busy them- selves with secular concerns or should attend the public tribunals except to rescue the condemned or bear aid to those who are suffering wrong. Wherefore, also, the apostle Paul says, " If ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church." Nevertheless in portions of your kingdom bishops and abbots are so absorbed in secular affairs that they are obliged regularly to appear at court and to perform military service, pursuits rarely, if ever, carried on without plunder, sacrilege, or arson. Ministers of the altar are become ministers of the king's court, inasmuch as they receive cities, duchies, margravates, mints, and other things which have to do with the king's service. Hence the custom has grown up, intolerable for the Church, that bishops should not receive consecration until they have first been invested by the hand of the king.
