High Middle Ages · Europe · Religion

1122

Concordat of Worms

September 23, 1122

Henry V and Pope Callixtus II, both exhausted, signed a treaty in the Rhineland cathedral town that ended fifty years of Investiture Controversy. Bishops would be elected by canons in the emperor's presence; the emperor gave up the ring and staff. Christendom's central quarrel was paused, though the deeper struggle between secular and ecclesiastical authority over the appointment of churchmen would flare up again before the century was out.