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Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 84.: The Second Privilege which Paschal II Granted to Henry V, April 12, 1111. - A Source Book for Mediaeval History. Selected Documents Illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle Age

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Collection: Primary Sources
Subject Area: History

84.: The Second Privilege which Paschal II Granted to Henry V, April 12, 1111. - Oliver J. Thatcher, A Source Book for Mediaeval History. Selected Documents Illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle Age [1905]

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A Source Book for Mediaeval History. Selected Documents Illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle Age, ed. Oliver J. Thatcher and Edgar Holmes McNeal (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1905).

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84.

The Second Privilege which Paschal II Granted to Henry V, April 12, 1111.

See introductory note to no. 83.

Paschal, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his beloved son, Henry, by the grace of God king of the Germans and emperor of the Romans, Augustus, greeting and apostolic benediction. It is the will of God that your kingdom should be closely bound to the holy Roman church. Your predecessors obtained the crown and empire of the Roman world because of their wisdom and virtue; you also have been exalted to that dignity by the will of God working through us. And so we confer upon you the prerogatives which our predecessors granted to former emperors. By this document we concede to you the right of investing the bishops and abbots of your kingdom with the ring and the staff, if their election has been conducted canonically and without simony or other illegality. After their investiture they are to be consecrated in due canonical form by their bishops. If the clergy and people elect a bishop or an abbot without first gaining your consent, he shall not be consecrated until you have invested him with his office. The right of consecrating such bishops and abbots as have received investiture from you shall belong to the archbishops and bishops of your kingdom. For your predecessors endowed the churches of their realm with so many benefices from their own lands and offices that it became necessary for them to control the elections of bishops and abbots, and to put down the popular disturbances that frequently arose in these elections.

As a result of this concession you ought to be the more zealous in the defence and in the enrichment of the church of Rome and the other churches of God. If any person, ecclesiastic or layman, shall knowingly violate this decree, he shall be accursed and deprived of his office and rank. But may God reward those who keep it, and grant that you may rule happily to his honor and glory. Amen.