The Church was so entirely enmeshed in the feudal notions of the age
that at first it was not very clear to the reformers where it would be
most effective to begin in the process or cutting her free. But by
this time it was seen that the real link which bound the Church to the
State was the custom by which princes took it on themselves to give to
the new bishop, in return for his oath of homage, investiture of his
office and lands by the presentation of the ring which symbolically
married him to his Church, and of the pastoral staff which committed
to him the spiritual oversight of his diocese. Probably there was not
a single prince in Western Europe who pretended to confer on the new
bishop any of his spiritual powers; but the two spheres of the
episcopal work had become inextricably confused, and in the decay of
ecclesiastical authority the lay power had treated the chief
ecclesiastics as mainly great officers of State and a special class of
feudal baron. In the eyes of the reformers the entire dealing of the
King with the bishops was an act of usurpation, nay, of sacrilege.
Ecclesiastics owed to the sovereign of the country the oath of fealty
demanded of all subjects. But for the rest, neither bishop, abbot, nor
parish priest could be a feudal vassal. The land which any
ecclesiastic held by virtue of his office had been given to the
Church; the utmost claim that any layman could make regarding it was
to a right or rather duty of protection. If the Church was to be
restored to freedom, investiture with ring and staff, and the control
of the lands during vacancy of an ecclesiastical office must all be
claimed back for the Church herself. The oath of homage would then
naturally disappear, and there would no longer be that confusion of
spheres which had resulted in the laicisation and the degradation of
the Church.

[Sidenote: Henry IV and the German clergy.]