PASCHAL II, Pope. - A native of Pieda in Romagna, Raniero entered among the Cluniac monks, exercised the functions of abbot at St. Paul Outside the Walls, was elected cardinal under the pontificate of Gregory VII and was legate in Castile under Urban II. Elected pope on 13 Aug. 1099, he was consecrated the following day.
The death of the antipope Clement III (8 Sept. 1100) did not free him from all anxiety; but the two pseudo-pontiffs, who were set up against him by the partisans of the deceased, had an ephemeral existence. The events of the famous investiture struggle, on the other hand, took a tragic turn.
P. II, having fixed his line of conduct on that of his predecessors Gregory VII and Urban II, took a clear and definite position against those sovereigns who claimed to give investiture to bishops before their consecration and proscribed this practice under severe penalties in the Councils of the Lateran (1102) and of Guastalla (1106: cf. Mansi, XX, coll. 1147 and 1209). Henry I, king of England, was unwilling to renounce the prerogatives of the Crown, sanctioned by custom, and exiled Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, who refused to recognize their validity (1103). For his part the Pope excommunicated (1105) those among his courtiers who had induced him to resist and the bishops guilty of having allowed themselves to be invested before their consecration. The two antagonists finally yielded to the prudent and pacifying counsels offered by Ivo of Chartres and Hugh of Fleury and concluded a compromise, according to which the king of England could require from the elected bishops an oath of vassalage consequent upon the fiefs they held from the Crown, but would renounce investiture by means of the pastoral staff and the ring (1107; Mansi, XX, col. 1227). It is believed that in France a similar but tacit understanding took place. This result, however, was reached only after various vicissitudes. King Philip I opposed irreducibly the election of Galon (1100) as bishop of Beauvais and did not grant him the goods of the episcopal mensa. P. II, on the other hand, supported the cause of the elect, indeed, his legates, on 18 Nov. 1100, renewed at Poitiers the excommunication already launched by Urban II against the Sovereign who lived in adultery with Bertrada of Montfort, wife of Fulk, count of Anjou. In 1104 everything was settled: Philip I, having solemnly broken off his relationship with Bertrada, was reconciled with the Church and P. II transferred Galon to the see of Paris, which had conveniently become vacant (B. Monod, Essai sur les rapports de Pascal II et de Philippe Iᵉʳ, Paris 1907; A. Fliche, Le règne de Philippe Iᵉʳ, roi de France, ibid. 1922, pp. 441-49).
The Pope showed himself conciliatory toward the King of France, for the sole purpose of securing his support, at least moral, at a moment when the investiture dispute threatened to become seriously embittered in the Empire. Henry V, in fact, instead of showing himself grateful to P. II, who had facilitated his ascent to the throne, arrogated to himself the right to elect his partisans to episcopal sees, because it mattered greatly to him to be able to count on the loyalty of the bishops in order to secure the power that was being contested against him following the dethronement of his father Henry IV. The answer to that attack carried out against the freedom of episcopal elections was given by the 1st canon of the Council of Troyes (1107), which threatened deposition against any bishop who had received investiture from a layman and against the prelate who had consecrated him (Mansi, XX, 1217-23).
Henry V, then, decided to impose his will by force. The march of a German army on Rome induced the Pope to sign at Sutri, on 4 Feb. 1111, a Concordat in which it was stipulated that on the day of the imperial coronation the German episcopate would be enjoined to restore to the King or to the Kingdom the regalia, that is, all the goods "belonging to the Kingdom, including their dependencies." Thus episcopal elections would henceforth be held according to the canonical rules (Constitutiones et acta publica [v. bibl.], I, pp. 137-39).
On 12 Feb., before the coronation, P. II read at St. Peter's the tenor of the privilege granted at Sutri; according to the Pope, the possession of a temporal good, held in fief, would generate simony, ambition, residence at court. It was better for the episcopate to content itself with patrimonial goods and the offerings of the faithful and to restore the regalia to the sovereign. Henry V asked to be able to consult the bishops present and, after long deliberations, the King declared the pontifical act inapplicable. At the Pope's refusal to continue the coronation ceremony, Henry V gave orders to arrest him. On 11 Apr., after 60 days of detention, P. II capitulated and recognized in his jailer the right to confer investiture by means of the pastoral staff and the ring, a thing nevertheless condemned by the councils (Constitutiones et acta publica [v. bibl.], I, pp. 144-51). Consequently the imperial coronation took place on 13 Apr.
The concession extorted from P. II deeply stirred the West, especially Italy and Rome. It even came to be declared heretical. Ivo of Chartres had no difficulty in proving that such a qualification lacked foundation and erred by exaggeration (Ep., 236, in MGH, Libelli de lite imperatorum et pontificum saec. XI e XII conscripti, II, Leipzig 1892, pp. 647-59). The Pope recovered himself; the Council, held at the Lateran in March 1112, annulled the nefarious privilege (called pravilegium), extorted by violence (Mansi, XX, 49); nevertheless the Pope did not excommunicate Henry V, so as not to preclude the way to a reconciliation. His legates showed themselves less prudent and pronounced the sentence of excommunication (1115), which drove Henry V to descend into Italy and to usurp the inheritance of Countess Matilda. On 6 March 1116, P. II reiterated the abrogation of the privilege of 1111 (Mansi, XXI, 145).
In 1117 Henry V re-entered Rome: but since the Pope had fled to Benevento he had no other recourse than to receive the imperial unction from the hands of the archbishop of Prague, Maurice Burdino. When he was able to re-enter Roman territory, P. II established himself within the strong walls of Castel Sant'Angelo, and there he died on 21 Jan. 1118, without having resolved the investiture dispute in Germany.