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What was the Investiture Struggle?

The Investiture Struggle, also called the Investiture Controversy, is the name for the power struggle between kings and popes (heads of the Roman Catholic Church) during the Middle Ages (A.D. c. 450–c. 1500). Popes presided over papal states, which played the same role in medieval society as the other states (fiefs and manors, which were held by kings). Over time, papal lords, who were members of the clergy (church officials), gave in to the same human weaknesses of greed and corruption that tarnished feudal lords and kings during the political and economic system known as feudalism. Popes came to see the power of worldly leaders as desirable and obtainable. In 1075 Pope Gregory VII (c. 1020–1085) tried to limit the power of European leaders and thereby protect the church from their influence. He issued a decree that restricted the investiture (naming) of bishops (heads of church...

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1. Early Ages
   1. When did history begin?
   2. When did humans first walk on the face of the Earth?
   3. Who were the Neanderthals?
   4. What was the prehistoric era?
   5. What was the Stone Age?
   6. How did the Bronze Age advance technology?
   7. Why has iron been called the "democratic metal"?
2. Ancient Civilizations
   1. What were the achievements of the ancient Egyptians?
   2. What was the first advanced civilization in Europe?
   3. What are the Seven Wonders of the World?
   4. What was the Myceneaen Age?
   5. What were the Dark Ages of ancient Greece?
   6. Which classical Greeks influenced Western civilization?
   7. What government ruled Rome before the Roman Empire?
   8. What was the Pax Romana?
   9. How did the Roman Empire differ from the Holy Roman Empire?
   10. Who were the Celts and what happened to them?
3. Middle Ages And Renaissance
   1. Were the Dark Ages the same as the Middle Ages ?
   2. Who were the Huns?
   3. Who were the Visigoths and Ostrogoths?
   4. Who were the first warriors to fight on horseback?
   5. Who started the fall of the Roman Empire?
   6. Who were the Vandals?
   7. Who were the Franks?
   8. Who were the Gauls, and what happened to them?
   9. Who were the Lombards, Saxons, and Angles?
   10. Who were the Vikings?
   11. What is feudalism?
   12. What was a lord?
   13. What was a serf?
   14. What were vassals?
   15. What was a knight?
   16. Who were the samurai?
   17. What was a papal state?
   18. What was the role of the Roman Catholic Church during the Middle Ages?
   19. What was the Investiture Struggle?
   20. What were the three great kingdoms of western Africa?
   21. What was the Holy Roman Empire?
   22. What was the Renaissance, and where did it begin?
   23. Who were the great Renaissance artists, writers, and thinkers?
   24. What was the northern Renaissance?
   25. When did European colonialism begin?
4. The Modern Age
   1. What was the Enlightenment?
   2. What was the scientific revolution?
   3. What were the effects of the Industrial Revolution?
   4. What was the impact of World War I?
   5. Was the cold war really a war?
   6. When did the cold war start?
   7. What led to the fall of communism in Eastern Europe?
   8. How did the Soviet Union fall apart?

1. Industrial Revolution