Investiture Controversy and Canossa
1077Notable
Pope Gregory VII and Emperor Henry IV clash over who appoints bishops. Excommunicated, Henry stands as a penitent at Canossa to win absolution, a lasting symbol of papal power.
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Longest chain: The Big Bang → First stars ignite → Supernovae seed heavy elements → The Sun forms → Earth forms → First oceans → First life → Photosynthesis evolves → Great Oxidation Event → Complex cells (eukaryotes) → Multicellular life → First animals → Cambrian Explosion → First vertebrates → Jawed fish → Fish walk onto land → The amniotic egg → The Great Dying → Dinosaurs appear → Asteroid ends the dinosaurs → Early primates → Apes split from monkeys → Human line splits from chimpanzees → Walking upright → First stone tools → Genus Homo appears → Homo erectus → Control of fire → Habitual fire and cooking → Homo sapiens appears → Complex language → Natufian villages → Oldest known bread → Agriculture begins → Irrigation → Uruk and the first cities → Cylinder seals → Writing (cuneiform) → Babylonian mathematics → Babylonian astronomical diaries → Thales and natural philosophy → Trial and death of Socrates → Plato's Academy → Aristotle's Lyceum → Alexander's conquests → Death of Alexander and the Hellenistic kingdoms → Seleucid Empire founded → Parthian Empire founded → Sasanian Empire → Crisis of the Third Century → Diocletian's Tetrarchy → Diocletian's Great Persecution → Edict of Milan → Constantinople founded → Roman Empire permanently divides → Visigoths sack Rome → Fall of the Western Roman Empire → Clovis unites the Franks → Stephen II anoints Pepin and seeks Frankish aid → Donation of Pepin founds the Papal States → Cadaver Synod tries Pope Formosus → Roman nobles dominate the papacy (saeculum obscurum) → Synod of Sutri deposes rival popes → Papal election decree gives cardinals the vote → Gregory VII's Dictatus papae → Investiture Controversy and Canossa
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