What was lay investiture?

Question

Please give me a dictionary definiton. And where you got it from.

Answer 1

Ecclesiastical usage
Lay investiture was the appointment of bishops, abbots, and other church officials by feudal lords and vassals. The secular ruler usually invested the elect/appointee with the insignia of his ecclesiastic office, while the Pope crowned the Holy Roman Emperor (elected by the German Electoral Princes).

The question who should invest (or more to the point, appoint) whom was the subject of an epic conflict between the Catholic church (mainly papacy) and state (mainly the Holy Roman Empire) in the Middle Ages during the so-called Investiture Controversy (see that article).

Answer 2

The Investiture Controversy, also known as the lay investiture controversy, was the most significant conflict between secular and religious powers in medieval Europe. It began as a dispute in the 11th century between Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor, and the Pope Gregory VII concerning who would control appointments of church officials (investiture). The controversy, undercutting the Imperial power established by the Salian emperors, would eventually lead to nearly 50 years of civil war in Germany, the triumph of the great dukes and abbots, and the disintegration of the Holy Roman Empire, a condition from which it would not recover until German unification in the 19th century.