It was as passive fiefs that many bishoprics, abbacies, and prelacies, as to their temporalities, were held of kings in the medieval period, and the power thereby acquired by secular princes over elections to ecclesiastical dignities led to the strife over investitures.
These passive fiefs were conferred by the suzerain investing the newly elected churchman with crozier and ring at the time of his making homage, but the employment of these symbols of spiritual power gradually paved the way to claims on the part of the secular overlords (see Investiture Conflict).
Pope Pius V (29 March 1567) decreed that, in future, fiefs belonging strictly to the Patrimony of St. Peter should be incorporated into the Papal States whenever the vassalage lapsed, and that no new enfeoffment take place.
Turning a state into a papal fief was a clever political move that allowed a kingdom to ensure its independence in face of stronger or threatening Catholic enemies.
[2] England was then in a precarious position, siding with Rome during the Western Schism alongside the Plantagenet succession to Capetian France, whilst their Valois opponents in the Hundred Years' War supported the Avignon Papacy, so this resolution avoided a conflict of interests.
[4][5] When Henry VIII of England broke away from the Papacy, the Lordship was elevated to the condition of Kingdom, thus thwarting the idea he held such domain under papal behalf.