The policy is much the same, and
it is still more directed by Rome.
it is still more directed by Rome.
Cambridge Medieval History - v5 - Contest of Empire and the Papacy
9 sqq.
But it is to be dated,
not as by Dümmler in 1048, but late in 1047. See Sackur, Die Cluniacenser, 11,
pp. 305 sqq. ; R. L. Poole, Benedict IX and Gregory VI, pp. 29–30.
## p. 23 (#69) ##############################################
Damasus II
23
Clement, that no Pope could be made while Gregory VI was still
alive?
Clement II was worthy of his office, but his papacy was short, and so
uneventful; he was overshadowed by the presence of the Emperor, whom
he followed to southern Italy, but he held in January 1047 a Council at
Rome, where deposition was decreed against all simonists, while those
ordained by a simonist bishop were to do forty days' penance. Like pre-
ceding Popes he was ready to excommunicate the Emperor's foes, and the
Beneventans, who refused admittance to the German army, were sufferers.
But, setting a strange example to later Popes, he kept his old bishopric,
to which, as his sweetest bride,” he sent an affectionate letter, and where
on his unexpected death (9 October 1047) his body was laid to rest (he
was the only Pope buried in Germany); a widely-accepted rumour had
it that his unexplained illness was due to poison administered in the
interests of Benedict IX, and the same was said about his successor. It
is certain, at any rate, that on 9 November Benedict returned to Rome,
and, supported by the Marquess Boniface of Tuscany, kept his old office
until July (1048). Neither Roman families nor Italian nobles would
accept imperial control if they could help it. The power of Boniface now
threatened to become dangerous : his grandfather Azzo owned Canossa,
and his father Tedald, favoured by Henry II, had held Mantua, Ferrara,
and other towns, and kept them faithful to the Emperors. Boniface at
first followed his father's policy and Conrad had given him the March of
Tuscany. But his choice of a second wife, Beatrice, daughter of Frederick,
Duke of Upper Lorraine, brought him into a wider sphere of politics.
Distrust grew between him and the Emperor. At Rome he could injure
the Emperor most, and hence his support of Benedict. The Romans,
however, did not follow him; a deputation was sent to Henry at Pöhlde
seeking a new nomination, and Poppo, Bishop of Brixen, was chosen
(Christmas 1047). But Boniface, although Henry's representative in
Italy, at first refused to lead the new Pope to Rome, and only renewed
orders brought him to obedience; then at length he expelled Benedict IX,
and the new Pope was enthroned as Damasus II (17 July 1048). On
9 August he too died at Palestrina, after a pontificate of only twenty-
three days; poison was again suspected, although malaria may have been
the cause. It was no wonder that the deputation which again visited
Germany found the papal throne little desired. They suggested Halinard
of Lyons’, much beloved in Rome, where he had sojourned long. But
he did not accept, even if Henry offered it. At Worms the Emperor
chose a relative of his own, Bruno of Toul, and so there began a papacy
which was to change even the unchanged Rome itself.
1 Wazo, Sententia de Gregorio VI, in Watterich, Vitae Pontificum, 1, pp. 79-80,
quoted from Anselm of Liège.
: It seems better, with Hauck and others, to place the suggestion of Halinard
here, and not earlier.
CH. I.
## p. 24 (#70) ##############################################
24
Leo IX as Bishop of Toul
Bruno, Bishop of Toul, was son of Hugo, Count of Egisheim, and
related to Conrad II, who destined him for rich preferment. Herman of
Toul died on 1 April 1026, and the clergy and citizens at once chose for
successor Bruno, who vas well known to them but was then with the
army of Conrad II in Italy. The Emperor hinted at a refusal in hope of
better things, but the unanimous election seemed to the young ecclesiastic
a call from God; there had been no secular influence at work on his be-
half, and so to Toul, a poor bishopric, often disturbed by border wars, he
determined to go.
The future Pope had been born 21 June 1002, and, as destined for the
Church, was sent to a school at Toul, noted equally for its religious spirit
and its aristocratic pupils. His parents were religious and devoted
patrons of monasteries in Alsace, and at Toul reforming tendencies, due
to William of Dijon, were strong, while an earlier bishop, Gerard (963–
994), was revered as a saint; the young man, learned and literary, became
a canon of Toul, and although not a monk had a deep regard for
St Benedict, to whose power he attributed his recovery from an illness.
From Toul he passed to the chapel of the king, and as deputy for
Herman led the vassals of the bishopric with Conrad; in military affairs
he shewed ability, and was, from his impressive figure, his manners and
activity, liked by many besides Conrad and Gisela. His acceptance of
Toul seemed to others a self-denial, but even its very poverty and
difficulties drew him. He was not consecrated until 9 September 1027,
as Poppo of Trèves wished to impose a stricter form of oath upon his
suffragan, and not until Conrad's return did the dispute end by the
imposition of the older form. This difficulty cleared, Bruno devoted him-
self to his diocese: monastic reform in a city where monasteries were
unusually important was a necessity, and to this he saw; the city lay open
to attacks from the Count of Champagne, and Bruno had often occasion
to use his military experience, inherited and acquired. Thus, like the
best bishops of his day, notably Wazo of Liège, he was a good vassal to
the Emperor and a defender of the Empire. On the ecclesiastical side,
too, he had that love of the past which gave a compelling power to
historic traditions: it was he who urged Widerich, Abbot of St Evré, to
write a life of his predecessor, St Gerard; as a pilgrim to the apostolic
threshold, he often went to Rome. In diplomacy he was versed and use-
ful: in Burgundian politics he had taken a share; he had helped to
negotiate the peace with France in 1032. As a worthy bishop with
many-sided interests and activities he was known far beyond his diocese,
and even in countries besides his own.
Christmas 1048 Bruno spent at Toul, and then, accompanied by other
bishops and by Hildebrand, the follower of Gregory VI, he went to Rome.
It was a journey with the details of which clerical and partisan romance
afterwards made itself busy. But an election at Rome was usual and,
to Leo more than to other men, necessary. As before at Toul, his
## p. 25 (#71) ##############################################
Leo IX as Pope
25
path must be plain before him. Only when accepted by his future flock
could he begin his work, although the real choice had been the Emperor's.
Leo moved along a path he had already trodden, and he needed no
Hildebrand, with the warning of an older prophet, to guide his steps.
Already he knew a bishop's duty and the needs of the Church. He now
passed into a larger world, even if he kept his former see up to August
1051: his aims and his spirit were already set, only he was now to work
on an international field; reading, travel, diplomacy, and episcopal work
had trained him into a strong, enlightened statesman, of fixed principles
and piety, clear as to the means he ought to use. Church reform had be-
gun in many places and under many leaders; its various forms had been
tending to coherence in principles and supports, removal of abuses, and
recognition of Canon Law. Taught by these, many eyes had turned
to Rome. But guidance had been lacking thence, and abuses had
flourished to excess. Leo IX was to bring to the movement guidance;
he was to give it a coherence based on papal leadership and power. We
find under him all the former elements of the movement welded together,
and re-interpreted by a Pope who knew what the Papacy could do.
Hence came its new strength. His papacy is marked by its many
Councils, held not only at Rome but also far afield: Rome (after Easter
1049), Pavia (Whitsuntide), Rheims (October), Mayence (October), Rome
(Easter 1050), Salerno, Siponto, Vercelli (September 1050), Rome (Easter
1051), Mantua (February 1053), Rome (Easter)'. But this itinerary gives
little idea of his travels; on his route from place to place he made visits
of political importance, such as to Lorraine, and southern Italy, and
even to Hungary; everywhere he strove to rouse the Church, and
incidentally composed political or ecclesiastical strifes. Details are
wanting for some of these councils, but we must assume that in all of
them decrees against simony and clerical marriage, often spoken of as
concubinage (which was sometimes the truth), were issued. At the Roman
Council of 1049 simony was much discussed; guilty bishops were deposed,
and one of them, Kilian of Sutri, while trying to clear himself by false
witness, fell like another Ananias and died soon afterwards. There was a
like incident later at Rheims, when the innocent Archbishop of Besançon,
pleading for the guilty and much accused Hugh of Langres, suddenly lost
his voice. It was ascribed to a miracle by St Rémy (Remigius), but such
details shew how personal responsibility was now being pressed home on
the bishops. There was a suggestion that ordinations by simonist bishops
should be declared null, and it is sometimes said that Leo decreed they
were so? . This, as it was urged, would have made almost a clean sweep
1 An account of Leo's councils is given in Hefele-Leclercq, iv, pp. 995 sqq. , with
a very full bibliography for the reign; points of chronology, etc. , are discussed.
: For a full discussion see Saltet, Les Réordinations, Paris, 1907, PP.
note, p. 408. The evidence comes from Peter Damian, and the difficulty lies in the
translation of his “tanquam noviter ordinavit. ” I agree with the text of the Abbé
Saltet, and am not convinced by his note correcting his views as given there.
181
sqq. and
CH. 1.
## p. 26 (#72) ##############################################
26
The Council of Rheims
of the Roman clergy, for many Popes of late had been simoniacal.
Finally it was settled on the lines laid down by Clement II that a penance of
forty days met the case. But Leo brought up the matter again in 1050
and 1051, and on the last date he bade the bishops seek light from God.
In the Curia there were different views. Peter Damian insisted that the
acts of simoniacal bishops were valid, and he supported this by the assertion
that some of them had worked miracles; Cardinal Humbert, on the other
hand, went strongly on the other side. The two men were foremost in rival
schools of thought, divided by opinions on other matters also. Peter
Damian, for instance, welcomed the help of pious kings like Henry III,
while Humbert held any lay interference in Church affairs an outrage.
Strife on this matter was to grow keener, and the fortune of battle is
recorded as by an index in the treatment of simonist ordinations. There
was a side issue in the question whether simony was not a heresy, as the
musician-monk Guido of Arezzo suggested; if it were, simonist ordi-
nations, according to received doctrine, would be automatically void.
The Council of Rheims (3 October 1049) was of special importance. In
France local conditions varied: here the king and there a great vassal
controlled episcopal appointments, but everywhere simony was rife. It
arose, however, not as in Germany from the policy of one central power,
based upon a general principle of law or administration; it was a wide-
spread abuse of varied local origin to be attacked in many individual cases.
The needed reform was now to be preached on French soil by the Pope
himself; it was to be enforced with all the authority given to the Pope
by the Canon Law, genuine or forged; it appealed to ancient decisions,
such as that of Chalcedon (canon II, repeated at Paris in 829), against
simony, whether in ordinations or in ecclesiastical appointments, and
such as those enforcing attendance at councils, which were henceforth
commoner. The appearance of a Pope with definite claims to obedience
was thus emphasised by an appeal to the deficient but reviving sense of
corporate life. And, when the synod had done its work, the appeal was
driven home by the summons of guilty bishops to Rome, and by the
Pope's bold guardianship of free elections against royal interference, as in
the case of Sens (1049) and Le Puy (1053), and Henry I shewed himself
fairly complaisant.
But a German Pope was by no means welcome in France; national
diplomacy rather than a fear of papal authority made Henry I look
askance on the assembly at Rheims. The consecration of the new abbey
church of St Rémy was the occasion of Leo's visit, but the king, by sum-
moning his episcopal vassals to service in a well-timed campaign, made their
attendance at the synod difficult, and so many held aloof. An attack
upon simony was the first and main business, and after an allocution the
bishops one by one were called upon to declare their innocence of it. To
do this was notoriously difficult for Guy, the local Archbishop, and the
Bishops of Langres, Nevers, Coutances, and Nantes were in the same plight.
## p. 27 (#73) ##############################################
Activity of Leo IX
27
The archbishop promised to clear himself at Rome the next Easter,
which he may have done; the much-accused Hugh of Langres fled and
was excommunicated; Pudicus of Nantes was deposed; the two others
cleared themselves of suspicion. The Archbishop of Sens, and the Bishops
of Beauvais and Amiens, were excommunicated for non-attendance with
insufficient reason. The canons enjoined election by clergy and people
for bishops and abbots, forbade the sale of orders, safeguarded clerical
dues but prohibited fees for burials, eucharists, and service to the sick;
some canons recalled the objects of the Truce of God, and others dealt
with infringements of the marriage law. If the synod had been in itself
and in many ways, and above all in its vigorous reforms, an expression of
the Church's corporate life, it also drove home with unexpected energy
the lesson of individual responsibility. The new Papacy as a means of
reform had justified itself in a hitherto disorderly field. Summonses to
Rome, attendance at Roman synods, and the visits of Roman legates to
France, were to secure for the future the gains that Leo had made
possible.
From Rheims the Pope passed by way of Verdun, Metz, and Trèves, to
Mayence, where (in October) a large Council was held. Here simony and
clerical marriage were sternly condemned. Adalbert of Bremen and other
bishops after their return home enforced these decrees with varying
strictness, but without much success; Adalbert drove wives of clerics from
his city to the country outside. But the unhappy fact that a few of the
bishops, and notably Sigebod of Spires, were not above moral reproach
gave Bardo of Mayence, who was named legate, a difficult task. On
leaving Germany, Leo visited Alsace and Lorraine, having with him
Humbert, a monk of Moyenmoutier in the Vosges; he was designed for a
new arch-see in Sicily, but that not being created he was named Cardinal-
bishop of Silva Candida. It was doubtless meant that he was to help Leo
in the plans already forming against the Normans in southern Italy.
Then, whether before or after the Easter Council at Rome (1050) it
is hard to say, Leo went to southern Italy where matters religious and
secular needed attention. At the outset of his reign an embassy, it is
said', from Benevento had begged for his help; there was another embassy
in 1052, and probably an intermediate one. And one of the legates whom
Leo sent to report upon the situation was Cardinal Humbert. In his own
visit of 1050 Leo held Councils at Salerno and at Siponto, in the Norman
territory; here the customary decrees were made and some simoniacal
bishops deposed. The Easter Council at Rome (1050) was largely
attended, as was becoming usual, fifty-five bishops and thirty-two abbots
1 By his archdeacon and biographer, Wibert of Toul; this is the oldest life of
Leo, and is written in the older panegyrical style, but is a sound authority for de-
tailed events; like the other biographies of the time, it shews the influence of the
Cluniac spirit. See Giesebrecht, op. cit. 11, p. 566; Wibert's Life of Leo in Muratori,
RR. II. SS. Ed. 1, II, pp. 282 sqq. , and in Watterich, 1, pp. 127-170.
CH. I.
## p. 28 (#74) ##############################################
28
The Pope and the Normans
being present. Guido of Milan successfully cleared himself from a
charge of simony, but his very appearance to do so marked, much as
similar trials at Rheims and Mayence, a triumph for papal power. But,
unhappily for Guido, the struggle for precedence between him and
Humfred of Ravenna ended in his being wounded so severely as to be
healed only on his return by the miraculous help of St Ambrose. But
Humfred himself offended by words against the Pope, for which he was
excommunicated at the Council of Vercelli, and his forgiveness at Augs-
burg (February 1051) was followed by a somewhat dramatic death. The
very stars seemed to fight against Leo's foes, and submissions to his com-
mands became more general.
It is needless to follow the later councils of Leo; they were all part of
the policy so strikingly begun. A few fresh matters appear in them,
mingled with the old: at Vercelli (1 September 1050) the heresy of
Berengar, previously discussed in the Roman Council of the same year,
was brought up afresh and was to come up again and again. It was an
outcome, almost inevitable, of the varied and growing movements of the
day.
From Vercelli Leo went by way of Burgundy and Lorraine to Germany,
only coming back to Rome for the Easter Council of 1051. He wished
to get the Emperor's support for a Norman campaign, but the advice of
Gebhard of Eichstädt (afterwards Victor II) swayed Henry against it.
Then later in the year he visited southern Italy, whither he had already
sent Cardinal Humbert and the Patriarch of Aquileia as legates. His
plans almost reached a Crusade; he wished for help both from Henry and
the Emperor Constantine IX (1042–1055); he had visions of a papal
supremacy which should extend to the long-severed East. Hence a cam-
paign against the Normans and negotiations with Constantinople were
combined. Benevento, whence the citizens had driven the Lombard
Princes, and which Leo now visited, was at Worms (autumn 1052) in a
later visit to Germany given to the Papacy in exchange for Bamberg.
Leo IX therefore, like many a Pope, has been called, though for services
further afield, the founder of the Temporal Power. On his return from
the south, Councils at Mantua (February 1053), where opposition to the
decrees for celibacy raised a Lombard riot, and at Rome (Easter) followed;
at the latter, the rights of the Patriarch of Grado over Venice and Istria
were confirmed, and to the see of Foroiulium (Udine), where the Patriarch
of Aquileia had taken refuge after the destruction of his city by the Lom-
bards, was now left only Lombard territory. These measures are to be
taken along with the Pope's Eastern plans, in the general policy and military
preparations for which Hildebrand had a share. But the host, like other
crusading forces, was strangely composed, and the battle of Civitate, which
was to have crowned everything, brought only disaster and disappoint-
ment. An honourable captivity with the Normans at Benevento made
warfare, against which Peter Damian raised a voice, impossible, but Leo
## p. 29 (#75) ##############################################
Work of Leo IX
29
could still carry on correspondence and negotiations. The story of the
papal embassy to Constantinople, whence help was expected more hope-
fully than from Germany, has been told elsewhere! The three legates,
Cardinal Humbert, Frederick of Lorraine, Cardinal and Chancellor, and
Peter, Bishop of Amalfi, had small success, and the breach between the
Churches of the East and of the West only became wider and more lasting.
Constantine IX had hoped by conquering the Normans to revive his
failing dominion over southern Italy, where the Catapan Argyrus was as
anti-Norman as Leo himself. But Michael Cerularius, Patriarch since
March 1043, had his own large views, carried into politics with much
ability, and a natural dislike of the now more strongly-urged Roman
claims. Constantinople for many centuries had jealously maintained its
independence of Rome; it knew nothing of the Forged Decretals, while
Canon Law, Church customs, and ritual were now taking separate paths
in East and West. Eastern Emperor and Eastern Patriarch thus had very
different interests and views about Leo's designs. The fortune of war
favoured the Patriarch, for Argyrus, like Leo, was routed in Italy
(February 1053), and the negotiations at Constantinople came to worse
than naught.
But the end of a great papal reign was near. Sick in heart and health,
Leo left Benevento (12 March 1054), slowly travelling to the Rome
where he had dwelt so little but which he tried to make so great. Before
his death be besought the Romans to keep from perjury, forbidden
marriages, and robbery of the Church; he absolved all whom he had
excommunicated; he prayed for the Church and for the conversion of
Benedict IX and his brothers, who had set up simony over nearly all the
world. Then (19 April 1054) he died.
There seems to us a contrast between the more political schemes of his
later and the reforming work of his earlier years. But to him they were
both part of the task to which he had been called. To breathe a new
spirit into the Church and to extend its power were both to make it more
effective in its duty. Even his warfare for the Church was merely
doing as Pope what had been part of his recognised duty as Bishop
of Toul. And his papal reign made a new departure. His conciliar and
legislative activity had been great, even if, amid the pressure of large
events and policies, it slackened, like that of Gregory VII, before the end.
He brought bishops more generally into varied touch with Rome. He
renewed the papal intercourse and growing control for many lands,
such as Hungary and England. He made Adalbert of Bremen (1053)
Papal Vicar for his Baltic lands, with power to form new sees, even
“ regibus invitis. " Much that he had begun was carried further by later
Popes, and great as it was in itself his pontificate was perhaps even
greater as an example and an inspiration. Under the influence of reform
in Germany, of his own training, his own piety, and his devotion to the
Supra, Vol. iv, pp. 255 sqq.
1
CH, I.
## p. 30 (#76) ##############################################
30
Reform under Leo IX
Church, he had shewn, as Bishop of Toul, a high conception of a bishop's
office. He brought the same to Rome, and with wider and more historic
responsibilities he formed a like conception for the Papacy. His friend
and almost pupil Hildebrand was wont', we are told, to dwell upon the
life of Leo, and the things which tended to the glory of the Roman
Church. One great thing above all he did in raising the College of
Cardinals, which succeeding Popes,and notably Stephen IX, carried further.
His very travels, and the councils away from Rome at which he presided,
brought home to men the place and jurisdiction of the Papacy which was
being taught then by the Canon Law. These councils were now attended
not only by bishops but also by abbots, in quickly increasing numbers;
first by such as those of Cluny and Monte Cassino, and then by others,
until at Rheims (1049) about fifty appeared and at Rome (1050) thirty-
two. Many abbots were now privileged to wear mitres and to ordain;
attendance at councils was thus natural. They formed a solid phalanx
of reformers, and the nucleus of a papal majority. Thus his pontificate
abounded in beginnings upon which future days were to build. He
brought the Papacy, after its time of degradation, and with the best
impulses of a new day, into a larger field of work and power.
Leo IX left his mark in many ways upon following reigns. The
central direction of the Western Church continues, although with some
fluctuations of policy and persons, while the improved organisation
enables us to see it in the documents now more carefully preserved. The
Chancery, upon which fell much work due to the new and wide-spread
activity of the Popes, was re-organised by him after the model of the im-
perial Chancery? . After his time the signatures of witnesses often appear,
and so we can see who were the chief advisers of the Pope; this we can con-
nect with the growing importance of the cardinals. Papal activities are
seen in the number of privileges to monasteries, and many documents shew
a diligent papal guardianship of clerical and monastic property. Rome
is kept closely in touch with many lands? , leading prelates are informed
of papal wishes and decrees. A continuity of policy and of care for
special districts can also be traced in series of letters, such as those to
Rheims.
Leo's reforming policy was carried on. Conciliar decrees upon clerical
celibacy were repeated, and simony, sometimes forbidden afresh, like
marriage, met with new punishment.
The policy is much the same, and
it is still more directed by Rome. But one difference between him and
l
1 So Bruno of Segni, Vita Leonis IX, in Watterich, Vitae Pontificum, I, p. 97.
2 Privileges, grants or confirmation of rights to property or jurisdiction, took
under him a new form, and are distinguished from letters. See R. L. Poole,
Lectures on the History of the Papal Chancery and Imperial Influences on the Forms of
Papal Documents (Brit. Acad. vi). Sovereignty and control thus entered into a
new and larger field.
E. g. England under Edward the Confessor, Dalmatia, France.
3
## p. 31 (#77) ##############################################
Victor II
31
his successors soon appears, and slowly grows. He had worked well with
the Emperor, but the new spirit breathed into the Papacy brought, with
a new self-consciousness, a wish for independence. This was natural, and
harmonised with the new feeling, intensified by Canon Law, that the
hierarchy of the Church should not be entangled with that of the State.
About the difficult application of this principle, views began to differ.
The papal reigns to which we pass shew us the gradual disentanglement
of these rival principles amid the clash of politics.
But Leo's successor was long in coming, and the exact course of
events is somewhat doubtful. Gebhard of Eichstädt had been a trusted
counsellor of Henry, he had thwarted the hopes of Leo for large help
against the Normans, and now at length he became Pope. The Em-
peror might well hesitate to part with such a friend, and the prospect
of the impoverished Papacy in difficult Italy was not enticing. Here as
in the case of Leo IX the real decision lay with Henry. Gebhard's
elevation was settled in the last months of 1054, and he was received and,
as Victor II, enthroned" hilariter” at Rome (13 April 1055).
The Norman victory, and another event, had altered affairs in Italy.
Boniface of Tuscany, whose power and policy were threatening to Pope
and Emperor alike, was assassinated on 6 May 1052, and his widow
Beatrice married (1054) the dangerous and ambitious Godfrey the
Bearded, the exiled Duke of Lorraine, who had been administering her
estates. Hence arose difficulties with Henry. He was needed in Italy;
in April he was in Verona, at Easter in Mantua. In spite of her defence
he put Beatrice and her only remaining child Matilda in prison. Godfrey
fied across the Alps, and his brother Frederick, lately returned from
Constantinople, took refuge at the fortress-monastery of Monte Cassino;
here (May-June 1057) he became abbot, after a short but fervid
monastic career entered upon under the influence of Desiderius. At
Whitsuntide (4 June 1055) Pope and Emperor were present at a council
in Florence. Before leaving Italy Henry gave to the Pope Spoleto and
Camerino, as well as making him Imperial Vicar in Italy. This may
throw light on Henry's choice of Gebhard and also his alleged pro-
mise to restore papal rights. But on 5 October 1056 the great Emperor
died. The removal of a strong hand brought new responsibilities to the
Pope, his old adviser and friend.
Victor II, like Leo, dwelt little in Rome; he left it at the end of 1055
and travelled slowly to Germany; he was by Henry's death-bed at
Botfeld, and he buried him at Spires. Then at Aix-la-Chapelle he
enthroned the young king Henry IV; his presence and experience were
valuable to the Empress Agnes, now Regent, and he was able to clear her
path and his own by a reconciliation with Godfrey, who was allowed to
take the place of Boniface. By Lent 1057 Victor was in Rome to hold
the usual council. Then he left the city for Monte Cassino to bring the
supra, Vol. II, pp. 298-9.
1 See
CH. I.
## p. 32 (#78) ##############################################
32
Stephen IX
stubborn monastery, which had elected an Abbot Peter without consult-
ing Pope or Emperor, into accord with the Papacy. The elevation of the
Cardinal-deacon Frederick to be its abbot and also Cardinal-priest of
St Chrysogonus (14 June) marked a reconciliation, significant ecclesi-
astically and politically. In July Monte Cassino was left for a journey
towards Rheims, where a great Council was to be held. But Victor's death
at Arezzo (28 July 1057) removed from the Empire a pillar of peace, and
left the Church without a head. In those days of stress, workers who
really faced their task rarely lived long. He was buried, not at Eichstädt
as he and his old subjects would have wished, but at Ravenna.
It is not so easy to sketch the character of Victor II as to record his
doings. As a young man he had been chosen bishop almost incidentally by
Henry III, who may have judged rightly his powers of steady service.
The Eichstädt chronicles tell us that as a young man he did nothing
puerile; it is also true that as an old man he did nothing great. But
neither as German bishop nor as Pope did he ever fail in diligence or
duty: his earlier reputation was gained rather as servant of the State
than as prelate of the Church; as Imperial Vicar he might have brought
peace to Italy as he had to Germany and its infant king. But death
prevented his settling the Norman difficulty; there is no reason to think
that he had forsaken his former view which had crossed that of Leo IX.
His dealings with Monte Cassino, always strongly anti-Norman, had
given him a new base upon which he could rely for peace as easily as for '
war. His work was sound but was not completed. He seems to us an
official of many merits, but confidence was the only thing he inspired. He
was no leader with policies and phrases ready; he was only a workman
who needed not to be ashamed.
On 2 August 1057, the festival of Pope Stephen I, Frederick of
Lorraine was elected Pope', and took the name of Stephen IX? . He was
in Rome when the news of Victor's death came, and was asked to suggest
a successor; he named Humbert, three Italian bishops, and Hildebrand.
Then, when asked to be Pope himself, he unwillingly accepted. He was no
imperialist like Victor, and he was, like the monks of his abbey, strongly
anti-Norman. Above all he was an ecclesiastic, heart and soul. Moreover,
he was freely elected at Rome; not until December was a deputation sent
to inform the German Court; there was no whisper of kingly recognition
and indeed there was no Emperor; he was elected, as a German chronicler
complains, rege ignorante, although the circumstances may account for
this.
The new Pope had been a canon at Liège. His riches, increased by
gifts at Constantinople, made him popular, but he was a monk of deep
1 He kept his abbacy as preceding Popes their sees. Victor Il's successor
Gunther was only elected to Eichstädt ou 20 August 1057.
2 Sometimes called Stephen X. See R. L. Poole, The Names and Numbers of
medieval Popes, EHR, XXXII, pp. 465 sqq. For our period, pp. 471-2.
1
## p. 33 (#79) ##############################################
St Peter Damian
33
conviction. His short papacy leaves room for conjecture as to what with
longer days he might have done. There were rumours that he meant to
make Duke Godfrey Emperor, but he differed very widely from his more
secular-minded brother. Like his predecessors he did not stay long in
Rome; he soon left it for Monte Cassino, which he reached at the end of
November; he arranged for Desiderius to be abbot after his death, but
meanwhile to be sent on an embassy to Constantinople. The shadow of
death was already on the Pope, when in February 1058 he went to Rome.
Before this he had sent representatives, of whom Hildebrand was one, to
Gerinany, probably to announce his election. Now he resolved to meet
his brother, but before he set out he gathered together the cardinal-
bishops and other clergy of Rome with the burghers. He told them he
knew that after his death men would arise among them who lived for
themselves, who did not follow the canons but, though laymen, wished
to reach the papal throne. Then they took an oath not to depart from
the canons and not to assent to a breach of them by others. He also bound
them in case of his death to take no steps before Hildebrand's arrival.
Then he set out for Tuscany, but on 29 March 1058 died at Florence
where he was buried. Weakness and sickness had long been his lot; it was
needless to attribute his death to poison given by an emissary from Rome.
It is clear that Pope Stephen's thoughts were intent upon the Normans;
what support Hildebrand had gained from the Empress-regent we
do not know, and the Pope himself was eagerly awaiting his legate's
return. What further help and of what kind he was to gain from Duke
Godfrey was even more uncertain. A policy of peace, such as Victor II
had adopted, had more to recommend it than had one of war; Monte
Cassino was under papal control, and all the cards were in the papal
hand. The hurried fever of a dying man made for haste, but death was
even quicker. Stephen's papacy ended amid great possibilities.
But one thing was certain: any line taken would be towards the con-
tinued reform of the Church. Stephen had drawn more closely around
him able and determined reformers. Peter Damian he called to be
Cardinal-bishop of Ostia, a post from which that thorough monk recoiled.
He had been unwilling to pass from his beloved Fonte-Avellana to Ocri
where Leo IX had made him prior; the sins of the monks filled him with
horror, and now he shrank even more from the open world which did not
even profess the monastic rule. The Pope had to appeal to his obedience
and even to threaten excommunication. So Damian was consecrated at
Rome in November 1057, under pressure which he held to be almost
uncanonical. He was called from his diocese in 1059 to enforce the
programme of discipline at Ambrosian Milan; with him was to go the
active reformer Anselm, Bishop of Lucca. To their embassy we must
return later. It is enough to notice here that Milan was thus brought
into the papal sphere; Guido, its Archbishop, was ordered on 9 December
1057 to appear at the papal Court to discuss the situation.
3
C. MED. H. VOL. V. CH. I.
## p. 34 (#80) ##############################################
34
Increase of Papal authority
At length in 1070 Peter Damian gained his release from Alexander II
so that he could return to his beloved penitential desert. But his cardinalate
he kept and his influence he never lost. As legate, however, he brought
his personal power into fresh fields: he was sent to difficult Milan in
1057; to France in 1063 to settle the dispute between Drogo of Macon
and the exempted Cluny; and as an old man of 62 to Germany in 1069
to handle the suggested divorce of Henry IV and Bertha. Each mission
was a triumph for his firmness or, as he would have preferred to say, for the
laws of the Church. The employment of legates to preside at councils
superseded the heroic attempts of Leo IX to do so in person; the
reverence owed to the Apostolic See was paid to its legates. So we have
Humbert's legateship to Benevento in 1051 and to Ravenna in 1053;
that of Hildebrand to France in 1055, when he not only, as Damian tells
us, deposed six bishops for simony but, as he himself told Desiderius, saw
the simonist Archbishop of Lyons smitten dumb as he strove to finish the
Gloria with the words “and to the Holy Ghost. ” With the same great aim,
Victor II named the Archbishops of Arles and Aix his permanent Vicars for
southern France. Leo IX solemnly placed a mitre on the head of Bardo of
Trèves to mark him as Primate of Gallia Belgica (12 March 1049), on
29 June 1049 gave Herman of Cologne the pallium and cross, on 6 January
1053 gave the pallium and mitre to Adalbert of Bremen as Papal Vicar for
the north, and on 18 October 1052 gave the pallium and the use of a special
mitre to the Archbishop of Mayence; on 25 April 1057 Victor confirmed
the privileges of Trèves, and gave the mitre and pallium to Ravenna.
The papal power was thus made more and more the mainspring of the
Church. Metropolitans became the channels of papal power. To the
Papacy men looked for authority, and from it they received honours
which symbolised authority. Grants of the pallium to other sees extended
the process, and other marks of honour, such as the white saddle-cloths
of Roman clerics, were given and prized. The eleventh century, like the
tenth, was one in which this varied taste for splendour, borrowed from
the past, was liberally indulged. The mitre, papal and episcopal, was
being more generally used and was altering in shape, and its growth
illustrates a curious side of our period? . Laymen shared the tastes of
1 The pallium was given from the fifth century to archbishops named as Vicars
of the Roman Patriarch. In the eighth century it was given to other metropolitans.
Originally it was an honorary decoration given by the Emperor, and then acquired
an ecclesiastical meaning. It was an age in which, as all evidence shews, decora-
tion and robes, splendid and symbolic, were valued and sought after; diplomatically
bestowed by the Popes they gratified the recipients and enhanced the papal power.
See for the eighth century the letters between Pope Zacharias and Boniface in
S. Bonifacii et Lulli Epistolae, MGH, Epp. Sel. 1 (ed. Tangl), pp. 80-205.
2 The mitre probably originated in the Phrygian cap, a secular sign of honour
supposed to be given to the Popes by the Donation of Constantine and worn ad
imitationem imperii. About the middle of the eleventh century it was used liturgic-
ally and not only in secular processions. The whole development, use, and inter-
pretation are interesting. See Sachsee, Tiara und Mitra der Päpste, ZKG, xxxiv,
pp. 481 sqq. ; Duchesne, Christian Worship (Engl. transl. ), p. 398.
## p. 35 (#81) ##############################################
Contested succession on Stephen IX's death
35
churchmen; Benzo's vivid picture of “the Roman senate” wearing head-
dresses akin to the mitre charmed the pencil of a medieval chronicler.
The death of Stephen IX gave the Roman nobles, restless if submissive
under imperial control and papal power, a wished-for chance. Empire
and Papacy were now somewhat out of touch, and other powers, Tuscan
and Norman, had arisen in Italy. Gerard, Count of Galeria, formed a
party with Tusculan and Crescentian help, burst into the city by night,
5 April 1058, and elected John Mincius, Cardinal-bishop of Velletri, as
Benedict X"; and money played its part in the election. The name was
significant, but the Pope himself, more feeble than perverse, had previously
been open to no reproach”; he had been made cardinal by Leo IX, and
on the death of Victor II had been suggested by Stephen himself as a
possible Pope. Reform had thus made great strides between Benedict IX
and Benedict X. Some of the cardinals were afar, Humbert in Florence,
and Hildebrand on his way from Germany', whither he had gone, a little
late, to announce the election of Stephen. But as a body they were now
more coherent, less purely Roman, and more ecclesiastical; they declared
against Benedict, threatening him with excommunication, and fled the
city. Then they gathered together in Tuscany and consulted at leisure
on another choice. In the end they settled on a Burgundian, Gerard
Bishop of Florence, a sound and not too self-willed prelate of excellent
repute, favoured by Duke Godfrey and not likely to take a line of his
own. Besides the help of Godfrey the approval of the Empress Agnes
was sought. Even in Rome itself there was a party against Benedict,
headed by Leo de Benedicto Christiano", a rich citizen, son of a Jewish
convert, influential in the Trastevere and in close touch with Hildebrand;
they sent a deputation to the Empress Agnes at Augsburg, pleading that
the election of Benedict had been due to force. As a result Duke Godfrey
was ordered to lead the cardinals' nominee to Rome. Gerard was elected
at Siena, probably in December 1058, by the cardinals, together with
high ecclesiastics and nobles, and chose the name of Nicholas II6. His old
see he kept until his death. Then an approach was made towards Rome;
a synod was held at Sutri. Leo de Benedicto opened the Trastevere
1 On the election and date see Hefele-Leclercq, iv, pp. 1133 sqq.
? The invective of Peter Damian against him judges after the election. For it
see Watterich, 1, pp. 204-5.
3 Less probably in Germany itself. But see Hefele-Leclercq, iv, p. 1134, note 2.
4 In war against Ancona he was helped by a papal excommunication of the
opposing citizens. Thus the Papacy was useful to him. Peter Damian did not
approve this action of the Pope (Ep. 1, 7). See Langen, 111, pp. 528–9.
5 From his son Peter his descendants were known as the Pierleoni. On him see
Poole, Benedict IX and Gregory VI, pp. 23 sqq. ; he was probably connected by
marriage with Hildebrand's mother.
6 For an election near 6 December (St Nicholas' Day), the choice of name was
natural. Martens wrongly assumes a reference to Nicholas I. A Pope chose his
own name, from the time of John XVI (983) whose baptismal name was Peter (see
Poole, EHR, XXXII, pp. 459 sqq. ).
CH. 1.
342
## p. 36 (#82) ##############################################
36
Nicholas II
to them, and Benedict X fled for a few days to Passarano and thence
to Galeria, where for three months he was besieged by the Normans under
Richard of Aversa. Nicholas was enthroned on 24 January 1059; and
the captured Benedict was deposed, stripped of his vestments, and
imprisoned in the hospitium of the church of Sant' Agnese! His name
was long left in the papal lists, and he was not an anti-Pope in the ordinary
sense until Nicholas II was elected. The choice of Gerard had removed
the election of a Pope from the purely Roman sphere to one of wider
importance, and the alliance with the Normans, brought about by the
help of Desiderius, Abbot of Monte Cassino, gave the Pope a support
independent of the Empire or Rome. In all these negotiations Hilde-
brand played a great parts. In the interval between his enthronement
and the Easter Council, Nicholas visited Spoleto, Farfa, and Osimo, and
at the last place on 6 March 1059 appointed Desiderius as cardinal.
In Italy, after the Easter Council at Rome, he held a Council at Melfi,
where decrees on clerical celibacy were repeated stringently, and the
famous peace was made with the Normans. Then he returned to Rome,
accompanied by a Norman army, and the papal sovereignty was enforced.
The Norman alliance, and the celebrated decree on papal elections, worked
together, and a new era began.
A great Council of 113 bishops was held on 14 April 1059 at the
Lateran”. Earlier decrees had broadly regulated the election of a Pope:
Stephen III (769) and Stephen IV (862–3) had anathematised anyone
contesting an election made by priests, prelates, and the whole clergy of
the Roman Church. Otto I had renewed the settlement of Lothar I (824),
by which the election was to be made by the whole clergy and nobility
of the whole Roman people, canonically and justly, but the elect was not
to be consecrated until he had taken the oath to the Emperor.
not as by Dümmler in 1048, but late in 1047. See Sackur, Die Cluniacenser, 11,
pp. 305 sqq. ; R. L. Poole, Benedict IX and Gregory VI, pp. 29–30.
## p. 23 (#69) ##############################################
Damasus II
23
Clement, that no Pope could be made while Gregory VI was still
alive?
Clement II was worthy of his office, but his papacy was short, and so
uneventful; he was overshadowed by the presence of the Emperor, whom
he followed to southern Italy, but he held in January 1047 a Council at
Rome, where deposition was decreed against all simonists, while those
ordained by a simonist bishop were to do forty days' penance. Like pre-
ceding Popes he was ready to excommunicate the Emperor's foes, and the
Beneventans, who refused admittance to the German army, were sufferers.
But, setting a strange example to later Popes, he kept his old bishopric,
to which, as his sweetest bride,” he sent an affectionate letter, and where
on his unexpected death (9 October 1047) his body was laid to rest (he
was the only Pope buried in Germany); a widely-accepted rumour had
it that his unexplained illness was due to poison administered in the
interests of Benedict IX, and the same was said about his successor. It
is certain, at any rate, that on 9 November Benedict returned to Rome,
and, supported by the Marquess Boniface of Tuscany, kept his old office
until July (1048). Neither Roman families nor Italian nobles would
accept imperial control if they could help it. The power of Boniface now
threatened to become dangerous : his grandfather Azzo owned Canossa,
and his father Tedald, favoured by Henry II, had held Mantua, Ferrara,
and other towns, and kept them faithful to the Emperors. Boniface at
first followed his father's policy and Conrad had given him the March of
Tuscany. But his choice of a second wife, Beatrice, daughter of Frederick,
Duke of Upper Lorraine, brought him into a wider sphere of politics.
Distrust grew between him and the Emperor. At Rome he could injure
the Emperor most, and hence his support of Benedict. The Romans,
however, did not follow him; a deputation was sent to Henry at Pöhlde
seeking a new nomination, and Poppo, Bishop of Brixen, was chosen
(Christmas 1047). But Boniface, although Henry's representative in
Italy, at first refused to lead the new Pope to Rome, and only renewed
orders brought him to obedience; then at length he expelled Benedict IX,
and the new Pope was enthroned as Damasus II (17 July 1048). On
9 August he too died at Palestrina, after a pontificate of only twenty-
three days; poison was again suspected, although malaria may have been
the cause. It was no wonder that the deputation which again visited
Germany found the papal throne little desired. They suggested Halinard
of Lyons’, much beloved in Rome, where he had sojourned long. But
he did not accept, even if Henry offered it. At Worms the Emperor
chose a relative of his own, Bruno of Toul, and so there began a papacy
which was to change even the unchanged Rome itself.
1 Wazo, Sententia de Gregorio VI, in Watterich, Vitae Pontificum, 1, pp. 79-80,
quoted from Anselm of Liège.
: It seems better, with Hauck and others, to place the suggestion of Halinard
here, and not earlier.
CH. I.
## p. 24 (#70) ##############################################
24
Leo IX as Bishop of Toul
Bruno, Bishop of Toul, was son of Hugo, Count of Egisheim, and
related to Conrad II, who destined him for rich preferment. Herman of
Toul died on 1 April 1026, and the clergy and citizens at once chose for
successor Bruno, who vas well known to them but was then with the
army of Conrad II in Italy. The Emperor hinted at a refusal in hope of
better things, but the unanimous election seemed to the young ecclesiastic
a call from God; there had been no secular influence at work on his be-
half, and so to Toul, a poor bishopric, often disturbed by border wars, he
determined to go.
The future Pope had been born 21 June 1002, and, as destined for the
Church, was sent to a school at Toul, noted equally for its religious spirit
and its aristocratic pupils. His parents were religious and devoted
patrons of monasteries in Alsace, and at Toul reforming tendencies, due
to William of Dijon, were strong, while an earlier bishop, Gerard (963–
994), was revered as a saint; the young man, learned and literary, became
a canon of Toul, and although not a monk had a deep regard for
St Benedict, to whose power he attributed his recovery from an illness.
From Toul he passed to the chapel of the king, and as deputy for
Herman led the vassals of the bishopric with Conrad; in military affairs
he shewed ability, and was, from his impressive figure, his manners and
activity, liked by many besides Conrad and Gisela. His acceptance of
Toul seemed to others a self-denial, but even its very poverty and
difficulties drew him. He was not consecrated until 9 September 1027,
as Poppo of Trèves wished to impose a stricter form of oath upon his
suffragan, and not until Conrad's return did the dispute end by the
imposition of the older form. This difficulty cleared, Bruno devoted him-
self to his diocese: monastic reform in a city where monasteries were
unusually important was a necessity, and to this he saw; the city lay open
to attacks from the Count of Champagne, and Bruno had often occasion
to use his military experience, inherited and acquired. Thus, like the
best bishops of his day, notably Wazo of Liège, he was a good vassal to
the Emperor and a defender of the Empire. On the ecclesiastical side,
too, he had that love of the past which gave a compelling power to
historic traditions: it was he who urged Widerich, Abbot of St Evré, to
write a life of his predecessor, St Gerard; as a pilgrim to the apostolic
threshold, he often went to Rome. In diplomacy he was versed and use-
ful: in Burgundian politics he had taken a share; he had helped to
negotiate the peace with France in 1032. As a worthy bishop with
many-sided interests and activities he was known far beyond his diocese,
and even in countries besides his own.
Christmas 1048 Bruno spent at Toul, and then, accompanied by other
bishops and by Hildebrand, the follower of Gregory VI, he went to Rome.
It was a journey with the details of which clerical and partisan romance
afterwards made itself busy. But an election at Rome was usual and,
to Leo more than to other men, necessary. As before at Toul, his
## p. 25 (#71) ##############################################
Leo IX as Pope
25
path must be plain before him. Only when accepted by his future flock
could he begin his work, although the real choice had been the Emperor's.
Leo moved along a path he had already trodden, and he needed no
Hildebrand, with the warning of an older prophet, to guide his steps.
Already he knew a bishop's duty and the needs of the Church. He now
passed into a larger world, even if he kept his former see up to August
1051: his aims and his spirit were already set, only he was now to work
on an international field; reading, travel, diplomacy, and episcopal work
had trained him into a strong, enlightened statesman, of fixed principles
and piety, clear as to the means he ought to use. Church reform had be-
gun in many places and under many leaders; its various forms had been
tending to coherence in principles and supports, removal of abuses, and
recognition of Canon Law. Taught by these, many eyes had turned
to Rome. But guidance had been lacking thence, and abuses had
flourished to excess. Leo IX was to bring to the movement guidance;
he was to give it a coherence based on papal leadership and power. We
find under him all the former elements of the movement welded together,
and re-interpreted by a Pope who knew what the Papacy could do.
Hence came its new strength. His papacy is marked by its many
Councils, held not only at Rome but also far afield: Rome (after Easter
1049), Pavia (Whitsuntide), Rheims (October), Mayence (October), Rome
(Easter 1050), Salerno, Siponto, Vercelli (September 1050), Rome (Easter
1051), Mantua (February 1053), Rome (Easter)'. But this itinerary gives
little idea of his travels; on his route from place to place he made visits
of political importance, such as to Lorraine, and southern Italy, and
even to Hungary; everywhere he strove to rouse the Church, and
incidentally composed political or ecclesiastical strifes. Details are
wanting for some of these councils, but we must assume that in all of
them decrees against simony and clerical marriage, often spoken of as
concubinage (which was sometimes the truth), were issued. At the Roman
Council of 1049 simony was much discussed; guilty bishops were deposed,
and one of them, Kilian of Sutri, while trying to clear himself by false
witness, fell like another Ananias and died soon afterwards. There was a
like incident later at Rheims, when the innocent Archbishop of Besançon,
pleading for the guilty and much accused Hugh of Langres, suddenly lost
his voice. It was ascribed to a miracle by St Rémy (Remigius), but such
details shew how personal responsibility was now being pressed home on
the bishops. There was a suggestion that ordinations by simonist bishops
should be declared null, and it is sometimes said that Leo decreed they
were so? . This, as it was urged, would have made almost a clean sweep
1 An account of Leo's councils is given in Hefele-Leclercq, iv, pp. 995 sqq. , with
a very full bibliography for the reign; points of chronology, etc. , are discussed.
: For a full discussion see Saltet, Les Réordinations, Paris, 1907, PP.
note, p. 408. The evidence comes from Peter Damian, and the difficulty lies in the
translation of his “tanquam noviter ordinavit. ” I agree with the text of the Abbé
Saltet, and am not convinced by his note correcting his views as given there.
181
sqq. and
CH. 1.
## p. 26 (#72) ##############################################
26
The Council of Rheims
of the Roman clergy, for many Popes of late had been simoniacal.
Finally it was settled on the lines laid down by Clement II that a penance of
forty days met the case. But Leo brought up the matter again in 1050
and 1051, and on the last date he bade the bishops seek light from God.
In the Curia there were different views. Peter Damian insisted that the
acts of simoniacal bishops were valid, and he supported this by the assertion
that some of them had worked miracles; Cardinal Humbert, on the other
hand, went strongly on the other side. The two men were foremost in rival
schools of thought, divided by opinions on other matters also. Peter
Damian, for instance, welcomed the help of pious kings like Henry III,
while Humbert held any lay interference in Church affairs an outrage.
Strife on this matter was to grow keener, and the fortune of battle is
recorded as by an index in the treatment of simonist ordinations. There
was a side issue in the question whether simony was not a heresy, as the
musician-monk Guido of Arezzo suggested; if it were, simonist ordi-
nations, according to received doctrine, would be automatically void.
The Council of Rheims (3 October 1049) was of special importance. In
France local conditions varied: here the king and there a great vassal
controlled episcopal appointments, but everywhere simony was rife. It
arose, however, not as in Germany from the policy of one central power,
based upon a general principle of law or administration; it was a wide-
spread abuse of varied local origin to be attacked in many individual cases.
The needed reform was now to be preached on French soil by the Pope
himself; it was to be enforced with all the authority given to the Pope
by the Canon Law, genuine or forged; it appealed to ancient decisions,
such as that of Chalcedon (canon II, repeated at Paris in 829), against
simony, whether in ordinations or in ecclesiastical appointments, and
such as those enforcing attendance at councils, which were henceforth
commoner. The appearance of a Pope with definite claims to obedience
was thus emphasised by an appeal to the deficient but reviving sense of
corporate life. And, when the synod had done its work, the appeal was
driven home by the summons of guilty bishops to Rome, and by the
Pope's bold guardianship of free elections against royal interference, as in
the case of Sens (1049) and Le Puy (1053), and Henry I shewed himself
fairly complaisant.
But a German Pope was by no means welcome in France; national
diplomacy rather than a fear of papal authority made Henry I look
askance on the assembly at Rheims. The consecration of the new abbey
church of St Rémy was the occasion of Leo's visit, but the king, by sum-
moning his episcopal vassals to service in a well-timed campaign, made their
attendance at the synod difficult, and so many held aloof. An attack
upon simony was the first and main business, and after an allocution the
bishops one by one were called upon to declare their innocence of it. To
do this was notoriously difficult for Guy, the local Archbishop, and the
Bishops of Langres, Nevers, Coutances, and Nantes were in the same plight.
## p. 27 (#73) ##############################################
Activity of Leo IX
27
The archbishop promised to clear himself at Rome the next Easter,
which he may have done; the much-accused Hugh of Langres fled and
was excommunicated; Pudicus of Nantes was deposed; the two others
cleared themselves of suspicion. The Archbishop of Sens, and the Bishops
of Beauvais and Amiens, were excommunicated for non-attendance with
insufficient reason. The canons enjoined election by clergy and people
for bishops and abbots, forbade the sale of orders, safeguarded clerical
dues but prohibited fees for burials, eucharists, and service to the sick;
some canons recalled the objects of the Truce of God, and others dealt
with infringements of the marriage law. If the synod had been in itself
and in many ways, and above all in its vigorous reforms, an expression of
the Church's corporate life, it also drove home with unexpected energy
the lesson of individual responsibility. The new Papacy as a means of
reform had justified itself in a hitherto disorderly field. Summonses to
Rome, attendance at Roman synods, and the visits of Roman legates to
France, were to secure for the future the gains that Leo had made
possible.
From Rheims the Pope passed by way of Verdun, Metz, and Trèves, to
Mayence, where (in October) a large Council was held. Here simony and
clerical marriage were sternly condemned. Adalbert of Bremen and other
bishops after their return home enforced these decrees with varying
strictness, but without much success; Adalbert drove wives of clerics from
his city to the country outside. But the unhappy fact that a few of the
bishops, and notably Sigebod of Spires, were not above moral reproach
gave Bardo of Mayence, who was named legate, a difficult task. On
leaving Germany, Leo visited Alsace and Lorraine, having with him
Humbert, a monk of Moyenmoutier in the Vosges; he was designed for a
new arch-see in Sicily, but that not being created he was named Cardinal-
bishop of Silva Candida. It was doubtless meant that he was to help Leo
in the plans already forming against the Normans in southern Italy.
Then, whether before or after the Easter Council at Rome (1050) it
is hard to say, Leo went to southern Italy where matters religious and
secular needed attention. At the outset of his reign an embassy, it is
said', from Benevento had begged for his help; there was another embassy
in 1052, and probably an intermediate one. And one of the legates whom
Leo sent to report upon the situation was Cardinal Humbert. In his own
visit of 1050 Leo held Councils at Salerno and at Siponto, in the Norman
territory; here the customary decrees were made and some simoniacal
bishops deposed. The Easter Council at Rome (1050) was largely
attended, as was becoming usual, fifty-five bishops and thirty-two abbots
1 By his archdeacon and biographer, Wibert of Toul; this is the oldest life of
Leo, and is written in the older panegyrical style, but is a sound authority for de-
tailed events; like the other biographies of the time, it shews the influence of the
Cluniac spirit. See Giesebrecht, op. cit. 11, p. 566; Wibert's Life of Leo in Muratori,
RR. II. SS. Ed. 1, II, pp. 282 sqq. , and in Watterich, 1, pp. 127-170.
CH. I.
## p. 28 (#74) ##############################################
28
The Pope and the Normans
being present. Guido of Milan successfully cleared himself from a
charge of simony, but his very appearance to do so marked, much as
similar trials at Rheims and Mayence, a triumph for papal power. But,
unhappily for Guido, the struggle for precedence between him and
Humfred of Ravenna ended in his being wounded so severely as to be
healed only on his return by the miraculous help of St Ambrose. But
Humfred himself offended by words against the Pope, for which he was
excommunicated at the Council of Vercelli, and his forgiveness at Augs-
burg (February 1051) was followed by a somewhat dramatic death. The
very stars seemed to fight against Leo's foes, and submissions to his com-
mands became more general.
It is needless to follow the later councils of Leo; they were all part of
the policy so strikingly begun. A few fresh matters appear in them,
mingled with the old: at Vercelli (1 September 1050) the heresy of
Berengar, previously discussed in the Roman Council of the same year,
was brought up afresh and was to come up again and again. It was an
outcome, almost inevitable, of the varied and growing movements of the
day.
From Vercelli Leo went by way of Burgundy and Lorraine to Germany,
only coming back to Rome for the Easter Council of 1051. He wished
to get the Emperor's support for a Norman campaign, but the advice of
Gebhard of Eichstädt (afterwards Victor II) swayed Henry against it.
Then later in the year he visited southern Italy, whither he had already
sent Cardinal Humbert and the Patriarch of Aquileia as legates. His
plans almost reached a Crusade; he wished for help both from Henry and
the Emperor Constantine IX (1042–1055); he had visions of a papal
supremacy which should extend to the long-severed East. Hence a cam-
paign against the Normans and negotiations with Constantinople were
combined. Benevento, whence the citizens had driven the Lombard
Princes, and which Leo now visited, was at Worms (autumn 1052) in a
later visit to Germany given to the Papacy in exchange for Bamberg.
Leo IX therefore, like many a Pope, has been called, though for services
further afield, the founder of the Temporal Power. On his return from
the south, Councils at Mantua (February 1053), where opposition to the
decrees for celibacy raised a Lombard riot, and at Rome (Easter) followed;
at the latter, the rights of the Patriarch of Grado over Venice and Istria
were confirmed, and to the see of Foroiulium (Udine), where the Patriarch
of Aquileia had taken refuge after the destruction of his city by the Lom-
bards, was now left only Lombard territory. These measures are to be
taken along with the Pope's Eastern plans, in the general policy and military
preparations for which Hildebrand had a share. But the host, like other
crusading forces, was strangely composed, and the battle of Civitate, which
was to have crowned everything, brought only disaster and disappoint-
ment. An honourable captivity with the Normans at Benevento made
warfare, against which Peter Damian raised a voice, impossible, but Leo
## p. 29 (#75) ##############################################
Work of Leo IX
29
could still carry on correspondence and negotiations. The story of the
papal embassy to Constantinople, whence help was expected more hope-
fully than from Germany, has been told elsewhere! The three legates,
Cardinal Humbert, Frederick of Lorraine, Cardinal and Chancellor, and
Peter, Bishop of Amalfi, had small success, and the breach between the
Churches of the East and of the West only became wider and more lasting.
Constantine IX had hoped by conquering the Normans to revive his
failing dominion over southern Italy, where the Catapan Argyrus was as
anti-Norman as Leo himself. But Michael Cerularius, Patriarch since
March 1043, had his own large views, carried into politics with much
ability, and a natural dislike of the now more strongly-urged Roman
claims. Constantinople for many centuries had jealously maintained its
independence of Rome; it knew nothing of the Forged Decretals, while
Canon Law, Church customs, and ritual were now taking separate paths
in East and West. Eastern Emperor and Eastern Patriarch thus had very
different interests and views about Leo's designs. The fortune of war
favoured the Patriarch, for Argyrus, like Leo, was routed in Italy
(February 1053), and the negotiations at Constantinople came to worse
than naught.
But the end of a great papal reign was near. Sick in heart and health,
Leo left Benevento (12 March 1054), slowly travelling to the Rome
where he had dwelt so little but which he tried to make so great. Before
his death be besought the Romans to keep from perjury, forbidden
marriages, and robbery of the Church; he absolved all whom he had
excommunicated; he prayed for the Church and for the conversion of
Benedict IX and his brothers, who had set up simony over nearly all the
world. Then (19 April 1054) he died.
There seems to us a contrast between the more political schemes of his
later and the reforming work of his earlier years. But to him they were
both part of the task to which he had been called. To breathe a new
spirit into the Church and to extend its power were both to make it more
effective in its duty. Even his warfare for the Church was merely
doing as Pope what had been part of his recognised duty as Bishop
of Toul. And his papal reign made a new departure. His conciliar and
legislative activity had been great, even if, amid the pressure of large
events and policies, it slackened, like that of Gregory VII, before the end.
He brought bishops more generally into varied touch with Rome. He
renewed the papal intercourse and growing control for many lands,
such as Hungary and England. He made Adalbert of Bremen (1053)
Papal Vicar for his Baltic lands, with power to form new sees, even
“ regibus invitis. " Much that he had begun was carried further by later
Popes, and great as it was in itself his pontificate was perhaps even
greater as an example and an inspiration. Under the influence of reform
in Germany, of his own training, his own piety, and his devotion to the
Supra, Vol. iv, pp. 255 sqq.
1
CH, I.
## p. 30 (#76) ##############################################
30
Reform under Leo IX
Church, he had shewn, as Bishop of Toul, a high conception of a bishop's
office. He brought the same to Rome, and with wider and more historic
responsibilities he formed a like conception for the Papacy. His friend
and almost pupil Hildebrand was wont', we are told, to dwell upon the
life of Leo, and the things which tended to the glory of the Roman
Church. One great thing above all he did in raising the College of
Cardinals, which succeeding Popes,and notably Stephen IX, carried further.
His very travels, and the councils away from Rome at which he presided,
brought home to men the place and jurisdiction of the Papacy which was
being taught then by the Canon Law. These councils were now attended
not only by bishops but also by abbots, in quickly increasing numbers;
first by such as those of Cluny and Monte Cassino, and then by others,
until at Rheims (1049) about fifty appeared and at Rome (1050) thirty-
two. Many abbots were now privileged to wear mitres and to ordain;
attendance at councils was thus natural. They formed a solid phalanx
of reformers, and the nucleus of a papal majority. Thus his pontificate
abounded in beginnings upon which future days were to build. He
brought the Papacy, after its time of degradation, and with the best
impulses of a new day, into a larger field of work and power.
Leo IX left his mark in many ways upon following reigns. The
central direction of the Western Church continues, although with some
fluctuations of policy and persons, while the improved organisation
enables us to see it in the documents now more carefully preserved. The
Chancery, upon which fell much work due to the new and wide-spread
activity of the Popes, was re-organised by him after the model of the im-
perial Chancery? . After his time the signatures of witnesses often appear,
and so we can see who were the chief advisers of the Pope; this we can con-
nect with the growing importance of the cardinals. Papal activities are
seen in the number of privileges to monasteries, and many documents shew
a diligent papal guardianship of clerical and monastic property. Rome
is kept closely in touch with many lands? , leading prelates are informed
of papal wishes and decrees. A continuity of policy and of care for
special districts can also be traced in series of letters, such as those to
Rheims.
Leo's reforming policy was carried on. Conciliar decrees upon clerical
celibacy were repeated, and simony, sometimes forbidden afresh, like
marriage, met with new punishment.
The policy is much the same, and
it is still more directed by Rome. But one difference between him and
l
1 So Bruno of Segni, Vita Leonis IX, in Watterich, Vitae Pontificum, I, p. 97.
2 Privileges, grants or confirmation of rights to property or jurisdiction, took
under him a new form, and are distinguished from letters. See R. L. Poole,
Lectures on the History of the Papal Chancery and Imperial Influences on the Forms of
Papal Documents (Brit. Acad. vi). Sovereignty and control thus entered into a
new and larger field.
E. g. England under Edward the Confessor, Dalmatia, France.
3
## p. 31 (#77) ##############################################
Victor II
31
his successors soon appears, and slowly grows. He had worked well with
the Emperor, but the new spirit breathed into the Papacy brought, with
a new self-consciousness, a wish for independence. This was natural, and
harmonised with the new feeling, intensified by Canon Law, that the
hierarchy of the Church should not be entangled with that of the State.
About the difficult application of this principle, views began to differ.
The papal reigns to which we pass shew us the gradual disentanglement
of these rival principles amid the clash of politics.
But Leo's successor was long in coming, and the exact course of
events is somewhat doubtful. Gebhard of Eichstädt had been a trusted
counsellor of Henry, he had thwarted the hopes of Leo for large help
against the Normans, and now at length he became Pope. The Em-
peror might well hesitate to part with such a friend, and the prospect
of the impoverished Papacy in difficult Italy was not enticing. Here as
in the case of Leo IX the real decision lay with Henry. Gebhard's
elevation was settled in the last months of 1054, and he was received and,
as Victor II, enthroned" hilariter” at Rome (13 April 1055).
The Norman victory, and another event, had altered affairs in Italy.
Boniface of Tuscany, whose power and policy were threatening to Pope
and Emperor alike, was assassinated on 6 May 1052, and his widow
Beatrice married (1054) the dangerous and ambitious Godfrey the
Bearded, the exiled Duke of Lorraine, who had been administering her
estates. Hence arose difficulties with Henry. He was needed in Italy;
in April he was in Verona, at Easter in Mantua. In spite of her defence
he put Beatrice and her only remaining child Matilda in prison. Godfrey
fied across the Alps, and his brother Frederick, lately returned from
Constantinople, took refuge at the fortress-monastery of Monte Cassino;
here (May-June 1057) he became abbot, after a short but fervid
monastic career entered upon under the influence of Desiderius. At
Whitsuntide (4 June 1055) Pope and Emperor were present at a council
in Florence. Before leaving Italy Henry gave to the Pope Spoleto and
Camerino, as well as making him Imperial Vicar in Italy. This may
throw light on Henry's choice of Gebhard and also his alleged pro-
mise to restore papal rights. But on 5 October 1056 the great Emperor
died. The removal of a strong hand brought new responsibilities to the
Pope, his old adviser and friend.
Victor II, like Leo, dwelt little in Rome; he left it at the end of 1055
and travelled slowly to Germany; he was by Henry's death-bed at
Botfeld, and he buried him at Spires. Then at Aix-la-Chapelle he
enthroned the young king Henry IV; his presence and experience were
valuable to the Empress Agnes, now Regent, and he was able to clear her
path and his own by a reconciliation with Godfrey, who was allowed to
take the place of Boniface. By Lent 1057 Victor was in Rome to hold
the usual council. Then he left the city for Monte Cassino to bring the
supra, Vol. II, pp. 298-9.
1 See
CH. I.
## p. 32 (#78) ##############################################
32
Stephen IX
stubborn monastery, which had elected an Abbot Peter without consult-
ing Pope or Emperor, into accord with the Papacy. The elevation of the
Cardinal-deacon Frederick to be its abbot and also Cardinal-priest of
St Chrysogonus (14 June) marked a reconciliation, significant ecclesi-
astically and politically. In July Monte Cassino was left for a journey
towards Rheims, where a great Council was to be held. But Victor's death
at Arezzo (28 July 1057) removed from the Empire a pillar of peace, and
left the Church without a head. In those days of stress, workers who
really faced their task rarely lived long. He was buried, not at Eichstädt
as he and his old subjects would have wished, but at Ravenna.
It is not so easy to sketch the character of Victor II as to record his
doings. As a young man he had been chosen bishop almost incidentally by
Henry III, who may have judged rightly his powers of steady service.
The Eichstädt chronicles tell us that as a young man he did nothing
puerile; it is also true that as an old man he did nothing great. But
neither as German bishop nor as Pope did he ever fail in diligence or
duty: his earlier reputation was gained rather as servant of the State
than as prelate of the Church; as Imperial Vicar he might have brought
peace to Italy as he had to Germany and its infant king. But death
prevented his settling the Norman difficulty; there is no reason to think
that he had forsaken his former view which had crossed that of Leo IX.
His dealings with Monte Cassino, always strongly anti-Norman, had
given him a new base upon which he could rely for peace as easily as for '
war. His work was sound but was not completed. He seems to us an
official of many merits, but confidence was the only thing he inspired. He
was no leader with policies and phrases ready; he was only a workman
who needed not to be ashamed.
On 2 August 1057, the festival of Pope Stephen I, Frederick of
Lorraine was elected Pope', and took the name of Stephen IX? . He was
in Rome when the news of Victor's death came, and was asked to suggest
a successor; he named Humbert, three Italian bishops, and Hildebrand.
Then, when asked to be Pope himself, he unwillingly accepted. He was no
imperialist like Victor, and he was, like the monks of his abbey, strongly
anti-Norman. Above all he was an ecclesiastic, heart and soul. Moreover,
he was freely elected at Rome; not until December was a deputation sent
to inform the German Court; there was no whisper of kingly recognition
and indeed there was no Emperor; he was elected, as a German chronicler
complains, rege ignorante, although the circumstances may account for
this.
The new Pope had been a canon at Liège. His riches, increased by
gifts at Constantinople, made him popular, but he was a monk of deep
1 He kept his abbacy as preceding Popes their sees. Victor Il's successor
Gunther was only elected to Eichstädt ou 20 August 1057.
2 Sometimes called Stephen X. See R. L. Poole, The Names and Numbers of
medieval Popes, EHR, XXXII, pp. 465 sqq. For our period, pp. 471-2.
1
## p. 33 (#79) ##############################################
St Peter Damian
33
conviction. His short papacy leaves room for conjecture as to what with
longer days he might have done. There were rumours that he meant to
make Duke Godfrey Emperor, but he differed very widely from his more
secular-minded brother. Like his predecessors he did not stay long in
Rome; he soon left it for Monte Cassino, which he reached at the end of
November; he arranged for Desiderius to be abbot after his death, but
meanwhile to be sent on an embassy to Constantinople. The shadow of
death was already on the Pope, when in February 1058 he went to Rome.
Before this he had sent representatives, of whom Hildebrand was one, to
Gerinany, probably to announce his election. Now he resolved to meet
his brother, but before he set out he gathered together the cardinal-
bishops and other clergy of Rome with the burghers. He told them he
knew that after his death men would arise among them who lived for
themselves, who did not follow the canons but, though laymen, wished
to reach the papal throne. Then they took an oath not to depart from
the canons and not to assent to a breach of them by others. He also bound
them in case of his death to take no steps before Hildebrand's arrival.
Then he set out for Tuscany, but on 29 March 1058 died at Florence
where he was buried. Weakness and sickness had long been his lot; it was
needless to attribute his death to poison given by an emissary from Rome.
It is clear that Pope Stephen's thoughts were intent upon the Normans;
what support Hildebrand had gained from the Empress-regent we
do not know, and the Pope himself was eagerly awaiting his legate's
return. What further help and of what kind he was to gain from Duke
Godfrey was even more uncertain. A policy of peace, such as Victor II
had adopted, had more to recommend it than had one of war; Monte
Cassino was under papal control, and all the cards were in the papal
hand. The hurried fever of a dying man made for haste, but death was
even quicker. Stephen's papacy ended amid great possibilities.
But one thing was certain: any line taken would be towards the con-
tinued reform of the Church. Stephen had drawn more closely around
him able and determined reformers. Peter Damian he called to be
Cardinal-bishop of Ostia, a post from which that thorough monk recoiled.
He had been unwilling to pass from his beloved Fonte-Avellana to Ocri
where Leo IX had made him prior; the sins of the monks filled him with
horror, and now he shrank even more from the open world which did not
even profess the monastic rule. The Pope had to appeal to his obedience
and even to threaten excommunication. So Damian was consecrated at
Rome in November 1057, under pressure which he held to be almost
uncanonical. He was called from his diocese in 1059 to enforce the
programme of discipline at Ambrosian Milan; with him was to go the
active reformer Anselm, Bishop of Lucca. To their embassy we must
return later. It is enough to notice here that Milan was thus brought
into the papal sphere; Guido, its Archbishop, was ordered on 9 December
1057 to appear at the papal Court to discuss the situation.
3
C. MED. H. VOL. V. CH. I.
## p. 34 (#80) ##############################################
34
Increase of Papal authority
At length in 1070 Peter Damian gained his release from Alexander II
so that he could return to his beloved penitential desert. But his cardinalate
he kept and his influence he never lost. As legate, however, he brought
his personal power into fresh fields: he was sent to difficult Milan in
1057; to France in 1063 to settle the dispute between Drogo of Macon
and the exempted Cluny; and as an old man of 62 to Germany in 1069
to handle the suggested divorce of Henry IV and Bertha. Each mission
was a triumph for his firmness or, as he would have preferred to say, for the
laws of the Church. The employment of legates to preside at councils
superseded the heroic attempts of Leo IX to do so in person; the
reverence owed to the Apostolic See was paid to its legates. So we have
Humbert's legateship to Benevento in 1051 and to Ravenna in 1053;
that of Hildebrand to France in 1055, when he not only, as Damian tells
us, deposed six bishops for simony but, as he himself told Desiderius, saw
the simonist Archbishop of Lyons smitten dumb as he strove to finish the
Gloria with the words “and to the Holy Ghost. ” With the same great aim,
Victor II named the Archbishops of Arles and Aix his permanent Vicars for
southern France. Leo IX solemnly placed a mitre on the head of Bardo of
Trèves to mark him as Primate of Gallia Belgica (12 March 1049), on
29 June 1049 gave Herman of Cologne the pallium and cross, on 6 January
1053 gave the pallium and mitre to Adalbert of Bremen as Papal Vicar for
the north, and on 18 October 1052 gave the pallium and the use of a special
mitre to the Archbishop of Mayence; on 25 April 1057 Victor confirmed
the privileges of Trèves, and gave the mitre and pallium to Ravenna.
The papal power was thus made more and more the mainspring of the
Church. Metropolitans became the channels of papal power. To the
Papacy men looked for authority, and from it they received honours
which symbolised authority. Grants of the pallium to other sees extended
the process, and other marks of honour, such as the white saddle-cloths
of Roman clerics, were given and prized. The eleventh century, like the
tenth, was one in which this varied taste for splendour, borrowed from
the past, was liberally indulged. The mitre, papal and episcopal, was
being more generally used and was altering in shape, and its growth
illustrates a curious side of our period? . Laymen shared the tastes of
1 The pallium was given from the fifth century to archbishops named as Vicars
of the Roman Patriarch. In the eighth century it was given to other metropolitans.
Originally it was an honorary decoration given by the Emperor, and then acquired
an ecclesiastical meaning. It was an age in which, as all evidence shews, decora-
tion and robes, splendid and symbolic, were valued and sought after; diplomatically
bestowed by the Popes they gratified the recipients and enhanced the papal power.
See for the eighth century the letters between Pope Zacharias and Boniface in
S. Bonifacii et Lulli Epistolae, MGH, Epp. Sel. 1 (ed. Tangl), pp. 80-205.
2 The mitre probably originated in the Phrygian cap, a secular sign of honour
supposed to be given to the Popes by the Donation of Constantine and worn ad
imitationem imperii. About the middle of the eleventh century it was used liturgic-
ally and not only in secular processions. The whole development, use, and inter-
pretation are interesting. See Sachsee, Tiara und Mitra der Päpste, ZKG, xxxiv,
pp. 481 sqq. ; Duchesne, Christian Worship (Engl. transl. ), p. 398.
## p. 35 (#81) ##############################################
Contested succession on Stephen IX's death
35
churchmen; Benzo's vivid picture of “the Roman senate” wearing head-
dresses akin to the mitre charmed the pencil of a medieval chronicler.
The death of Stephen IX gave the Roman nobles, restless if submissive
under imperial control and papal power, a wished-for chance. Empire
and Papacy were now somewhat out of touch, and other powers, Tuscan
and Norman, had arisen in Italy. Gerard, Count of Galeria, formed a
party with Tusculan and Crescentian help, burst into the city by night,
5 April 1058, and elected John Mincius, Cardinal-bishop of Velletri, as
Benedict X"; and money played its part in the election. The name was
significant, but the Pope himself, more feeble than perverse, had previously
been open to no reproach”; he had been made cardinal by Leo IX, and
on the death of Victor II had been suggested by Stephen himself as a
possible Pope. Reform had thus made great strides between Benedict IX
and Benedict X. Some of the cardinals were afar, Humbert in Florence,
and Hildebrand on his way from Germany', whither he had gone, a little
late, to announce the election of Stephen. But as a body they were now
more coherent, less purely Roman, and more ecclesiastical; they declared
against Benedict, threatening him with excommunication, and fled the
city. Then they gathered together in Tuscany and consulted at leisure
on another choice. In the end they settled on a Burgundian, Gerard
Bishop of Florence, a sound and not too self-willed prelate of excellent
repute, favoured by Duke Godfrey and not likely to take a line of his
own. Besides the help of Godfrey the approval of the Empress Agnes
was sought. Even in Rome itself there was a party against Benedict,
headed by Leo de Benedicto Christiano", a rich citizen, son of a Jewish
convert, influential in the Trastevere and in close touch with Hildebrand;
they sent a deputation to the Empress Agnes at Augsburg, pleading that
the election of Benedict had been due to force. As a result Duke Godfrey
was ordered to lead the cardinals' nominee to Rome. Gerard was elected
at Siena, probably in December 1058, by the cardinals, together with
high ecclesiastics and nobles, and chose the name of Nicholas II6. His old
see he kept until his death. Then an approach was made towards Rome;
a synod was held at Sutri. Leo de Benedicto opened the Trastevere
1 On the election and date see Hefele-Leclercq, iv, pp. 1133 sqq.
? The invective of Peter Damian against him judges after the election. For it
see Watterich, 1, pp. 204-5.
3 Less probably in Germany itself. But see Hefele-Leclercq, iv, p. 1134, note 2.
4 In war against Ancona he was helped by a papal excommunication of the
opposing citizens. Thus the Papacy was useful to him. Peter Damian did not
approve this action of the Pope (Ep. 1, 7). See Langen, 111, pp. 528–9.
5 From his son Peter his descendants were known as the Pierleoni. On him see
Poole, Benedict IX and Gregory VI, pp. 23 sqq. ; he was probably connected by
marriage with Hildebrand's mother.
6 For an election near 6 December (St Nicholas' Day), the choice of name was
natural. Martens wrongly assumes a reference to Nicholas I. A Pope chose his
own name, from the time of John XVI (983) whose baptismal name was Peter (see
Poole, EHR, XXXII, pp. 459 sqq. ).
CH. 1.
342
## p. 36 (#82) ##############################################
36
Nicholas II
to them, and Benedict X fled for a few days to Passarano and thence
to Galeria, where for three months he was besieged by the Normans under
Richard of Aversa. Nicholas was enthroned on 24 January 1059; and
the captured Benedict was deposed, stripped of his vestments, and
imprisoned in the hospitium of the church of Sant' Agnese! His name
was long left in the papal lists, and he was not an anti-Pope in the ordinary
sense until Nicholas II was elected. The choice of Gerard had removed
the election of a Pope from the purely Roman sphere to one of wider
importance, and the alliance with the Normans, brought about by the
help of Desiderius, Abbot of Monte Cassino, gave the Pope a support
independent of the Empire or Rome. In all these negotiations Hilde-
brand played a great parts. In the interval between his enthronement
and the Easter Council, Nicholas visited Spoleto, Farfa, and Osimo, and
at the last place on 6 March 1059 appointed Desiderius as cardinal.
In Italy, after the Easter Council at Rome, he held a Council at Melfi,
where decrees on clerical celibacy were repeated stringently, and the
famous peace was made with the Normans. Then he returned to Rome,
accompanied by a Norman army, and the papal sovereignty was enforced.
The Norman alliance, and the celebrated decree on papal elections, worked
together, and a new era began.
A great Council of 113 bishops was held on 14 April 1059 at the
Lateran”. Earlier decrees had broadly regulated the election of a Pope:
Stephen III (769) and Stephen IV (862–3) had anathematised anyone
contesting an election made by priests, prelates, and the whole clergy of
the Roman Church. Otto I had renewed the settlement of Lothar I (824),
by which the election was to be made by the whole clergy and nobility
of the whole Roman people, canonically and justly, but the elect was not
to be consecrated until he had taken the oath to the Emperor.
