AGAPETUS II, Pope. - A Roman, he succeeded Marinus II on 10 May 946, and died in December 955. We have no information about his family or his life before the pontificate. He was worthy of the very high office, although he lived in the very midst of the iron age of the papacy. In Rome his authority as prince was greatly limited by the power of Alberic II (v.). The latter had been arbiter of the city since 932, in the capacity of "humble prince and senator of all the Romans." He reserved to himself the temporal administration and also used it in the interests of religion, while ordinarily leaving the exercise of spiritual power free to the Pontiff, in whose name the acts continued to be issued. When A. ascended to the pontificate, the reform of the ancient Roman monasteries and the founding of new ones had already begun 15 years earlier with the counsel of St. Odo, abbot of Cluny (d. 942). A. asked the abbot of Gorza for some monks to reestablish monastic discipline at St. Paul Outside the Walls. His influence, however, was more noticeable outside Rome. At the Roman Council of 949 he confirmed the decisions of the Synods of Ingelheim (8 June 948) and Trier (948), which, with the papal legate Marinus, bishop of Bomarzo, presiding, had pronounced in favor of Artaud, who had been replaced in the archiepiscopal see of Reims by Hugh of Vermandois, imposed there by his father by force, although he was only five years old. In 950 Berengar II, following the sudden death of Lothair of Provence, had himself crowned king of Italy (15 Dec. 950), associating with himself his son Adalbert; he wished the latter to marry Adelaide, Lothair's widow; but she refused. Instead he called to Italy Otto I, king of the Germans, who
