BENEDETTO III, PAPA

BENEDICT III, POPE. — A Roman, son of Peter, he succeeded St. Leo IV (d. 17 July 855). Ordained by Leo IV as cardinal priest of S. Callisto, the electors came to take him to install him as Pope (c. 20 July); and since he refused, he was forcibly brought to the Lateran. However, the consecration was not immediately carried out because it was necessary to await the confirmation of the emperors Lothar I and Louis II. The legates sent to request it were suborned at Gubbio by Arsenius, bishop of Orte and father of the notorious Anastasius Bibliothecarius, who had been excommunicated by Leo IV (853). Anastasius was the leader of the minority favoring a more pronounced Frankish influence in Roman affairs. It is no wonder that the emperors refused to confirm Benedict and proposed the candidacy of Anastasius instead. Nor was it difficult to find other supporters, who, having forcibly occupied the Vatican and Lateran basilicas, arrested Benedict and his principal supporters (21 Sept. 855). The resistance of Benedict and that of the Roman clergy, who had withdrawn to the basilica of the Holy Four Crowned Martyrs, and on the other hand the violence of Anastasius, dissuaded the imperial envoys from persisting in his candidacy. They abandoned their support and accepted Benedict, who was consecrated in St. Peter’s on Sunday, 29 Sept. 855. Perhaps on the very day of his consecration Emperor Lothar died; the Pope succeeded in reconciling, at least for the time being, his sons Lothar II, Louis II, and Charles the Bald, who at the assembly of Orbe in Switzerland (October 856) divided the states (Jaffé-Wattenbach, 266). He approved the acts of the Council held at Soissons in April 853 in favor of Incmar of Reims, saving the rights of the Holy See and assuming the truth of the report (op. cit., 2664). He received Æthelwulf, king of Wessex, and his son Alfred, the future great king, who came on pilgrimage to the tomb of the Apostles. He restored the baptistery of S. Maria Maggiore and various other churches, which he endowed with rich gifts, especially S. Paul’s, which had been profaned by the Saracens during the invasion of 846. He defended the rights of the Church and the inviolability of monasteries against the violent Hubert, count of the Jura. His protests regarding the disorders in the kingdom of Charles the Bald were accepted at the assembly of Benneuil (August 856). On the other hand, he failed in his pleas on behalf of the four bishops of Brittany who had been unjustly deposed by the prince Nominoë (op. cit., 2671), and in favor of Count Boso, abandoned by his wife Engeltrude, who had fled with a lover to the court of Lothar II (op. cit., 2673). He managed to pronounce definitively before hearing both sides in the case of Gregory Asbestas, bishop of Syracuse, who had been deposed by Patriarch Ignatius (op. cit., 2667). He died on 17 April 858, and the next day was buried in St. Peter’s by the deacon Nicholas, who had advised him in the firm governance of the Church and was to succeed him in the pontificate.