Benedict III, Pope

BENEDETTO III, POPE. – A Roman, son of Pietro, he succeeded St. Leone IV (d. 17 July 855). Ordained by Leone IV as cardinal priest of S. Callisto, he was sought out by the electors to install him as Pope (ca. 20 July); and since he wanted nothing to do with it, he was forcibly taken to the Lateran. His consecration, however, did not take place immediately, since it was necessary to await confirmation from the emperors Lotario I and Ludovico II. The legates sent to request it allowed themselves to be bribed at Gubbio by Arsenio, bishop of Orte and father of the famous Anastasio Bibliotecario, excommunicated by Leone IV (853). Anastasio was the leader of the minority in favor of more pronounced Frankish interference in Roman affairs. It is therefore not surprising that the emperors refused to confirm B. and proposed Anastasio’s candidacy instead. Nor was it difficult to find other supporters who, having forcibly occupied the Vatican and Lateran basilicas, arrested B. and his principal supporters (21 Sept. 855). B.’s resistance and that of the Roman clergy, which had withdrawn to the Basilica Emiliana of SS. Quattro Coronati, and, on the other hand, Anastasio’s violence dissuaded the imperial envoys from insisting on his candidacy. They abandoned their support of him and accepted B., who was consecrated in S. Pietro on Sunday, 29 Sept. 855. Perhaps on the very day of his consecration the emperor Lotario died; the Pope succeeded in reconciling, at least for the time being, his sons Lotario II, Lodovico II, and Carlo il Calvo, who at the meeting of Orbe in Switzerland (October 856) divided the states among themselves (Jaffé-Wattenbach, 2669). He approved the acts of the Council held at Soissons in April 853 in favor of Incmaro of Reims, without prejudice to the rights of the Holy See and on the assumption that the report was truthful (op. cit., 2664). He received Etevolfo, king of Wessex, and his son Alfredo, the future great king, who had come on pilgrimage to the tomb of the Apostles. He restored the baptistery of S. Maria Maggiore and several other churches, which he endowed with rich gifts, especially S. Paolo, profaned by the Saracens during the invasion of 846. He defended the rights of the Church and the inviolability of the monasteries against the violent Uberto, count of the Jura. His protests against the disorders in the kingdom of Carlo il Calvo were heeded at the assembly of Benneuil (August 856). On the other hand, his protests in favor of the four bishops of Brittany whom the prince Nominé had unjustly deposed (op. cit., 2671), and those in favor of Count Bosone, abandoned by his wife Engeltrude, who had fled with a lover to the court of Lotario II (op. cit., 2673), proved unsuccessful. He refused to issue a final judgment before hearing both sides in the case of Gregorio Asbesta, bishop of Syracuse, deposed by the patriarch Ignazio (op. cit., 2667). He died on 17 April 858 and the following day was buried in S. Pietro by the deacon Niccolò, who had advised him in his vigorous governance and was to succeed him in the pontificate.