Benedict III, Pope

BENEDICT III, Pope. - Roman, son of Peter, he succeeded St. Leo IV (d. July 17, 855). Having been ordained cardinal priest of St. Callixtus by Leo IV, the electors came to fetch him to install him as Pope (around July 20); and since he would have none of it, he was led by main force to the Lateran. However, the consecration was not proceeded with immediately, because it was fitting to await the confirmation of the emperors Lothair I and Louis II. The legates sent to request it allowed themselves to be suborned, at Gubbio, by Arsenius bishop of Orte and father of the famous Anastasius the Librarian, excommunicated by Leo IV (853). Anastasius was the head of the minority favorable to a more pronounced Frankish interference in Roman affairs. No wonder that the emperors refused the confirmation of B. in order to propose the candidacy of Anastasius. Nor was it difficult to find other supporters, who, having occupied by main force the Vatican and Lateran basilicas, arrested B. and his principal supporters (Sept. 21, 855). The resistance of B. and that of the Roman clergy, who withdrew into the Emilian basilica of the Sts. Four Crowned Martyrs, and on the other hand the violence of Anastasius, dissuaded the imperial envoys from insisting on his candidacy. They abandoned its patronage and accepted B., who was consecrated in St. Peter's on Sunday, Sept. 29, 855. Perhaps on the very day of his consecration the emperor Lothair died; the Pope succeeded in reconciling, at least for the time being, his sons Lothair II, Louis II and Charles the Bald, 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 Hincmar of Reims, saving the rights of the Holy See and assuming the truthfulness of the report (op. cit., 2664). He welcomed Ethelwulf, king of Wessex, and his son Alfred, the future great king, who had come on pilgrimage to the tomb of the Apostles. He restored the baptistery of St. Mary Major and various other churches, which he endowed with rich gifts, especially St. Paul's, profaned by the Saracens in 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 over the disorders of the reign of Charles the Bald were heeded at the conference of Bonneuil (Aug. 856). Instead, those in favor of the four bishops of Brittany whom the prince Nominé had unjustly had deposed failed (op. cit., 2671), as did those in favor of count Boso, abandoned by his wife Engeltrude, who had fled with a lover to the court of Lothair II (op. cit., 2673). He refused to pronounce definitively before hearing both parties on the cause of Gregory Asbestas, bishop of Syracuse, deposed by the patriarch Ignatius (op. cit., 2667). He died on Apr. 17, 858, and on the following day was laid to rest in St. Peter's, through the care of the deacon Nicholas, who had advised him in his vigorous government and who was to succeed him in the pontificate.

Ireneo Daniele