BENEDICT IX, POPE. — Theophylactus was the son of Alberic III, Count of Tusculum, and the nephew of the last two popes, Benedict VIII and John XIX. Upon the death of the latter, his father, who held sway over the Roman state, proposed—if not outright imposed—him on the electors, relying on the authority he wielded in the city and on generous distributions of largesse. Rodulfus Glaber, a monk of Saint-Germain d’Auxerre (cf. M. Manitius, *Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters*, II, Munich 1923, pp. 347–53), states that the newly elected pope was a boy barely ten years old (“puer ferme decennis... puer annorum circiter duodecim”), and this assertion has passed into history. Yet the authority of Rodulfus must be treated with caution, for Desiderius of Monte Cassino, though calling Benedict by name (though not in fact) and judging his life harshly, makes no mention of his boyish age, nor do Hermannus Contractus or Leo of Ostia. St. Peter Damian writes that the conduct of the new pope began immediately after his election to be highly blameworthy, but this could not be said of a twelve-year-old boy. Moreover, he at once exercised papal functions and governed with competence. Nor could one believe that venerable men such as the chancellor Peter, Abbot Hugh of Farfa, Abbot Bartholomew of Grottaferrata, Laurence, archbishop of Amalfi, and others would have collaborated with a child. Therefore, with the most recent scholarship, one may conclude that at the time of his election Benedict was between twenty-five and thirty years old: still too young for the loftiest office to which he was called, and one for which he was altogether unworthy.
It is true that many accusations are the outpourings of hostile pamphleteers or the tales of chroniclers often remote in time and place from the events they describe; yet it is impossible to dismiss everything, for one cannot explain the general agreement of sources in condemning his conduct. One may affirm of Benedict that he resembled many secular princes and nobles of the age who attained ecclesiastical offices for secular ends and behaved more as secular lords than as popes.
His election was pleasing to Emperor Conrad II, since the Counts of Tusculum were leaders of the imperial party in Rome. He was consecrated either on Sunday, 27 August, or on Sunday, 3 September 1032. He governed undisturbed until September 1044. Malicious assertions by chroniclers would have it that Benedict was driven from Rome as early as 1037 and restored by imperial force. This is legend. It is certain, however, that in 1037 Benedict met Conrad II at Cremona and was drawn into the struggle against Aribert of Milan, whom he excommunicated and deposed at the Synod of Spello (Easter 1038). Apart from this journey, Benedict remained always in Rome. In 1032 he consecrated Andrew as bishop of Perugia; on 2 November 1036 he held a synod of thirty-four bishops and numerous abbots; another he held in 1039, in which he absolved Bretislaus the Warrior of Bohemia, guilty of invading Poland and carrying off the body of St. Adalbert of Prague. At the Roman Synod of 1041 he canonized the Syracusan monk Simon, who had died at Trier in 1035. Soon afterward he excommunicated Samuel, who had seized Hungary by dethroning Peter and then waged war on Henry III. Indeed, Benedict sought to remain on friendly terms with the new emperor, who succeeded Conrad II in 1039. He granted him permission to contract a second marriage with Agnes of Poitou, his kinswoman, and did not obstruct imperial interference in religious matters. Yet this accord did not last long.
In April 1044 a synod gathered in Rome before which Venetian ambassadors protested energetically against the attacks upon the patriarchal see of Grado by Eberhard, patriarch of Aquileia; Benedict condemned these acts. Whether it was the people’s weariness of Tusculan predominance, the jealousy of rival families, or resentment against the pope himself, in September 1044 an uprising broke out in Rome. Benedict took refuge in his fortress on Monte Cavo, while his partisans were besieged in Trastevere. The insurgents elected John, bishop of Sabina—a protégé of the Crescentii—as pope, taking the name Sylvester III. He, however, held power for no more than fifty days, for the Tusculan faction drove him back into hiding (March 1045). Conscious of the people’s hostility, Benedict was persuaded by his closest friends to resign the papacy on 10 May 1045. The new pope was John Gratian, archpriest of Saint John at the Latin Gate. Benedict retired to his castles.
Bonizo of Sutri and the *Annales Altahenses* would have it that Benedict’s resignation was motivated by his desire to marry a cousin, the daughter of Gerard of the Sasso, who allegedly made the renunciation of the papacy a condition of the marriage; but such a rumor had no consequences. Secure in his fortresses, Benedict refused Henry III’s summons to appear at the Synod of Sutri (20 December 1046), where Sylvester III and Gregory VI (as John Gratian had styled himself) were deposed. Instead, Benedict was deposed at a Roman synod on 24 December, perhaps because at Sutri his prior resignation was deemed sufficient.
After the pope elected on that occasion, Clement II (19 October 1047), died, Benedict reappeared in Rome and held power from 8 November 1047 to 16 July 1048, when imperial forces compelled him to yield the see to Damasus II, who reigned for barely twenty days (d. 9 August 1048). Groundless rumors claimed that Damasus II’s premature death, like that of Clement II, was caused by poisoning at Benedict’s hand. Some sources, however, state that he ended his days in the monastery of Grottaferrata, persuaded thereto by Abbot Bartholomew, penitent for his sins. St. Peter Damian, on the other hand, says he died impenitent and indeed, supported by his brothers, continued to oppose the imperial popes; so much so that Leo IX, on his deathbed, prayed God to convert Theophylactus, a fomentor of discord and schism.
In the last document that survives from him, a donation dated 18 September 1055, he still styles himself “pope.” Another charter, dated 9 February 1056, presumes him dead. Thus his death must have occurred between 18 September 1055 and 9 February 1056.