BENEDICT VI, POPE. — Son of Ildebrando, he was elected by the imperial faction shortly after the death of John XIII (6 Oct. 972), but was consecrated only on 9 Jan. 973, as confirmation from Otto I, then in Germany, had to be awaited. After the latter’s death (7 May 973), when Otto II was in difficulty, the Roman popular faction led by Crescentius I (d. 984) opposed Benedict with the Roman deacon Francone, who took the name Boniface VII (June 974). The latter imprisoned Benedict in Castel Sant’Angelo, and when the imperial envoy Sicco intervened for his release, Boniface had the prisoner strangled (July 974).
Few documents remain from Benedict’s pontificate, some of which are suspect or forged. He confirmed privileges for the church of Trier (24 Jan. 973) and granted possessions to the monasteries of Subiaco (26 Nov. 973), Vézelay (28 Nov. 973), and San Pietro di Rosas in Spain (Apr. 974). Suspect is the letter sent to him by Piligrim, bishop of Passau, requesting the restoration of the hierarchy in Hungary to the detriment of the metropolitan see of Salzburg. Certainly false is the favorable reply attributed to Benedict, as well as the opposing reply to the restoration, the first forged by Piligrim and the second in the circle of Frederick, archbishop of Salzburg.
BENEDICT
BENEDICT VI, POPE. — After Benedict VI was strangled in Castel Sant’Angelo, where Crescentius, or Cenci, son of the second Theodora, had imprisoned him, he was briefly replaced by the deacon Francone, who took the name Boniface VII. A list of popes carried to England in 990 by Sigeric, archbishop of Canterbury, and two companions, reports: “... Bonifatius sedit dies sexaginta et expulsus est foras” (cf. B. Pesci, L’itinerario romano di Sigerico arcivescovo di Canterbury e la lista dei papi da lui portata in Inghilterra [anno 990], in Riv. di arch. crist., 12 [1936], p. 59). Indeed, the envoy of Emperor Otto II soon restored his lord’s authority and imposed his will by securing the election of Benedict VII. It cannot be stated with certainty whether Benedict’s election coincided with Boniface’s flight, but there is no doubt that all three events—the death of Benedict VI, the intrusion of Boniface VII, and the election of Benedict VII—occurred in the same year, 974. From the bulls issued by the latter, his enthronement appears to have taken place between 2 and 28 Oct. of that year. Benedict was a Roman by birth and, at the time of his election, bishop of Sutri; his kinship with Alberic, prince of the Romans, rests on an addition to the chronicle of Leo of Ostia (MGH, Scriptores, VII, p. 631), which, however, is not very credible. He maintained excellent relations with the emperor, who visited him in Ravenna during the Christmas festivities of 980 and who later took up residence in Rome, making the Eternal City the base for his campaigns in southern Italy. He was generous in his favors to the clergy of various nations, particularly the German, and was especially concerned with the flourishing of monasteries, such as Cluny in France and San Bonifacio on the Aventine in Rome, where he appointed as abbot the metropolitan Sergio of Damascus, whom the Arabs had driven from his see. At the Roman synod of 981, he solemnly condemned simony, an act he himself communicated to all archbishops, bishops, abbots, kings, princes, dukes, and counts (PL 137, 336–38).
Benedict died in Rome on 10 July 983 and was buried in the church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme.