BENZO, bishop of ALBA. — Probably from southern Italy, he was born at the beginning of the 11th century and was already bishop in 1059, as he appears among the signatories of the Roman Council of that year. Nothing is known of his youth or his intellectual and moral formation. He seems to have been in Germany before his episcopal appointment, since he was well-versed in German and had a deep understanding of imperial politics. During the pontificate of Nicholas II (1059–61), he revealed himself as the Italian prelate most devoted to the German empire. Indeed, he played an important role at Nicholas’s death when, after the cardinals had elected Alexander II, the empress-regent Agnes opposed him with the bishop of Parma Cadalo, who took the name Honorius II. In the autumn of 1061, B. was sent to Rome where he managed to win over almost the entire city to the cause of the antipope, whom he went to meet at Sutri to escort him into the city, forcing Alexander to flee. But when Cadalo was expelled through the intervention of Godfrey of Lorraine, B. saw all his plans defeated. Despite the recognition of Alexander by Germany, which took place in 1062 at the Council of Augsburg, B. once again attempted to have Cadalo occupy Rome. Having gone to Germany to urge Henry IV to launch an expedition against the Normans, he returned to Italy where he carried out extensive activity against Alexander and in favor of Henry. Driven from his diocese around the spring of 1077, he was forced by imprisonment and illness to change the direction of his activity. Indeed, during the pontificate of Gregory VII (1073–1085), in the midst of the Investiture Controversy, he openly sided with the empire, composing a series of sharply polemical writings against the papacy. When Henry IV came to Italy in 1081, B. was at his side, hoping for better days and believing in the success of imperial policy. The last years of his life are unknown; he certainly died before Henry’s second expedition in 1090, but no precise date can be established.
Involved in the political and religious events of his time, B. left behind a curious and important work for the history of his century in the *Liber ad Heinricum*. It is not a homogeneous work, but a collection of more or less lengthy passages, in prose and verse, dedicated to different figures and held together only by the dominant idea for which B. never ceased to fight throughout his life. The work probably took its final form shortly after the death of Gregory VII, between 1085 and 1086. In it, B. displays the most abject servility toward Henry and the empire, demanding his due reward. In theory, he advocates a Christian Roman empire under the supreme guidance of the emperor, to whom the Pope and bishops must submit, venting all his hatred against Gregory VII and the Patria, which constituted the greatest obstacle to the realization of his theories. Because of the sectarian spirit that pervades the entire work, B.’s testimony, though contemporary with the events, cannot be accepted without great caution and discernment.