Benedict IX, Pope

BENEDICT IX, Pope. - Theophylact was the son of Alberic III of the counts of Tusculum and nephew of the two last pontiffs, Benedict VIII and John XIX. On the death of the latter, his father, arbiter of the Roman state, proposed him, if indeed he did not impose him, upon the electors, availing himself of the authority he wielded over the city and also of generous largesses. Rodulfus Glaber, a monk at St. Germain d'Auxerre (cf. M. Manitius, Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters, II, Munich 1923, pp. 347-53) says that the newly elected was a boy barely more than ten years old («puer ferme decennis... puer annorum circiter duodecim») and his assertion passed into history. Now Rodulfus's authority is open to question, because Desiderius of Montecassino, while calling B. such in name but not in fact and judging his life severely, does not mention his boyish age, nor do Hermann Contractus and Leo of Ostia mention it. St. Peter Damian writes that the conduct of the new Pope began to be greatly blameworthy immediately after the election, but this could not be said of a twelve-year-old boy. All the more so since he immediately exercised papal functions and governed with competence. Nor could one believe that venerable men, such as the chancellor Peter, Hugh abbot of Farfa, Bartholomew abbot of Grottaferrata, Lawrence archbishop of Amalfi and others, could have collaborated with a boy. Therefore, with the most recent criticism, one may conclude that at the moment of his election B. was between twenty-five and thirty years old: still too young for the very high office to which he was called, of which moreover B. was not at all worthy. It is true that many accusations are the outbursts of hostile libelers or the accounts of chroniclers for the most part far removed from the places and the time of which they speak; nevertheless it is impossible to deny everything: one would not understand the general agreement of the sources in condemning his conduct. It may be affirmed of B. that he resembled many secular and noble princes of the time, who rose to ecclesiastical offices through profane interests, and that he behaved more like a secular lord than like a pope. B.'s election was pleasing to the emperor Conrad II, given that the counts of Tusculum were the heads of the imperial party in Rome. He was consecrated on the Sunday of 27 Aug. or that of 3 Sept. 1032. He governed undisturbed until Sept. 1044. Uncertain assertions of the chroniclers would lead one to believe that B. was driven from Rome as early as 1037 and was brought back there by force by the emperor. This is legend. Instead it is certain that in 1037 B. met with Conrad II at Cremona and allowed himself to be drawn into the struggle against Aribert of Milan, whom he excommunicated and deposed at the Synod of Spello (Easter 1038). With the exception of this journey B. remained always in Rome. In 1032 he consecrated there Andrew bishop of Perugia; on 2 Nov. 1036 he held a synod of 34 bishops and numerous abbots; another he held in 1039, in which he absolved from excommunication Vratislaus the Warrior of Bohemia, guilty of having invaded Poland and carried off from it the body of St. Adalbert of Prague. At the Roman Synod of 1041 he canonized the Syracusan monk Simeon, who had died at Trier in 1035. Shortly afterwards he excommunicated Samuel, who, having seized Hungary by dethroning Peter, had made war on Henry III. In fact B. attempted to keep the new emperor, who succeeded Conrad II in 1039, friendly as well. He granted him permission to contract a second marriage with Agnes of Poitou, his relative, and did not hinder his interference in the religious sphere. Nevertheless the agreement did not last long. In Apr. 1044 a synod gathered in Rome, before which the Venetian ambassadors protested energetically against the aggressions against the patriarchal see of Grado on the part of Eberhard patriarch of Aquileia: B. condemned them. Whether it was weariness with the predominance of the counts of Tusculum on the part of the people, or the jealousy of rival families, or a resentment against the Pontiff himself, in Sept. 1044 there was an uprising in Rome. B. took refuge in his fortress of Monte Cavo, while his partisans were besieged in Trastevere. The insurgents elected as pope John bishop of Sabina, a protégé of the Crescenzi, who called himself Sylvester III. He, however, did not hold out more than fifty days, because the counterattack of the Tusculans drove him back into his refuge (March 1045). But B., conscious of popular hostility, allowed himself to be induced by his best friends to renounce the pontificate on 1 May 1045. The new elect was John Gratian, archpriest of St. John at the Latin Gate. B. retired to his castles. Bonizo of Sutri and the Annales Altahenses would have it that B.'s renunciation was motivated by his desire to marry a cousin, daughter of Gerard of Saxo, who would have set as a condition the renunciation of the pontificate; but such a report had no consequences. B., quite secure in his fortresses, rejected the invitation of Henry III to appear at the Synod of Sutri (20 Dec. 1046), in which Sylvester III and Gregory VI, as John Gratian had called himself, were deposed. Instead B. was deposed at the Synod of 24 Dec. in Rome, perhaps because at Sutri his previous renunciation was judged sufficient. When the Pope elected on this occasion, Clement II, died (19 Oct. 1047), B. reappeared in Rome and held out there from 8 Nov. 1047 to 16 July 1048, when the imperial forces compelled him to yield the seat to Damasus II, who pontificated barely some twenty days (d. 9 Aug. 1048). Groundless reports led people to believe that the premature death of Damasus II, like that of Clement II, was due to poisoning by B. Some sources instead affirm that he, persuaded by Bartholomew abbot of Grottaferrata, ended his life in that monastery, repentant of his sins. St. Peter Damian says instead that he died impenitent and in fact, supported by his brothers, he continued to oppose the imperial Popes: so much so that Leo IX on his deathbed prayed God to convert Theophylact, fomenter of discord and schism. In the last document that remains to us from him, a donation of 18 Sept. 1055, he still calls himself «pope». Another charter, 9 Febr. 1056, supposes him dead. Therefore his death occurred between 18 Sept. 1055 and 9 Febr. 1056.

Ireneo Daniele