Pope Benedict IX

Alberic III, Count of Tusculum, obtains the Papal chair for his son Theophylact III (or IV), who is a nephew of Pope Benedict VIII and Pope John XIX, at the death of the latter in October 1032.

He reportedly leads an extremely dissolute life and allegedly had few qualifications for the papacy other than connections with a socially powerful family.

Alberic uses the title of consul, dux et patricius Romanorum: "consul, duke, and patrician of the Romans."

This signifies his secular authority in Rome.

He also bears the titular comes sacri palatii Lateranensis ("Count of the Sacred Lateran Palace"), which signifies his ecclesiastical function in the papal curia.

During the pontificate of his brother John XIX, he had been made a senator, but he had had to abandon this title for the aforementioned consular dignity in order to avoid tensions with the Emperor Henry II.

Alberic does not appear in sources after 1033, when he leaves the comital powers to his son, the newly elected pope.

Pope Benedict IX had been briefly forced out of Rome in 1036, but had returned with the help of Emperor Conrad II.

In September 1044, the opposition forces him out of the city again and elects John, Bishop of Sabina, as Pope Sylvester III.

Peter Damian, born in Ravenna, Italy, around 1007 and orphaned early, had spent his youth in hardship and privation, but showed such signs of remarkable intellectual gifts that his brother, Damianus, archpriest at Ravenna, took him to be educated.

Adding his brother's name to his own, Peter had made such rapid progress in his studies of theology and canon law, first at Ravenna, then at Faenza, finally at Parma, that when about twenty-five years old he was already a famous teacher at Parma and Ravenna.

About 1035, however, he had deserted his secular calling and, avoiding the compromised luxury of Cluniac monasteries, entered the isolated hermitage of Fonte Avellana, near Gubbio.

Both as novice and as monk, his fervor was remarkable but had led him to such extremes of self-mortification in penance that his health was affected.

On his recovery, he had been appointed to lecture to his fellow monks, then, at the request of Guy of Pomposa (Guido d'Arezzo) and other heads of neighboring monasteries, for two or three years he had lectured to their brethren also, and (about 1042) wrote the life of St. Romuald for the monks of Pietrapertosa.

Soon after his return to Fonte Avellana he had been appointed economus (manager or housekeeper) of the house by the prior, who had designated him as his successor.

In 1043 he had become prior of Fonte Avellana, and will remaine so until his death in February 1072.

A zealot for monastic and clerical reform, he has introduced a more-severe discipline, including the practice of flagellation ("the disciplina"), into the house, which, under his rule, has quickly attained celebrity, and become a model for other foundations, even the great abbey of Monte Cassino: subject-hermitages will be founded at San Severino, Gamogna, Acerreta, Murciana, San Salvatore, Sitria and Ocri.

There is much opposition outside his own circle to such extreme forms of penitence, but Peter's persistent advocacy ensures its acceptance, to such an extent that he is eventually obliged to moderate the imprudent zeal of some of his own hermits.

Another innovation is that of the daily siesta, to make up for the fatigue of the night office.

During his tenure of the priorate, a cloister is built, silver chalices and a silver processional cross are purchased, and many books are added to the library, a collection which he cares about very much.

Although living in the seclusion of the cloister, Peter Damian closely watches the fortunes of the Church, and like his friend Hildebrand, the future Pope Gregory VII, he strives for reforms in a deplorable time.

When Benedict IX resigns the pontificate into the hands of the archpriest John Gratian (Gregory VI) in 1045, Peter hails the change with joy and writes to the new pope, urging him to deal with the scandals of the church in Italy, singling out the wicked bishops of Pesaro, of Città di Castello and of Fano.

Benedict IX's forces return in April 1045 and expel his rival, who returns to his previous bishopric.

Later in 1045, in order to rid the Church of the scandalous Benedict, his godfather, the pious priest John Gratian, persuades Benedict to resign the papacy for a sum of money, thus allowing Gratian to become Pope Gregory VI.

Some also say that Benedict wanted to marry.

Benedict IX soon regrets his resignation and returns to Rome, taking the city; he will remain on the throne until July 1046, although Gregory VI continues to be recognized as the true pope.

At this time, Sylvester III also reasserts his claim.

Henry, after a brief visit to Augsburg following the events in northern Germany, summons the greatest magnates of the realm, clerical and lay, to meet and accompany him as he crosses the Brenner Pass into Italy, one of the most important of his many travels.

His old ally, Aribert of Milan, had recently died, and the Milanese had chosen as candidate for his successor one Guido, in opposition to the candidate supported by the nobles.

Meanwhile, three popes—Benedict IX, Sylvester III, and Gregory VI—contest the pontifical honors in Rome.

Benedict is a Tusculan who had previously renounced the throne, Sylvester is a Crescentian, and Gregory is a reformer but a simoniac.

Henry marches first to Verona, thence to Pavia in October.

He holds a court and dispenses justice as he had in Burgundy years earlier.

He moves on to Sutri and holds a second court on December 20 where he deposes all the candidates for the Saint Peter's throne and leaves it temporarily vacant.

Having thus wrested the papacy from the politics of the Roman aristocrats and brought imperial control over the church to its pinnacle, he heads towards …

…Rome and holds a synod wherein he declares no Roman priest fit.

Adalbert of Bremen refuses the honor and Henry appoints Suidger of Bamberg, who is acclaimed duly by the people and clergy, we are told.

He takes the name Clement II.

On Christmas Day 1046, Clement is consecrated, and Henry and Agnes are crowned Holy Roman Emperor and Empress.

The populace gives Henry the golden chain of the patriciate and makes him patricius, giving the powers, seemingly, of the Crescentii family during the tenth century to nominate popes.

Henry's first acts are to visit Frascati, capital of the counts of Tusculum, and to seize all the castles of the Crescentii.

Henry and the pope now move south, where his father had created the situation as it was then in his visit of 1038.

Henry reversed many of Conrad's acts.

At Capua, he is received by Prince Guaimar IV of Salerno, also Prince of Capua since 1038.

However, Henry gives Capua back to the twice-deprived Prince Pandulf IV, a highly unpopular choice.

Guaimar had been acclaimed as Duke of Apulia and Calabria by the Norman mercenaries under William Iron Arm and his brother Drogo of Hauteville.

In return, Guaimar had recognized the conquests of the Normans and invested William as his vassal with the comital title.

Henry makes Drogo, William's successor in Apulia, a direct vassal of the imperial crown.

He had done likewise to Ranulf Drengot, the count of Aversa, who had been a vassal of Guaimar as Prince of Capua.

Thus, Guaimar is deprived of his greatest vassals, his principality split in two, and his greatest enemy reinstated.

The previously deposed Pope Benedict IX had seized the Lateran Palace in November 1047, a month after the death of Pope Clement II German troops drive him away in July 1048.

To fill the power vacuum, Bishop Poppo of Brixen is elected as Pope Damasus II and universally recognized as such.

Bruno of Egisheim-Dagsburg, a native of Eguisheim, Upper Alsace, was born into family was of noble rank, and his father, Count Hugh, was a cousin of Emperor Conrad II (1024–1039).

He had been educated at Toul, where he had successively become canon and, in 1026, bishop.

In the latter capacity, he had rendered important political services to his relative Conrad II, and afterwards to Emperor Henry III.

He has become widely known as an earnest and reforming ecclesiastic by the zeal he showed in spreading the rule of the order of Cluny.

On the death of Pope Damasus II in 1048, Bruno had been selected as his successor by an assembly at Worms in December.

Both the Emperor and the Roman delegates had concurred.

However, Bruno apparently favored a canonical election and stipulated as a condition of his acceptance that he should first proceed to Rome and be freely elected by the voice of the clergy and people of Rome.

Setting out shortly after Christmas, he meets with abbot Hugh of Cluny at Besançon, where he is joined by the young tuscan Benedictine monk Ildebrando, or Hildebrand, the future Pope Gregory VII.

Arriving in pilgrim garb at Rome in the following February, he is received with much cordiality, and at his consecration assumed the name Leo IX.

With Leo IX’s appointment to the papacy, the movement of church reform, which had been gathering momentum in Burgundy and Lorraine, finally comes to Rome.

Leo has brought several reform-minded churchman to Rome, including Ildebrando, who, together with the diplomat and reformer Humbert of Silva Candida, and the Benedictine reformer Peter Damian, assist the new pope in his extensive reform program.

Leo IX favored traditional morality in his reformation of the Catholic Church.

One of his first public acts is to hold the well-known Easter synod of 1049, at which celibacy of the clergy (down to the rank of subdeacon) is required anew.

Also, the Easter synod is where the Pope at least succeeds in making clear his own convictions against every kind of simony.

Benedict IX refuses to appear on charges of simony in 1049 and is excommunicated.