mere money bargain between the Tusculan family and the venal clergy and populace of Rome. Once more the Lord took from Jerusalem and Judah the stay and the staff, and gave children to be their princes, and babes to rule over them.'

This boy-pope fully equaled and even surpassed John XII. in precocious wickedness. He combined the childishness of Caligula and the viciousness of Heliogabalus. He grew worse as he advanced in years. He ruled like a captain of banditti, committed murders and adulteries in open day-light, robbed pilgrims on the graves of martyrs, and turned Rome into a den of thieves. These crimes went unpunished; for who could judge a pope? And his brother, Gregory, was Patrician of the city. At one time, it is reported, he had the crazy notion of marrying his cousin and enthroning a woman in the chair of St. Peter; but the father of the intended bride refused unless he abdicated the papacy. Desiderius, who himself afterwards became pope (Victor III.), shrinks from describing the detestable life of this Benedict, who, he says, followed in the footsteps of Simon Magus rather than of Simon Peter, and proceeded in a career of rapine, murder, and every species of felony, until even the people of Rome became weary of his iniquities, and expelled him from the city. Sylvester III. was elected antipope (Jan., 1044), but Benedict soon resumed the papacy with all his vices (April 10, 1044), then sold it for one or two thousand pounds silver to an archpresbyter John Gratian of the same

1 Isa. 3: 1-4.

2 Gregorovius, IV. 42, says: "Mit Benedict IX. erreichte das Papstthum jenen äussersten Grad des sittlichen Verfalls, welcher nach den Gesetzen der menschlichen Natur den Umschlag zum Bessern erzeugt."

3 Bonitho, ed. Jaffé p. 50: "Post multa turpia adulteria et homicidia manibus suis perpetrata, postremo cum vellet consobrinam accipere coniugem, filiam scilicet Girardi de Saxo, et ille diceret: nullo modo se daturum nisi renunciaret pontificatui ad quendam sacerdotem Johannem se contulit." A similar report is found in the Annales Altahenses. But Steindorff and Hefele (IV. 707) discredit the marriage project as a malignant invention or fable.

An old catalogue of popes (in Muratori, Script. III. 2, p. 345) states the sum as mille libræ denariorum Papensium, but Benno as libræ mille quingenta. Others give two thousand pounds as the sum. Otto of Freising adds that Benedict

house (May, 1045), after he had emptied the treasury of every article of value, and, rueing the bargain, he claimed the dignity again (Nov., 1047), till he was finally expelled from Rome (July, 1048).

GREGORY VI.

John Gratian assumed the name Gregory VI. He was revered as a saint for his chastity which, on account of its extreme rarity in Rome, was called an angelic virtue. He bought the papacy with the sincere desire to reform it, and made the monk Hildebrand, the future reformer, his chaplain. He acted on the principle that the end sanctifies the means.

Thus there were for a while three rival popes. Benedict IX. (before his final expulsion) held the Lateran, Gregory VI. Maria Maggiore, Sylvester III. St. Peter's and the Vatican.1

Their feuds reflected the general condition of Italy. The streets of Rome swarmed with hired assassins, the whole country with robbers, the virtue of pilgrims was openly assailed, even churches and the tombs of the apostles were desecrated by bloodshed.

Again the German emperor had to interfere for the restoration of order.

§ 66. Henry III. and the Synod of Sutri. Deposition of three rival Popes. A. D. 1046.

BONIZO (or Bonitho, bishop of Sutri, afterwards of Piacenza, and friend of Gregory VII., d. 1089): Liber ad amicum, s. de persecutione Ecclesia (in FELII Scriptores rerum Boicarum II., 794, and better in JAFFE'S Monumenta Gregoriana, 1865). Contains in lib. V. a history of the popes from Benedict IX. to Gregory VII., with many errors. RODULFUS GLABER (or Glaber Radulfus, monk of Cluny, about 1046): Historia sui temporis (in Migne, Tom. 142).

reserved besides the Peter's pence from England. See Giesebrecht, II. 643, and Hefele IV. 707.

Migne, Tom. 141, p. 1343. Steindorff and Hefele (IV. 708) dissent from this usual view of a three-fold schism, and consider Gregory as the only pope. But all three were summoned to the Synod of Sutri and deposed; consequently they must all have claimed possession.

DESIDERIUS (Abbot of M. Cassino, afterwards pope Victor III., d. 1086): De Miraculis a S. Benedicto aliisque monachis Cassiniensibus gestis Dialog., in "Bibl. Patr." Lugd. XVIII. 853.

Annales Romani in Pertz, Mon. Germ. VII.

Annales Corbeienses, in Pertz, Mon. Germ. V.; and in Jaffé, Monumenta

Corbeiensia, Berlin, 1864.

ERNST STEINDORFF: Jahrbücher des deutschen Reichs unter Heinrich III. Leipzig, 1874.

HEFELE: Conciliengesch. IV. 706 sqq. (2d ed.).

See Lit. in 2 64, especially HÖFLER and WILL.

Emperor Henry III., of the house of Franconia, was appealed to by the advocates of reform, and felt deeply the sad state of the church. He was only twenty-two years old, but ripe in intellect, full of energy and zeal, and aimed at a reformation of the church under the control of the empire, as Hildebrand afterwards labored for a reformation of the church under the control of the papacy.

On his way to Rome for the coronation he held (Dec. 20, 1046) a synod at Sutri, a small town about twenty-five miles north of Rome, and a few days afterwards another synod at Rome which completed the work.' Gregory VI. presided at first. The claims of the three rival pontiffs were considered. Benedict IX. and Sylvester III. were soon disposed of, the first having twice resigned, the second being a mere intruder. Gregory VI. deserved likewise deposition for the sin of simony in buying the papacy; but as he had convoked the synod by order of the emperor and was otherwise a worthy person, he was allowed to depose himself or to abdicate. He did it in these words: "I, Gregory, bishop, servant of the servants of God, do hereby adjudge myself to be removed from the pontificate of the Holy Roman Church, because of the enormous error which by simoniacal impurity has crept into and vitiated my election." Then he asked the assembled fathers: "Is it your pleasure

1 The sources differ in the distribution of the work between the two synods: some assign it to Sutri, others to Rome, others divide it. Steindorff and Hefele (IV. 710) assume that Gregory and Sylvester were deposed at Sutri; Benedict (who did not appear at Sutri) was deposed in Rome. All agree that the new pope was elected in Rome.

that so it shall be?" to which they unanimously replied: "Your pleasure is our pleasure; therefore so let it be." As soon as the humble pope had pronounced his own sentence, he descended from the throne, divested himself of his pontifical robes, and implored pardon on his knees for the usurpation of the highest dignity in Christendom. He acted as pope de facto, and pronounced himself no pope de jure. He was used by the synod for deposing his two rivals, and then for deposing himself. In that way the synod saved the principle that the pope was above every human tribunal, and responsible to God alone. This view of the case of Gregory rests on the reports of Bonitho and Desiderius. According to other reports in the Annales Corbeienses and Peter Damiani, who was present at Sutri, Gregory was deposed directly by the Synod. At all events, the deposition was real and final, and the cause was the sin of simony.

But if simony vitiated an election, there were probably few legitimate popes in the tenth century when everything was venal and corrupt in Rome. Moreover bribery seems a small sin compared with the enormous crimes of several of these Judases. Hildebrand recognized Gregory VI. by adopting his pontifical name in honor of his memory, and yet he made relentless war upon the sin of simony. He followed the self-deposed pope as chaplain across the Alps into exile, and buried him in peace on the banks of the Rhine.

Henry III. adjourned the Synod of Sutri to St. Peter's in Rome for the election of a new pope (Dec. 23 and 24, 1046). The synod was to elect, but no Roman clergyman could be found free of the pollution of "simony and fornication." Then the king, vested by the synod with the green mantle of the patriciate and the plenary authority of the electors, descended from his throne, and seated Suidger, bishop of Bamberg, a man of spotless character, on the vacant chair of St. Peter amid the loud hosannas of the assembly. The new pope assumed the name of

1 See Jaffé, Steindorff, and Hefele (IV. 711 sq.).

According to the Annal. Corb., Suidger was elected "canonice et synodice... unanimi cleri et populi electione."

Clement II., and crowned Henry emperor on the festival of Christmas, on which Charlemagne had been crowned. The name was a reminder of the conflict of the first Clement of Rome with Simon Magus. But he outlived his election only nine months, and his body was transferred to his beloved Bamberg. The wretched Benedict IX. again took possession of the Lateran (till July 16, 1048). He died afterwards in Grotto Ferrata, according to one report as a penitent saint, according to another as a hardened sinner whose ghost frightened the living. A third German pontiff, Poppo, bishop of Brixen, called Damasus II., was elected, but died twenty-three days after his consecration (Aug. 10, 1048), of the Roman fever, if not of poison.

The emperor, at the request of the Romans, appointed at Worms in December, 1048, Bruno, bishop of Toul, to the papal chair. He was a man of noble birth, fine appearance, considerable learning, unblemished character, and sincere piety, in full sympathy with the spirit of reform which emanated from Cluny. He accepted the appointment in presence of the Roman deputies, subject to the consent of the clergy and people of Rome.1 He invited the monk Hildebrand to accompany him in his pilgrimage to Rome. Hildebrand refused at first, because Bruno had not been canonically elected, but by the secular and royal power; but he was persuaded to follow him.

Bruno reached Rome in the month of February, 1049, in the dress of a pilgrim, barefoot, weeping, regardless of the hymns of welcome. His election was unanimously confirmed by the Roman clergy and people, and he was solemnly consecrated Feb. 12, as Leo IX. He found the papal treasury empty, and his own means were soon exhausted. He chose Hildebrand as his subdeacon, financier, and confidential adviser, who hereafter was the soul of the papal reform, till he himself ascended the papal throne in 1073.

1 So says Wibert, his friend and biographer, but Bonitho reports that Hildebrand induced him to submit first to a Roman election, since a pope elected by the emperor was not an apostolicus, but an apostaticus. See Baxmann, II. 215-217. Comp. also Hunkler: Leo IX. und seine Zeit. Mainz, 1851.