.p8 THE BRITISH ACADEMY

Benedict IX and Gregory VI

By

Reginald L. Poole

Fellow of the Academy

[From the Proceedings of the British Academy, Pol.

London

Published for the British Academy

By Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press

Amen Corner, E.G.

I'rice Three Shillings net

IMS

APR 9

"7713

BENEDICT IX AND GREGORY VI

BY REGINALD L. POOLE

FELLOW OF THE ACADEMY

Communicated October 31, 1917

IT is a famous story that in 1046 King Henry III of Germany went into Italy and held a synod at which three Popes were deposed. It appears in perhaps its most picturesque form in the Bari annals known as the Chronicle of Lupus Protospatharius, an author who wrote about forty years later and who did not so much as know the German king's name. 'In this year', he says, fConus', that is Conrad, 'king of the Alemans went to Rome because there were three Popes there : Silvester in St. Peter's Church, Gregory in the Lateran, and Benedict in the Tusculan. They were expelled, and Clement was consecrated by the aforesaid emperor.'1 Now there is no doubt that at various dates in the preceding two years three men had occupied the Holy See ; but whether all the three were claimants to it in 1046 is still disputed.

The three Popes in question were, first, Theophylact or Boniface IX, of the family of the Counts of Tusculum, who had succeeded two uncles in the Papacy in 1032 ; secondly, John, Bishop of Sabina, who took the name of Silvester III ; and thirdly, John, otherwise known as Gratian, who became Gregory VI. For the purpose of the criticism of our authorities the vital point is that, when this last, Gregory VI, was deposed and banished to Germany, he was accom- panied by a young man who rose to the greatest influence in the Church as Archdeacon Hildebrand and who, when he became Pope in 1073, showed his firm attachment to his friend by adopting the name of Gregory VII.2 It is evident that, whatever may have been the rights and the wrongs of the case, the position of Gregory VI could naturally be regarded in a different way from what it had been before,

1 ' Hoc anno venit Conus rex Alemannorum Romam, eo quod erant ibi tres papae, Silvester in ecclesia sancti Petri, in Laterano Gregorius, et Benedictus in Tusculano ; quibus eiectis consecratus est Clemens a praedicto imperatore ' : Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, v. (1844) 58 f.

2 See my paper on the Names and Numbers of Medieval Popes, in the English Historical Review, xxxii. 470-492, 1917 ; cf. infra, p. 25, n. 5.

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when Hildebrand openly declared himself a supporter of his canonical rank as Pope. We may therefore expect that a Hildebrandine version of the facts would emerge and would become more distinct as the controversy between Pope and Emperor developed. It is thus necessary to separate the accounts which were composed at this later time from those which are more nearly contemporary ; and we must bear in mind that more than a quarter of a century elapsed between the proceedings of 1046 and Hiklebrand's elevation to the Papacy.

We must also take into consideration the fact that Henry Ill's action was so remarkable that it could not fail to be summarized in a form which enhanced his majesty and power. At various moments in the two preceding years there had been three claimants to the Apostolic See : on Henry^s appearance in Rome not one of them remained; the field was clear, and the German king secured the election of a German bishop as Pope. Could this be more succinctly described than by saying that he deposed three Popes and set up Clement ? l This is in fact the form in which Clement described his appointment to the church of Bamberg : cum illud caput mundi, ilia Romana sedes, haeretico morbo laboraret, Henry intervened, and, explosis tribus illis quibus idem nomen papatus rapina dederat, the Divine grace caused him to be chosen Pope.1 There is therefore, besides the Hildebrandine tradition, an Imperial version to reckon with.

Moreover, there was a third strain of tradition which was opposed to the party of reform, but which still less favoured the Imperial intervention. This may be distinguished as the anti- German or local Roman statement of the facts. It grew up slowly, but ended by superseding the others in the late medieval texts of the Lives of the Popes.2

1 Adalbert, Vita Henrici II Imper., in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, iv. 800 ; Jaffe, Regesta Pontif. Rom., 2nd ed., no. 4149.

3 SteindoriFs excursus on the Roman journey of Henry III (Jahrbiicher der Deutechen Geschichte unter Heinrich III, i. 456-510, 1874) is so excellent a piece of work that later students have for the most part considered themselves dispensed from undertaking a fresh examination of the materials. It is true that, through following an error of Jaffe's, he misled scholars for a generation into placing the disruption of the Papacy in 1044 instead of 1045 (see my paper on Papal Chronology in the Eleventh Century, in the English Historical Review, xxxii. 210, n. 29, 1917). But in other respects he is at once thorough and acute, particularly in his discrimination between the authorities which are of con- temporary value and those which are affected by the later controversies under Alexander II and Gregory VII. The remarkable thing is that the conclusions arrived at in this excursus have had little influence on the book itself, in which later evidence is constantly cited and accepted on the same terms as that of contemporary writers.

BENEDICT IX AND GREGORY VI 3

One would like first of all to know what account of the matter was given in Rome itself at the time when the events took place. Unfortunately the Liber Pontificalis, which may almost be called the official collection of the Lives of the Popes, is not at our disposal. It ends abruptly in the last decade of the ninth century, and is not resumed in a form deserving the name of an historical narrative until 1073. During the interval we have, with rare exceptions, only meagre lists containing the Pope's name and the length of his pontificate, with perhaps a few particulars of his parentage and birthplace. The complicated succession of Popes between 1044 and 1046, however, made a somewhat more extended record necessary ; and for these events the lists furnish at least the outline of a narra- tive. But there is no list preserved in an actually contemporary manuscript, and curiously enough not one of the existing texts was written at Rome. If we follow the careful analysis of them published by Commendatore Giorgi in 1897, the earliest manuscript which contains any details about the time in which we are interested was drawn up in 1087 at the Sabine monastery of Farfa. At Farfa also, he thinks, a transcript of it was made not long afterwards, which passed to the monastery of La Cava and was printed as the received text of the Liber Pontificalis for the time in the editions previous to the standard one of Monsignor Duchesne. Other copies, some of them abbreviated, were written during the following thirty or forty years, either in the shape of chronological lists or else embedded in chronicles. The earliest list then was written in a manuscript, which we still possess, more than forty years after the contest of 1044-6. But we may conclude from the slightness of the differences between the texts that they depend upon an earlier source. Commendatore Giorgi is of opinion that that source is the Farfa manuscript ; I am inclined to think that at least two different texts were in existence.1 But the precision with which the dates of each pontificate are recorded — though here, as might be expected, there are various readings — appears to justify the inference that they are based on an official Roman list, in which the succession of the Popes with the exact length of their pontificates was set out.2 I suggest therefore

1 In the following paragraphs I resume the conclusions at which I arrived in a paper on Papal Chronology in the Eleventh Century, ubi supra, pp. 204-14.

2 This view of the strictly Roman origin of the Farfa lists has heen supported since Commendatore Giorgi wrote by Monsignor Duchesne, in his paper on Serge III et Jean XI in the Melanges d'Archeologie et d'Histoire, xxxiii. (1913) 25-41. [In a more recent discussion of the subject, Archivio della R. Societa Komana di Storia Patria, xxxix. (1916) 513-36, Commendatore Giorgi maintains substantially the opinion which he had formerly expressed. Two points in this

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4 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY

that, though the manuscripts are forty years or more later, they present a record of contemporary value.

The following is the purport of the text preserved at Farfa :

Benedict nephew of the preceding Popes sat fourteen years.1 And he was cast out of the pontificate, and there was appointed in the apostolic see John the Sabine bishop, to whom they gave the name Silvester ; and he wrongfully occupied the pontifical throne for 49 days.2 And being cast out therefrom, the aforesaid Benedict recovered it and held the pontificate one month and 21 days. Then he himself gave3 it to John archcanon of St. John at the Latin Gate, his godfather, on the first of May; to whom they gave the name Gregory. And he4 held the pontificate for one year and eight months less eleven days ; 6 and he lost it through the Emperor by process of law and was led by him to the parts beyond the Alps.6

This narrative, on the face of it, relates, first, that an Antipope, Silvester, was set up against Benedict but ejected after seven weeks ; secondly, that Benedict after another seven weeks handed over his office to Gratian, who held it undisturbed for more than a year and a half. There is no hint that there were three Popes at any one time : there is an Antipope who is promptly expelled and then his rival abdicates. Not a word is said to suggest that the Antipope, Silvester, ever after- wards made any claim to reassert his title. The dates make it clear that he was deposed in March 1045.7

The Roman lists which I have just quoted have the merit of extreme simplicity : they merely record the succession of the Popes and the lengths of their pontificates ; they say nothing about the good or the evil character of one Pope or another, or about any malpractices in

article are of special interest : the author thinks first that the Farfa list was written not at the monastery itself hut at the cell which it possessed at Rome (pp. 522 f., 526, 535); and secondly he gives reasons for believing that the part down to 1048 was actually compiled not long after July in that very year (pp. 533 f.).]

1 The MS. originally added ' 4 months and 20 days ', but these words are cancelled. The La Cava MS. has ' 4 months ' only. There were probably two variant durations given in different lists : one of 14 years, the other of 12 years 4 months and 20 days, which is found in the Subiaco list.

* The La Cava MS. reads « 56 days '.

8 Gregory of Cattno, who worked from this list, altered dedit into vendidit : Chron. Farfense, ii. 244, ed. U. Balzani, 1903.

4 The La Cava MS. has ' Gregory, who is called Gratian '.

5 The La Cava MS. reads ' 2 years and 6 months '.

• Archivio della R. Societa Romana di Storia Patria, xx. (1897) 310 f.

7 Steindorff, i. 258 f. , placing Silvester's elevation a year too early, says that in the very next month he attended a synod held by Boniface and subscribed its acts' in the style of John bishop of the holy Sabine church (Ughelli, Italia Sacra, v. 1115.) The date is April, in the 12th Indiction, which is 1044.

BENEDICT IX AND GREGORY VI 5

the manner by which the Papacy was conferred. Only two possible indications of passing judgement appear : one is the statement that Silvester occupied the see iniuste, which indeed was self-evident ; and the second is the concluding statement that Gregory was deposed legaliter, which need not be pressed to mean more, than that the act was that of a lawfully constituted body.

The chronological notes call for closer examination.1 They point to the existence of two variant lists, each consistent with itself, but each drawn up on a different theory as to the dates when the pontifi- cates of Benedict IX and Gregory VI came to their end. The intervals of days are given with minute accuracy and they are in absolute agreement with the days of the month recorded in the Annales Romani, the compiler of which, though he wrote long after the time — in the last years of Gregory VII or perhaps a little later,2 — un- questionably made use of early materials of a documentary character. These Annals tell us more particulars of what happened. Towards the end of 1044,3 before 22 November, the townsmen of Rome rose up against Benedict IX and drove him out. Then there was a conflict between them and the men beyond Tiber, and they set forth to lay siege to this district on 7 January. A battle took place in which they were beaten. On the third day, Wednesday the 9th, there was au earthquake. Then the Romans elected John bishop of the Sabina, and named him Silvester. He held the Papacy for forty-nine days, when he was deposed and Benedict was restored to his see. But Benedict could not endure the people of Rome, and he resigned his office to Gratian, the archpriest of St. John at the Latin Gate, on 1 May, to whom they gave the name Gregory; and he held the pontificate for 1 year and 8 months, less 11 days.4 To complete the dates we must add from the Papal lists that Benedict's period of restoration lasted for 1 month and 21 days.6 Now it was the rule

1 Compare my paper on Papal Chronology in the Eleventh Century, ubi supra, pp. 209 f.

* Duchesne, Liber Pontif. ii. intr. p. xxiiifc. Commendatore Giorgi is of opinion that the writer made direct use of the Farfa catalogue : Archivio della Societa Romana di Storia Patria, xx. 289 f.

* The year is given by an obvious slip as nuclvi. The Annals add, in the 13th Indiction, in the 12th year of Benedict IX. The year is fixed by the mention of an eclipse, which occurred on 22 November 1044. This ought to have saved a number of 'modern historians from carrying back these events to the winter of 1043-4.

4 Annales Romani, in Liber Pontif. ii. 331.

8 Similarly Gregory of Catino says ' post mensem i' (Chron. Farfense, ii. 264). SteindorflTs proposed emendation of one year and 21 days (i. 489 f.) was rendered necessary by his mistake as to the year in which Benedict was deposed.

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that the Pope should be ordained on a Sunday. If Silvester III was appointed on 20 January, his 49 days take us to 10 March ; * that was the day of Benedict's restoration. Then 1 month and 21 days lead exactly to 1 May.

I lay stress upon the minute accuracy of these details, because it furnishes a presumption of the trustworthiness of other chronological data supplied by the lists. Some of these assign to Benedict a pon- tificate of 12 years 4 months and 20 days ; others one of 14 years. The question is, at what point are the periods supposed to terminate. Not surely, as is suggested as a possible alternative by Monsignor Duchesne,2 in January 1045, when Benedict was driven out for a brief space of time. The shorter duration given for his pontificate must end at his resignation on 1 May, and 12 years 4 months and 20 days would carry us back to 12 December 1032 for his accession. It is not known with certainty when his predecessor John XIX died or when he himself was elected.3 The time was one of extreme obscurity, and it is possible that the record in the Papal lists is not absolutely correct. But it cannot be very far wrong. The longer period stated in some of these lists is 14 years. This is a round number, which allows of an elastic interpretation ; it may be a few days or weeks too long or too short. But if we reckon 14 years from December 1032 we arrive at the time of Henry IIPs intervention, at the time when he held two synods on 20 and 24 December 1046 and, according to one account of the matter, formally deposed Benedict. Which of the two statements represents the facts I do not at this stage presume to decide ; but it may be said that in a Roman list it is more likely that the date when a Pope resigned would be taken as the end of his pontificate rather than that when he was deposed, if deposed he was. On general grounds, therefore, I should be inclined to think that the longer period recorded indicates a later revision of the figures. It is worth noticing that the writer of the Farfa list gives 14 years 4 months and 20 days, but the months and days are deleted. Evidently he had before him two lists, one of which read 12 years 4 months and 20 days, and accidentally

1 Some lists give 56 days, evidently believing that the ordination took place on 13 January. This involves no derangement in the chronology.

* Liber Pontif. ii. intr. , p. Ixxii ft.

8 Sigiior Fedele has produced evidence from the dating clauses of private charters that John XIX was believed to have died before 13 October 1032 (Archivio della R. Societa Romana di Storia Patria, xxii. 67, 1899) ; and Signor Buzzi, that Benedict IX became Pope after 23 August but before 7 September (ibid., xxxv. 619, 621 f., 1912). But such dates in the eleventh century are not always safe guides, and for the present I am inclined to accept the recorded obit of Pope John on 6 November : see my paper on Papal Chronology, ubi supra, p. 208.

BENEDICT IX AND GREGORY VI 7

conflated the readings. In order to be consistent he ought to have corrected the 14 into 12, for the 14 involves Benedict's deposition in December 1046, and of any such deposition his narrative is silent. We may, infer, however, from this textual detail that this deposition had become recognized in some papal lists which were current at the time when the Farfa writer drew up his.

A similar discrepancy occurs with regard to the length of the pon- tificate of Gregory VI. Some lists give 1 year and 8 months less 11 days ; that is, they make it end exactly on 20 December 1046, the date of the synod of Sutri. Others extend it to 2 years and 6 months, that is to about 1 November 1047. l The meaning of this computa- tion seems to have escaped notice ; but it can only mean one thing, namely that Gregory was regarded as the lawful Pope as long as he lived. Incidentally it furnishes the only evidence for the approximate date of his death, and it confirms the statement of the scurrilous pamphleteer, Cardinal Beno, that this took place about the same time as that of Clement II,2 who died on 9 October.

These varieties of reading are of value because they point to a difference of opinion in Roman circles as to the authentic succession of the Popes. One view held that Benedict ceased to be Pope on 1 May 1045 and that Gregory who followed him was the rightful Pope down to his death. The other view terminated both their pontificates in December 1046, and thus imply that they were deposed. Of Silvester III after his transient intrusion in 1045 nothing is said.3 It is in the accounts written by foreigners that three Popes are brought upon the scene when Henry III came into Italy.

II

By a strange chance it appears that our earliest record of the events of 1046 comes from the Westphalian monastery of Corvey. The Annals written in that house are extremely scanty; they are mere insertions in an Easter table : but for a good part of the eleventh

1 It is a mere mistake when Desiderius of Monte Cassino says that Gregory VI had ruled for two years and eight months before Henry entered Italy : Dialog. Hi., in Migne's Patrol. Lat. cxlix. 1005. Evidently he confounded the reckon- ings in the variant lists.

8 Defuncto autem in exilio sexto itto Gregorio, Hiidebrandus perfidiae gimul et pecuniue eius heres extitit. Eodem tempore Clemens papa defunctus est : Gesta Romanae Ecclesiae, ii. 8, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Libelli de Lite Imperatorum et Pontificum, ii. (1892) 378.

3 A document in the Regesto di Farfa, no. 1234, vol. v. 220, drawn up in March 1046, is dated ' in the time of Gregory VI and of John the bishop and of Crescentius and John counts of the Sabine territory '.

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century the notices are added from time to time in contemporary hands and are preserved in the original autograph. The order of the entries is not always clear. I follow Jaffe's arrangement in the present instance because he had the manuscript before him and designedly abandoned the order in which Pertz had given the notices.1 I have unfortunately no means of examining the manuscript, which is preserved at Hanover. Now these notices hardly say a word about any but German affairs until the entry for 1046 isended. Then comes a fresh entry for the same year, which looks like the production of a man who went into Italy in Henry Ill's train. He begins by describing an earthquake which occurred in the valley of Trent on 11 November and the obstruction of the river Taro, which was caused by the fall of rocks. This river he would cross on the road between Piacenza and Parma, and as Henry was at Pavia on 28 October, the Corvey annalist or his informant may have been in the neighbourhood at the time. He then proceeds :

A great synod, the first, was held at Pavia, in the presence of Henry, then king ; a second, at Sutri, in which in the king's presence according to the appointments of the canons, two Popes, the second and the last, were deposed; a third, at Rome on Tuesday and Wednesday, which was the eve of the Lord's Nativity, in which Pope Benedict was canonically and synodically deposed, and by the unanimous election of the clergy and people Suidger bishop of Bamberg was appointed in his place, and being consecrated next day by the name of Pope Clement he crowned Henry emperor by the choice and full approval of the Roman people.2

The annalist next records the death of Clement II in 1047, and there is no further mention of the Papacy until 1111.

It is plain that the writer of these notes was not told very much. He knows only the name of one of the three Popes whose fall he describes. If I may venture upon an hypothesis, I would suggest that he heard talk about three men who were still alive having claimed the Papacy during the past two years, and learned that Benedict was deposed on Christmas Eve. As his removal left the field clear for the election of Clement II, he not unnaturally inferred that two Popes were deposed at Sutri. But it was really the deprivation of Gregory, as simoniacally elected, which made the resignation of Benedict invalid and thus required that he should be deposed. There is no reason to believe that any formal action was taken against Silvester, who had long subsided into obscurity in his Sabine bishopric.

Mou uni. Germ. Hist, Script, iii. (1839) 6

Monum. Uerm. Hist., Script, iii. (1839) 6.

Annales Corbeienses, s.a., in Jaffe's Monumenta Corbeiensia, pp. 40 f. (1864).

BENEDICT IX AND GREGORY VI 9

Another very early account of the entire series of transactions at Rome was written in the Suabian monastery of Reichenau on the lower Lake of Constance. The house had long been renowned as the seat of a great learned tradition, and its chronicler at the middle of the eleventh century, Herman the Cripple, is reputed the most conscientious and trustworthy historian of the time. From 1040 to 1052, when he died at the age of forty-one, his work is absolutely contemporary. There are grounds for believing that he made use of a Papal list in an earlier and purer form than any of the Italian manu- scripts, but this list is only preserved in a copy a century later, and we have to take what Herman gives embodied or paraphrased in his Chronicle. It may be added that the bishop of Constance attended Henry III in his visit to Italy in 1046 ; and, though he died during his stay there, he no doubt did not journey unattended, and Herman may have learned something of what happened from the bishop's chaplain.

Now Herman tells us that in 1044 Benedict was by many accused (criminatus) and was expelled by the Romans from his see. They then set up one Silvester in his place. But a party came to Benedict's support, and he excommunicated and drove out Silvester. But after- wards he abdicated, and contrary to the canons appointed another man out of avarice. According to this account there was no question of three Popes being in existence at the same time. For Silvester had been excommunicated and deposed, and Benedict had voluntarily resigned the Papacy. However improper were the means by which he secured the office, this third man — Herman mentions no name — was the only claimant. In 1046, he proceeds, Henry III held a synod at Pavia and then went on to Piacenza, where Gratian, whom the Romans had made Pope after the expulsion of the others, came to him and was received with honour. It almost seems as though the information which reached Reichenau distinguished Gratian from the unnamed person to whom Benedict had disposed of the Papacy. Herman then relates that Henry went on to Sutri, where a synod was held and the case of the ' erroneous ' Popes diligently examined. Gratian was convicted and deprived of his see. No reason is assigned for his deprivation, but it is clear from the fact that he had had an honourable reception at Piacenza that he was treated on a different footing from Benedict ; we may even say, that he was the one man who at that time was considered to have any claim to the Papacy. But before deciding on the validity of his claim it was necessary to inquire into the circumstances in which the Papacy had changed hands so irregularly in 1045. It is not said that either Benedict or Silvester

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was deprived by the synod : they were treated as having already ceased to be Popes. Only Gratian was deposed.1

Two points may be noticed. Herman, as I have observed, does not expressly say that Gratian was the third of the three Popes who came upon the scene in 1044. His words even suggest that all three were deposed and that Gratian was elected in their place. This was certainly the sense in which the statement was understood by Otto of Freising 2 a century later. Secondly, Herman does not say that Gratian assumed the name of Gregory VI. Had he written after Hildebrand had shown his adhesion to Gratian by calling him- self Gregory VII, the chronicler's silence would be easy to explain ; he might have wished to dissociate Hildebrand from the deposed Pope. But Herman, I have said, died in 1052, more than twenty years before Hildebrand succeeded to the Papacy. I can therefore only infer that the story which reached Reichenau told that a certain Gratian was made Pope, that he was favourably received by Henry III, and that shortly afterwards he was deprived — for what reason is not stated 3 — by the synod of Sutri. An essential fact had been concealed from Herman's knowledge.

If Herman was only partially acquainted with what happened we need not be surprised if the reports which reached Germany later were still less well furnished with accurate information. For example, the Annals of Niederaltaich were written about twenty or twenty-five years after the events in which we are interested ; and the monastery, situated on the Danube between Ratisbon and Passau, was in a favourable position for hearing news from Italy. This is the account we there read of the synod of Sutri :

The cause of this assembly was three Popes who were all alike living at that time. For the first of them abandoned the see by reason of an unlawful marriage which he contracted ; he retired by his own will rather than by the pressure of any opposition. Where- fore, while he was still living in the flesh, the Romans conspired together and set up another Pope. The first, however, sold his office for money to a third, because in his wrath he refused that one subject to him should have it. To be brief, they were all judged in this synod, and deposed ; and Suitger bishop of Bamberg, a man worthy of the see, was chosen by the whole council of clergy and people.4

1 No Acts of the synod are now preserved.

2 Chron. vi. 32, p. 299, ed. A. Hofineister, 1912.

3 It is hinted at in the Catalogus Augiensis (Eccard, Corpus Historicum, ii. 1640), which, though only preserved in a later manuscript, is believed to represent the Papal list used by Herman : Gratianus a Romanis constitutus, quern rex Henricus convictum causa erroneorum pastorali baculo privavit.

4 Annales Altahenses maiores, a. 1046, ed. G. H. Pertz, 1868.

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Here we note the suppression of all the names, and this is again the more interesting, because the notice was written before Gregory VII became Pope : it was not influenced by the controversy which followed. It is not, however, essentially inconsistent with the other German accounts which I have quoted. The only new point which it brings in is the story of Pope Benedict's marriage.1

Ill

After Hildebrand became Pope and marked his attachment to Gregory VI in the plainest manner by adopting his name, it was natural, as I said at the beginning, that the events of 1046 should assume a different aspect. This we find well displayed in one of the Dialogues of Desiderius abbot of Monte Cassino,2 who succeeded Hildebrand as Victor III and very likely learned from him his ver- sion of what took place.3 He draws a strong contrast between the demerits of Benedict IX, whose misdoings he can hardly bring himself to describe, and the high character of the man to whom he resigned the Papacy ; but he does not conceal the fact that the trans- action was accompanied by a money payment (non parva ab eo accepta pecunid). What is more important is the way in which he tells us the circumstances in which Gregory VI ceased to be Pope. Before, he says, the German king entered Rome,

he assembled a council of very many bishops and abbots, clergy and monks in the city of Sutri, and asked John, who was called Gregory, to come to him, sending to him bishops in order that ecclesiastical business and especially the situation of the Roman church, which then appeared to have three Popes, might be dis- cussed under his presidency. But this was done by design, for the king had long determined that with the counsel and authority of the whole council he would rightfully depose those three men who had unrightfully usurped the Apostolic See, and that a man should be appointed by the election of the clergy and people who would devote himself to the charge of the Lord's flock in conformity with the ordinances of the holy Fathers. Therefore the aforesaid pontiff, at the urgent request of the king and the bishops, willingly went to Sutri, where the synod was assembled, in the hope that the other two might be deposed and the Popedom be confirmed to him alone. But when he arrived there, and the matter began to be raised and debated by the synod, he recognized that he was unable rightfully to administer the functions of so great a charge : he rose up from

1 The remaining contemporary account, that of Rodulf Glaber, I deal with later on.

2 Dialog, iii, in Migne's Patrol. Lat. cxlix. 1003 ff. 8 See Steimlorff, i. 464.

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the papal chair, divested himself of his papal raiment, and asking for pardon laid down the dignity of the great high-priesthood.1

This account, which I do not doubt Desiderius set down in entire good faith, represents the tradition which had grown up in Hilde- brandine circles. The fact that Gregory VI had paid money for the Popedom was too well known to be denied. But the more Benedict was depicted as a monster of wickedness, the more venial did Gregory's offence appear in buying him out. And Gregory was in all the rest of his life so good a man that people could not believe that he was deposed. Consequently the events which took place at Sutri were related in a new form : it was not the synod that deposed Gregory, but Gregory who resigned his office. It is generally agreed that this account is untrue,2 but we can easily see how the story once stated would be willingly, and very soon honestly, accepted.

This can hardly, I think, be maintained with respect to Bonizo, bishop of Sutri, who wrote his Liber ad Amicum in order to gain the protection of the Countess Matilda of Tuscany in 1085. His narra- tive, however, is so lively, and so much of it has passed down into most current histories, that it will be well to quote its substance. But I may premise that Bonizo was not only one of the most in- accurate of writers and extremely ill-informed about the history which he relates, but was quite without scruple in falsifying facts which did not suit his opinions. For example, he more than once tells us that Charles the Great was never crowned Emperor.3 This is what he has to say about the three Popes of 1045 :

Theophylactus, who by inversion of meaning was called Benedictus, fearing neither God nor man, was often guilty of shameful adultery and with his own hands committed many murders. At length he desired to marry his cousin, the daughter of Gerard de Saxo, and Gerard refused to give her unless he would renounce the Papacy. Wherefore he went to a certain priest named John, who was then deemed a man of great merit, and by his advice condemned himself and renounced the pontificate. The advice would have been highly praiseworthy, had it not been followed by a most shameful sin. For the priest whom I have mentioned, seized by wicked ambition and seduced [by the evil one,] took the opportunity [to purchase the Papacy from Theophylact] 4 and by immense payments of

1 Dialog., p. 1005.

1 It must not, however, be concealed that this view has its defenders : see for instance Dr. Hermann Grauert's Papstwahlstudien, in the Historisches Jahrbuch, xx. (1899) 320 f.

8 Ad Amicum lib. v. in Jaffe"s Monumenta Gregoriana, p. 630, 1865 ; cf. lib. Hi, p. 614.

* The words which I have enclosed within brackets represent a lacuna in the manuscript, which I have filled in according to the correction proposed by Jaffe.

BENEDICT IX AND GREGORY VI 13

money compelled all the people of Rome to swear to him : thus he mounted to the Pontifical dignity, and they called him by the name of Gregory. After this Gerard de Saxo with other captains elected for themselves a certain bishop of the Sabines as Pope, and named him Silvester. So Theophylact was defrauded of his bride, and his brothers, hearing what had come to pass, raised him once more to the Papal throne.1

It will be seen that Bonizo turns the course of events upside down, and places the election of Silvester III after that of Gregory VI.2 He implies that they were both Popes at the same time, and does not say what happened to them when Benedict was restored. Moreover, he gives no explanation of the conduct of Gerard de Saxo, who after Benedict had fulfilled his condition refused to allow his daughter's marriage. Whether such a marriage was ever proposed, it is impossible to determine. We have seen that it was believed in Bavaria not many years later.3 But, in view of the spirit of defama- tion which pervaded that age, we cannot confidently exclude the possibility that the tale was a simple slander.

Bonizo goes on to relate that Peter, the archdeacon of Rome, with a number of cardinals, clergy, and laity, withdrew from the com- munion of the usurping Popes, and that he crossed the Alps and implored the German king and bishops to come to Italy and convoke a synod. No other writer mentions this action of Archdeacon Peter, and Bonizo's account has not always been accepted.4 However this may be, King Henry marched into Italy in the autumn of 1046, and Bonizo continues the story as follows :

This intruder (abusivus) Gregory was invited by the king to go to meet him, being as the sequel showed conscious of no wrong- doing ; and he went to Piacenza and there found the king. He was honourably received by him, as beseemed a Pope; for the bishops who were present did not think it religious to condemn any bishop without judgement, let alone one who appeared to be the pontiff of so great a see. And so advancing together they came to Sutri, and when they had arrived there the king asked him who seemed to be Pope that a synod should be assembled. This he granted and confirmed by decree; for he was an ignorant man (idiota) and of wonderful simplicity.

Bonizo says, that the synod was ' held under Gregory's presidency,

1 Ad Amicum lib. v, pp. 625 f.

* This same inversion appears in Cardinal ECHO'S Gesta Romanae Ecclesiae, ii. 8 (Libelli de Lite Imperatorum et Pontificum, ii. 378).

8 See above, p. 10.

4 For instance, by Steindorff, i. 262. It is, however, defended by Giesebrecht, Geschichte der Deutschen Kaiserzeit, i. (5th ed., 1881) 413, 664.

14 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY

and he mentions three prelates by name as present, two of whom had long been dead.

When the question about the usurper Silvester was raised, it was adjudged by all that he should be divested of his episcopate and

Sriesthood and be consigned to a monastery for life. They also ecided that Theophylact should be passed over (super sedendum), especially because the Roman Pontiff himself judged that he should be deposed. But as to what they should do with the third claimant, what course could they take when no liberty of accusing and bearing testimony was granted to them ? The bishops there- fore begged the president to declare the reason of his election, and, simple as he was, he disclosed the naked fact l of his election.

He said that by a life of abstinence he had acquired much riches which he had intended to devote to the good of the church in Rome. But when he meditated on the tyranny of the nobles, how they set up Popes without election by the clergy and people, he determined to use his money for the purpose of restoring to the true electors the right of election of which by this tyranny they had been wrongfully deprived. When the council heard this, they hinted at the devices of the old enemy : nothing, they said, which was venal could be holy.

Judge thyself out of thine own mouth, for it is better for thee to live poor with St. Peter, for whose love thou didst this thing, than to perish with Simon Magus who deceived thee.

Gregory then pronounced his own deposition, and the council confirmed it.

This statement that Gregory was not deposed by the council but deposed himself became an accepted part of the Hildebrandine tradition. It appears in a striking form in the Chronicle of Bernold of Constance, who began by transcribing the work of Herman of Reichenau, and afterwards altered his text so as to emphasize the wickedness of Benedict and suppress the scandalous circumstances in which he parted with the Papacy : Benedict, he says, resigned * of his own free will', and allowed Gratian to be ordained Pope Gregory VI in his stead. Then he proceeds to add that in 1046 Gregory, whom Herman described as convicted and deposed, c not unwillingly laid down his pastoral office'; and somewhat incon- sistently says that the earthquakes which prevailed under Clement II were attributed to the fact that his predecessor had been ( uncanoni- cally deposed '.2

1 Jaffe interprets puritatem as suppurationem, but this seems unnecessary. * Clirou., in Monum. Germ. Hist. v. 425.

BENEDICT IX AND GREGORY VI 15

It is unnecessary to accumulate further evidence of the form taken by the developed Hildebrandine account of what happened in 1045 and 1046.1 The main points were the depravity of Benedict IX which drove Gregory VI to adopt forbidden means in order to oust him, and the substitution of the statement that Gregory voluntarily resigned the Papacy for the earlier statement that he was deposed by process of law.

Before inquiring into the charges made against Benedict, it will not be out of place to remark that it was not only against him that charges of nefarious conduct were made. We must remember that they were made when the conflict between Gregory VII and the Emperor Henry IV was at its height. In a time of acute political hostility accusations, as we know too well, are made and are believed, which in a calmer time would never have been suggested. Let me give a specimen or two of what was said about Gregory VII. Cardinal Beno informs us that he had in his employment an expert by whose help he was said to have poisoned five Popes in thirteen years.2 The synod of Brixen in 1080 was more moderate ; it only stated in its decree that four Popes were proved to have been poisoned by Gregory's means.3 Of another Imperialist champion, Bishop Benzo of Alba, it will be enough to say that he accuses Alexander II and Gregory VII of almost every vice that can or cannot be named, not to speak of simony, gambling, corruption, sorcery, necromancy, homicide, and other misdoings.4 Now no one, I suppose, believes

1 If I pass over St. Peter Damiani, it is not because I underrate the importance of his contribution to the formation of opinion in his time, but because on the precise points of fact he adds very little, and that little not, I think, until a good many years later.

1 He says (Gesta Rom. Eccl. ii. 9, Libelli de Lite, ii. 379) that when Hilde- brand returned to Rome in 1049, in brew loculos implevit, et cui pecuniam Warn committeret,filium cuiusdam ludei noviter quidem baptizatum sed mores nummulario- rum adhuc retinentem,familiarem sibi fecit. Et iam diu conciliaverat iibi quendam alium incomparabilibus maleficiis assuetum, Gerhardum nomine, qui cognominabatur Brazutus, amicum Theophilacti [Benedict IX], qui subdola familiaritate dicitur sex Romanos pontifices infra spacium tredecim annorum veneno suffocasse ; quorum nomina haec sunt : Clemens . . . Damasus . . . Leo . . . Victor . . . Stephanus . . . Benedictus . . . Hie non veneno sed vi et dolis Hildebrandifuit eiectus . . . Nicolaus.

3 Jaffe, Monumenta Bambergensia (1869), p. 134 ; also in Monum. Germ. Hist., Constitutiones, i. 119, 1893. The agent is here called John Brachiutus or Brachtutus. John Braciuto subscribes a Roman document in 1060 : Regesto di Farfa, iv. (1888) 302. The synod had declared among other things that Hildebrand had been wont obncenis theatralibus ludicris ultra laicos insistere, mensem nummulariorum in porticu transigentium turpis lucri gratia publice obser- vare. His itaque questibus pecunia cumulata, abbatiam beati Fault invasit, etc.

* Karl Pertz has collected a number of specimens of the bishop's vile and

16 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY

these gross calumnies against Gregory VII ; and yet a not very different set of statements about Benedict IX has been universally accepted. This has happened, no doubt, because it was considered that in his case they were not improbable. But probability is not the same thing as proof. The history of the Tusculan Popes has in truth been contaminated by the fact that their dynasty was followed by a reaction. I will digress for a moment to inquire how their power was created.

IV

The city of Rome had for ages past been torn by internal discord. There was always one or more parties of the local nobility who sought to strengthen themselves by exciting the lesser people to riot and pillage. One of these parties was headed by the house of Crescentius, whose power was put down for the moment by Otto III. Another great Roman family was represented at that time by Gregory de Tusculana, the naval prefect, whose mother was a first cousin of the famous Alberic, the Prince of the Romans, who had ruled the city with firmness for more than twenty years towards the middle of the tenth century.1 The territorial possessions of the family had been continually growing in the Roman Campagna, and near the end of the century Gregory is found established in authority at Tusculum. It may be that Otto conferred the countship upon him in order to detach a prominent noble from his fellows and, by establishing him in a strong fortress not too far distant for effective control, to set up a power which might keep in check the factions of Rome and assist the Imperial interest. If this was so, Otto's expectations were not unrewarded. The counts of Tusculum soon gained the upper hand in Roman politics, and they were as a rule friendly to the Emperors. Their victory over the house of Crescentius was marked by the successive appointment to the Papacy of two of Gregory's sons,2 and these were followed by a grandson ; so that for thirty-three years the Popedom continued in the family.

It is with the third and last of the dynasty that I am particularly

filthy abuse : Monum. Germ. Hist. xi. (1854) 593. He misses the point of Benzo's disgusting invective in i. 22, p. 608, in consequence of his not seeing the allusions to Proverbs xxx. 15, 16.

1 The details of Gregory's ancestry are discussed below, in the appendix on the Counts of Tusculum.

* It is possible, as Gregorovius suggests (History of the City of Rome, ir. 11), that the Tusculan ascendancy began three years earlier with the appointment of Sergius IV, for he was bishop of Albano, a place where the Tusculan influence was very strong. See below, pp. 33, 36.

BENEDICT IX AND GREGORY VI 17

concerned. But before speaking of him I will observe that his evil repute has cast a shadow upon his two predecessors ; in modern histories they are all tarred with the same brush. But the first, Benedict VIII, was an able and vigorous pontiff, who not only kept Rome in order but also took a leading part in Italian politics. Besides this he worked in harmony with the Emperor Henry II and supported him in his aims for reforming abuses in the Church. But he was too much occupied by public affairs to bestow much attention upon ecclesiastical administration. Not many more than seventy rescripts are attributed to him in a pontificate of nearly twelve years.1 But here it is fair to notice that no Papal Register is preserved between the end of the ninth century and the time of Gregory VII, and that, though parchment came into use in the chancery towards the end of Benedict's pontificate, rescripts continued to be written on papyrus, a far more perishable material, until beyond the middle of the century. Scanty, however, as is the list of Benedict's documents, it is respectable as compared with those of his two successors. The nine years of John XIX produced but forty-seven ; the twelve of Benedict IX, only eighteen. John seems to have been a colourless person, timid and inert ; he left no mark as an administrator and not a creditable one as a statesman. It is generally said that these Tusculan Popes lived the rough lives of secular nobles, and this is very likely true, though I am not aware of any contemporary evidence to support it. It is certain, however, that Benedict VIII stood high above the Crescentian Popes who preceded him, and I do not know that the two brothers understood their episcopal duties in a very different way from a great many of the French, German, and English prelates of the same century.

I now turn to their nephew, Benedict IX. His character has been blasted at the outset by the statement, which has been repeated by every historian who'has written about him, that he was a boy of ten or twelve years of age at the time he was made Pope. Now this statement rests upon the sole, unsupported testimony of a single writer, Rodulf Glaber, at that time a monk of St. Germanus at Auxerre, who made a collection of trifling, largely fabulous, narra- tives, and called it a history. He wrote entirely for edification and put down anything that served his turn. He is not only the most- credulous but the most careless and inaccurate of writers. I will

1 The number of 71 in the second edition of Jaffe's Regesta Pontificum Romanorum includes documents which we know only from references to them, as well as documents still preserved. When Dr. Kebr's new Regesta is com- pleted the number may be expected to be somewhat, but not largely, increased.

L-3

18 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY

give one example from near the end of his book, where he is relating a fact which he knew from personal observation. After saying some- thing about the year 1045 he proceeds : ' In the following year, that is the forty-sixth after the thousandth, there was a great dearth of wine and vegetables, and after this on the 8th November there was an eclipse of the moon which affrighted men exceedingly/ -He gives the calendar notes accurately, the age of the moon, the epact, and the concurrent ; but these belong not to 1046, but to 1044, when the eclipse actually occurred,1 A writer capable of so gross a blunder is not to be taken as an authority on matters of detail. Again, under the year 1033 he describes correctly an eclipse of the sun which occurred on Friday, 29 June. On that day, he says, the Feast of the Apostles, certain of the Roman princes rose against the Pope in the church of St. Peter and sought to put him to death, but, not succeeding, they drove him from his see. Howbeit, on account of this thing, as well as for other malpractices, the Emperor went thither and restored him to his see.2 Conrad did not go to Italy until the end of 1036, three years and a half after Benedict's supposed expul- sion ; and there was no need to restore the Pope, since in 1036 he is found holding a synod to all appearances at Rome. Modern historians accept the fact that Benedict was expelled, but think that it was in 1035 or 1036. What, then, becomes of the eclipse so scrupulously recorded ?

Rodulf twice mentions Benedict IX's age, and each time gives it differently. First, in book iv, chapter v,3 he laments the degeneracy of the times. All the rulers, whether of church or state, were boys, inpuerili etate. The very Pope, a lad of hardly ten years (puerferme decennis) was elected by the Romans with the help of money from his treasures. Secondly, in the last paragraph of his work 4 he says that the Holy See had suffered from the disease of corruption for twenty- five years; for fa certain boy of about twelve years (puer circiter annorum xii] was appointed to it who was recommended only by his wealth in gold and silver rather than by his age or piety. It were a shame to mention the baseness of his conversation and life. However, by the consent of the whole Roman people and by the command of the Emperor he was expelled from his seat, and in his place a most religious man and conspicuous for holiness was appointed, namely Gregory, by race a Roman, by whose good repute

1 Hist. v. 1, § 18, ed. M. Prou, 1886, p. 128.

2 Lib. iv. 9, § 24, p. 112.

3 § 17, p. 105.

4 Lib. v. 5, § 26, pp. 134 f.

BENEDICT IX AND GREGORY VI 19

that which the former had defiled was changed for the better/ It may be presumed that when Rodulf wrote this he was not aware of the fact that Gregory VI had possessed himself of the Papacy by the very means which he had just denounced. The statement that Gregory's appointment was made after Benedict had been deposed by the Emperor's command, which inverts the order of events, may possibly represent a story which was circulated by Gregory's friends. Whence Rodulf derived the twenty-five years during which the Papacy had degenerated I cannot say ; if he reckoned from the accession of John XIX, that would be little more than twenty years. What reason is there to suppose that he was more accurate when he stated that Benedict was a boy of about twelve years ? I should not be at all surprised if he simply blundered over a notice of Benedict's life, which stated that when he had been Pope for twelve years he was expelled by the Romans. This at least is the shape in which his catastrophe is recorded by writers of the next generation.1 There is not much difference between per ann. xii and puer ann. xii.

It is strange, too, that it has not been observed that Rodulfs account of Benedict IX's extreme youth can hardly be reconciled with the known facts of the Pope's pedigree. His grandfather, Gregory, appears as vir illustrissimus in 980, in 986 as senator : in 999 he held high office. There are indications which lead us to place his birth not later than 940 ; he died before 1013. This date agrees well with those of his two elder sons, Popes Benedict VIII and John XIX, who died in the course of nature in 1024 and 1032. The youngest son, Alberic, is found acting in a judicial capacity in 999. Now if the men of those days were not as a rule long-lived, at any rate those who married married early. Though not impossible, it is at least unlikely that this Alberic's son, Benedict IX, would be born when his father was about fifty. A comparison of ages and generations in a pedigree about which a great deal is known 2 would lead to the conclusion that Benedict IX was nearer thirty than ten years old at the time that he became Pope.

The scanty records of Benedict's earlier years as Pope furnish no indication of his exceptional youth.3 Four years after his accession, in November 1036, we find him holding a synod.4 In the following

1 Thus Leo of Ostia, under 1044, Rontae prneterea cum pupa Benedictus per mi nun 12 sedem apostolicam obsedisset potius quam sedisset, a Romanis expukwt eft : Chron. Monast. Casin. ii. 77, in Monum. Germ. Hist., Scriptores, vii. 682.

8 See appendix.

5 See the summary in Steindorff, i. 256 f.

* Mansi, Concil. Collect, ampliss. xix. 679.

20 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY

summer he went to Cremona to visit the emperor, Conrad II, by whom he was honourably received.1 A little later he made a change in the administration of his chancery, which looks as though he intended to adopt an independent policy. The- office of librarian, the titular head of the chancery, had been conferred fourteen years before on Peregrine, Archbishop of Cologne, who died in 1036 ; but instead of appointing the new archbishop, who was actually in Italy, to the office, Benedict determined, in November 1037, that it should be held by one of the bishops of the Roman province, the Bishop of Selva Candida and his successors.2 When we remember that Conrad had made himself unpopular in Italy by introducing Germans into bishoprics there, the significance of Benedict's act can hardly be misunderstood.3 On the other hand, it may be contended that the Pope was not strong enough to carry matters further, for next spring he supported Conrad by excommunicating his principal opponent, Archbishop Aribert of Milan.4 In 1040 it is said, though the evidence is not quite satis- factory, that he travelled to Marseilles to take part in the consecration of a church. All these acts fall within a time when we are asked to believe that the Pope was under eighteen or twenty years of age ; and yet no one of our authorities betrays the smallest indication that he was canonically incapable of exercising the powers of a Pope.

Benedict was evidently a negligent Pope, very likely a profligate man. We may believe Herman of Reichenau when he says that he was unworthy of his high office.5 But we have to wait until he had discredited himself by his sale of the Papacy before we hear anything definite about his misdeeds; and the further we go in time and place, the worse his character becomes. At Auxerre very soon he is denounced as a reprobate by Rodulf Glaber.6 Then, some twenty years after, it was said in Germany that he gave up the Papacy because he had taken a wife.7 A good deal later, after Hildebrand had become Pope, Benedict's crimes grow in .wickedness, and we get the picture which is familiar in all the modern histories. I do not say that the picture is false : all I say is that it was drawn at a time

1 Wipo, Gesta Chuonradi Imperatoris, xxxvi, p. 43, ed. H. Bresslau, 1878.

2 Marini, I Papiri Diplomatic*, p. 83 ; Jaffe, Reg. no. 4110.

8 Cf. Bresslau, Jahrbucher des Deutschen Reichs unter Konrad II, ii. (1884) '177-188.

4 Ann. Hildeslieim., a. 1038, p. 42, ed. G. Waitz, 1878. I do not find evidence that Benedict kept Easter at Spello with the Emperor in that year, as Dr. Bresslau says, ii. 285, 286. But the fact is probable.

8 Indignus tanto ordini moribus etfactis : Chroii., a. 1033, p. 121.

6 Above, p. 18.

7 Above, p. 10.

BENEDICT IX AND GREGORY VI 21

of acute controversy, when the party opposed to the tradition which he represented was in the ascendant. He had indeed no friends. The supporters of the Imperial side would have nothing to say for a Pope whom they believed to have been removed by Henry III. The reform party of the school of Hildebrand considered that the transaction with Gregory VI was proof of Benedict's infamy : to them Gregory, to the day of his death, continued to be the lawful Pope. In the version of the Liber Pontificalis which won currency in later ages both Clement II and Damasus II were set down as usurpers.1 So, too, it was said of Clement II : Qui ab aliis potius demens quam Clemens did dignus iudicatur, cum utique per violentiam Gratiano amoto eum intrusum asserant.2 The true line of Popes was only restored with Leo IX after Gregory was dead.

To this Gregory I now turn. His name was John, but to distin- guish him from many namesakes he was commonly known as Gratian.3 He is never styled John Gratian by contemporaries.4 He was the head, archcanon or archpriest — the two titles indicate the same office 5 — of a house of clergy established in the Church of St. John at the Latin Gate. By universal testimony he was a man of unblemished character, who was held by all in the highest regard. When he was already past middle life, for he was godfather (patrinus) to Benedict IX, he appears to have been so deeply impressed by that Pope's unworthiness for his office that he took the daring step of buying him out of it. Whether the act was simoniacal or not, I do not know. Simony is understood to mean the payment of money for a spiritual office which one desires ; whether it includes also the pay- ment of money in order to remove a scandalous holder of an office by a person who does not desire it, I leave to those better versed in canon

1 Lib. Pontif. ii. 273 f.

2 See the Zwettl Hist. Rom. Pontif. cliii, in Pez's Thes. Anecd. Noviss. i. iii. (1721) 385 a.

3 It is possible that this surname was derived from a kinsman, perhaps an uncle, who on conversion translated Johauan into Gratianus, just as Barach became Benedictus. But I have not found satisfactory proof that Gratianus was in fact used as a translation of Johanan. See, however, L. Zunz, Namen der Juden, in Gesammelte Schriften, ii. (1876) 54.

4 I notice this because Ur. M. Tangl, in the Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft fur altere Deutsche Geschichtskunde, xxxi. (1906) 162, adduces this combination of names as an argument against Gregory VI's connexion with the family of Leo son of Benedict, in which the double name does not occur.

5 See Duchesne, Lib. Pontif. ii. 271, n. 3.

law than I am to decide. The nature of the transaction was perhaps not at once made known. Directly Gratian became Pope St. Peter Damiani wrote him a florid letter of congratulation, in which he specially welcomed the blow which his election had struck at the evil of simony :

Conteratur iam milleforme caput venenati serpentis ; cesset com- mercium perversae negotiationis ; nullam iam monetam falsarius Simon in ecclesia fabricet.1

But the problem is, how a man like Gratian could have been in the possession of the immense amount of money which he was reputed to have paid.2 Bonizo of Sutri, with his accustomed scurrility, says that he amassed wealth by his abstinence from profligate courses.3 This cannot be taken seriously. It is plain that Gratian must either have inherited great wealth or have had very rich relations.

It is an old-established statement that he was a member of the powerful family of Peter Leonis. Ciaconius speaks as though he were Peter's son,4 but this is, on chronological grounds, impossible. From what source the statement is derived I have been unable to dis- cover. There is an inscription formerly on Peter's tomb at St. Paul's without the Walls, which asserts definitely that Gregory VI was his uncle (patruus) ; 5 but the inscription is unmistakably of late date, and has had the misfortune of having been restored in the seventeenth century. According to it Gregory was a brother of Peter's father Leo, the son of Benedict the Christian. Signor Pietro Fedele, with his habitual caution, admits that the relationship is not proved ; but he thinks that some near relationship is highly probable.6

Now Benedict the Christian was a wealthy merchant established, it

1 Epist. i. i, Opera, iii. 2, ed. C. Cajetani, 1783. Dr. Grauert, ubi supra, pp. 315, 321-325, argues that Peter was aware of the facts and thought that Gregory's conduct could be defended.

2 The sum is variously stated as a thousand pounds of pennies of Pavia (Lib. Pontif. ii. 275) and 1,500 pounds (Beno, Gest. Rom. Eccl. ii. 7, p. 378) ; it grew in time to 2,000 pounds (Cod. Vat. 1340, Lib. Poutif. ii. 270). A thousand pounds meant a thousand pounds' weight of silver, and this, according to the twelfth -century ratio of 1 : 9, would mean something not far short of £6,000 in modern value.

3 Lib. ad Amicum, v, in Monum. Greg., p. 628.

4 fotnnie* Gratiunus Petri Leonis, eximiae nobUitatis in urbevir: Vitae Pontif. Rom. i. 781 (ed. A. Oldoinus, 1677).

6 It is printed by A. Nerini, de Templo et Coenobio ss. Bonifacii et Alexii (1752), app. viii, p. 394 u. ; and by V. Forcella, Iscrizioni delle Chiese di Roma, xii. (1878) 19, no. 31.

6 Le Famiglie di Anacleto II e di Gelasio II, in the Arch, della Soc. Rom. di Storia Patria, xxvii. (1904) 409 f.

BENEDICT IX AND GREGORY VI 23

seems, in the region beyond Tiber which was the Jewish quarter of the city.1 His name before his conversion was presumably Baruch or Berachiah, and this was translated into Benedictus when he became a Christian. He is said to have been converted during the pontificate of Leo IX and to have called his son after the Pope.2 This was a not unnatural conjecture for a later writer to make/ but it will not suit the dates of Leo's activity. For Leo IX was enthroned in 1048, and in 1051 we have a grant of land made Leoni, vir magnificus et lauda- bilis negotiator, filio Benedicti bone memorie Christiani.* In 1060 he was among the principal witnesses to the investiture of the abbot of Farfa by Nicholas II.5 Moreover, we know from his epitaph that his mother was of noble birth — a member of the nobility of Christian Rome :

Romae natus, opum dives, probus, et satis alto Sanguine materno nobilitatus erat.6

Her marriage may have taken place as early as 1010, and Benedict was no doubt then already a convert. He was dead in 1051, and his son Leo is no longer mentioned after 1063.

It has been necessary to consider the antecedents of Leo de Bene- dicto Christiano,7 because it has been frequently said that the family

1 Ibid., pp. 405 f. Nothing helpful for our purpose will he found in A. Berliner's Gesch. der Juden in Rom, n. i. (1893) ; and very little in the work with the same title by H. Vogelstein and P. Rieger, i (1896). These writers are not interested in converted Jews. The latter say (i. 214) that there are no Jewish materials for the history of the Roman Jews at this time.

2 Chron. de Morigny, p. 51, ed. L. Mirot, 2nd ed , 1912. This part of the chronicle was finished about 1132.

s It is elaborated in the scurrilous account given by Arnulf, afterwards bishop of Lisieux, of the most famous member of this house of converts, Anacletus II : Parcendum tamen est obscoenitati rerborum, dum Petri nta narratur, et rerunt veritus sermonum palliunda decore, ut honos habitus honestati legentium videatur. Libet igitur praeterire antiquam nativitatis eius originem et ignobilem similem prosapiam, nee ludaicum nomen urbitror opponendum, de quibus ipse non solum rnateriam curnis sed etium quasdain priinitias ingeniti contrujcit erroris. Ipse enini xujfficiens est et copiosa materia, neque quidquam domui eius ipso turpius vel esse vet fuisse coniecto. C'uius avus cum inaextimabilem pecuniam multiplici corrogassel usura, tusceptam circumcisionem baptismatis undo dampnamt, etc. : In Girardum Engolismensem, iii, in L. d'Achery's Spicilegium, i. (ed. 1723) 165 «.

* Carte del Monastero dei SS. Cosma e Damiano in Mica Aurea, ed. P. Fedele, Arch, della Soc. Rom. di Stor. Patr., xxii. (1899) 97.

6 Reg. Farf., no. 906, vol. iv. 300 f. He witnesses another document in 1063 : ibid., no. 936, p. 329.

8 The inscription was written by Archbishop Alfanus of Salerno, and is printed by Baronius, Ann. xviii. 217.

7 So he is called, under 1058 and 1062 in the Annales Romani, Lib. Pontif. ii. 334, 336.

24 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY

was one of recent conversion, perhaps as recent as the time of Leo IX.1 They had in fact been opulent and powerful- members of the Christian community in the region beyond Tiber and on the Island for at least a generation ; and Leo and his son Peter were pre-eminent among the supporters of the reforming party in Rome. When the Tusculans set up Benedict X, in 1058, Hildebrand obtained money from Leo by means of which he divided the populace, and it was in the Trans- tiberine district that he succeeded in holding his ground.2 In 1062, when there was hard fighting on behalf of the Antipope Cadalus (Honorius II), Leo stood by Hildebrand and Alexander II, and dis- tributed money through the city all the night.3 His wealth was each time an important auxiliary to the Hildebrandine forces. The eminent services performed by Leo's son Peter for Hildebrand after he became Pope, and for Urban II when he too was in trouble, are too well known to need recording.4 Peter had now removed into the heart of the city, and it was in his house apud sanctum Nicolaum in Carcere that Urban died.5 Peter lived on until between 1124 and 1130.° One of his sons, also named Peter, was raised to the Papacy as Anacletus II, but after many fluctuations of fortune he was destined to rank as an Antipope.

The great wealth of the house of Peter Leonis and their unvarying support of Hildebrand and his party are prominently mentioned in the literature of the time both by friends and enemies ; and there is a remarkable statement in a chronicle of the twelfth century which claims Hildebrand himself as a member of it. This is found in the Annals of Pegau, near Merseburg — a compilation which contains some kernels of fact mixed up with a great deal of loose and unsup- ported tradition 7 — according to which Peter Leonis was Hildebrand's avunculus:, so that Hildebrand's mother was Peter's sister. This relationship is indeed favoured by Signor Fedele, who thinks that the difficulty arising from a consideration of the men's ages— as Hilde- brand was born perhaps as early as 1020 and Peter lived until after 1 124 — is not insuperable.8 To me this view appears quite out of the

1 See, for instance, Giesebrecht, Geschichte der Deutschen Kaiserzeit, iii. (ed. 4, 1876) 16 ; and compare the allusion in Beno's story, above, p. 15, n. 2.

2 Ann. Rom., Lib. Pontif. ii. 234 f. 8 Ibid., p. 336.

4 See Fedele, in Arch, della Soc. Rom. xxvii. (1904) 411-415. 8 Lib. Pontif. ii. 294. 6 Fedele, p. 415, n. 5.

There is, however, no need to travesty the narrative in these Annals, as Dr. Tangl does (Neues Archiv, xxxi. 179), in order to hold them up to ridicule. 8 p. 407 and n. 1.

BENEDICT IX AND GREGORY VI 25

question. It is, however, asserted that in the region where the Pegau Annals were written the meanings of avunculus and nepos were in- verted ; so that the annalist really described Peter as Hildebrand's nephew.1 The proof of this strange usage has not yet, to my know- ledge, been produced. If it be correct, it is surprising that neither the Lives of Hildebrand nor any contemporary writers give a hint that he had a sister married to a well-known citizen. I incline rather to believe that avunculus was used in a general sense to indicate relationship on the mothers side. Now it has lately been discovered that Hildebrand's mother was a Roman lady named Bertha, who lived near the Church of St. Mary in Portico.2 We still await the evidence for this identification ; but it is not in itself unlikely. Bertha, I would suggest, was the sister of the wife of Leo, son of Benedict the Christian.

We have seen that Gratian has been asserted to have belonged to this same family of converts ; and the close ties which bound him to Hildebrand have naturally led to a speculation whether they were not connected in blood. When Gratian was deposed and exiled beyond the Alps, it was Hildebrand whom he took as his companion.3 On his death, it is stated, but on suspicious authority, that he made Hildebrand his heir.4 Nearly twenty years later Hildebrand himself attained the Papacy, and in remembrance of his old friend he adopted his name, Gregory.5 If there be a grain of truth in the tales which were told against Hildebrand in later years, he was brought up under Gratian^s immediate influence. Cardinal Beno has a wonderful story of how Gerbert, Pope Silvester II, who had already acquired the reputation of a necromancer, taught his evil arts to Theophylact

1 See Tangl, p. 166, n. 3.

* The statement is quoted by Signer Fedele, p. 407, n. 3, from an Italian book to which I have not access. Hugh of Flavigny, who wrote at the end of the century, stands alone in saying that Hildebrand was born in Rome parentibus civibus Romanis (Monum. Germ. Hist., Script, viii. 422). His birthplace was a village in the district of Sovana, and his father was of Tuscan race ; but Hildebrand speaks of his early Roman associations (ab infantia, Reg. i. 39, Monum. Greg. p. 58 ; iii. 10 a, pp. 223 f. : cf. vii. 23 p. 415). If his mother belonged to a Roman family, this might explain Hugh of Flavigny's statement.

8 Reg. vii. 14 a, p. 401. Bonizo, p. 630, says that Hildebrand had previously been his chaplain, but it is unlikely that he was yet in holy orders.

4 Beno, ii. 8, p. 378.

5 Hunc Gratianum Alpes trantcendentem secutum fuitte tradunt HUtibrandum, qui postmodum summus pontifex factus ob eius amorem, quia de catalogo pontificum semotus fuerat, se Gregorium VIlm vocari voluit : Otto of Freising, Chron. vi. 32, pp. 299 f. Dr. Martens's opinion that the name was imposed upon Hildebrand in memory of Gregory the Great (Zeitschrift fur Kirchenrecht, xxii. 63 f., 1887) may be accepted by any one who chooses.

26 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY

(afterwards Benedict IX) and to Lawrence (afterwards archbishop of Aniiilfi), and how Lawrence lived in the house of John the archpriest, otherwise Gratian, his disciple. From these three Hildebrand learned magic.1 Now in 1046 Lawrence undoubtedly resided at the monas- tery of St. Mary on the Aventine ; and Hildebrand, according to his biographer, Paul of Bernried, was sent for his education to his uncle (avunculus), who was abbot of that house.2

The monastery has an interesting history. Alberic the Prince had a palace on the site, which he gave, perhaps in 936, to St. Odo, abbot of Cluny, in order that he might found a monastery there ; 3 and from that time St. Mary's was the place where the abbot of Cluny stayed when they visited Rome. St. Odilo was there more than once : his biographer, Jotsald, says,

Habebat autem hospitium in monasterio sacrae puerperae Virginis, quod est situm in Aventino monte, qui, prae caeteris illius urbis montibus aedes decoras habens et suae positionis culmen in altum tollens, aestivos fervores aurarum algore tolerabiles reddit et habilem in se habitationem facit.4

But Odilo was not in Rome after 1032 until he returned near the end of his life, in 1046, arriving on the eve of the appointment of Clement II.5 There is therefore no question of any personal acquaintance between Odilo and Hildebrand. Still, though Odilo was not himself at Rome, it is evident that St. Mary's was always the headquarters there of the reforming movement which is associated with the famous Burgundian monastery. It was this connexion that drew thither Odilo's friend Lawrence, the expelled archbishop of Amalfi, vir per omnia sanctissimus, in scripturis utriusque linguae, Graecae videlicet et Latinae,facundissimus ; 6 and the same personal ties most naturally explain the favour with which Peter Damiani welcomed the appointment of Gratian to the Papacy as ushering in a new time of purity for the Church.7

1 Gesta Rom. Eccl. ii. 3-5, Libelli de Lite (Monum. Germ. Hist.), ii. 376 f.

* Vit. Greg. IX, in Watterich, i. 477. One Peter, abbot of St. Mary's, subscribes the acts of a Roman synod in 1044 : Ughelli, v. (ed. 1720) 1116 ; as does also John, the archcanon and archpriest of St. John's.

8 Hugh of Farfa, Destr. Farf., in Chron. Farf. i. 39 f.

4 Vit. s. Odilon, ii. 9, in Migne, cxlii. 923.

3 This is acutely pointed out by Sackur, Die Cluniacenser, ii. (1894) 282, n. 2.

6 Vit. s. Odilon, i. 14, p. 909. Compare the additional passages of Jotsald's Life, printed by Sackur, in Neues Archiv, xv. (1890) 120.

T It is not without interest to read that Peter Damiani was staying in Rome on the critical days when Clement II was made Pope and Henry III crowned Emperor : see Opusc. xlii. 6, in Opera, iii. 698.

BENEDICT IX AND GREGORY VI 27

It would not be wise to make too much of the accusation brought against Hildebrand that he accumulated riches by usury.1 He was certainly closely associated with Peter Leonis, whose money more than once was of service to his interests ; 2 and this may have given rise to the story that he himself engaged in speculation. Peter's constant support suggests, though it does not prove, that he was his kinsman.

Now in what manner can we combine the various uncertain indica- tions about Gratian and Hildebrand in such a way as to build up a tentative pedigree ? We find (1) a modern statement that Gratian was of the house of Peter Leonis ; (2) an inscription, probably also modern, asserting that he was Peter's uncle; (3) his great wealth, which implies that he belonged to a family of capitalists ; (4) his close attachment to Hildebrand, whom by one dubious account he made his heir ; (5) that Hildebrand was later on reputed to be con- nected on his mother's side with Peter Leonis ; (6) he was associated with Gratian in a way that suggests relationship ; (7) he was reputed to have business relations with Peter Leonis; (8) when active in ecclesiastical affairs he enjoyed the steady adhesion of Peter Leonis. These data, however much they differ among themselves in their value as evidence, tend to a conclusion which I am tempted to set out in a provisional pedigree.

A Roman citizen	Benedict Christianas t ante 1051 1
Bonizo=pBertha Peter . . =p Leo abbot on living 1063 the Aventine Hildebrand Peter (GHEGORV VII) Leonis fl083 f 1124-1 130	John surnamed Gratian (GREGORY VI) t!047
Obitio Guido Peter Leo Leonis (ANACLETUS II)	Gratian John	3 other sons

This reconstruction avoids the inference, which Signer Fidele's hypothesis carries with it, that Hildebrand was of Jewish origin. I do not indeed lay the same stress as Dr. Tangl does 3 on the silence on this point of Hildebrand's enemies, who brought every conceivable charge against him. For the family of Benedict the Christian bore so high a character in ecclesiastical Rome, and were converts of such

1 Above, p. 15 and notes. 2 Above, p. 24. 8 Neues Archiv, xxxi. 174 ff.

28 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY

old standing, that no slur on this ground could be plausibly insinuated. I contest the theory of Hildebrand's Jewish extraction simply because it seems to me irreconcilable with such data as we possess relative to Benedict's descendants.

POSTSCRIPT

After this paper was completely written and prepared for publica- tion, I found that its subject had just been discussed with much greater elaboration by Signer G. B. Borino in two articles which fill 228 pages of the thirty-ninth volume of the Archivio della R. Societa Romana di Storia Patria (1916). I have thought it best to leave my paper exactly as it stood ; for it may not be without interest for the student to compare two independent essays produced at almost the same time by two writers belonging to different nations and living in different countries. It is particularly gratifying to me that on many of the controverted points Signer Borino's conclusions agree with mine.1 He goes indeed far beyond me in his analysis of the political situation, and his remarkable exposition of the reasons which made it necessary for Henry III to get Gregory VI out of the way (see especially pp. 332 f., 370-382) deserves attentive consideration. It is, however, true that, while he balances every detail of evidence in the most thoroughgoing way, he is not free from the fault, which he shares with most writers on this complicated business, of not sufficiently distinguishing between contemporary and later authorities. I should like to avail myself of Signer Borino's ample materials to add a couple of supplementary notes.

1. As to the youth of Benedict IX. Signor Borino quotes from a contemporary Life of Leo IX, published by A. Poncelet in the Analecta Bollandiana, xxv. (1906) 275, the statement that Benedict's father Alberic habebat filium parvulum, nomine Theophilactus, qui succedente lohannis sanctissimi papae per multa donaria militiae Romanorum sedis apostolicae ordinatus est antistes. Secondly, he cites the statement of Luke, abbot of Grottaferrata,2 that Benedict was elected ploy &v, d>$ //r) o>0eA€. Thirdly, the later comment of Desiderius of Montecassino, Adolescens iuxta viam suam. This evidence indeed does not prove very much. When Otto the Great

1 For instance, he has arrived at the same conclusion as mine with regard to the name of John cognomento Gratianus, and even hazards the same conjecture as I have done, which I have read nowhere else, with regard to Gratianus being a translation of a Jewish name (pp. 229-231).

a Vita S. Bartholomaei lun. x, in Migne, Patrol. Graec. cxxvii. 484.

BENEDICT IX AND GREGORY VI 29

was told of the misdeeds of John XII seventy years before, he is reported by Liudprand1 to have said, Puer est ; facile bonorum immutabitur exemplo virorum. And John was at that time twenty- five years of age. On the other hand Signer Borino mentions (pp. 144, n. 1, 146 n.) that one of Benedict's brothers was married and had a child in 1130. [This brother, it may be added, was of legal age in 1022.2] He relates at length what is known of Benedict's official career down to 1044 (pp. 157-169), and agrees with me that were we not informed of the scandal of his beginning and end giudicheremmo il pontificate di questo papa presso che normale, e persino d'una certa attivita politica e religiosa (p. 148).3

2. Noticing the long interval which passed between the deposition of Benedict IX, which he places as early as the beginning of September 1044 (pp. 180 f.), and the election of Silvester III in January 1045, Signer Borino considers that the former act was the result of a general movement of the Romans, while the latter was effected by the party which represented the old house of Crescentius and defeated the Tusculans. This party had great influence in the Sabina and they set up their Bishop John as Pope Silvester III. Then after a couple of months the Tusculans appeared in force, expelled Silvester, and restored Benedict. Signer Borino examines the position of the Crescentian family with great knowledge of the local circumstances (pp. 188-201) : the contest, he thinks, was more between two rival parties than between the individual persons (p. 221). But he considers that Silvester was not a man to accept his deposition as final (pp. 204, 206). Here he differs from most scholars who have discussed the subject. The upshot of his argument is that there was in fact no sale of the Papacy by Benedict to Gregory, but an agree- ment between the two parties in accordance with which the Cres- centians recouped Benedict for the money which he had paid for his election twelve years before (p. 221). In support of this view he cites some words from the anonymous tract de Ordinando Pontifice,* which he takes with Sackur 5 to proceed from Lower Lorraine, and

1 Hist. Otton. v.

a Querimonium Hugonis Abbatis, in Chron. Farfense, i. 76.

8 In his criticism of Rodulf Glaber Signer Borino is wrong in thinking that Rodulf s date 1000 for 1033 is an error of transcription. Rodulf s words are Anno igitur eodem die dominice passionis M°, die tercio kalendarum luliarum (Chron. iv. 9). Evidently the dies passionis could not fall on 29 June. The word die should be omitted, and the year (as reference to ch. v shows) is the year not of the Incarnation but of the Passion.

4 Lib. de Lite, i. 10.

8 Die Cluniacenser, ii. 305, n. 2.

30 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY

which he is no doubt right in assigning not to 1048, as its editor Diimmler did, but to the last months of 1047 (p. 217, n. 1). The following is this writer's account of the resignation of Benedict and of the mode by which Gregory obtained the Papacy :

Ministerio quod illicite appetierat se carere velle disposuit si quis ei redderet summam pecuniae quam ex appetitu in eo dispendit. Quern sane tenorem arripiens Satanas non defuit, quaerens et cito inveniens qui, repensa (ut a quibusdan dictum est) pecunia, in eadem cathedra pestilentiae resedit. . . . Alii autem excusant eum pecuniam non dedisse sed dantibus amicis et parentibus suis consensisse.

Signor Borino does not, I think, mention the obvious objection to his theory, that if Benedict's resignation was effected by the party of Silvester III one would naturally expect that they would have attempted to restore the latter. He suggests that the party of reform intervened ; they united with the Crescentians to get rid of Benedict, and then brought forward Gratian as a candidate for election who would command general approval (pp. 248 f.). But he does not dispute that Gratian consented to the antecedent transaction. Signor Borino's treatment of the question is extremely ingenious, but I cannot say that it appears to me altogether convincing.

APPENDIX

THE COUNTS OF TUSCULUM

The ancestry of the counts of Tusculum who exercised so continuous and powerful an authority over the city of Rome in the eleventh century has been obscured by a number of legendary accretions ; but there are sufficient materials contained in a long series of charters, in the names of grantors and of witnesses, to enable us to arrive at the conclusion that they were derived from the family to which Alberic the Prince of the Romans belonged. The fact has been regarded as doubtful,1 because one link in the pedigree has been filled up by conjecture. I propose to show that there is definite documentary evidence which almost certainly proves the connexion. The accompanying table, a few details in which may still need verification, sets out the result.2

On the face of it, when we consider the persistence of the same names in Italian families in the middle ages, one is struck by the recurrence of names like Theophylact, Alberic, Octavian, and Theodora ; but the difficulty has been to show the origin of Gregorius de Tusculana, from whom the counts of Tusculum descend. He appears with this

1 See Wattenbach's preface to the Chronicles of Monte Cassino, in Monum. Germ. Hist., Script, vii. 562 f.

2 The pedigree of the Tusculan house up to Gregorius de Tusculana is given by Wattenbach in the preface above cited. Monsignor Duchesne supplies the higher generations from Theophylact and Theodora downwards (Lib. Pontif. ii. 252, n. 2). Tomassetti (Delia Campagna Romana nel medio evo, ii, in Arch, della Societa Romana di Storia Patria, ix. 81 n., 1886) gives a complete pedigree of the whole family. But he fell into error through following a suggestion of Gregorovius (Hist, of the City of Rome, iv. 10) that Gregorius was either the son or grandson of Alberic II, and made his mother, Marozia, Alberic's daughter instead of his first cousin. The insertion of Theodora III is due to a brilliant reconstruction of an inscription by De Rossi (Bullettino di Archeologia Cristiana, ii. 65-69, 1864). Monsignor Duchesne, I venture to think wrongly, identifies her with Theodora II. The pedigrees given by Wattenbach and Tomassetti are vitiated in the later generations by the acceptance of statements derived from Peter the Deacon's ( improved ' version of his own descent found in the Monte Cassino MS. 257 (see the notes to Muratori, Rerum Ital. Script., iv. 488, and Biblioth. Casin. v. 51 a, 1894) ; they do not appear in his earlier version. It is clear that in order to attach himself to the Tusculan family Peter had recourse to an elaborate system of falsification. See E. Caspar, Petrus Diaconus und die Monte Cassiner Falschungen (1909) pp. 21 ff.

« ^iij|id&
1-1 '— 'S *jz 1» fri ja
•^Ife I73"1" i-P^'jl
N>iBK 0 0 -.§5 a« ~ a> 1 1 l""1 "i '£ '-*3 cc o *s
r — *""* a$ fl
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ft— —	5§ cS'C	^ *w*3 *C *3"^	si ""j1	c2 I^llelfil
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fllll	> o rt5 fi S« •a-s HO		I—1 S *>!*! S§	5 ft § 's ---H a /< r*A x ^ -*• ij .^ 6D^^ ^S jj ^ p^
llr	9 60 V ^	Romanus JOHN XIX pope	fit	Gregory patricius el	. g 2S § 0*0 >> M p. M)-^ | •§ a> A •§2-a5S-=2 ^5 "-sii-r^lso^S
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Alberic I =f= 1 duke of Spoleto j [	ric II Constantino Serj of the bisl ans of £ 4 in Maria Octavian t<*»»'« 1013 XII e	Theophylact BENEDICT VIII pope	Gregory II senator, dux. patricius, count of Tfisculuni 1	I	Ptolemy I consul Romanorum count of Tusculum Ua Soc. Rom. xxxiv. 212, n. 4 xpected notice of Theodora, 30\ Vita Alex. Magni (ed. G. nscribed the book at Constan i Marinus [his young son] e, lohannis], fheodoram videlicet itur sacrae scripturae. This r lister of Marozia II can bar
	— 55 g g 35 ^ -j-z;" •§c"52=1— •-5
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I* ,, jilii

APPENDIX 33

surname in the record of a lawsuit at Rome in 999, and he ranks second among the lay judges :

Residentibus . . . Gerardo gratia Dei inclito comite atque imperialis

militiae magistro, Gregorio excellentissimo viro qui vocatur de Tusculana atque praefecto

navali, Gregorio viro clarissimo qui vocatur Miccinus atque vestarario sacri

palatii, Alberico filio Gregorii atque imperialis palatii magistro . . .*

The Alberic here named was brother to the first two Tusculan Popes, Benedict VIII and John XIX. His father Gregory, who in 999 had attained a position of high dignity at Rome, is found as early as 96 1 witnessing as consul el dux a grant of certain vineyards in the territory of Albano to the monastery of Subiaco.2 In 980 or 981 there is an agree- ment inter Gregorius illustrissimo virojilius Maroze senatrix . . . rectorem mona- sterii sancti Andree apostoli et sancte Lucie qui appellatur Renal i and the abbot.3 Now in 949 we read of a charter of sale da Maroza nobili femina conius vero Theophilactus eminentissimus bestarario of land in the territory of Albano called Zizinni.4 In 979, after the death of Maroze nobilissime fcmine, her uncle Demetrius at her desire gave property at Zizinni to the monastery : this document is witnessed by Gregorius consul et dux.s The title of senatrix given to Maroza in the document of 980 brings us very close to the ruling power at Rome. In 959 Marozza senatrix omnium Romanorum makes another grant to Subiaco;6 in 96 1 she is mentioned as excellentissima femina atque senatrix;1 and it has not escaped notice that this title is assigned to her soon after the death of the famous Alberic senator and Prince of the Romans in 954. 8 It is evident that she stood in the foremost rank of the nobility of the city. Her husband Theophylact held the office of vestararius, one of the highest administrative posts which a layman could hold in the Papal court, and she herself bore the title of senatrix. What relation did she bear to Alberic ?

There is a piece of evidence among the Subiaco charters, hidden away unobserved in a record of boundaries, which furnishes nearly positive proof that she was his first cousin. In 985 a church and its appurtenances at Albano were granted to the monastery ; the adjacent landowners are enumerated : on three sides were the heirs of the grantor, who had

1 Regesto di Farfa, iii. (1883) 160, no. 437 [470].

2 Regesto Sublacense, p. 191, no. 139. 8 Ibid., p. 165, no. 109.

4 Ibid., p. 176, no. 126.

8 Ibid., pp. 176 f., no. 126; cf. p. 194, no. 143.

8 Ibid., pp. 106 f., no. 66.

7 Ibid., p. 174, no. 124.

8 Wattenbach, ubi supra, p. 662.

34 APPENDIX

become a monk, et a quarto latere Gregorius de Maroza de Theodora.1 The absence of honorific titles hardly presents a difficulty, for it was not necessary to insert them in a record of boundaries ; and I have no doubt that Theodoru is a simple slip of the pen for Theodora. It cannot be accounted for on palaeographical grounds, for, whether in the original Lombardic or in the minuscule of the chartulary, a and u are perfectly distinct. While in the rude Latinity of these documents little regard is paid to the correct use of case-endings, we find that proper names are by preference written in the nominative, no matter what the construction of the sentence may be. In the rare instances in which a name is written with the termination -it, it seems always to represent -us or -urn, moving in the direction of the Italian -o ; I do not think it ever stands for -a. Therefore in the present instance Maroza ought to be the daughter of Theodorus. But if this were so it would be difficult to connect her with the family of Alberic or to explain how after his death she came to bear the title of senatrix. These documents, however, are by no means free from textual inaccuracies, and I believe that the scribe accidentally wrote Theodoru when he should have written Theodora.

This Marozia, then, was the daughter of Theodora sister of Marozia I, the mother of Alberic II. Her relationship to him is precisely stated in a document which has been several times printed from a notarial transcript of 130 1.2 It is a grant to the monastery of SS. Andrew and Gregory quod appellatur Clivuscauri dated 14 January in the 3rd year of Marinus [miswritten Martinus] II in the 3rd Indiction, that is, in 9*5. The important sentence for our purpose runs as follows ; I divide the names for clearness into paragraphs :

Nos Albericus Domini gratia humilis princeps atque omnium Roma-

norum senator,

atque Sergius humilis episcopus sancte Nepesine ecclesie, nee non et Constantinus illustris vir, atque Bertha nobilissima puella uterina,

et germani fratres Marozze quondam Romanorum senatricis filii, nee non et Marozza seu [= et] Stephania nobilissima femina,

germane sorores et consobrine eorum Theodore quondam Romanorum senatricis filie.

The subscriptions are arranged in the following order : Alberic, Marozza, Stephania (both the ladies litteras nescientes), Bertha, Sergius, Constantine. Marozza thus ranks next after Alberic, and she is expressly described as daughter of Theodora formerly senatrix Romanorum. That Alberic's son John, surnamed Octavian, afterwards Pope John XII, is not mentioned*

1 Reg. Sublae., p. 189, no. 138.

* I cite it from Marini, no. c, pp. 155 ff.

APPENDIX 35

is accounted for by the fact that he was a boy at the time : his death in 964 left the inheritance of Alberic's possession to Maroza.

Maroza senatrix, then, the mother of Gregory de Tusculana, was the daughter of Theodora, who, with her sister the elder Maroza, had occupied a position of unequalled influence at Rome in the early part of the tenth century. They were the daughters of Theophylact, who as vestararius and magister militum held the highest rank among the officials of the Roman state. As early as 901 Theophylact is mentioned second in a list of eleven indices, following next after the bishops and counts, who were present at the decision of a lawsuit at Rome ; l he soon became beyond question the most important layman in the Papal domains.2

The pedigree thus constructed receives an interesting support from the evidence preserved as to the house which the head of the family inhabited at Rome. The Palazzo Colonna, adjoining the Church of the Santissimi Apostoli, bears its name from a descendant in the fifth degree of Gregory de Tusculana. Gregory's son Alberic (III) count of Tusculum is found in 1013 dwelling there : on the occasion of a lawsuit the judges by command of the Pope, Benedict VIII, assembled intra domum domni Alberici eminentissimi consults et duds iuxta sanctos apottolos.* Seventy years before, a suit was in like manner held in the same house, which was then occupied by Alberic (II) the Prince : in 942 the judges assembled by his command in curie ipsius principi Alberici iuxta basilica sancti apostoli.* The property seems from later indications to have extended up the Quirinal, when the Torre Mesa, destroyed by Innocent XIII, is believed to have been built by the Tusculan counts in the eleventh century.5 Tomassetti thinks that this Roman house was possessed by the lords of the Via Lata, and that it may even be possible to trace the family back to Pope Hadrian I.6 Into this con- jecture I will not enter, for I am at the moment interested only in establishing the pedigree which connects the family of Alberic the Prince with the house of Tusculum in the eleventh century. It is

1 Schiaparelli, Diplomi di Lodovico III, p. 19 (1910). For the early pedigree of Theophylact's family, see W. Sickel's paper on Alberich 1 1 und der Kirchen- staat, in Mitth. des Inst. fur Osterreichische Geschichtsforschung, xxiii. (1902) 77-81, 87 f.

a This is excellently brought out by Monsignor Duchesne, Les Premiers Temps de 1'fitat Pontifical, 2nd ed., 1904, pp. 310 f.

3 Reg. di Farfa, iv. 35, no. 637 [670].

* Reg. Sublac., p. 203, no. 155, where sancti apostoli is the nominative plural ; as Benedict of Soracte speaks of ecclesia sanctorum apostolorum lacobi et Philippi, que nos vocamus sancti apontoli: Chron. xxxi., Monum. Germ. Hist., Script, iii. (1839) 715.

5 See an article by C. Corvisieri in the Arch, della R. Societa Romana di Storia Patria, x. (1887) 636-640.

• Ibid., ix. 80.

36 APPENDIX

manifest that this Roman property came down from Theophylact and Theodora. They transmitted it to their daughter Marozia, the consort of Alberic (I) duke of Spoleto, and hence it was inherited by their son Alberic the Prince.

There is no sign that the elder Alberic had anything to do with Rome until his alliance with Marozia. According to Benedict of Soracte, this followed the victory which he and Pope John X won over the Saracens at the Garigliano in 915 or 91 6. On his return he was received with honour by the Roman people and formed an alliance (not, according to Benedict, a marriage) with the daughter of Theo- phylact.1 This is the generally received account. But Signor Fedele points out that the date is difficult to reconcile with the fact that in 932 the son of this union, Alberic the Prince, was old enough and strong enough to imprison his mother and drive the Pope from Rome.2 He thinks, therefore, that Alberic's connexion with Rome began some years earlier,8 probably at the time when Sergius III succeeded in gaining possession of the Popedom of which he had previously failed to make himself master. Be this as it may, it is necessary to guard against a figment which has come down from the writers who in former times sought to magnify the greatness and antiquity of the counts of Tusculum : this is the assertion that Alberic I was himself count of Tusculum, which is repeated by De Rossi 4 and Tomassetti.6 It is abso- lutely unsupported and is rightly described by Gregorovius as absurd.8

The family of which Theophylact I and Theodora I are the first proved ancestors was a Roman family which probably had been long established in the city.7 From the early years of the tenth century it held, as we have seen, a place of great distinction and authority in Rome. Naturally its members acquired property in the neighbouring districts. We find them as landowners in the territory of Albano, and just at the end of the century Gregory, the heir to the main part of the estates, appears for the first time connected with Tusculum, a fortress which for nearly two hundred years continued the headquarters of his

\- l Accepit una de nobilibus Romani . . . Theophilacti filia, non quasi uxor sed in consuetudinem malignam : Chron. xxix., p. 714. Cf. Duchesne, Serge III et Jean XI, in the Melanges d'Archeologie et d'Histoire, xxxiii. (1913) 48 ff.

* Arch, della Soc. Rom. xxxiii. (1910) 216 f.

8 So too Gregorovius, Hist, of the City of Rome, iii. 256, 271.

4 Bullettino di Archeologia Cristiana, ii. (1864) 68.

5 Marozia ' makes her entry into the Tusculan family by marrying Alberic I count of Tusculum ' : Arch, della Soc. Rom. ix. 79 f.

8 Hist, of the City of Rome, iii. 275, n. 2.

7 Signor Fedele makes some acute suggestions about their ancestry, but admits that they must for the present remain conjectures : Arch, della Soc. Rom. xxx iv. 208 f.

APPENDIX 37

descendants.1 He died before 1013.* The only positive statement that Gregory held the office which in his son's time is described as the countship of Tusculum appears, I think, in the Life of St. Nilus, who settled near Grotta Ferrata in the closing years of the tenth century and died at a great age in 1005. Here we read that 'the ruler of that township, by name Gregory, was notorious for his tyranny and injustice, but exceedingly shrewd and well furnished with intelligence ',* very much the typical feudal baron of romance. He was, however, a good friend to the saint, to whom he granted a site for the future monastery. As time went on, the counts of Tusculum sought to carry back their lineage to ancient times. It was asserted that Alberic II called his son, the future Pope John XII, Octavian to commemorate his descent from Octavius Mamilius, the son-in-law of Tarquinius Superbus.4 In the twelfth century Peter the Deacon, the chronicler of Monte Cassino, who wished to make himself a scion of the Tusculan house, boldly invented a letter in the name of Ptolemy, the count of his day, making him describe himself as lulia stirpe progenitus,5 and thus claim an ancestry less ancient but more august than that which traced back to Tarquin.

1 Cf. Julius Jung, Organisationen Italiens, in the Mittheilungen des Institutes fur Osterreichische Geschichtsforschung, Erganzungsband v. (1896-1903) 60 f.

3 Reg. Farf., no. 639, vol. iv. 37.

8 *O 8f ap\a»v rrjs Ku>fjLt)S (Kflvrjs rprjyoptos rw ov6[MTt, Trtpifiorfros tv rvpavvifti Kal dbtKtq Tvyxdvwv, \iav 8i dy\ivovs Kal vvviati Kexoar/jj^eVo?, Vita S. Nili, xiv, § 96, Act. Sanctorum, Sept. vii. (1760) 340 B.

4 See Gregorovius, iv. 9, n. 1. Livy says (i. 49) that Tarquin Octavio Mamilio Tusculano (is longe princeps Latini nominis erat, sifamae credimus, ab Ulixe deaque Circa oriundus): ei Mamilio filiam nuptum dot.

5 Muratori, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, iv. 488 n.

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