Pope Benedict VI was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 19 January 973 to his death in 974. His brief pontificate occurred in the political context of the establishment of the Holy Roman Empire, during the transition between the reigns of Otto I and Otto II, incorporating the struggle for power of Roman aristocratic families such as the Crescentii.
Pope Benedict VII was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from October 974 to his death.
Pope Boniface IX was head of the Catholic Church from 2 November 1389 to his death, in October 1404. He was the second Roman pope of the Western Schism. During this time the Avignon claimants, Clement VII and Benedict XIII, maintained the Roman Curia in Avignon, under the protection of the French monarchy. He is the last pope to date to take on the pontifical name "Boniface".
Pope Gregory V, born Bruno of Carinthia, was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 3 May 996 to his death. A member of the Salian dynasty, he was made pope by his cousin, Emperor Otto III.
Year 984 (CMLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar.
The Avignon Papacy was the period from 1309 to 1376 during which seven successive popes resided in Avignon rather than in Rome. The situation arose from the conflict between the papacy and the French crown, culminating in the death of Pope Boniface VIII after his arrest and maltreatment by Philip IV of France. Following the subsequent death of Pope Benedict XI, Philip forced a deadlocked conclave to elect the French Clement V as pope in 1305. Clement refused to move to Rome, and in 1309 he moved his court to the papal enclave at Avignon, where it remained for the next 67 years. This absence from Rome is sometimes referred to as the "Babylonian captivity of the Papacy".
Otto III was Holy Roman Emperor from 996 until his death in 1002. A member of the Ottonian dynasty, Otto III was the only son of the Emperor Otto II and his wife Theophanu.
Otto II, called the Red, was Holy Roman Emperor from 973 until his death in 983. A member of the Ottonian dynasty, Otto II was the youngest and sole surviving son of Otto the Great and Adelaide of Italy.
Year 974 (CMLXXIV) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar.
Pope John XIII was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 1 October 965 to his death. His pontificate was caught up in the continuing conflict between the Holy Roman emperor, Otto I, and the Roman nobility. After long and arduous negotiations, he succeeded in arranging a Byzantine marriage for Otto II, in an effort to legitimize the Ottonian claim to imperial dignity. He also established church hierarchy in Poland and Bohemia.
Pope John XIV, born Peter Canepanova, was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from December 983 until his death. Upon the death of Pope Benedict VII in July 983, Emperor Otto II nominated Canepanova to the papal throne after the abbot Maiolus of Cluny refused the office. The decision to install the then bishop of Pavia was made without consultation with the clergy and the Roman people, nor was it confirmed by formal election.
Pope John XVII, born John Sicco, was the bishop of Rome and nominal ruler of the Papal States for about seven months in 1003. He was one of the popes chosen and eclipsed by the patrician John Crescentius.
John XVI was an antipope from 997 to 998.
The Crescentii were a baronial family, attested in Rome from the beginning of the 10th century and which in fact ruled the city and the election of the popes until the beginning of the 11th century.
Benedict has been the papal name of fifteen Roman Catholic popes. The name is derived from the Latin benedictus, meaning "blessed".
Crescentius the Elder was a politician and aristocrat in Rome who played a part in the papal appointment.
Crescentius the Younger, son of Crescentius the Elder, was a leader of the aristocracy of medieval Rome. During the minority of Holy Roman Emperor Otto III, he declared himself Consul of Rome and made himself de facto ruler of Rome. After being deposed, he led a rebellion, seized control of Rome, and appointed an antipope, but the rebellion failed and Crescentius was eventually executed.
Papal appointment was a medieval method of selecting the Pope. Popes have always been selected by a council of Church fathers, however, Papal selection before 1059 was often characterized by confirmation or nomination by secular European rulers or by the preceding pope. The later procedures of the Papal conclave are in large part designed to prohibit interference of secular rulers, which to some extent characterized the first millennium of the Roman Catholic Church, e. g. in practices such as the creation of crown-cardinals and the claimed but invalid jus exclusivae. Appointment may have taken several forms, with a variety of roles for the laity and civic leaders, Byzantine and Germanic emperors, and noble Roman families. The role of the election vis-a-vis the general population and the clergy was prone to vary considerably, with a nomination carrying weight that ranged from nearly determinative to merely suggestive, or as ratification of a concluded election.
The selection of the Pope, the Bishop of Rome and Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church, prior to the promulgation of In Nomine Domini in AD 1059 varied throughout history. Popes were often putatively appointed by their predecessors or by political rulers. While some kind of election often characterized the procedure, an election that included meaningful participation of the laity was rare, especially as the Popes' claims to temporal power solidified into the Papal States. The practice of Papal appointment during this period would later result in the putative jus exclusivae, i.e., the claimed but invalid right to veto the selection that Catholic monarchs exercised into the twentieth century.
The Tusculan Papacy was a period of papal history from 1012 to 1048 where three successive relatives of the counts of Tusculum were installed as pope.
