The First Council of the Lateran was the 9th ecumenical council recognized by the Catholic Church. It was convoked by Pope Callixtus II in December 1122, immediately after the Concordat of Worms. The council sought to: (a) bring an end to the practice of the conferring of ecclesiastical benefices by people who were laymen; (b) free the election of bishops and abbots from secular influence; (c) clarify the separation of spiritual and temporal affairs; (d) re-establish the principle that spiritual authority resides solely in the Church; (e) abolish the claim of the emperors to influence papal elections.
Pope Alexander III, born Roland of Siena, was pope from 7 September 1159 to his death in 1181.
Pope Honorius II, born Lamberto Scannabecchi, was Pope from 21 December 1124 to his death in 1130.
Pope Callixtus II or Callistus II, born Guy of Burgundy, was pope of the western Christian church from 1 February 1119 to his death in 1124. His pontificate was shaped by the Investiture Controversy, which he was able to settle through the Concordat of Worms in 1122.
Pope Innocent II, born Gregorio Papareschi, was Pope from 14 February 1130 to his death in 1143. His election was controversial and the first eight years of his reign were marked by a struggle for recognition against the supporters of Antipope Anacletus II. He reached an understanding with Lothair II, Holy Roman Emperor who supported him against Anacletus and whom he crowned King of the Romans. Innocent went on to preside over the Second Lateran council.
Pope Gelasius II, born Giovanni Caetani or Giovanni da Gaeta, was Pope from 24 January 1118 to his death in 1119. A monk of Monte Cassino and chancellor of Pope Paschal II, Caetani was unanimously elected to succeed him. In doing so he also succeeded to the conflicts with Emperor Henry V over investiture. Gelasius spent a good part of his brief papacy in exile.
Ralph d'Escures was a medieval Abbot of Séez, Bishop of Rochester and then Archbishop of Canterbury. He studied at the school at the Abbey of Bec. In 1079 he entered the abbey of St Martin at Séez, and became abbot there in 1091. He was a friend of both Anselm of Canterbury and Gundulf, Bishop of Rochester, whose see, or bishopric, he took over on Gundulf's death.
The Investiture Controversy or Investiture Contest was a conflict between church and state in medieval Europe over the ability to install high church officials through investiture. By undercutting imperial power, the controversy led to nearly 50 years of civil war in Germany. According to historian Norman Cantor, the Investiture Controversy was "the turning-point in medieval civilization", marking the end of the Early Middle Ages with the Germanic peoples' "final and decisive" acceptance of Christianity. More importantly, it set the stage for the religious and political system of the High Middle Ages.
Conrad II or Conrad (III) was the Duke of Lower Lorraine (1076–87), King of Germany (1087–98) and King of Italy (1093–98). He was the second son of Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV and Bertha of Savoy, and their eldest son to reach adulthood, his older brother Henry having been born and died in the same month of August 1071. Conrad's rule in Lorraine and Germany was nominal. He spent most of his life in Italy and there he was king in fact as well as in name.
The Council of Sutri was called by the Holy Roman Emperor Henry III and opened on December 20, 1046, in the hilltown of Sutri, at the edge of the Duchy of Rome. The Catholic Church does not list this as an ecumenical council.
Jordan I, count of Aversa and prince of Capua from 1078 to his death, was the eldest son and successor of Prince Richard I of Capua and Fressenda, a daughter of Tancred of Hauteville and his second wife, also named Fressenda, and the nephew of Robert Guiscard, duke of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily. He, according to William of Apulia, "equalled in his virtues both the duke and his father."
The Treaty of Benevento, or Concordat of Benevento, was an important treaty between the papacy of Adrian IV and the Norman Kingdom of Sicily. After years of turbulent relations, the popes finally settled down to a peace with the Hauteville kings.
The Italian Catholic Archdiocese of Benevento has a long history; it now has five suffragan dioceses: the diocese of Ariano Irpino-Lacedonia, the diocese of Avellino, the diocese of Cerreto Sannita-Telese-Sant'Agata de' Goti, the Territorial Abbey of Montevergine, and the archdiocese of Sant'Angelo dei Lombardi-Conza-Nusco-Bisaccia.
Cuno of Praeneste was a German Cardinal and papal legate, an influential diplomatic figure of the early 12th century, active in France and Germany.
Walter or Gualterio of Albano was the cardinal-bishop of the Diocese of Albano in Italy from 1091 to 1101. He served as papal legate to England in May 1095, where he secured the recognition of Pope Urban II by King William II of England. He also brought a pallium, the symbol of an archbishop's authority, to the newly elected Archbishop of Canterbury, Anselm of Canterbury.
The history of the papacy from 1048 to 1257 was marked by conflict between popes and the Holy Roman Emperor, most prominently the Investiture Controversy, a dispute over who— pope or emperor— could appoint bishops within the Empire. Henry IV's Walk to Canossa in 1077 to meet Pope Gregory VII (1073–85), although not dispositive within the context of the larger dispute, has become legendary. Although the emperor renounced any right to lay investiture in the Concordat of Worms (1122), the issue would flare up again.
A legatine council or legatine synod is an ecclesiastical council or synod that is presided over by a papal legate.
Henry V was King of Germany and Holy Roman Emperor, the fourth and last ruler of the Salian dynasty. Henry's reign coincided with the final phase of the great Investiture Controversy, which had pitted pope against emperor. By the settlement of the Concordat of Worms, he surrendered to the demands of the second generation of Gregorian reformers.
Robert of Paris was the cardinal-prebyster of Sant'Eusebio from 1100 until his deposition in 1112. He was restored in 1119, but died shortly after. He served as an apostolic legate to the Holy Land in 1102 in the aftermath of the First Crusade, in a critical period in the formation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
