Leo (c.965–1026) was a German prelate who served as the Bishop of Vercelli from 999. Born in Hildesheim, he was made an archdeacon by 998 and was appointed to the see of Vercelli as the candidate of the Emperor Otto III and Pope Sylvester II following the assassination of Bishop Peter. He worked tirelessly for the extension of imperial authority in Italy during the reigns of Otto III, Henry II and Conrad II. He worked for the imperial chancery, receiving the high rank and title of logothete.
Only a few of Leo's writings have survived, and only one of his epistles. A notable Latin verse encomium written at Rome praises Otto III and Pope Gregory V. He also left behind an elegy of his diocesan predecessor and the so-called Metrum leonis, a sometimes-rhyming adonic poem with fabulous and personal elements.
The only complete copy of Cicero's Epistulae ad Familiares - a work of great importance to scholars of Roman history - is known to have been in the possession of Bishop Leo.
Pope Gregory II was the bishop of Rome from 19 May 715 to his death. His defiance of Emperor Leo III the Isaurian as a result of the iconoclastic controversy in the Eastern Empire prepared the way for a long series of revolts, schisms, and civil wars that eventually led to the establishment of the temporal power of the popes.
Pope Innocent III, born Lotario dei Conti di Segni, was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 8 January 1198 until his death on 16 July 1216.
The 960s decade ran from January 1, 960, to December 31, 969.
Year 1026 (MXXVI) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar.
Pope Leo VIII was a Roman prelate who claimed the Holy See from 963 until 964 in opposition to John XII and Benedict V and again from 23 June 964 to his death. Today, he is considered by the Catholic Church to have been an antipope during the first period and the legitimate Pope during the second. An appointee of Holy Roman Emperor Otto I, Leo VIII's pontificate occurred after the period known as the saeculum obscurum.
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.
Anatolius was a Patriarch of Constantinople. He is regarded as a saint, by both the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches.
Pope John XV was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from August 985 until his death. A Roman by birth, he was the first pope who canonized a saint. The origins of the investiture controversy stem from John XV's pontificate, when the dispute about the deposition of Archbishop Arnulf of Reims soured the relationship between the Capetian kings of France and the Holy See.
Raoul of Mérencourt was the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem from 1214 to 1224, succeeding the assassinated Albert Avogadro.
Arduin was an Italian nobleman who was King of Italy from 1002 until 1014.
William III was the third Marquis of Montferrat and Count of Vado from 991 to his death. He was the eldest son and successor of Otto I. William I and II were the father and son, respectively, of Aleram, the first Marquis, but neither served as Marquis himself.
The Archdiocese of Vercelli is a Latin Metropolitan archdiocese of the Catholic Church in northern Italy, one of the two archdioceses which, together with their suffragan dioceses, form the ecclesiastical region of Piedmont.
Imperial cathedral is the designation for a cathedral linked to the Imperial rule of the Holy Roman Empire.
The Diocese of Ivrea is a Latin diocese of the Catholic Church in Piedmont. For a time the diocese included the territory which had once been the diocese of Aosta, suppressed in 1803 but restored in 1817. Up until 1517 Ivrea was a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Milan; it is now a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Turin.
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.
Henry II, also known as Saint Henry the Exuberant, Obl. S. B., was Holy Roman Emperor from 1014. He died without an heir in 1024, and was the last ruler of the Ottonian line. As Duke of Bavaria, appointed in 995, Henry became King of the Romans following the sudden death of his second cousin, Emperor Otto III in 1002, was made King of Italy in 1004, and crowned emperor by Pope Benedict VIII in 1014.
The Synod of Rome (963) was a possibly uncanonical synod held in St. Peter's Basilica from 6 November until 4 December 963, under the authority of the Holy Roman Emperor, Otto I to depose Pope John XII. The events of the synod were recorded by Liutprand of Cremona.
Peter was an Italian Cistercian monk and prelate. He was the abbot of Rivalta from 1180 until 1185, abbot of Lucedio from 1185 until 1205, abbot of La Ferté from 1205 until 1206, bishop of Ivrea from 1206 until 1208 and patriarch of Antioch from 1209 until his death. He is known as Peter of Magnano, Peter of Lucedio or Peter of Ivrea.
Gerardo da Sesso was an Italian monk, bishop and cardinal of the Catholic Church.