Benedict VII | |
|---|---|
| Bishop of Rome | |
| Church | Catholic Church |
| Papacy began | October 974 |
| Papacy ended | 10 July 983 [1] |
| Predecessor | Benedict VI |
| Successor | John XIV |
| Previous post(s) | Cardinal-Priest of San Teodoro (972–974) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Rome, Papal States |
| Died | 10 July 983 Rome, Papal States |
| Other popes named Benedict | |
Pope Benedict VII (Latin : Benedictus VII; died 10 July 983) was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from October 974 to his death.
Benedict was born in Rome, the son of David or Deodatus and nephew of Alberic II of Spoleto. He was also connected to the Conti family. [2] Before his accession to the papacy, he served as bishop of Sutri. [1]
Benedict VII was elected pope by the Roman clergy and people in October 974 under the influence of Sicco, envoy of Emperor Otto II. He ascended as a compromise candidate to replace Boniface VII, who had caused the death of Pope Benedict VI, usurped the pontificate, and in a month plundered the Vatican of its most valuable contents. He then escaped to Constantinople. [2] The new pope's authority was opposed by Boniface VII and his supporters, and although the antipope himself was forced to flee, his party followed fiercely in his footsteps and compelled Benedict to call upon Otto II for help. Once he was firmly established on his throne by the emperor, he showed himself both desirous of checking the tide of simony which was rising high in the Church, and of advancing the cause of monasticism. [1]
Benedict VII consecrated the priest James, who had been sent to him by the people of Carthage "to help the wretched province of Africa," which since the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb, had seen a steep decline in the number of bishops. [3] Benedict VII visited the city of Orvieto with his nephew Filippo Alberici, who later settled there and became consul of the city in 1016. In 978, Benedict issued a bull defining the boundaries of the Diocese of Vic for Bishop Froia, thereby rescinding the bulls issued by Pope John XIII that had made Vic an archdiocese. In March 981, Benedict presided over a synod in St Peter's that prohibited simony. In September 981, he convened a Lateran synod.
Benedict VII died in 983, and was interred at Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. [2]
An antipope is a person who claims to be Bishop of Rome and leader of the Roman Catholic Church in opposition to the legitimately elected pope. Between the 3rd and mid-15th centuries, antipopes were supported by factions within the Church itself and secular rulers.
The First Council of the Lateran was the 9th ecumenical council recognised by the Catholic Church. The first ecumenical council to be held in Western Europe & the first since the Great Schism of 1054, it was convoked by Pope Callixtus II in December 1122, immediately after the Concordat of Worms. The council sought to bring an end to the practice of the conferring of ecclesiastical benefices by people who were laymen, free the election of bishops and abbots from secular influence, clarify the separation of spiritual and temporal affairs, re-establish the principle that spiritual authority resides solely in the Church and abolish the claim of the Holy Roman Emperor to influence papal elections.
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 VIII was bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 18 May 1012 until his death. He was born Theophylact to the noble family of the counts of Tusculum. Unusually for a medieval pope, he had strong authority both in Rome and abroad.
Antipope Boniface VII, otherwise known as Franco Ferrucci, was a Catholic prelate who claimed the Holy See in 974 and from 984 until 985. A popular tumult compelled him to flee to Constantinople in 974; he carried off a vast treasure, and returned in 984 and removed Pope John XIV (983–984) from office. He is supposed to have put Pope Benedict VI to death. After a brief second rule, he died under suspicious circumstances. He is today considered an antipope.
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.
Pope Callixtus II or Callistus II, born Guy of Burgundy, was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 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 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.
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 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.
Pope Nicholas II, otherwise known as Gerard of Burgundy, was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 24 January 1059 until his death in 27 July 1061. At the time of his election, he was bishop of Florence. During his Papacy, Nicholas II successfully expanded the influence of the papacy in Milan and southern Italy. He was also responsible for passing papal election reforms.
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.
Willigis was Archbishop of Mainz from 975 until his death as well as archchancellor of the Holy Roman Empire.
The counts of Tusculum, also known as the Theophylacti, were a family of secular noblemen from Latium that maintained a powerful position in Rome between the 10th and 12th centuries. Several popes and antipopes during the 11th century came from their ranks. They created and perfected the political formula of noble-papacy, wherein the pope was arranged to be elected only from the ranks of the Roman nobles. The Pornocracy, the period of influence by powerful female courtesans of the family, also influenced papal history.
Crescentius the Elder, also known as Crescenzio de Theodora, was a politician and aristocrat in Rome who played a part in the papal appointment.
In nomine Domini is a papal bull written by Pope Nicholas II. The bull was issued on 13 April 1059 and caused major reforms in the system of papal election, most notably establishing the cardinal-bishops as the sole electors of the pope, with the consent of minor clergy.
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 Ostrogothic Papacy was a period from 493 to 537 where the papacy was strongly influenced by the Ostrogothic Kingdom, if the pope was not outright appointed by the Ostrogothic King. The selection and administration of popes during this period was strongly influenced by Theodoric the Great and his successors Athalaric and Theodahad. This period terminated with Justinian I's (re)conquest of Rome during the Gothic War (535–554), inaugurating the Byzantine Papacy (537–752).
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.
At the time of the Arab conquest there were more than three hundred bishops in the area, but by the tenth century Pope Benedict VII could not find three bishops to consecrate a new bishop.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Pope Benedict VII". Catholic Encyclopedia . New York: Robert Appleton Company.
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