prince. Otho's son, Otho III., was elected emperor. At this time flourished two celebrated hermits or solitaries, St. Romnald in Lombardy, and St. Nilus in Calabria. Benedict died in July, 984, after a pontificate of eight years and a half.
Benedict VIII., bishop of Porto, was elected pope on the death of Sergius IV. in 1012, but an antipope, one Gregory, was set up by a Roman faction, and Benedict was driven out of the city. Proceeding into Germany, he claimed redress from Henry II., then king of Italy, whom he found at Polden in Saxony. Henry, a prince of rare virtues, warmly espoused the cause of his petitioner; he took immediate steps to raise an army, and meanwhile sent the pope forward, under the protection of a strong escort, into Italy. The antipope did not venture to await the king's approach, but fled from Rome, and, on his arrival, Henry was welcomed into the city by Benedict himself. Soon after, he was crowned emperor by the pope, having first solemnly promised to be the protector of the church, and to be faithful to the pope and his successors. In 1016, a large force of Saracens having made a descent upon Tuscany and begun to ravage the country, the pope with great energy collected an army, by which the Saracens were defeated, and expelled with heavy loss. About the same time Rodulfus, Raoul, or Rollo, the Norman, with a few companions, came into Italy, and the pope engaged his services to proceed to the succour of Benevento, which the Greeks, acting upon the orders of the Emperor Basilius, were endeavouring to take possession of. The little band of Normans performed incredible feats of valour, and repulsed the Greeks. This is the first occasion on which the Normans appear as taking an active part in the affairs of Italy, and it seems to have been overlooked by Mr. Hallam (Middle Ages, vol. 1.) Throughout his pontificate there was an intimate union of heart and purpose between Benedict and the Emperor Henry. In 1020 the pope went Into Germany, and met the emperor at Bamberg, which city was then and there given by Henry to the Roman church. Leo IX. afterwards exchanged it with Henry III. for Benevento. On this occasion it is said, that Henry confirmed all the donations of territory which had been made by his predecessors to the Roman church, with the reservation, however, of the rights of the imperial crown. In the same year the pope presided at a council held at Pavia, to repress irregularities and scandals among the clergy. Seven stringent canons of discipline were promulgated by this council. In 1022 Henry came into Italy for the purpose of repelling the inroads of the Greeks; after effecting this, he visited with the pope the great Benedictine house of Monte Cassino. Henry died in 1023, and was numbered, among the saints after his death. It is recorded of this pope that he invited to Rome Guido Aretino, the inventor of the names of the singing-notes, Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, &c., and of a new method of singing. Benedict VIII. died in July, 1024, after a long and active pontificate of twelve years.
Benedict IX., Theophylactus, nephew of Pope John XIX, was made pope about the close of the year 1033, when he was but twelve years old, by means of wholesale bribery. During a pontificate which lasted—with intervals—more than eleven years, his infamous life dishonoured the holy see, and was a scandal to christendom. After he had sat for ten years, the bishop of Sabina was elected pope in his stead, and took the title of Sylvester III. But three months afterwards Benedict returned to Rome, and expelled Sylvester. About the same time a third pretender, John, archpriest of Rome, assumed the papal insignia. However, a holy priest, named Gratian, went to each of them in turn, and prevailed on them all to relinquish their claims in consideration of a pecuniary indemnity. The revenues derived from England, which seem to have been more considerable than those from any other country, were assigned to Benedict, who thereupon retired to his country seat, resigning the tiara to Gregory VI. This took place in the year 1045.
Benedict X., who, properly speaking, has no right to be numbered among the popes, and is termed by Muratori an "illegittimo e Simoniaco papa," was elected by a faction among the Roman magnates on the death of Stephen IX., in the year 1058, in spite of protestations and threats of excommunication on the part of all the cardinals, headed by St. Peter Damian, bishop of Ostia. His name of Mincio was on account of his extreme stupidity, changed by the Roman pasquinaders to "minchione," which means "blockhead." Peter Damian, in one of his letters, says of him—"if he can fully explain one verse of a psalm or a homily, I withdraw my opposition, I kiss his feet," &c. What made the conduct of the party more flagrant, was the circumstance that, shortly before his death, Stephen IX. had exacted a solemn promise from the clergy and people of Rome, to elect no one until the return of Hildebrand, cardinal sub-deacon (afterwards the famous Gregory VII.), who had been sent on a mission to the court of the Empress Agnes. At the request of the cardinals, the empress convoked a council at Sienna, by which Nicholas II. was nominated to the papacy. Escorted by the troops of the duke of Lorraine, the pope proceeded towards Rome, and Benedict, when he heard of his approach, retired to his own house. Nicholas, hearing this, entered Rome unattended, and was well received by the people. In the course of a few days Benedict came before him, and confessing himself an usurper, was pardoned, but deposed from the episcopate and the priesthood. He had occupied the chair about ten months.
Benedict XI. was elected in October, 1303, after an interval of only ten days, to succeed Boniface VIII. His name was Nicholas Bocasini; he was the son of a notary of Treviso, and having entered the Dominican order, he became its ninth general, and had attained to the dignity of cardinal-bishop of Ostia at the time of his elevation to the papal chair. His eminent virtues were allowed but a brief space of time for their public exercise; yet during the eight months of his pontificate much was attempted and something effected towards the healing of old feuds, and the adjustment of inveterate disputes. The furious quarrel which had subsisted for years between Boniface VIII. and Philip the Fair, king of France, was composed by Benedict XI. in a few days; the spiritual censures so lavishly fulminated by his predecessor were all revoked, and the kingdom of France was placed in statu quo ante with regard to the holy see. But against the actual perpetrators of the outrage on the person of the late pope at Anagni—William of Nogaret, Sciarra of Colonna, and eleven others—Benedict denounced a fresh sentence of excommunication. Early in 1304 the pope vainly endeavoured, by sending a cardinal-legate to Florence, to reconcile the Guelf and Ghibeline factions in that city. Dante was at that time not at Florence, having been driven into exile by the Neri, or extreme Guelf party, three years before. The legate, upon leaving Florence, laid the city under an interdict. After publishing a constitution, enlarging the privileges of the Mendicant orders, the pope died suddenly at Perugia in the month of July, not without suspicion of having been poisoned by some of the cardinals.
Benedict XII., one of the eight popes who resided at Avignon, was elected on the demise of John XXII. by the unexpected but unanimous vote of the conclave. His exclamation, upon receiving the intelligence, was, "You have elected an ass." He was a Frenchman, by name Jacques Fournier, his father having been a baker, living in the county of Foix. As bishop, first of Pamiers, afterwards of Mirepoix, he had given proofs of ability and energy. In the year following his election, he was implored by a deputation from the senate and people to transfer the papal court to Rome. He declared himself willing so far to yield to their entreaties as to fix his residence at Bologna, if a suitable reception were guaranteed to him on the part of the Bolognese. But that turbulent people gave so little encouragement to the overtures made by his nuncios, that the pope, abandoning all intention of returning to Italy, resolved to fix his residence permanently at Avignon, and commenced the erection of a palace. Benedict XII. is briefly described by Gibbon (Decline and Fall, chapter lxvi.) as "a dull peasant, perplexed with scruples, and immersed in sloth and wine." For this character he quotes no authority except a letter of Petrarch, who was probably not an impartial judge. The ordinary historians (Fleury, Natalis Alexander, and Muratori) have left on record a widely-different estimate of this pope, though some of the facts which they relate certainly tend to convict him of indecision, and an occasional preference of selfish and worldly considerations to those of pure right. Such was his repeated refusal of absolution to the emperor, Louis of Bavaria (who had renounced the cause of the antipope whom he had set up at Rome in the pontificate of John XXII., and had offered to make the most ample submission, and the fullest amends for his past misconduct), solely through fear of offending the king of France. The pope's conduct in this affair engendered a feeling of deep resentment in the minds of the German princes, tended to keep alive the hostility between the Guelf and Ghibeline factions in Italy,
