Alphabetical list of Popes

The Popes, in chronological order

AD 1000-1100

141. John XVII. b.  Rome as Giovanni Sicco; elected June 1003; d. Dec 1003. Was the candidate of and under the domination of John Crescentius, the powerful master of Rome. He lived only a few months and may have been poisoned.

142. John XVIII. b. Rome as John Fasano; elected Jan 1004; d. July 1009. Another nominee of Crescentius who barred him, as he had barred his predecessor, from making a closer alliance with Germany's King Henry II.  The pope  threatened France's King Robert with an  interdict over the disobedience of French bishops. Retired to a monastery and died soon afterwards. ODP says his retirement may not have been voluntary.

143. Sergius IV. b. Rome; elected 31 July 1009; d. 12 May 1012. Was bishop of Albano when tagged by the Crescentius  family. Battled against immorality and corruption in the church (ISPR) and revered for his many charitable works. He died within one week of Crescentius in May 1012, and "the immediate election of a pope from the rival Tusculum family has given rise to the suspicion that neither man may have died a natural death" says ODP.

144. Benedict VIII. b. Rome; elected 18 May 1012; d. 9 April 1024. He was Theophylact, one of the sons of the powerful Count Gregory of Tusculum who had been vestarius, the previous pope's main aide  who had filled the power gap on the death of Crescentius. The losing family's candidate, Gregory, failed to get the approval of King Henry II who endorsed Benedict.  The pope returned the favor when he crowned Henry in Rome as emperor. Together they  mounted a campaign against opponents in southern Italy.  A skilled general heading his own private army, Benedict reconquered Sardinia from the Spanish Moslems. Benedict and Henry also called a synod at Ravenna at which they renewed the denunciations against  simony  and forbade priests to marry. "He enhanced the prestige of his office" says ODP, "in a time of eclipse".

anti-pope  Gregory (1012)

145. John XIX. b. Rome; elected  June 1024; d. 1032. A layman and politician he was Romanus,  Benedict's younger brother, and  had headed the city's government. Such was the continuing power of the Tusculum aristocracy, he took over the papacy almost instantly on  his brother's death being ordained priest, consecrated bishop and crowned as pope all on June 24-25, 1024. ("bribed his way to the papacy and had been elevated from layman to pope in a single day"--S&S) The third brother, Alberic, took up a position at the pope's side. John crowned Germany's  Conrad II, successor to Henry II, as emperor, in the presence of the Burgundian king Rudolphe and Canute of Denmark and England. Refusing to sanction paying for the offices and benefices demanded of the clergy in other countries, Canute managed to get the papal tax burden lifted from his subjects in return for an increase in the annual donation known as Peter's Pence. When John died suspiciously, Alberic dressed up his 12 year-old-son Theophactyl, in papal robes and had him consecrated as Benedict IX who, after escaping an attempt to strangle him, was restored to the papal throne with the family's help.

146. Benedict IX. b. Rome as Theophylact; elected 1032. The third Tusculani in succession, and still a child when elected.  A scurrilous 17th century pamphlet circulated in London charging that he "obtained the Popedom by charms, spells and enchantments" but even BS judged him "young, wholly secular in his outlook, immoral, cruel and indifferent to spiritual things. The testimony to his depravity is disinterested and overwhelming". Bishop Benno of Placenta accused him of "many vile adulteries and murders". ODP calls his personal life "scandalously violent and dissolute". The young pope placed the Benedictine abbey of Monte Cassino under papal protection.  Riots in 1044  brought back into power the Crescentius family, who after forcing Benedict to take refuge in Trastevere,  installed their own local bishop as Pope Sylvester III.  Germany's Henry III deposed both popes, appointing a German bishop as Pope.

147. Sylvester III. b.Rome; elected 20 Jan 1045. Placed in office by the resilient Crescentius family of the Sabine Hills who had wrested back power in Rome from the Tusculums. Nevertheless, Sylvester returned to his post as bishop of Sabina soon after being excommunicated by Benedict who took only two months to regain office.   

    Benedict IX  elected for second time, 10 March 1045. With the aid of his supporters, Benedict resumed control but within weeks accusations of corruption and political intrigue forced him from office and he abdicated, aged 25, in favor of his godfather.   In return for becoming Gregory VI, the latter handed over  a considerable sum that had been raised to restore some of Rome's dilapidated churches or, according to some sources, in return for Peter's Pence, the annual  tithe of the English church. Benedict ("violent and debauched"--S&S)  remained in the Lateran Palace which he is alleged to have turned into a brothel.

148.  Gregory VI. b. Rome as Giovanni Gratiano; elected 5 May 1045; d. 20 Dec. 1046. His supporters included  the learned monk Hildebrand and a renowned hermit-writer Peter Damian who hoped his election would revive "the golden days of the Apostles". But Rome was in a state of anarchy and the papacy was almost penniless. When Emperor Henry III arrived in Rome, the church held a council at Sutri that decided Sylvester III  had been an intruder and that Gregory was "tainted with simony" . (The reference was to Simon Magnus who, in the Acts of the Apostles, " had offered money in return for the power to work miracles). Gregory was deposed and exiled, returning with King Henry to Germany where he died.

149. Clement II. b.Saxony as Suidger; elected 25 Dec 1046; d. 9 Oct 1047.   Chosen  as the first of four German popes by King Henry III, who was set on reformng the papacy, he crowned the king as emperor and agreed to restore the provision  that popes await imperial sanction. Potentially a reformer, he died within a year at which time Benedict IX returned yet again from the Tusculum estate near Frascati. A post mortem conducted in this century concluded that Clement had died of lead poisoning.

Benedict IX  became pope for the third time. He was restored to the papacy and "on a wave of popular enthusiasm assisted by bribery" (ODP) . One year later he was again ejected this time by Count Boniface of Tuscany, on the orders of the emperor, and retired  to the monastery of Grotteferrata where he was buried on his death, aged 36,  in January  1056.

150. Damasus II. b. Bavaria; elected 17 July 1048; d. 9 Aug 1048. Was Count Poppo who took the reins from Benedict at the invitation of Emperor Henry III, and after delays caused by Count Boniface. Damasus  died, possibly from poison but maybe from malaria, after only three weeks.

151. St. Leo IX. b. Germany as Bruno of Egisheim. elected 12 March 1049; d. 18 April 1057, aged 55. He entered Rome to take office barefoot as a sign of humility. Leo was a cousin of emperor Conrad II whom he accompanied to Italy. As bishop of Toul he had chosen as his adviser Hildebrand, the future pope Gregory VII. Leo, "whose venerable character would consecrate with the name of piety the measures least compatible with the practice of religion" (D&F), became pope through the influence of Emperor Henry III to whom he was related. Leo decreed that only cardinals could elect a pope, inisisted that priests be celibate and through a series of synods in different European cities instilled the church with a spirit of revival.
   The army he was leading in an attempt  to evict the Normans from Italy was overwhelmed and he was kept captive for nine months. The schism between Rome and Constantinople widened--and, indeed, lasted into modern times--after Leo sent cardinals to excommunicate the eastern patriarch, Michael Cerularius The latter's  attempt at reconciliation had been rebuffed by the pope's insistence that the Eastern church adopt the Roman custom of using  the word  filioque  (meaning that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and from the Son") whereas the Greek church defined it as "through the Son". ODP summarises that "after decades of humiliation (he) brilliantly restored the prestige of the papacy".

152.Victor II. b. Germany; elected 16 April 1055; d. 28 June 1057. A counselor to Emperor Henry III, he became the fourth and last German pope .nominated by the emperor after his election was delayed for one year. A reformer and astute politician who continued his predecessor's reforms, he was  beset by the Normans in southern Italy but  diverted by the death of Henry whose infant son, Henry IV, succeeded to the throne. Victor pushed through the election of Frederick, brother of Lorraine's ruler Godfrey, as abbot of Monte Cassino monastery, and while sattending a synod in Arezzo died,and was interred at Ravenna.

153. Stephen IX. b. France; elected 3 Aug 1057; d. 29 March 1058. As Frederick of Lorraine, Monte Cassino's abbot, he was asked by the Roman clergy to submit his nominations for pope, but  was himself eventually  elected. Under Pope Leo IX, he had been church librarian in Rome and had served in that pope's military action against the Normans. Stephen's support for the church reformers and those advocating less lavish living standards, included his appointment of the reformer Peter Damian as bishop of Ostia and his reformation the monastery of St Benedict at Monte Cassino. ODP says Stephen seemed "to have considered crowning Godfrey (his brother) as emperor so as to enlist his support" in a campaign against the Normans. But he died prematurely after binding the clergy to a promise not to elect a successor until his adviser Hildebrand returned from a mission to Germany. Rome's Tusculum family, worried by the reformers ignored this plea and, through extensive bribery, hurriedly elected one of their own, Cardinal Mincius, as Pope Benedict X, although Damian, the chief papal consecrator, declined to perform the ordination.

anti-pope  Benedict X  (1058-9)

154. Nicholas II. b. France; elected Dec. 1058; d. 27 July 1061. Elected by the reforming cardinals later that year, his first act was to excommunicate Benedict who retired to his home and was jailed a month later by Archdeacon Hildebrand. A major supporter of Peter Damian and Hildebrand in their efforts to reform the church, Nicholas moved strongly against simony. "If anybody attempts to obtain his own election by money, by human patronage, or by force of arms, without the peaceful and canonical election and blessing of the cardinal-bishops....let him be anathema". At a synod he called in 1059, it was decreed that only the senior cardinal bishops (a number later extended to 54)  could vote for a new pope, with the subsequent assent of the other priests and deacons. Once again clergy were forbidden to marry and the laity "ordered to boycott the Masses of priests who kept concubines" (S&S). Through new alliances in southern Italy, Nicholas made peace with the Normans but saw worsened relations with Germany.
11th c. fresco in S. Clemente.

155. Alexander II. b. Milan as Anselm da Baggio; elected 1 Oct 1061; d. 21 April 1073. As Bishop of Lucca and a confidant of Emperor Henry III, he owed his election largely to his friend Archdeacon Hildebrand. As pope, Alexander helped to reform the clergy in  France. After the murder by a  Moslem of Aragon's King Ramiro I, the pope offered an indulgence to all who fought for the cross to avenge this atrocity. Alexander was not recognized by Germany's Henry IV who supported Honorius. Noting that there had been ten popes in his lifetime, Alexander asked Peter Damian why popes remained in office such a short time compared to St Peter's 25 year-span and was told: "...it seems to me that this is done to strike fear of death into the mind of man and to show plainly...how worthless is the glory of temporal things". The Roman nobility, still frustrated by their diminished influence, enlisted the help of Germany's Empress Agnes in installing (anti-pope) Honorius  but, with help of the Normans, he was driven from the city.

anti-pope  Honorius II  (1061-1072)

156. St Gregory VII. b. Tuscany as Hildebrand; elected 22 April, 1073, d 25 May, 1085, aged about 65. A blacksmith's son, before becoming a Benedictine monk he had served as archdeacon to five popes. Formerly on the staff of Pope Gregory VI, who had been deposed thirty years previously, he took the latter's name as pope. His council issued a dictate that all Christians, whatever their rank, were subject to papal authority. "The Pope may be judged of no one", was his claim. Gregory battled with King Henry IV , who tried to depose him, but after being  excommunicated, came humbly to ask for a pardon. At first Henry had approved the pope's strong stand which he said had "gained applause from the mouths of the populace" (LVR)  but later, after Gregory challenged the king's right to appoint bishops, Henry replaced him with Guibert as (anti-pope) Clement III. "Henry, king  by God's will, says to Hildebrand who is not Pope but just a treacherous lying monk" (wrote the king) "get down off the Throne of Peter. Get down!"  In a letter to the Bishop of Metz, Gregory remarked that " the devil has invented the monarchy" and later asked rhetorically "who can doubt that the priests of Christ are to be considered the fathers and masters of kings and princes and all the faithful?"
   Helping an international army to assemble for campaigning, he promised that any Christian knight could keep the lands he conquered, so long as they were subject to the Holy See. Regaining power briefly he finally became an exile when Henry invaded Rome, dying in Salerno with his last words being: "I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore I die in exile". S&S judges his pontificate as representing "the highest point of papal aspirations to dominion over the secular world"." Thierry, bishop of Verdun, said about  Gregory: "His life accuses him, his perversity condemns him, his stubborn wickedness damns him".  ODP terms him "a man of exceptional ability, determination  and experience....one of the greatest popes and most impressive figures of the medieval world". SB adds: "Few men have been so admired by their friends and reviled by their foes".
Portrait by Frederico Zuccari in the Vatican. Ivory in Kunshistorisches Museum, Vienna

anti-pope  Clement III (1080-1100)

157. Victor III. b. elected 26 May 1086; d. 16 Sept 1087. As Desiderius, abbot of Monte Cassino where he had sheltered Gregory, he was elected by the reformers partly because of his good relations with the Normans with whom he had negotiated a peace on behalf of Pope Nicholas II. Opposed by Gregory's supporters and other factions, he returned almost immediately to Monte Cassino and was consecrated in Rome only when a Norman army managed to evict Clement who had been installed as (anti) pope by King Henry IV. Victor was a reluctant pope, a patron of literature and the arts who eventually returned to the monastery of which he had remained abbot and where he died. He condemned one of his predecessors, Pope Benedict IX, describing "his life as a pope so vile, so foul, so execrable that I shudder to think of it".
Painting by Eustachela Sueur in the Louvre.

158. Urban II. b. France as Eudes; elected 12 March 1088; d. 29 July 1099, aged about 57. A former monk he was a supporter of Pope Gregory VII, whose envoy he had been in Germany. He had also been an ally of Pope Victor III who appointed him cardinal bishop of Ostia. Although declaring that the Church should be "chaste from all contagions of evil, and free from secular power", Urban was beset by Emperor Henry IV whose own candidate (anti-pope Clement  III) occupied Rome for part of Urban's term,  forcing him to take refuge with the Normans in southern Italy.   
   Back in Rome in 1094, Urban worked hard at reorganizing the church, introducing the Curia (court) as his efficient administrative body. He summoned a council of 200 bishops and 4,000 clergy to give rise to a crusade to evict the Moors from Spain, instituting a system which offered indulgence, or pardon from all sins, to any man who "sets out to free the  Church of God at Jerusalem out of pure devotion and not out of love for glory or gain".   "He labored to appease some domestic quarrels that he might spread the flames of war from the Atlantic to the Euphrates" (D&F). Urban died two weeks after the crusaders captured Jerusalem and was beatified in 1881.

159 Paschal II. b. Ravenna;  elected 14 Aug 1099 d. 21 Jan, 1118. He was formerly abbot of the San Lorenzo monastery. With Norman help, he evicted from Rome, first the anti-pope Clement, then  his adherents, the anti-popes Theodoric and Adalbert both of whom were later deposed and confined to monasteries. Continuing the reorganization of the  Curia  he elevated five of its members to the status of cardinal, furthering a process that eventually made these  spiritual ceos "to be seen as necessary for the legitimacy of papal decisions" (S&S). Of the nine cardinals he created, three were monks. Meanwhile, another long-standing dispute had re-emerged, that of lay investiture or whether those other than the pope (ie. kings, emperors) had the right to invest bishops and abbots before they had been consecrated. Like his father, King Henry V demanded this privilege which Paschal was forced to grant. He crowned Henry as emperor the next day. In 1105, an aristocratic faction in Rome had elected as pope, Sylvester IV, whose presence Henry invoked in his battle with Pope Paschal. After becoming emperor,  however, Henry forced Sylvester to leave Rome.