Pope Benedict VIII
Date of birth unknown; d. 9 April, 1024. The first
of the Tusculan popes, being the son of Gregory, Count of Tusculum,
and Maria, and brother of John XIX, he was, though a layman, imposed
on the chair of Peter by force (18 May, 1012). Nevertheless,
dislodging a rival, he became a good and strong ruler. On the 14th of
February, 1014, he crowned the German king, Henry II, emperor
(Thietmar, Chron., VI, 61), and ever kept friendly with him. The
peace of Italy was promoted by his subjugating the Crescentii,
defeating the Saracens, and allying himself with the Normans, who
appeared in its southern parts in his time. Going to Germany, he
consecrated the cathedral of Bamberg (Ann. Altahen. Majores, 1020;
Chron. Cass., II, 47), visited the monastery of Fulda, and obtained
from Henry a charter confirmatory of the donations of Charlemagne and
Otho. To restrain the vices of clerical incontinence and simony, he
held, with the emperor, an important synod at Pavia (1022 -Labbe,
Concilia, IX, 819), and supported the reformation which was being
effected by the great monastery of Cluny. To further the interest of
peace, he encouraged the "Truce of God" and countenanced
the ecclesiastical advancement of Gauzlin, the natural brother of
Robert the Pious, King of France. This he did because, though
illegitimate, Gauzlin was a good man, and his loyal brother was very
desirous of his promotion (cf. life of Gauzlin, in "Neues
Archiv.", III). Benedict VIII was one of the many popes who were
called upon to intervene in the interminable strife for precedence
between the Patriarchs of Grado and of Aquileia (Dandolo, Chron., IX,
2, n. 2). In 1022 he received Ethelnoth of Canterbury "with
great worship and very honourably hallowed him archbishop", and
reinstated in his position Leofwine, Abbot of Ely (A.S. Chron., 125,
6, R.S.). A friend of St. Odilo, Abbot of Cluny, and one of the few
popes of the Middle Ages who was at once powerful at home and great
abroad, Benedict VIII has, on seemingly insufficient grounds, been
accused of avarice.
The most important source for the
history of the first nine popes who bore the name of Benedict is the
biographies in the Liber Pontificalis, of which the most useful
edition is that of Duchesne, Le Liber Pontificalis (Paris, 1886-92),
and the latest that of Mommsen, Gesta Pontif. Roman. (to the end of
the reign of Constantine only, Berlin, 1898). Jaffé, Regesta
Pont. Rom. (2d ed., Leipzig, 1885), gives a summary of the letters of
each pope and tells where they may be read at length. Modern accounts
of these popes will be found in any large Church history, or history
of the City of Rome. The fullest account in English of most of them
is to be read in Mann, Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages
(London, 1902, passim).
Horace K. Mann.