STEPHEN (IX) X

A.D. 1057-1058.

 

Emperor of the East.

 Isaac Comnenus, 1057-1059.

 

One of the distinguished group of men whom Leo IX gathered round him, and inspired with his own ardent zeal for the reform of the Church and of the world, was Cardinal Junian Frederick. Born probably towards the beginning of the eleventh century, he was the son of Gothelon or Gozelon, duke of Lotharingia or Lower Lorraine, and of Junca, the daughter of Berengarius II, the last king of Italy. The rebellious attitude of his brother, Godfrey the Bearded, towards the empire soon caused him to become an object of suspicion to the Emperor Henry III, and the marriage of the same brother with Beatrice of Tuscany brought him into relationship with the most powerful house in Italy.

The learning for which he was distinguished from his youth upwards, he acquired at the school of St. Lambert of Liège, which at that time was in a most flourishing condition. In due course he became a canon and then archdeacon of St. Lambert’s. It was in all likelihood while he was holding that office that Leo IX, on the occasion of his second visit to Germany, took him into the service of the Roman Church. He made him chancellor and librarian of the Apostolic See; and in March 1051 we find his signature appended to papal bulls as deacon, librarian and chancellor of the Apostolic See, holding the place of Herimann, arch chancellor and archbishop of Cologne.

As chancellor he accompanied Pope Leo in his apostolic journeys, thus gaining a personal knowledge of many parts of the Church he was destined to rule. We find him on the plains of Hungary; reading aloud before emperor and people at Bamberg the privileges of its Church; and witnessing the discomfiture of Leo’s troops by the Normans.

The most important work in which he took a share before occupying the chair of Peter was the famous embassy dispatched by Leo to Constantinople, which terminated the disastrous schism of the East and the West.

We have already seen how Frederick was robbed of his treasures when he returned from the Greek capital, and how, robbed, to avoid falling into the power of the emperor, he cast off the previous robes he was accustomed to wear and became a monk at Monte Cassino. To put a greater distance between himself and his enemy, it was not long before he betook himself to the monastery which had been recently founded on the smallest of the Tremiti Islands. Taking umbrage at certain abuses he found there, he incurred the dislike of the abbot. This caused him to return to the mainland, and to seek an asylum in the monastery of St. John de Venere in the county of Lanciano. He did not, however, remain long there. Hearing that the abbot of Monte Cassino (Richer), returning from Ancona, where he had been to see the Pope, was at the monastery of St. Liberator, he went to him, begged pardon of him for his restlessness, and obtained his permission to return to Monte Cassino. It must have been about the end of the year 1055 that he once again climbed the steep hill which that venerable abbey still crowns.

The death of the emperor Henry III, not many months after this (October 1056), left Frederick a freer hand, and when Pope Victor returned to Rome from Germany (April 1057), he went to him to obtain justice from Trasmund, count of Teate (Chieti), who, as we have seen, had robbed and imprisoned him on his return from Constantinople. The brigand-noble, after having been excommunicated by the Pope, confessed his crime, and restored not only the property of the legates, but also other ill-gotten goods as well. According to the so-called chronicle of Penna, however, it was only when Frederick, as Pope, led an armed force against him that the count yielded up his ill-gotten gains. It is quite possible, if the entry is correct, that Stephen X undertook this expedition either because Trasmund did not fulfill all the promises he had made to Victor, or because he had resumed his old plundering habits.

Soon after the death of the emperor, Richerius, abbot of Monte Cassino, and Frederick’s friend, died also (December 11, 1055). Thereupon most of the monks elected as his successor Peter, the dean of the monastery, an old man indeed, but one in every way worthy of the position, a man whom the emperor Henry III had pronounced to be the most perfect monk he had ever seen. For some reason Pope Victor did not approve of this election. Perhaps he thought that Peter was too old to occupy so responsible a position in such difficult times, or perhaps he had set his mind on having another abbot. At any rate, at first with honied words, and then with sharp ones, he gave the monks to understand that they had no right to proceed to an election without consulting him, and without inquiring into what might be the will of the emperor. Then, taking advantage of the fact that the monks who had not voted for Peter assured him that the election had been uncanonical, he dispatched Cardinal Humbert to Monte Cassino to inquire into the election on the spot. But the monks boldly proclaimed that, by their rule and by papal sanction, the right of election belonged to them alone, and that in the present case all the forms required by canon law had been properly complied with.

The investigation would have terminated favorably for Peter, had not some of his partisans, unknown to him, and acting with more zeal than discretion, roused the dependants of the abbey, and attempted to settle the trial by the sword. Peter felt that his cause was lost; and no sooner had he succeeded in dispersing his armed supporters than he placed his resignation in the cardinal’s hands. A unanimous vote of the monks caused Cardinal Frederick to be acknowledged as his successor (May 23, 1057).

Joining the Pope in Tuscany, the newly elected abbot was first made cardinal-priest of St. Chrysogonus, and then consecrated abbot by him. He also received from Victor the privilege of wearing the sandals, gloves, and dalmatic— the usual insignia of a bishop—and of taking rank above all other abbots.

When he returned to Rome he was escorted both to his titular church and to his residence in the monastery of St. Stephen in Pallara, among the ruins of the Palatine, with the customary honors by a vast crowd (July 27).

He went to his titular church in great state, clad in a cope and wearing a mitre, riding on horseback, attended by a body of horsemen, and accompanied by the primicerius, the schola cantorum, the regionary sub-deacons, the ostiar; and such of the magnates (majores) as he had invited. Boys walked in front of him, bearing palms and flowers, and, as he rode along, an acolyte among them kept continually intoning his name, to which the choir responded, “St. Peter has chosen you”. When he arrived at his church, and before he dismounted, the primicerius and the choristers formed around him, and the paraphonista (the arch-chorister) in a loud voice intoned his name. Thrice the choir responded, “May God preserve you! Holy Mary! help you. Holy Michael! help you”. When the laudes were finished, Frederick dismounted, and gave his hand to the paraphonista, who led him into the church. During the Mass that followed he was assisted by the primicerius.

After the sacrifice was over, he adjourned with his company to the Palatine, and there entertained them and dismissed them with largess (presbiterium).

After spending a few days in procuring the ornaments required by his new dignities, he was preparing to leave the city when Boniface, bishop of Albano, brought the news of the death of Pope Victor. Thrown into consternation at this unexpected catastrophe, Frederick at once gave up all thoughts of leaving Rome for the time. He was immediately beset both by clerics and laymen anxious to know his opinion as to what was best to be done, and as to whom he considered most fit to be Victor’s successor. He suggested to them the names of five persons, among which were those of John of Velletri, afterwards the antipope Benedict X, and of Hildebrand, subdeacon of the Roman Church. But the Roman people would have none of them. Some indeed were of opinion that they should await Hildebrand’s return from Tuscany, where he had been staying with the late Pope. The majority, however, thought that there was no time for delay, and that there was no candidate so likely to be able to maintain himself in his position when freely elected than Cardinal Frederick himself, the brother of the powerful Duke Godfrey. To secure a free election, it was necessary to anticipate the action of the imperialists or of any powerful family at home. Consequently Frederick was taken by force from the monastery on the Palatine to the basilica of St. Peter ad vincula, and there he was duly elected, and called Stephen, as his election had taken place on the feast of St. Stephen I, Pope and martyr (August 2, 1057). From St. Peter’s he was taken in triumphal procession to be enthroned in the Lateran palace, and on the following day was consecrated “supreme and universal Pontiff”, as Leo expresses it, in presence of “all the cardinals, the clergy, and the Roman people”.

Though the new Pope realized that the carrying out of the measures of reform to which the Papacy had committed itself would meet with much fierce opposition, he followed resolutely in the steps of his immediate predecessors. During the first four months of his reign he remained in Rome, and held several synods with a view to promoting the celibacy of the clergy and to checking marriages between near relations. And when the Greek custom with regard to clerical celibacy was urged against his action, he answered that the customs of the Greek and Latin churches were different, and that the custom of the latter church was that all clerics, from the subdeacon to the bishop, should refrain from marriage. St. Peter Damian tells us that he expelled from Rome, in order that they might do penance, even those clerics who had left their wives; for many of them only ceased to transgress the discipline of the Church in order to break many of the commandments of God. And, to serve as a warning to evil-doers, he recounts the sudden death of a priest who would not separate from his wife, and the advice which he himself gave on that occasion, viz., that no solemn rites should be offered for the repose of  his soul.

Saint Peter Damian made a bishop, 1058.

To help him in his arduous task, the Pope had summoned the teller of this story from his quiet Umbrian retreat at Fonte-Avellana to Rome in order to make him cardinal-bishop of Ostia. So stoutly, however, did he refuse the preferred dignity that the Pope, putting him under holy obedience, seized him by the arm and “affianced him to the Church of Ostia by forcing the ring on his finger, and the crozier into his hand”. In announcing to his episcopal brethren his accession to their number, the new cardinal took occasion very bluntly to remind them of their duty.

After bewailing the general decay of morals, he points out that in the midst of the flood of iniquity, “the holy Roman Church is the only harbour, and that it is the net of the poor fisherman which alone is able to gather together those who are boldly struggling against the angry waves, and to br.ng them safely to shore ... And since from all parts of the world crowds flock to the Lateran palace, there ought to be conspicuous there, more than in any other part, irreproachable morals, exemplary lives, and strict discipline ... What makes a bishop is a good life, and an unceasing effort to acquire the virtues of his state, and not turret-like headgear made of foreign ski is, nor gaudy marten furs worn beneath the chin, nor jingling golden bangles, nor companies of soldiers, nor high-spirited and prancing chargers”.

Another uncompromising monk whom Stephen advanced was Humbert, cardinal-bishop of Silva-Candida, and his colleague in the famous embassy to Constantinople regarding Michael Cerularius. He was made “librarian of the Roman Church and of the Apostolic See”. His strong, and in parts unmeasured, treatise against simony was published about this time, and may be taken as another indication of the reforming zeal which animated the breast of his patron. After going to the length of declaring null all ordinations effected by simoniacal means, Humbert asserted that, especially in Italy, ecclesiastical property had been absolutely ruined by simony; and that, as he had seen with his own eyes, it had led even to the ploughing up for gain of the sacred enclosures of churches, to the consequent unearthing of the bones of those who had died in the Lord, and to the very basilicas themselves being used as cattle stalls. As the principal cause of this detestable sin of Simon Magus, he denounced the investing by laymen with the ring and crozier of those whom, against the canons, they had chosen, or caused to be chosen, bishops or abbots. Here he laid his finger on the root of the evil, and pointed out to the Popes the main stronghold which they would have to attack. “Three books against simony” were the opening of the fierce war of investiture which was the predominant note of the Gregorian epoch.

Stephen’s choice of Hildebrand for the delicate mission of announcing his elect on to the German court is a proof that he, equally with his predecessors, placed the fullest confidence in his judgment, and shared his views on the needs of reform, and on the means to be employed to effect it. The cardinal was also commissioned to exhort the empress-mother, Agnes, to impress upon her son to see to it that ecclesiastical benefits were bestowed for virtue and merit, and not for money. By “the eloquence and sacred learning” for which he was distinguished, Hildebrand succeeded in his mission, and spent the Christmas of 1057 with the young Henry at Goslar. Two days after the feast itself he was at Pohlde, assisting at the consecration of the illustrious Gundechar as bishop of Eichstadt.

The Patarines of Milan

Hildebrand had left Rome with commissions to execute in Italy and France, as well as in Germany; and on his of Milan, way to the imperial court had done important work at Milan (c. August 1057). Even in Lombardy there was no place where the laws not merely of the Church but of God regarding purity were more openly set at defiance than in that great city. From its illiterate archbishop downwards, the whole body of its clergy were stained with simony. Bonizo doubts if there were five out of a thousand not guilty of it; and, owing to the fact that most of the clergy were married, or, what was worse, lived in concubinage, and that their children followed largely the occupation of their fathers, the number of clerics in Milan was very considerable. And if we are to believe Landulf the elder, the contemporary historian of the city, the respectable married clergy were held in at least as much esteem as those who observed the discipline of the West in the matter of clerical continency. The unremitting efforts of the former to obtain benefices for their offspring was one of the principal causes of the simoniacal practices which were devastating the Church of Milan. As they profited pecuniary by these breaches of law and discipline, the Lombard nobility were ardent supporters of the married clergy. But the very magnitude of the disorders provoked a reaction; and an earnest attempt at reform was initiated. At the head of this movement was a young priest, Anselm by name, who belonged to a good family at Baggio near Milan, and who had been trained in learning and virtue by the famous Lanfranc at Bec. Hoping to crush the new spirit which was manifesting itself in his archiepiscopal see by removing its originator, Guido had contrived to induce the emperor and Pope Stephen to consent to Anselm’s being made bishop of Lucca. But the archbishop was no nearer the accomplishment of the end he had in view. Anselm’s work was taken up by two clerics of noble birth, Ariald and Landulf, who, in language at times more strong than judicious, denounced the clerical vices of the city. The people, especially the poor, inflamed by their addresses, showed themselves vi0lently hostile to the married and simoniacal clergy. Milan was soon in an uproar. From the fact that many of the reformers were dwellers in that quarter of the city —the Pataria— where old rags (patari) were sold, they were dubbed “Patarines” or “Ragbags” by the clergy and their aristocratic supporters. But if they called names, the people used force. They compelled many of the clergy to promise in writing to give up their wives or concubines, and seized their property. Thus driven to extremities, the harassed clerics appealed for protection first to the bishops of their province, and then to the Pope.

Stephen wrote at once exhorting the people to keep the peace, and ordering Guido to summon a synod for the settlement of the affair. A numerous assembly of bishops accordingly met together at Fontaneto in the diocese of Novara; but, as Landulf and Ariald failed to put in an appearance, they were duly excommunicated. None of the Patarines, however, took the slightest notice of the excommunication; Landulf and Ariald became greater heroes than ever, and the nobility were thoroughly overawed by the demonstrations made by the people in their behalf. Still, as their adversaries had turned to Rome, the Patarines determined to do likewise. In company with a number of “honorable men”, Ariald presented himself before the Pope, and begged him to send legates back with him to reform the Church of Milan. Stephen, after a careful examination of all the circumstances, gave him a favorable hearing, and sent him home in company with such ardent champions of reform as Bishop Anselm of Lucca and Cardinal Hildebrand.

Guido did not await the coming of these upright and inflexible judges, but fled to the court of the emperor. How thoroughly they manifested their approval at least of the principles which animated the Patarine party may be gauged from the bitter words of Landulf. The legates, he says, “owed broadcast ruin, discord, and dissension”. Leaving the Patarines, overjoyed at this their first victory, to propagate their ideas throughout Lombardy and to prepare for the severer struggle of 1059, Hildebrand went north to fulfill his other commissions in Germany and in France.

Meanwhile the health of Pope Stephen was declining. Unable to bear the climate of Rome, he went among the hills to the monastery on Monte Cassino (November 1057). There, for he was still its abbot, he applied himself, not only to the correcting of certain abuses which had crept in among the monks, but also to negotiating with the eastern emperor with regard to the schism.

As Christmas drew near his illness increased. Thinking his end was approaching, he bade the monks elect a new abbot, and was pleased that their votes were unanimously given to his friend, the famous Desiderius. However, as he wished to keep for himself the abbatial power, and as he had determined that Desiderius was to be one of his legates to Constantinople, he told the newly elected abbot that if, on his return from the East, he found the Pope still alive, he was merely to be a  titular abbot, but, under the opposite supposition, was to have the power as well as the honor attached to his title. The mission on which Desiderius was dispatched came to nothing, as the Pope had died before the delegates left Italy, and the abbot-elect was recalled to rule his monastery.

At length (February 10), feeling himself somewhat improved in health, and anxious to be back in Rome, to prepare for the great council he had determined to hold after Easter, Stephen returned to the city. One of the first acts which he accomplished on his return showed why he had determined to remain abbot of Monte Cassino, and what large designs he had been maturing. Whilst at the great monastery, his ears had been filled with stories of the dreadful deeds of the Normans, and, as Leo IX had done, he came to the conclusion that they must be expelled from Italy. But the history of his predecessor’s failure had taught him that little help was to be hoped for from Germany, and from even a strong emperor. Still less could be expected from a child. He would then bestow the imperial crown on his powerful brother, Duke Godfrey of Lorraine and Tuscany, and raise money for the war by borrowing the treasures of Monte Cassino. So at least ran a wild story. At any rate, he had not been long back in Rome before he sent word to the provost of the monastery to bring to him with all possible speed and secrecy its gold and silver, promising in a short time to return a far larger sum. Obedient, but sorrowful, the monks laid their treasure at the feet of the Pope. Touched at the sight of their grief, pleased at the sight of their prompt obedience, and, it may be, doubtful of the justice of what he had thought of doing, he bade them return home with their property, only keeping for himself a single statue (icona) out of the presents he had himself brought from Constantinople.

Unfortunately, his residence at Monte Cassino had not effected any material improvement in his health. He felt the hand of death was upon him, and, with statesmanlike instinct, that trouble was in store for the Papacy. But he was wise enough to devise a remedy for the evil he had wit enough to foresee. He called the Roman clergy and people together, and adjured them not to proceed to the election of a new Pope before the return of the subdeacon Hildebrand, should his own death supervene in the meantime. The succession was to be regulated by his advice. “For I know that after my death there will arise among you men, self-seekers, who will endeavor to obtain possession of the Apostolic See, not in accordance with canon law, but by force”.

After he had obtained a promise from all present that in any papal election which might take place, the canons should be faithfully observed, Stephen once again left Rome and set out for Tuscany (March 1058). Whether he went thither for his health’s sake, or to meet his brother, or for some other purpose, is uncertain. Anxious to have his last hours comforted by the presence of a saint, he sent word to John Gualbert to come from his monastery at Vallombrosa and meet him. But John was himself too ill to be able to obey the Pope’s summons.

Death of the Pope. 1058.

However, if he could not secure the services of one saint, he was fortunate enough to obtain those of another. His deathbed at Florence was attended by St. Hugh, the great abbot of Cluny, a man whom Stephen had ever esteemed and loved, and of whom he used to say that the devil went out when Hugh came in, and returned when the worthy abbot departed. Solaced by the saint, and surrounded, as he had always been in life, by several of his brethren from Monte Cassino, the Pope had himself laid out in sackcloth and ashes, and, after receiving the last rites of the Church, expired in the abbot’s arms. He breathed his last on March 29, 1058. He was buried in the Church of S. Reparata, which was erected in the seventh century on the site of the Church of S. Salvatore, and was afterwards demolished (in the beginning of the fourteenth century) to make way for the present glorious Duomo, or Cathedral of S. Maria del Fiore. Whilst excavations were being made (August 1357) in the course of the erection of the existing church, we are assured by the Florentine historian Matteo Villani that there was found by the side of the altar of St. Zenobio, the patron saint of Florence, the tomb of Pope Stephen. The inscription on it made identification easy. On the breast of the corpse was found the papal brooch adorned with gems and with a golden clasp; on its head was a mitre, and there was a ring on its finger. “The relics were all entrusted to the Calonaci to await honorable burial”. Whether they ever obtained it, however, does not seem to be known.

The epitaph, which, according to Paccinelli in his history of the Abbey of Florence, used to be in the possession of Christina of Lorraine, grand-duchess of Tuscany, is a comparatively modern and insipid production in the renaissance style. It simply says, in many words, that Duke Godfrey in tears joins his tribute of affection to his brother with that of others, and that the monks of the Abbey of Florence do likewise

In conclusion, we may regret with Lambert of Hersfeld that Stephen’s early death disappointed those who had hoped great things from his pontificate, inasmuch as “for many years back no one had assumed the government of the Roman Church with greater satisfaction to all men, and amid more universal expectation of a glorious reign”. Esteemed by all the people in life, he was regarded by them as a miracle-worker in death.