#benedict ix

[howisthepope]

I’m sorry, someone sold the papacy?? Was it a pope? Or someone near to the pope or??? (Catholic history is FASCINATING)

Oh yes it was the Pope!

Imagine this, the year is 1032... you've already had 5 popes in the family including the last two, who were your uncles. You're 20 years old and your dad bribes some guys so you get elected.

Great. You're now a 20 year old pope. You used to be named Theophylactus of Tusculum but now you're Pope Benedict IX.

People were not happy with him. Ferdinand Gregorovius wrote: It seemed as if a demon from hell, in the disguise of a priest, occupied the chair of Peter and profaned the sacred mysteries of religion by his insolent courses.

Colourful. Apparently he raped, murdered and did 'other unspeakable acts of violence and sodomy'. There was political unrest so we need to take these accusations with a grain of salt but it's clear that they were not happy with him.

So he was removed from Rome in 1036. 24 years old. Thankfully the Emperor (Conrad II) brought him back.

Rumours get worse. Worse you said? Yes. By 1044 they've added accusations of bestiality and sponsoring orgies. He is removed from Rome once again and Sylvester III becomes Pope

He comes back in 1045. He expells his rival and resumes being pope. Buuut then he changes his mind because it's kind of tough to keep his position and he wants to marry his cousin. So, a month after he returned (a month!) he fucking resigns.

So he consults with his godfther the 'pious' priest John Gratian about resigning and says he can be pope buuut I am going to need to be reimbursed for my expenses. By John Gratian paying him, Benedict effectively sells the papacy. John Gratian becomes Pope Gregory VI

You think that would be the end of it, right? Wrong!

He changes his mind again and comes back, taking the throne but Gregory VI is still considered the true pope and Sylvester III also still claims he is pope. That's 3 popes!!!

In December of 1046, they asked the Emperor Henry III to cross the Alps to come deal with this mess. Henry deposed of Benedict IX and Sylvester III and then told Gregory VI to resign because he bought the papacy and that's not quite right. No popes! So they choose this German guy Clement II. Unproblematic, wants to reform.

Good, right? No! Clement II dies in October 1047, less than a year after he became pope. Well... Benedict thought what a good opportunity to become pope AGAIN. I've certainly lost count.

He was removed by the Germans in July 1048. They elected Damasus II as pope, who died in August of the same year but Benedict did not make another return. Leo IX became pope.

Benedict was excommunicated in 1049. We don't know much about his further life but it is said he felt remorse. He was buried in 1056.

[confusedcanaries]

Pope Benedict IX

So, there has apparently only been one pope to have served more than one term. This pope, was first nepo-baby-ed into power, as the either youngest or second youngest pope ever. Then got kicked out after causing a revolt. After returning he then nepotism-ed being pope to his godfather. Then got bored and returned only to be ex-communicated.

So the best pope at becoming pope, was also the worst pope. :)

[historyhalls]

The "nadir of the papacy", a period from the mid-ninth to mid-eleventh century, saw the office of pope fall into ill repute as many Holy Fathers openly indulged in just about all the seven deadly sins. Few were more brazen, however, than Pope Benedict IX, who literally sold the office of pope in order to fund a lavish retirement. Find out here about the brazen unholy Holy Father, Benedict IX.

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[jacarandabanyan]

Pope Benedict IX had like the most fractured papacy ever.

Benedict IX was deposed, so he went and sidled up to Conrad I in order to get his help regaining the throne, got the throne back, but then was forced out again, so he went and raised an army and returned to take it back again. Now that he had the papacy back, he decided he wanted money, so he sold it to his godfather for a fortune, but then regretted selling the papacy and came back with another army. When he showed up asking for the papacy back, he found that the last guy he deposed (the one who deposed him first) and his godfather were both claiming to be pope. The Cardinals tried to solve this by electing a new pope, but this fourth person died soon after, so the whole problem remained. So Benedict went and got another army and sacked the papal palace, became pope again, but was quickly forced out again by yet another pope with the help of German troops. Now, you’d think that the Cardinals would learn from the last time they tried this, but they went and made things worse by electing another pope, who just went and died 23 days later. Benedict then refused to stand trial and was excommunicated. 

[triviaproofing]

#897: “Hugnes was archbishop of Reims in the tenth century when he was five years old. In the eleventh century Benedict IX was Pope at eleven years old.”

True, but misspelled. Possibly false.

In 925, his father, for presumably political reasons, made five-year-old Hugh of Vermandois archbishop of Reims. His reign ended when he was twenty-six.

One source claims that Benedict IX was made pope at eleven or twelve years old, and another says that he was twenty years old. Either way, he was a terrible pope, what with his sleeping around and selling off the papacy to two other popes.

[whitmerule]

Hey look, a no-longer-Pope!

So we've had implicit comparisons to Gregory XII ("the last time a pope resigned was 600 years ago!") and to Celestine V ("the last time a pope resigned Dante put him in Hell!", although it was actually the antechamber of Hell and possibly was Pontius Pilate, not Celestine).

I want someone to try comparing him to Benedict IX. You know, the teenage pope who had wild orgies in the palace, who sold the papacy and then kept trying to take it back (occasionally by force) from the three successive popes they chose to replace him. 

(Although, honestly, for my money, the only pope to really count as having resigned is Celestine V - Benedict IX, in the 1030s and 40s, was compelled into it and sold it and never really acknowledged that he wasn't pope anymore until they excommunicated him, so that's more a 'forcibly booted out' than retiring; John XVIII earlier that century resigned and died the same year in the context of a bout of plague in the area, so it was probably more a case of "LOOK GUYS I CANNOT FUNCTION HERE BUSY DYING K"; and Gregory XII was one of two popes who were elected concurrently at the end of the fourteenth century - the Great Schism - and both he and the other guy resigned at the same time so that the cardinals could pick a new pope that everyone could agree on. Celestine V, at the end of the 13th century, just didn't want to be pope and wanted to go home and be a quiet little hermit again - and obviously John and Benedict didn't count as precedent at the time, because Celestine actually had to pass legislation to say that the pope could resign before he resigned.)