§ 6. VICTOR II. AND STEPHEN IX. 15
by granting them in the name of St. Peter their conquests in Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily. The Normans kissed his toe, and asked his absolution and blessing. He incurred the censure of the strict reform party. Damiani maintained that a clergyman dare not bear arms even in defence of the property of the Church, but must oppose invincible patience to the fury of the world, according to the example of Christ. Leo spent his remaining days in grief over his defeat. He died at Rome, April 19, 1054, in his fifty-third year, after com mending his soul to God in a German prayer of humble resig nation, and was buried near the tomb of Gregory I. As he had begun the reformation of the Church, and miracles were re ported, he was enrolled in the Calendar of Saints. Desiderius, afterwards Victor III., wrote, "All ecclesiastical interests were reformed by Leo and in him a new light arose in the world."
§ 6. Victor II. and Stephen IX. (X). 1055-1058.
Hildebrand was absent in France when Leo died, and hur ried to Rome. He could find no worthy successor in Italy, and was unwilling to assume the burden of the papacy him self. He cast his eye upon Gebhard, bishop of Eichstadt, the ablest, richest, and most influential prelate of Germany, who was warmly devoted to the emperor. He proceeded at the head of a deputation, appointed by the clergy and peo ple, to the German court, and begged the emperor to raise Gebhard to the papal chair. After long delay, Gebhard was elected at a council in Regensburg, March, 1055, and conse crated in St. Peter's at Rome, April 13, as Victor II. He continued the synodical war against simony, but died as early as July 28, 1057, at Arezzo, of a fever. He was the last of the German popes.
The cardinal-abbot of Monte Cassino was elected and con secrated as Stephen IX. (X.), Aug. 3, 1057, by the clergy and people of Rome, without their consulting the German court; but he died in the following year, March 29, 1058.
16 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1073.
In the meantime a great change had taken place in Ger many. Henry III. died in the prime of manhood, Oct. 5, 1056, and left a widow as regent and a son of six years, the ill-fated Henry IV. The long minority reign afforded a favorable opportunity for the reform party to make the papacy independent of the imperial power, which Henry III. had wisely exerted for the benefit of the Church, yet at the expense of her freedom.
The Roman nobility, under the lead of the counts of Tusculum, took advantage of Hildebrand's absence in Germany to reassert its former control of the papacy by electing Bene dict X. (1058-1060). But this was a brief intermezzo. On his return, Hildebrand, with the help of Duke Godfrey, ex pelled the usurping pope, and secured, with the consent of the empress, the election of Gerhard, bishop of Florence, a strong reformer, of ample learning and irreproachable char acter, who assumed the name of Nicolas II. at his consecra tion, Jan. 25, 1059. Benedict was deposed, submitted, and obtained absolution. He was assigned a lodging in the church of St. Agnes, where he lived for about twenty years.
§ 1. Nicolas II. and the Cardinals. 1059-1061.
The pontificate of Nicolas II. was thoroughly under the control of Hildebrand, who became archdeacon and chan cellor of the Roman Church in August or September, 1059. His enemies said that he kept Nicolas like an ass in the sta ble, feeding him to do his work. Peter Damiani calls him the lord of the pope, and said that he would rather obey the lord of the pope than the lord-pope himself.1 He also grimly
1 His epigrams on Hildebrand (Opera, II. 961, 967): —
"Vivere vis Bomce, clara depromito voce : Plus domino Papce, quam domino pareo Papa"
"Papam rite co7o, s?dte prostratus adoro : Tu facts hunc Dominum ; tefacit iste Deum."