Pope Benedict IX (1032-1048)

The Only Pope to Have Sold the See of Peter

Benedict IX is not the first unworthy pope, nor will he be the last; but he is the only one whose official chronicle preserves the image of a commercial transaction over the apostolic see. Treccani speaks expressly of a « compravendita » whose terms are said to have been fixed in law by a deed of renunciation (charta refutationis) dated 1 May 1045^[18]. The memory of this transaction — real, exaggerated, or partly reconstructed a posteriori by the reformers — would remain, centuries later, the absolute counter-model: no successor of Peter would ever again have to wash away such an accusation.

The unique character of the event explains why the chroniclers return to it. Desiderius of Monte Cassino, the future Pope Victor III, speaks of it in his Dialogi de miraculis sancti Benedicti (c. 1080)^[19]. Bonizo of Sutri, in the Liber ad amicum (c. 1085-1086), makes it one of the central arguments of his providential reading of the reform^[20][21]. Peter Damian, his immediate contemporary, draws from it the material for several of his letters and of his Liber Gomorrhianus^[22]. The repetition of the account in independent sources rules out treating the episode as a purely polemical black legend.

The Unwitting Trigger of the Gregorian Reform

The second reason for his importance is ecclesiological. The end of Benedict IX's pontificate and the Council of Sutri mark the moment when the Empire intervenes to restore the dignity of the Roman see — and when ecclesial consciousness acknowledges that neither the Tusculan clan, nor the Crescentii, nor even the simoniacal procedure of a private transfer can henceforth legitimise a pope. It is on the ashes of this crisis that the Gregorian reform would be built: anti-simoniacal campaign, demand for clerical celibacy (the fight against Nicolaitism), prohibition of lay investitures, structuring of the College of Cardinals as an autonomous electoral body^[23].

The paradox is striking. The pope who sold the see is, in spite of himself, the trigger of the most reforming papacy of the Middle Ages. Hildebrand of Soana — the future Gregory VII — enters history by accompanying Gregory VI into exile after Sutri, in May 1047^[24]. Without the crisis of 1044-1048, the Gregorian revolution would have taken a different shape and probably a different pace.

The End of the Tusculan Dynasty

Finally, Benedict IX is the last pope of the Counts of Tusculum. For half a century, this aristocratic dynasty of southern Latium had dominated the Roman see: Benedict VIII (1012-1024), John XIX (1024-1032), then Theophylact-Benedict IX, nephew of the two previous popes^[25][26]. The fall of Benedict IX, his removal by Sutri, the turn taken by the German succession (Clement II, Damasus II, Leo IX) close the era when the papacy was passed on almost by family co-optation. This structural change is one of the conditions that made possible the medieval papacy as the 12th century would know it.

The Holy See, the Liber Pontificalis and the Medieval Chronicles

The official record of the Holy See is minimal but juridically decisive: it counts Benedict IX three times in the list of the successors of Peter — 145th (first pontificate from October 1032)^[27], 147th (10 March – 1 May 1045)^[28], 150th (October 1047 – August 1048)^[29]. This accounting has doctrinal significance: despite the personal unworthiness of the pontiff and despite the sale, Rome recognised and continues to recognise his three pontificates as canonically legitimate.

The Liber Pontificalis, which stops appreciably before this period in its classical redaction, gives no extended notice. The medieval chroniclers fill the gap: the Catholic Encyclopedia notes that the principal sources are the chronicles of Glaber, Hermann of Reichenau, Leo of Ostia, Bonizo of Sutri and Desiderius / Victor III, as well as the Grottaferrata tradition transmitted by Abbots Luke and Bartholomew^[30].

Peter Damian — Contemporary Witness and Accuser

Saint Peter Damian (1007-1072), reforming hermit of Fonte Avellana, cardinal-bishop of Ostia in 1057, future Doctor of the Church, is the most vehement contemporary witness. His Liber Gomorrhianus, addressed to Leo IX around 1049, is a manifesto against simony and clerical incontinence that takes Benedict IX as the archetypal example of pontifical corruption. Modern secondary literature sums up this indictment with the English formula « feasting on immorality »: it is a journalistic paraphrase, with no attested Latin equivalent in the work, and not a verbatim quotation from the saint^[31].

Peter Damian is not a neutral witness: he is fighting for reform. But he writes from inside the Roman clergy, at a time when several cardinals had personally known Benedict IX. He is not writing a posthumous legend; he describes what the reforming curia perceives as the summit of pontifical corruption^[32].

Desiderius of Monte Cassino — The Future Victor III

Desiderius of Monte Cassino (c. 1027-1087), abbot of the great Campanian Benedictine abbey from 1058, briefly pope under the name of Victor III in 1086-1087, wrote his Dialogi de miraculis sancti Benedicti around 1080. Book III is one of the primary accounts of Benedict IX^[33]. His verdict is scathing:

« Given over to pleasure, he preferred to live as an Epicurean rather than as pope. » — Desiderius of Monte Cassino, Dialogi de miraculis sancti Benedicti, book III, c. 1080, English transl.^[34]

Desiderius adds, according to later compilations, that the life of Theophylact was so vile, so infamous, so execrable that it cannot be described in detail^[35]. Like Peter Damian, Desiderius is one of the greatest churchmen of the 11th century and a supporter of reform: his testimony is partial, but informed.

Bonizo of Sutri — The Pamphleteer of the Reform

Bonizo of Sutri (c. 1045 – c. 1095), Bishop of Sutri then of Piacenza, is one of the great pens of the Gregorian reform. His Liber ad amicum, composed after the death of Gregory VII (1085), is less a chronicle than a theological account of the history of relations between the Church and secular power from Constantine to Gregory VII^[36]. In it Bonizo presents Benedict IX as the archetypal example of the aristocratic capture of the Roman see and of simony practised even in the pontifical procedure itself. He belongs to the living memory of the reform, writing about protagonists he knew directly (Hildebrand, Peter Damian, Anselm of Lucca) or indirectly.

Hermann of Reichenau, Rodulfus Glaber, the Annales Romani

Hermann of Reichenau (1013-1054), Benedictine monk and German chronicler, gives in his Chronicon the dates and events as seen from the Empire. Rodulfus Glaber (c. 985 – c. 1047), Cluniac monk, offers in his Historiarum libri quinque an ample but often imprecise account (Treccani notes several chronological errors in his treatment of Benedict IX, notably on the solar eclipse of 1033 confused with the year 1000)^[37]. The Annales Romani complete these sources on the Roman events surrounding Sutri^[38].

The Grottaferrata Tradition

At the end of the 11th century, Abbot Luke of Grottaferrata (died c. 1085) composed a Life of Saint Bartholomew of Grottaferrata (fourth abbot of the monastery, died in 1065)^[39][40]. It is in this Life that the penitential version of Benedict IX's fate is found: the young pontiff is said to have come to Bartholomew in the Greek monastery of Frascati to seek a remedy for his disorders, and the abbot is said to have led him to a definitive resignation and then to a death in penance. This tradition is corroborated, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, by "sepulchral monuments and others" preserved in the monastery^[41].

Modern Historiography: Schaff, Mann, Treccani, Britannica

In the modern era, several syntheses are authoritative. Horace K. Mann wrote the notice in the Catholic Encyclopedia (vol. 2, 1907)^[42]. Philip Schaff devotes a section to the scandal in his History of the Christian Church (vol. IV)^[43]. Britannica synthesises the achievements of the 20th century in an updated notice^[44]. But the densest prosopographical reference remains Treccani's article in the Enciclopedia dei Papi (2000), which takes up the critical contribution of Italian historiography (Poole, Borino, Herrmann) on the real age of Theophylact at his election, on the authenticity of the charta refutationis, on the nature of the accusations and on the end of his life^[45].

What We Do Not Know

Several points remain debated. The exact birth date of Theophylact is only reconstructed from indications of his age at his election; the chroniclers give « puer decennis » (a child of ten), « duodecim annorum » (twelve years old) or « quatuordecim » (fourteen), but modern documentary analysis (R. L. Poole) concludes that he was closer to thirty than to ten in 1032, and proposes about twenty-five years of age^[46][47]. The exact sum paid to Theophylact by John Gratian is not attested by any contemporary document; the "1450 pounds" (about 650 kg) repeated by several modern summaries are a late estimate with no primary source, not a primary figure^[48]. Finally, the authenticity of the final repentance is, as will be seen, the subject of a lively historiographical debate.

Tusculum, a Fortress Town 25 km from Rome

Tusculum was, in the 10th and 11th century, an aristocratic fortress town perched on the hills of the Castelli Romani, about 25 kilometres south-east of Rome, in the immediate vicinity of present-day Frascati. Its political control fell, at the turn of the 10th century, into the hands of a local dynasty descended from Theophylact the Elder and his wife Theodora, parents of the famous Marozia^[49]. This family was not merely rich: from Sabina and southern Latium, it could exert decisive military and fiscal pressure on the Roman see whenever the see fell vacant.

Several generations later, it is Count Gregory of Tusculum, married to Maria, who directly gives Rome three of his sons: Theophylact, the future Benedict VIII; Romanus, the future John XIX; and Alberic III, who succeeds him as Count of Tusculum and who is the father of Theophylact–Benedict IX^[50]. Benedict VIII and John XIX are therefore not the brothers of Benedict IX, but his uncles: they are the brothers of his father Alberic III.

Three Popes in Fifty Years

At the beginning of the 11th century, after the troubled pontificates linked to the Crescentii (hereditary rivals of the Tusculans), the house of Tusculum successively imposes three of its sons on the Roman see:

• Benedict VIII (Theophylact of Tusculum, 18 May 1012 – 9 April 1024) — brother of the future John XIX and of the future father of Benedict IX^[51]
• John XIX (Romanus of Tusculum, 19 April 1024 – 1032) — a layman before his election, ordained within a few days to become pope
• Benedict IX (Theophylact of Tusculum, October 1032 – 1048) — nephew of the two preceding popes and son of Count Alberic III

This sequence is no accident. It expresses a system: the quasi-hereditary transmission of the apostolic see within a great Roman aristocratic house, through the purchase of electoral votes and armed pressure on Rome. Treccani and Britannica agree in seeing in Benedict IX "the last of the Tusculan popes"^[52][53].

The Election of 1032: the Father's Money

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the election of Theophylact was bought by his father Alberic III, anxious to prolong Tusculan power after the death of his brother John XIX in 1032^[54]. Treccani specifies that Theophylact was not, strictly speaking, "puer decennis" as Glaber would later write, but probably a young man of about twenty-five, without solid ecclesiastical formation, abruptly projected to the summit of the clerical order by family decision^[55].

This procedure was not slightly irregular: from the canonical point of view, it was profoundly questionable. But it followed the model already tested by Benedict VIII and John XIX. The Roman Church, at that moment, did not yet possess the reforming instrument that would allow it formally to separate the function of Peter from secular aristocratic pressure: that would be precisely the conquest of the following decades, beginning with the pontifical decree of Nicholas II on papal election in 1059, only seven years after the death of Theophylact^[56].

An Election Forced by Alberic

Theophylact was elected and consecrated in October 1032, at a still-debated age but probably around twenty^[57][58]. The Catholic Encyclopedia is unambiguous: "If the corruption of the papacy at that time ran its usual course at Rome, the election was not regular"; his father Alberic "placed his son on the pontifical throne, paying what was needed to have his son Theophylact elected"^[59].

There was nothing ideological about the move: it was familial. The Bishop of Rome was not chosen to lead reform; he was installed to perpetuate Tusculan domination. This disconnect between the office and the person is the structural drama of the reign of Benedict IX.

A Highly Controversial Conduct

Contemporary sources describe the personal conduct of the pontiff in very severe terms. Desiderius speaks of an "Epicurean life." Peter Damian evokes continuing "impurity." Bonizo of Sutri lists practically every possible vice. The Catholic Encyclopedia sums up:

"A disgrace to the chair of Peter." — Horace K. Mann, Catholic Encyclopedia, 1907^[60]

Treccani, with critical reading to support it, observes that the exact nature of the accusations must be weighed. Several of the harshest reproaches reflect the polemical intent of the reformers: associating Benedict IX with the greatest possible vice justified a posteriori imperial intervention and the Gregorian revolution^[61]. But Treccani adds that this critical weighing does not exonerate Theophylact: the Acta Concilii Remensis of 1049, under Leo IX, preserve a formal condemnation for simony, and the resignation for ransom of 1045 is attested by the best-placed chroniclers^[62].

Surviving Ecclesial Acts

Despite his bad reputation, the pontificate of Benedict IX produced a few notable ecclesial acts. In 1036, he intervened in the quarrel between the Benedictine houses of the March of Ancona over monastic properties. In 1038, he confirmed certain privileges to the abbey of Fruttuaria, then a centre of the Cluniac reform in northern Italy. In 1037-1038, he accompanied Emperor Conrad II on his expedition to southern Italy (Marsico, Cassino), juridically confirming the role of the papacy as supreme arbiter of the Lombard lords^[63].

But the pontifical signature does not erase personal fragility. Treccani notes that many of the acts bearing the name of Benedict IX were drafted by the Roman chancery and express the continuity of the pontifical offices more than the pope's own initiative^[64].

Expulsion from Rome (September 1044) and Antipope Sylvester III

Roman opposition erupted in the autumn of 1044. Violent disturbances shook Rome; according to Glaber and Bonizo, Theophylact was driven out in September 1044^[65]. The opposing faction — probably linked to the Crescentii, hereditary enemies of the Tusculans — elected on 20 January 1045 a new pope, John of Sabina, who took the name of Sylvester III^[66][67].

Sylvester III did not hold out long: forty-nine days. On 10 March 1045, Tusculan forces returned in strength and expelled Sylvester III, who returned to his episcopal see of Sabina. Theophylact retook possession of the Lateran: this was the second pontificate^[68].

A Second Reign of Seven Weeks

The second pontificate was extraordinarily brief — exactly seven weeks, from 10 March to 1 May 1045, according to the official record of the Holy See^[69]. Theophylact had returned, but Rome could no longer bear him. According to Treccani, "the pontificate became intolerable to the Romans themselves"^[70].

Several reasons are put forward by the sources. Bonizo of Sutri reports a marriage plan: Theophylact is said to have wanted to marry a relative, perhaps his cousin, daughter of Lord Gerard of Saxo^[71]. Desiderius speaks of the pontiff's personal weariness with the office^[72]. Treccani stresses above all political impossibility: neither the Crescentii nor the rest of the Roman clergy would any longer tolerate Tusculan domination^[73].

The Intervention of John Gratian

It is in this context that John Gratian appears, Iohannes Gratianus, archpriest of San Giovanni a Porta Latina, godfather (compater) of Theophylact^[74]. Born into a moderate Roman family, Gratian is held to have been a man of honourable morals, hostile to the corruption ruining the papacy. The reforming chroniclers — Peter Damian first among them — welcomed his election with enthusiasm: Damian wrote to him hailing "the dove announcing the receding of the waters" over the Roman see^[75].

But the procedure left a scar. On 1 May 1045, Theophylact signed an act by which he "renounced" the pontificate in favour of Gratian — who immediately took the name of Gregory VI. Treccani notes that a "charta refutationis" very probably existed to formalise the operation^[76]. It is this very procedure that would later cause trouble: the transfer of a spiritual office by private contract, with financial consideration, is precisely the definition of simony.

The Sum: an Unknown Amount

No contemporary document fixes the exact sum. The figure of 1450 pounds (about 650 kilograms) repeated by several modern syntheses is a late estimate with no primary source, flagged with a "citation needed" tag since 2007^[77]. The Catholic Encyclopedia on Gregory VI prudently speaks of "a large sum of money" without fixing the amount^[78].

Treccani proposes a nuanced reading. The transaction did take place: the charta refutationis attested later suffices to prove it. But the meaning to give it remains debated:

• Simoniacal reading (Peter Damian, Bonizo, later the reformers): it was the buying and selling of a spiritual good, punishable canonically by deposition.
• Patrimonial reading (certain medieval apologists for Gregory VI): Theophylact is said to have received not a "price" but compensation for the election expenses and reimbursement of certain current costs; the operation is said to have been conducted in "good faith" by Gratian himself^[79].

This second reading, more favourable to Gregory VI, is precisely the one he would attempt to defend at Sutri in December 1046: "in bona fide et simplicitate"^[80]. It would suffice to spare the deposed pope major infamy, but it would not suffice to keep him on the see.

Why Peter Damian Rejoiced

A historiographical detail deserves attention. Peter Damian — the future great prosecutor of anti-simony — publicly rejoiced at the accession of Gregory VI in May 1045^[81][82]. How could the most virulent accuser of Benedict IX welcome an election acquired by transaction?

The answer lies in two movements. First, Peter Damian did not know, in May 1045, the details of the financial transaction: he saw only that a man reputed upright was replacing a man reputed unworthy. Then, when he learned of its simoniacal background, his reading became more severe, and it is this reversal that prepares the diagnosis of the Council of Sutri: the purity of the see must be restored, which implies not only the deposition of Benedict IX and Sylvester III, but also the departure of Gregory VI, whose title was intrinsically tainted.

Three Basilicas, Three Claimants

Between the abdication of May 1045 and the Council of Sutri in December 1046, Rome experienced an unprecedented situation. Three men claimed the See of Peter, each installed in a major basilica:

The picture is reported by contemporary chroniclers and modern historiographers^[83][84]. This was not simply an election crisis; it was a de facto partition of the apostolic see among three politico-ecclesiastical lineages.

Europe Watches

The situation became known throughout Latin Christendom. Herman of Reichenau recorded it in his Chronicon; Glaber, from Cluny, spoke of it; the German, French and English bishops reported the difficulty to their metropolitans^[85]. The question was posed plainly: if three men claim the title of successor of Peter, who is the legitimate pope? Christendom could not indefinitely leave this question unanswered, lest the whole ecclesial authority totter.

It is precisely this international pressure that decided Henry III, King of Germany since 1039 and future emperor, to intervene.

Henry III, the Reformer Bishop-Emperor

Henry III (1017-1056), son of Conrad II, is one of the most religious sovereigns of the Middle Ages. Educated in the cathedral schools, married to Agnes of Poitou, he made his own the cause of the Peace of God and the Cluniac reform. His confessor was Suidger, Bishop of Bamberg; his advisers included the men who would become the first reforming popes (Bruno of Toul, Poppo of Brixen, Hugh of Cluny)^[86].

In the autumn of 1046, Henry III crossed the Alps at the head of a great army, accompanied by an ecclesiastical and secular court that constituted a veritable itinerant reform assembly. His plan was twofold: to be crowned emperor by a legitimate and undisputed pope, and to restore acceptable canonical order in the Duchy of Rome. Sutri would be the instrument of the second objective; the imperial coronation of Christmas 1046 would be the conclusion of the first.

Sutri, a Frontier Town of the Duchy of Rome

Sutri, an ancient Etruscan town that became an episcopal see under Roman suzerainty, lies about 40 kilometers north of Rome, on the Via Cassia, at the border of the pontifical duchy^[87]. The choice of location is no accident: Henry III does not want to enter Rome before settling the papal question, lest he appear to take sides with one of the three claimants. Sutri is the antechamber of the Lateran: the place where the emperor hears the case, and from which he will send to Rome the chosen successor of a new pontiff.

The Procedure: Summoning the Three Claimants

The council opens on December 20, 1046. Henry III presides over the assembly surrounded by the German bishops (Bamberg, Cologne, Mainz, Trier) and the great ecclesiastical aristocracy of the north. The three claimants are summoned:

• Sylvester III: he does not appear. Treccani notes that he had already withdrawn to his Sabine episcopal see since the accession of Gregory VI^[88]. Sutri declares him deposed, strips him of his priestly rank, and condemns him to monastic exile^[89].
• Gregory VI: he is present. He acknowledges having acquired the pontificate under canonically irregular conditions, but maintains that he acted “in all good faith and simplicity” (in bona fide et simplicitate) to free the Roman see from Benedict IX^[90]. The council presses him to resign. He complies.
• Benedict IX: he does not appear. The sentence concerning him is pronounced at the Roman synod of December 24, 1046, immediately after Sutri^[91].

“At the Council of Sutri in December 1046, Benedict IX and Sylvester III were declared deposed while Gregory VI was urged to resign, because the arrangement made with Benedict was judged simoniacal, that is, to have been bought.” — Historiographical synthesis on Sutri^[92]

Suidger of Bamberg, Pope Clement II

The see now vacant, Henry III proposes his confessor Suidger of Bamberg. Born in Saxony around 1005, Suidger belongs to the German reforming circle. He accepts on condition of keeping his episcopal see of Bamberg, judging — not without a certain historical irony — that this see would give him an economic base of his own, beyond the reach of the Roman factions^[93].

Suidger is enthroned under the name of Clement II on Christmas Day 1046 at the Lateran. On the same day, and in the same basilica, he crowns Henry III Roman Emperor^[94]. The coincidence is not only liturgical: for a few years, it institutes a mode of operation in which the emperor takes the initiative in the papal designation while assuming that he acts for the good of the Church.

The Exile of Gregory VI and the Emergence of Hildebrand

In May 1047, Henry III returns to Germany with Gregory VI and a young Roman cleric who will soon belong to the first reforming generation: Hildebrand of Soana, the future Saint Gregory VII^[95]. Gregory VI dies shortly afterwards in exile. Hildebrand, trained in the Cluniac-German circle beyond the Alps, will later return to Rome with Leo IX and become the principal architect of the Gregorian reform.

This is one of the most striking paradoxes of ecclesiastical history: the fall of Benedict IX indirectly produces the sending to Germany of the future pope who will impose the decree on papal election of 1059, the prohibition of lay investiture (1075), and the first great affirmation of libertas Ecclesiae.

Death of Clement II and Return of Benedict IX

Clement II dies on October 9, 1047, probably poisoned according to some hypotheses, more probably of malaria according to contemporary analyses^[96]. The see is vacant once more. Henry III is in Germany, occupied by the Saxon troubles. Theophylact seizes the opportunity: he returns to Rome, occupies the Lateran, and resumes the pontificate on November 8, 1047^[97][98].

This third pontificate is itself recognized by the official list of the Holy See as the 150th pontificate in the history of the Church^[99]. The Vatican reckoning does not erase the canonical difficulty: it recognizes that, despite the deposition of Sutri, Theophylact once again holds the see, and that his ecclesial acts during this period carry pontifical authority.

Expulsion by Boniface of Tuscany (July 17, 1048)

Henry III reacts at once, however. On July 17, 1048, Margrave Boniface of Tuscany, acting as imperial representative, drives Theophylact out of Rome^[100][101]. This show of force ends the third pontificate of Benedict IX and makes way for the accession, on July 17, 1048, of Damasus II — Poppo, Bishop of Brixen — who unfortunately dies a few weeks later (August 9, 1048).

The Damasus II interlude is so brief that chroniclers sometimes see in it the sign of another poisoning, without serious evidence. In any case, Henry III then summons Bruno of Toul, an Alsatian reforming bishop, who takes the name of Leo IX and enters Rome barefoot as a pilgrim on February 12, 1049^[102]. This is the effective beginning of the Gregorian reform.

The Excommunication of April 1049

At the Roman council of mid-April 1049, Leo IX and the reforming bishops formally excommunicate Theophylact / Benedict IX^[103]. The sentence punishes less the personal identity of the man than his obstinacy in claiming the pontificate: Theophylact refuses to recognize the legitimacy of Sutri, accepts neither the previous sentences nor the election of Leo IX, and continues to have himself styled Benedictus IX in his private acts from his Sabine castles^[104].

The excommunication has more than disciplinary significance: it rules out any possibility of a fourth return. Theophylact will never come back to Rome.

The Grottaferrata Tradition: Theophylact the Penitent

At the end of the 11th century, Abbot Luke of Grottaferrata (died around 1085) writes a Vita of Saint Bartholomew of Grottaferrata, fourth abbot of the Greek monastery (died in 1065)^[105]. It is in this text that the devotional version of the fate of Benedict IX is found. Theophylact, withdrawn in the region of the Castelli Romani, is said to have come to Bartholomew; the abbot is said to have received him, instructed him, led him to penance, and the fallen pontiff is said to have died as a penitent within the enclosure of the monastery^[106].

The Catholic Encyclopedia takes this tradition seriously: it is “corroborated by sepulchral monuments and other memorials preserved within the walls of the monastery”^[107]. Mann concluded, in 1907: “It seems that the young pontiff turned away from his sin, came to ask Bartholomew for a remedy for his disorders; on the saint's advice, Benedict definitively resigned the pontificate and died in penance at Grottaferrata.”^[108]

Modern Historiographical Criticism

Treccani, on the basis of a precise analysis of the surviving notarial charters, categorically rejects the Grottaferrata hagiography^[109]. The argument is philological. A donation made on September 18, 1055 by Theophylact to a monastery in the diocese of Tibur retains the title Benedictus papa; a record of suffrages celebrated by his brothers Gregory, Peter and Octavian before January 9, 1056 also designates the deceased as Benedictus^[110]. Yet if Theophylact had sincerely renounced the pontificate, as the Grottaferrata tradition maintains, he should have become Theophylactus again in private legal documentation.

“Benedict IX's refusal to use his secular name until his death shows that he continued to regard himself as pope and to maintain his claims, embodying the untamed will of Rome's particularist forces.” — Treccani, Enciclopedia dei Papi, trans.^[111]

Treccani therefore concludes that the Grottaferrata tradition, written thirty to forty years after the death of Theophylact, in the context of a Greek monastery under Latin reforming influence, probably aims to rehabilitate the memory of the last Tusculan by lending him a conversion that never took place, for local liturgical and hagiographical purposes^[112].

How to Decide?

The two readings can be held together if several levels are distinguished. On the legal level, Theophylact indeed never recognized the deposition of Sutri nor the election of Leo IX: he died excommunicated, without any public act of obedience to the reforming Church. On the personal and spiritual level, it is possible that his last years involved an interior return, a retreat, acts of private penance and contact with Bartholomew, without retracting his public claim.

The Church, in its official lists, has settled on an intermediate position: it counts three pontificates of Benedict IX (145th, 147th, 150th successor of Peter), that is, it recognizes the canonical validity of the three successive elections; it does not canonize him, that is, it does not endorse the Grottaferrata hagiography; but neither does it erase his name from the apostolic succession, which a definitive judgment of illegitimacy would have required.

Death Between September 1055 and January 1056

The last documentary traces of Theophylact thus preserve a precise chronology. He is still alive on September 18, 1055, when he signs a donation. He is dead before January 9, 1056, the date on which his three brothers Gregory, Peter and Octavian have suffrage Masses celebrated for him^[113]. The burial is traditionally placed at Grottaferrata, but the materiality of the tomb has been lost over the centuries; the “sepulchral monuments” noted by the Catholic Encyclopedia belong more to monastic memory than to secure archaeological identification^[114].

The Promise Made to Peter Does Not Abolish Human Failings

The case of Benedict IX is one of the most useful, pedagogically, for showing the difference between the divine promise made to the see of Peter and the personal holiness of his successors. The Catholic faith confesses that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church founded on Peter (Matthew 16:18-19), that Peter's successor receives the munus of confirming his brethren (Luke 22:32), and that, under the canonically required conditions, his teaching engages the infallibility of the Magisterium. But it nowhere confesses that all of Peter's successors will be saints, blameless, prudent, or even merely decent.

Benedict IX is exactly the opposite of a naive vision of the papacy. He is a canonically legitimate pope, counted three times in the official list; he is personally unworthy as pope; he sells his see; he returns by force; he is excommunicated; he dies without anyone knowing whether he truly converted. And yet the Church endures, the Magisterium continues, the apostolic succession holds. No dogma was promulgated during his pontificate; no binding doctrinal precedent was left for the future; ordinary canonical acts (consecrations, confirmations of privileges) retain their sacramental or juridical effect according to the Church's constant doctrine on validity independent of the minister's unworthiness (formulated later by the Reformers of the 14th–15th centuries and confirmed by the Council of Trent, but already received by the patristic tradition).

Validity of the Sacraments and Unworthiness of the Minister

The doctrinal principle underlying the Catholic reading of the reign of Benedict IX is ancient. Saint Augustine, against the Donatists, taught that the validity of a sacrament depends not on the dignity of the minister but on the power of Christ acting through him: "Whether it is Peter who baptizes, it is Christ who baptizes; whether it is Judas who baptizes, it is Christ who baptizes."^[115] The see of Peter transmits the apostolic succession not by virtue of the holiness of any particular pontiff, but by virtue of the divine institution entrusted by Christ. If Benedict IX validly ordained bishops, consecrated altars, or confirmed episcopal elections, those acts retain their sacramental or disciplinary scope, independently of the moral state of the pope who performed them^[116].

This is one of the practical effects of the doctrine that prevents the crisis of 1032–1048 from ruining the entire Western episcopate in cascade. Without this dogmatic assurance, the bishops consecrated by Benedict IX would have been called into question, their own acts would have been contested, and the whole ecclesial communion could have disintegrated into local sects each claiming a different legitimate pontiff.

The Scandal That Prepares the Reform

The second Catholic meaning of the pontificate is providential without being providentialist. Benedict IX is, unwittingly, the instrument by which the Gregorian reform becomes necessary. The sale of 1045, the triple papacy of 1045–1046, the Council of Sutri convened by Henry III, the exile of Gregory VI with Hildebrand, the succession Clement II – Damasus II – Leo IX, the decree of Nicholas II on papal election in 1059, the prohibition of lay investiture by Gregory VII in 1075: this entire chain is historically rooted in the scandalous impasse experienced at Rome between 1044 and 1048.

Saint Augustine had already observed that God "would never allow any evil in his works if he were not powerful and good enough to bring good out of evil itself"^[117]. The crisis of Benedict IX is a textbook case: the most visible fall of pontifical dignity in the Middle Ages produces, in less than sixty years, the most reforming and most universal papacy the West had yet known.

A Warning Against Simplistic Readings

The pontificate of Benedict IX finally obliges us to reject two opposing simplistic readings. The first — classical Protestant, but taken up by some Catholic polemicists and atheist apologists — would have it that the corruption of a medieval pope proves the illegitimacy of the papacy itself. But Rome precisely acknowledged the corruption without erasing it, sanctioned it by deposition and excommunication, and undertook the greatest institutional reform in its history starting from that very acknowledgment. The papacy holds not because all popes are saints, but because apostolic succession is a divine institution received within a visible Church capable of reforming itself.

The second simplistic reading — naive devotional — would a contrario rescue Benedict IX through the Grottaferrata tradition alone, erasing the historical gravity of the scandal. That is precisely what contemporary historiographical criticism refuses, and with it the Church in its official lists: Benedict IX is counted as pope, but he is not canonized; his memory is preserved, but it is explicitly marked with the seal of unfinished penance.

• Pope Benedict VIII (1012-1024) — uncle of Theophylact, first of the three Tusculan popes, ally of Emperor Henry II.
• Pope John XIX (1024-1032) — second uncle of Theophylact, elected as a layman and hastily ordained; direct predecessor in the Tusculan dynasty.
• Pope Gregory VI (1045-1046) — John Gratian, godfather of Benedict IX and buyer of the pontificate; deposed at Sutri and exiled to Germany with Hildebrand.
• Pope Clement II (1046-1047) — Suidger of Bamberg, first of the German reform popes, enthroned after Sutri.
• Pope Damasus II (July-August 1048) — Poppo of Brixen, second German pope, died after twenty-three days.
• Pope Leo IX (1049-1054) — Bruno of Toul, true inaugurator of the Gregorian reform; author of the excommunication of April 1049.
• Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085) — Hildebrand of Soana, witness of the Council of Sutri, exiled with Gregory VI, future architect of the reform.
• The Council of Sutri (20-23 December 1046) — decisive synod convened by Henry III, model of imperial intervention in the pontifical crisis.
• The Gregorian Reform (11th century) — the great movement of purification of which the fall of Benedict IX is the involuntary trigger.
• The saeculum obscurum (904-964) — century of Roman aristocratic capture of the pontifical see, of which the reign of Benedict IX is the ultimate extension.
• Saint Peter Damian (1007-1072) — Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia, Doctor of the Church, principal contemporary accuser of Benedict IX.
• Blessed Pope Victor III (1086-1087) — Desiderius of Monte Cassino, witness of the last Tusculans, author of the Dialogi.