Pope Victor II (Victor II), born Gebhard of Dollnstein-Hirschberg, is the 153rd pope of the Catholic Church according to the official list of the Holy See.[1] Bishop of Eichstätt and first counsellor of Emperor Henry III before his election, he governed the Church from 13 April 1055 to 28 July 1057.[2][3] He is the last of the four German reforming popes wanted by Henry III, after Clement II, Damasus II and Saint Leo IX.[4][5][6]
His pontificate has two inseparable faces. On the one hand, the reformer: at the great synod of Florence on 4 June 1055, held in the presence of the emperor and some one hundred and twenty bishops, he confirmed Leo IX's decrees against simony (the trafficking of spiritual offices), nicolaitism (the incontinence of clerics) and the alienation of Church property.[7][8] On the other, the statesman: when Henry III died suddenly on 5 October 1056, the emperor entrusted him with his minor son, the future Henry IV. Victor II thus became, in effect, the regent of the Empire, secured the child-king's crown and kept the peace among the great nobles.[9][10]
No pope before him had ever combined such power: pope, Bishop of Eichstätt, Duke of Spoleto, Margrave of Fermo, imperial vicar for Italy, then guardian of the Western emperor.[11][12] His figure marks the climax of the symbiosis between the Empire and the reforming papacy — and, because he died young, barely two years after his election, the last moment that symbiosis held, before the Gregorian reform tore pontifical elections away from imperial tutelage.
His death, at Arezzo on 28 July 1057, opens one final enigma: his escort wanted to bring him back to his cathedral of Eichstätt, but the people of Ravenna seized the body and buried it in Santa Maria Rotonda, the ancient Mausoleum of Theoderic the Great.[13][14] Victor II thus remained the last pope of German birth for nearly nine centuries, until the election of Benedict XVI in 2005.[15]
Why does Victor II matter?
The last pope of Henry III's Empire
The mid-eleventh-century papacy cannot be understood without Emperor Henry III the Salian. It was he who, at the Synod of Sutri of December 1046, put an end to the scandal of three rival popes and imposed a reform from above, successively naming four German bishops to the See of Peter.[16][17] Clement II opened the series, Damasus II briefly continued it, Leo IX made it spectacular by travelling across Europe and holding synods everywhere — and Victor II closed it.
Yet Victor II was no mere extra. At the time of his election he was already, according to two independent sources, the most powerful man in the Empire after the emperor himself.[18] His designation was therefore not the choice of a docile bishop, but the elevation of the Reich's chief minister to the head of the Roman Church. That was both his strength — a pope who could govern Italy and Germany — and the structural fragility of his position: that reform should be carried by the emperor's right-hand man raised, in time, the very question the Gregorian reform would settle against the Empire.
A reformer in strict continuity with Leo IX
Victor II is sometimes reduced to an imperial administrator. That is a mistake. His great public act — the Synod of Florence — took up Leo IX's programme point by point: war on simony, war on nicolaitism, defence of the Church's patrimony.[19][20] He kept in his service the monk Hildebrand, the future Saint Gregory VII, whom he sent back to Gaul to continue the fight against abuses.[21][22] The continuity of reforming personnel between Leo IX, Victor II, Stephen IX and the Gregorian generation is one of the strongest threads in eleventh-century Church history.
The pope who saved an imperial succession
The most striking fact of the pontificate is political. When Henry III died at thirty-nine, his heir Henry IV was only six years old. In an empire where a king's minority almost always opened a civil war, it was Pope Victor II who held the edifice together: he had fidelity sworn to the young king, had him enthroned at Aachen, entrusted the regency to the Empress Agnes of Poitou and negotiated peace with the crown's enemies.[23][24] History seldom records that a pope, for a few months, effectively governed the Christian West.
"He wielded enormous power, which he employed tactfully to maintain peace." — Encyclopaedia Britannica, article "Victor II"[25]
Gebhard before Rome: the most powerful bishop of the Reich
A Swabian-Bavarian comital family
Gebhard was born around 1018, into a comital family of the southern Holy Empire, on the border of Swabia and Bavaria.[26][27] The German sources name his parents Hartwig and Biliza; the family, distantly related to the reigning Salian dynasty, is generally attached to the line of the counts of Dollnstein-Hirschberg.[28][29] His brother Gotebold would become Patriarch of Aquileia (1048-1063), proof that the house placed its sons at the summits of the imperial Church.[30]
The family's exact identity remains debated: older notices attach him to the counts of Calw in Swabia, while modern German historiography favours the Dollnstein-Hirschberg ancestry.[31][32] The honest writer must flag this debate rather than settle it: what is certain is the belonging to the high aristocracy of the Empire and the closeness to the royal house, two keys to Gebhard's entire career.
Bishop of Eichstätt at twenty-four (1042)
Gebhard was related to Gebhard III, Bishop of Regensburg and uncle of Henry III. It was this powerful kinsman who, at Christmas 1042, during the diet held at Goslar, presented him to the emperor as a candidate for the vacant episcopal see of Eichstätt, in Bavaria.[33][34] Henry III hesitated at first: the candidate was not yet thirty, below the required canonical age. The support of Archbishop Bardo of Mainz carried the decision, and Gebhard was invested Bishop of Eichstätt at Christmas 1042.[35][36]
Eichstätt was no secondary see: it was a bishopric in the heart of Bavaria, rich and strategic. As bishop, Gebhard proved a first-rate administrator and statesman, more than a theologian — the typical profile of Salian bishops trained to serve both Church and Empire.[37]
Henry III's right hand
In 1046-1047, the young bishop accompanied Henry III to Italy; he witnessed the depositions of Sutri and the imperial coronation that opened the era of the German popes.[38] Around 1050, Gebhard entered the innermost circle of the emperor's counsellors; the chroniclers describe him as the sovereign's absolutely reliable confidant for political, legal and ecclesiastical affairs.[39][40] He played a part in the government of Bavaria during the duke's minority, and his influence exceeded that of any other prelate in the kingdom.
"Two independent sources describe him as the most powerful man after the sovereign." — Enciclopedia dei Papi (Treccani), article "Vittore II" (the article's own translation)[41]
A reforming bishop and a statesman
This power was not mere court ambition. Gebhard shared the reforming sensibility of his age: he knew the abuses of simony and clerical marriage, and he had seen at close hand, at Sutri, what a papacy delivered to Roman families had produced. When the hour came to entrust Rome to him, it would therefore not be to neutralise reform, but to give it a leader capable of carrying it out with the full backing of the Empire.
The death of Leo IX and the long vacancy (1054-1055)
Why Rome turned to Gebhard
Saint Leo IX died at Rome on 19 April 1054, exhausted by the defeat of Civitate against the Normans and by the rupture with Constantinople.[42] The Apostolic See remained vacant for nearly a year — an exceptionally long vacancy that speaks to the difficulty of the choice. The Roman reformers, led by the monk Hildebrand, knew they needed a pope strong enough to protect Rome from the Normans in the south and from Roman factions within, and therefore a man supported by the Empire.
Hildebrand's embassy to the imperial court
A delegation of the Roman clergy and people, led by Hildebrand, made its way to Henry III's court — first to Mainz, then to the diet — to request the designation of Gebhard of Eichstätt.[43][44] The detail is heavy with meaning: it was the future Gregory VII in person who went to fetch the imperial minister from the emperor to make him pope. Nothing shows better how, in 1054, reform and Empire still marched together.
Yet resistance existed at Rome: men feared that one so tied to the court would be a too imperial pope.[45] The designation nevertheless went ahead, as early as September 1054, through the use of the imperial right of presentation.[46][47]
Gebhard's condition: restoring the Church's property
Gebhard himself hesitated for a long time. He knew power too well to ignore what independence was worth. At the diet of Regensburg, in March 1055, he finally set his condition: he would accept the papacy only if the emperor restored to the Apostolic See all the property taken from it.[48][49] Henry III accepted.
"He accepted the papacy only on condition that the emperor restore to the Apostolic See all the possessions taken from the Church." — James Loughlin, Catholic Encyclopedia, 1908 (the article's own translation)[50]
The condition was no accounting detail. It revealed a man who, even as a creature of the Empire, meant to defend Peter's patrimony against the Empire itself. It was, in germ, the whole fruitful ambiguity of his pontificate: serving the imperial alliance without abandoning the Church's own cause.
Election and enthronement (13 April 1055)
Gebhard made his way to Rome. On Maundy Thursday, 13 April 1055, he was formally elected by the clergy, acclaimed by the people and enthroned at St Peter's Basilica, taking the name Victor II.[51][52][53] The choice of name evoked victory and referred back to the African pope Victor I; it belonged to the combative tone of the reform.
Like his German predecessors, and according to the usage of the imperial Church, Victor II kept his see of Eichstätt while becoming Bishop of Rome.[54][55] This accumulation — papa qui et episcopus, "pope who is also bishop" — belonged to a world the later Gregorian reform would judge incompatible with full regularity; but no one, at the time, contested Victor II's legitimacy on that account.
The Synod of Florence (4 June 1055)
Three fronts: simony, nicolaitism, Church property
Barely enthroned, Victor II joined the emperor at Florence for Whit Sunday, 4 June 1055. There took place the great act of his pontificate: a synod bringing together, according to the sources, some one hundred and twenty bishops from Italy and beyond the Alps, in Henry III's presence.[56][57] The synod confirmed and hardened Leo IX's decrees on the three plagues of the eleventh-century Church.
| Front of the reform | Abuse targeted | Florence decision |
|---|---|---|
| Simony | Buying and selling of offices and sacraments | Confirmation of the excommunication of the guilty |
| Nicolaitism | Marriage and concubinage of clerics (incontinentia) | Renewal of penalties against incontinent clerics |
| Church property | Alienation of ecclesiastical patrimony to laymen | Defence of restoring and protecting Church property |
"The ancient decrees against simony and incontinence were confirmed there." — James Loughlin, Catholic Encyclopedia, 1908 (the article's own translation)[58]
Why these three words keep coming back
For today's reader, these words are technical. The simplest picture is that of a Church that had to be detoxified from money and local power. Simony — named after Simon Magus, who wanted to buy the gift of the Spirit (Acts 8:18-20) — means treating a sacred office as merchandise. Nicolaitism — a term drawn from Revelation 2:6 — denotes the incontinence of clerics, married or concubinary, who often passed their benefices to their sons as an inheritance. The alienation of property, finally, delivered the Church's lands to lay lords who did what they pleased with them. The three evils held together: they turned the Church into the property of families. The reform meant giving the Church back to herself — that is exactly the meaning of Florence.
Reform by legates: Hildebrand and Gaul
Victor II did not only legislate in synod; he governed through legates. At the beginning of 1056, he sent Hildebrand back to Gaul to take up the fight against simony and concubinage there.[59][60] He named as pontifical legates for the south of France the archbishops Raimbald of Arles and Pons of Aix, charged with combating the same vices.[61] Reforming synods were thus held across the kingdom — tradition mentions Lyons (1055) and Toulouse (1056) — under his delegates' authority.[62] Roman authority now reached to the very edges of Latin Christendom, through a network of legates — a method Gregory VII would bring to its peak.
The pope and the emperor: power without equivalent
Duke of Spoleto, Margrave of Fermo, imperial vicar
During his Italian stay, and before returning to Germany in November 1055, Henry III conferred on Victor II the government of the duchy of Spoleto and the march of Fermo — some sources also speak of Camerino — making the pope, in those lands, a temporal prince and an imperial vicar for Italy.[63][64][65] Never had a reforming pope received such a relay of imperial power in the heart of the peninsula.
The accumulation of offices
Let us sum up what Victor II held in autumn 1055: he was pope and Bishop of Rome; he remained Bishop of Eichstätt; he was Duke of Spoleto and Margrave of Fermo; he was imperial vicar for Italy; he remained the emperor's first counsellor. This concentration of spiritual and temporal functions is without equivalent in the history of the medieval papacy.[66][67][68]
The Catholic writer must neither be scandalised by it nor naively celebrate it. This accumulation was the fruit of a world — that of the Imperial Church (the Reichskirche), in which the bishop was also an agent of royal power. The Gregorian reform would untie precisely this knot, by distinguishing the spiritual from the temporal and forbidding lay investiture. Victor II was, in this respect, the last great representative of the old model, just before it broke.
A symbiosis at its peak
"Victor II embodies the peak of imperial and pontifical cooperation under Henry III." — Enciclopedia dei Papi (Treccani), article "Vittore II" (the article's own translation)[69]
As long as Henry III lived, the balance held: the emperor protected reform, the pope supported the Empire, and both struck simony together. But this balance rested on two men — a strong emperor and a pope who was his friend. The death of one, then soon of the other, would unbalance everything.
Henry III's death and the regency (October 1056)
Bodfeld, 5 October 1056: the emperor entrusts his son to the pope
In autumn 1056, Victor II crossed the Alps again to rejoin the ailing Henry III. The emperor died on 5 October 1056 at the hunting lodge of Bodfeld, in the Harz, at thirty-nine.[70][71][72] On his deathbed, he entrusted to the pope his minor son, the future Henry IV, aged six, as well as the Empress Agnes of Poitou.[73][74] The gesture was immense: the Western emperor placed the guardianship of the Empire in the pope's hands.
Victor II first conducted the imperial burial. Henry III's body was carried to Speyer, the Salian necropolis, where it was interred on 28 October 1056, the late emperor's birthday.[75]
Securing Henry IV's crown
The danger was well known: a king's minority invited revolt from the great nobles. Victor II acted swiftly and with authority. He had fidelity sworn to the young Henry IV, already elected king in his father's lifetime, and had him solemnly enthroned at Aachen, on Charlemagne's throne, the symbol of Carolingian legitimacy.[76][77] He entrusted the regency to the Empress Agnes, the king's mother, becoming her counsellor.[78][79]
The peace of Cologne with Flanders and Lotharingia
There remained the crown's enemies to neutralise. At a diet held at Cologne, Victor II negotiated peace with the principal adversaries of the Salian monarchy: Count Baldwin V of Flanders and Godfrey III the Bearded, Duke of Lower Lotharingia.[80][81] Within months, the pope had extinguished the fire: the Empire passed through its king's minority without civil war.
"On his deathbed, the emperor commended his minor son, the future Henry IV, to the protection of Pope Victor." — Encyclopedia.com, after the New Catholic Encyclopedia (the article's own translation)[82]
Here is where Victor II's singularity is measured. Not by a doctrine — he left none — but by this unique moment when a pope effectively governed the West, in the name of a child and a widow, for the peace of Christendom.
The last act (1057)
The return to Rome and the privileges
At the beginning of 1057 — tradition places his return in February — Victor II regained Italy and Rome.[83] He then multiplied bulls and privileges for French, English, German and Italian houses, the sign of an active chancery and an authority recognised across Christendom.[84][85]
Frederick of Lorraine at Monte Cassino: the future Stephen IX
One act of 1057 would weigh heavily on what followed. Victor II obtained the resignation of Abbot Peter of Monte Cassino and imposed Frederick of Lorraine there, chancellor of the Roman Church and brother of Godfrey the Bearded.[86] This Frederick, made abbot then cardinal, would be elected pope as soon as Victor II died, under the name Stephen IX. The transition to the Gregorian generation was thus prepared in the shadow of the last imperial pope.
The synod near Arezzo (23 July 1057)
Victor II then made for Tuscany. On 23 July 1057, he held a synod at the palace of St Donatus, near Arezzo, to settle an old jurisdictional conflict between the bishops of Arezzo and Siena.[87][88] It was one of his last known acts: a reforming pope to the end, busy putting dioceses back in order.
Death at Arezzo (28 July 1057)
Five days later, struck down by a fever — most likely malaria, endemic in central Italy and fatal to several popes of the century — Victor II died at Arezzo on 28 July 1057, aged about thirty-nine.[89][90][91] His pontificate had lasted two years, three months and fifteen days.
The stolen tomb of Ravenna
Eichstätt hoped for its bishop
Victor II had remained, until his death, Bishop of Eichstätt. His escort therefore wanted to bring his remains back to Bavaria to bury them in his cathedral, as Clement II had been buried at Bamberg — the only papal tomb north of the Alps.[92] Fate decided otherwise.
The seizure of the body by the Ravennese
Before the procession could reach Germany, the people of Ravenna seized the body by force and buried it in their city.[93][94] Several accounts add that the procession was lured off course near Ravenna, making the translation to Eichstätt impossible.[95]
"Before they reached the city, the remains were forcibly taken from them by the people of Ravenna, and buried there, in the church of Santa Maria Rotonda, the burial place of Theoderic the Great." — James Loughlin, Catholic Encyclopedia, 1908 (the article's own translation)[96]
Santa Maria Rotonda, the Mausoleum of Theoderic
The place is striking. Ravenna's Santa Maria Rotonda is none other than the former Mausoleum of Theoderic the Great, the Ostrogothic king of Italy († 526), a unique monument crowned with a monolithic dome, Christianised in the Middle Ages.[97][98] The last German imperial pope was thus buried in the tomb of a Germanic king of Italy — a striking historical symmetry between two figures of Germanic power south of the Alps.
An empty sarcophagus
The story ends uncertainly. The sarcophagus in the Rotonda at Ravenna is today empty, and the final fate of Victor II's remains remains unknown to historians.[99] The last of Henry III's German popes is thus the only one with neither an identified Roman tomb nor a German one — a disappearance in keeping with his singular figure.
After Victor II: the end of the imperial papacy
A weakened regency
Victor II's death, on 28 July 1057, left an immense void. The regency of Agnes of Poitou, deprived of the counsellor who had sustained it, proved weak. Imperial authority over Rome, already held together at arm's length, abruptly loosened.[100][101] For the first time since Sutri, the papacy would choose its head without waiting for the Empire's approval.
From the 1059 decree to Gregory VII
The Roman reformers acted immediately: Frederick of Lorraine, the man Victor II had placed at Monte Cassino, was elected pope under the name Stephen IX as early as August 1057, without prior consultation of the imperial court. Two years later, in 1059, Nicholas II's decree In nomine Domini reserved pontifical elections to the cardinal-bishops, removing in law the designation of the pope from the Empire as from the Roman families. The way was open to Gregory VII (1073) and to the Investiture Controversy, which would frontally oppose the papacy to the very successor Victor II had protected — Emperor Henry IV.
The irony of history is complete: the pope who saved the child Henry IV unwittingly prepared the emancipation of the papacy that would stand against the adult Henry IV. Victor II's premature death is, in this respect, one of the great quiet turning points of the eleventh century.
Imperial form and the Church's freedom
The Victor II case extends the lesson already given by Clement II. His election was canonically irregular by later Gregorian criteria: imperial presentation, a candidate who was the emperor's minister, accumulation of the see of Eichstätt with the Roman See. And yet his ecclesial reception was full: no successor ever contested his legitimacy, his name appears in every official list, his reforming work was continued by his own collaborators.[102][103]
It is this distinction — between the sometimes defective form of an election and the lasting reception of the elected by the Church — that lets the Catholic face the turbulent history of the medieval papacy squarely, without the sedevacantist reading that would invalidate a pope because some human step of his elevation looks irregular. The Church has always left to ecclesial reception, more than to the one-off inspection of procedures, the care of stabilising pontifical memory.
Status, memory and cult
A blessed without formal canonisation
Victor II was never the object of a formal canonisation by the universal Church.[104] Some old notices and lists call him Beatus, "blessed", out of respect for his reforming figure and pious role, but no recognised universal cult is attached to him, and he does not appear on the general Roman calendar.[105][106] The honest writer must say exactly this: neither a canonised saint, nor a suspect figure, but a reforming pope whose memory has remained respected without official devotion.
Eichstätt's pope in Bavarian memory
It is above all at Eichstätt, his diocese, that his memory has stayed alive: the "Eichstätt pope" is celebrated there as the most illustrious of its bishops, the only one to have ascended the See of Peter.[107] This local memory, sober and proud, is the exact counterpart of Bamberg's for Clement II: two Bavarian dioceses keeping the memory of one of their own become a pope of the reform.
Sources: what we know, what we can say, what we do not know
The solid core
The principal sources fall into four families: official entries (Vatican.va, Britannica), Catholic encyclopaedias (Catholic Encyclopedia 1908, New Catholic Encyclopedia), the learned Italian encyclopaedia (Treccani — Enciclopedia dei Papi) and the German biographical reference (Neue Deutsche Biographie).[108][109][110][111][112]
| Historical point | Degree of certainty | Principal sources |
|---|---|---|
| Swabian-Bavarian birth, c. 1018 | High | Vatican; NDB; Treccani |
| Comital family (Dollnstein-Hirschberg / Calw debate) | Medium | NDB; New Catholic Encyclopedia |
| Bishop of Eichstätt, Christmas 1042 at Goslar | Very high | Loughlin; NDB; Treccani |
| First counsellor of Henry III c. 1050 | Very high | Treccani; NDB |
| Designation in September 1054 | High | NDB; New Catholic Encyclopedia |
| Property-restitution condition (Regensburg, March 1055) | High | Loughlin; Treccani |
| Election and enthronement on 13 April 1055 | Very high | Vatican; Loughlin; NDB |
| Synod of Florence, 4 June 1055, ~120 bishops | Very high | Loughlin; Gresser |
| Duchy of Spoleto and march of Fermo | High | Treccani; New Catholic Encyclopedia |
| Henry III's death at Bodfeld, 5 October 1056 | Very high | Loughlin; Treccani |
| Regency secured for Henry IV and Agnes | Very high | Loughlin; Britannica; Treccani |
| Synod near Arezzo, 23 July 1057 | High | Loughlin; Treccani |
| Death at Arezzo, 28 July 1057 | Very high | Vatican; NDB; Treccani |
| Body seized by Ravenna, Santa Maria Rotonda | High | Loughlin; Treccani |
| Sarcophagus empty today | Medium | Treccani |
Medieval primary sources
The principal medieval sources for Victor II and his age are:
- Berthold of Reichenau, Annals (continuation of Hermann Contractus's chronicle), covering the years 1054-1080 — ed. in MGH Scriptores.
- Lampert of Hersfeld, Annals, c. 1077-1079 — the major German account of Henry III's death and Henry IV's minority; ed. in MGH Scriptores rerum Germanicarum.
- Bonizo of Sutri, Liber ad amicum, c. 1085-1086 — a partisan Gregorian chronicle, to be used with caution.
- Leo of Ostia (Leo Marsicanus), Chronica monasterii Casinensis — for the Monte Cassino episode and the installation of Frederick of Lorraine; ed. in MGH Scriptores XXXIV.
- Liber Pontificalis — ed. Louis Duchesne, Le Liber pontificalis, vol. II, Paris, 1892.
- Philipp Jaffé, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum — a register of the pontifical acts preserved under Victor II's name.[113]
Modern scholarly sources
| Author / Reference | Contribution |
|---|---|
| Holy See, official entry "Vittore II" | 153rd pope, official dates and identity |
| James Loughlin, Catholic Encyclopedia, 1908 | Classic Catholic reference notice |
| New Catholic Encyclopedia (via encyclopedia.com) | English-language synthesis, status and family |
| Enciclopedia dei Papi, Treccani, Roma, 2000 | Complete learned Italian notice |
| Neue Deutsche Biographie, art. "Victor II." | German biography, prosopography |
| J. N. D. Kelly and M. J. Walsh, Oxford Dictionary of Popes, 2010 | Synthetic English-language notice |
| Philippe Levillain, Dictionnaire historique de la papauté, Fayard, 1994 | French reference notice |
| Georg Gresser, Die Synoden und Konzilien in der Zeit des Reformpapsttums, Paderborn, 2006 | Study of the reforming synods, including Florence 1055 |
| Diocese of Eichstätt, dossier "Viktor II., der Eichstätter Papst" | Local memory and state of research |
What we do not know
We possess no spiritual portrait of Victor II: no journal, no treatise, no personal correspondence revealing his prayer or his reading. The sources attend to his political and reforming function, not his interior life. His exact family remains debated (Dollnstein-Hirschberg or Calw), and the final fate of his remains, after Ravenna, is lost. Like Clement II, Victor II remains a historically decisive but personally pale figure — a man almost entirely absorbed by the office he served.
Chronology
| Date | Event | Significance |
|---|---|---|
| c. 1018 | Birth of Gebhard in Swabia | Imperial comital family |
| Christmas 1042 | Invested Bishop of Eichstätt at Goslar | Bishop before the age of thirty |
| 1046-1047 | Accompanies Henry III to Italy | Witness of Sutri |
| c. 1050 | Enters Henry III's inner circle | Most powerful man after the emperor |
| 19 April 1054 | Death of Saint Leo IX | Opening of a long vacancy |
| September 1054 | Designated pope by Henry III | Hildebrand's embassy |
| March 1055 | Diet of Regensburg, property-restitution condition | Henry III's agreement |
| 13 April 1055 | Election and enthronement, name of Victor II | 153rd pope |
| 4 June 1055 | Synod of Florence | Simony, nicolaitism, Church property |
| Autumn 1055 | Duke of Spoleto and Margrave of Fermo | Imperial vicar for Italy |
| Early 1056 | Hildebrand legate in Gaul | Reform by legates |
| 5 October 1056 | Henry III's death at Bodfeld | The pope becomes de facto regent |
| 28 October 1056 | Henry III's burial at Speyer | The emperor's birthday |
| Late 1056 | Henry IV's enthronement at Aachen, peace of Cologne | Imperial succession secured |
| 1057 | Frederick of Lorraine Abbot of Monte Cassino | The future Stephen IX |
| 23 July 1057 | Synod near Arezzo | Arezzo-Siena conflict settled |
| 28 July 1057 | Death at Arezzo, of a fever | End of Henry III's imperial papacy |
| August 1057 | Election of Stephen IX without the imperial court | Emancipation of the papacy |
| 1059 | Nicholas II's decree In nomine Domini | Election reserved to the cardinal-bishops |
To go further
- Saint Leo IX (1049-1054) — direct predecessor, true inaugurator of the militant reform.
- Pope Clement II (1046-1047) — first German pope of the series, the only pope buried north of the Alps.
- Pope Damasus II (1048) — second German pope, very brief pontificate.
- Pope Stephen IX (1057-1058) — immediate successor, placed by Victor II at Monte Cassino.
- Saint Gregory VII — the former Hildebrand, Victor II's legate, future adversary of Henry IV.
- Pope Benedict IX — figure of the Tusculan papacy which the reform ended.
- The Synod of Sutri (1046) — starting point of the series of German popes.
- The Gregorian Reform — the underlying movement Victor II prolonged and whose liberation his death freed.
- The Investiture Controversy — the later conflict between the papacy and Henry IV, the child Victor II had protected.
- Saint Peter Damian — great spiritual and reforming voice of the same age.
Notes and References
Holy See, official entry "Vittore II": 153rd pope of the Catholic Church, civil name Gebhard of Dollnstein-Hirschberg, Swabian origin, pontificate beginning 13.IV.1055, end 28.VII.1057. URL: https://www.vatican.va/content/vatican/en/holy-father/vittore-ii.html.
1 2 26 51 102 108James Loughlin, "Pope Victor II", The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 15, Robert Appleton Company, New York, 1912, via New Advent: Gebhard nephew of Bishop Gebhard III of Regensburg, presented to Henry III at Goslar on Christmas Day 1042, Bishop of Eichstätt, imperial counsellor, diet of Regensburg of March 1055 (property-restitution condition), election and enthronement on 13 April 1055, synod of Florence of 4 June 1055 (120 bishops, decrees against simony and incontinence confirmed), Hildebrand sent back to Gaul, Henry III's death on 5 October 1056 and commending of Henry IV to the pope, Henry IV's enthronement at Aachen, peace with Baldwin V of Flanders and Godfrey, synod near Arezzo, death on 28 July 1057, body seized by people of Ravenna and buried at Santa Maria Rotonda, burial place of Theoderic the Great. URL: https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15409a.htm.
3 7 13 19 21 33 43 48 50 52 56 58 59 70 73 78 80 87 89 92 93 96 97 109Treccani, "Vittore II", Enciclopedia dei Papi, ed. Massimo Bray, Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Roma, vol. II, 2000: learned reference Italian biographical notice — Dollnstein-Hirschberg origin, parents Hartwig and Biliza, brother Gotebold Patriarch of Aquileia, Bishop of Eichstätt 1042, most powerful man after the emperor, 1054 designation, 13 April 1055 election, Synod of Florence, duchy of Spoleto and march of Fermo, regency for Henry IV and Agnes, Henry III's burial at Speyer, return to Rome, Monte Cassino and Frederick of Lorraine, synod near Arezzo, death on 28 July 1057, body diverted to Ravenna and buried at Santa Maria Rotonda (Mausoleum of Theoderic), sarcophagus empty today. URL: https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/vittore-ii_(Enciclopedia-dei-Papi)/.
4 10 11 14 16 18 23 29 36 37 38 40 41 42 45 49 55 63 66 69 71 75 76 81 83 84 86 88 91 94 95 98 99 100 103 111New Catholic Encyclopedia, "Victor II, Pope, Bl.", via Encyclopedia.com: Swabian family (line from which the counts of Calw would descend), kinship with the Salian dynasty, Bishop of Eichstätt 1042, Henry III's chief counsellor, pontifical designation in 1054, enthronement on 13 April 1055, Synod of Florence (June 1055), administration of the duchy of Spoleto and the march of Fermo, regency secured for Agnes and crowning of Henry IV after Henry III's death, death on 28 July 1057, body seized by the people of Ravenna and buried at Santa Maria Rotonda; no recognised universal cult. URL: https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/victor-ii-pope-bl.
5 12 17 31 47 65 67 77 82 101 104 105 110J. N. D. Kelly and Michael J. Walsh, The Oxford Dictionary of Popes, 2nd ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010, s.v. "Victor II" — reference notice listing the 266 recognised popes, from Saint Peter to Benedict XVI, including Victor II as the last of the four German popes imposed by Henry III.
6Georg Gresser, Die Synoden und Konzilien in der Zeit des Reformpapsttums in Deutschland und Italien von Leo IX. bis Calixt II. (1049-1123), Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn, 2006: reference study of the eleventh-century reforming synods, including the 1055 Synod of Florence held by Victor II in Henry III's presence (confirmation of the decrees against simony and clerical incontinence, defence of Church property).
8 20 57Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Victor II, Pope": Gebhard of Dollnstein-Hirschberg, born c. 1018 in Swabia, Bishop of Eichstätt in 1042, Henry III's chief counsellor, pope from 1055 to 1057, Synod of Florence (June 1055) against clerical marriage and simony, guardian of Henry IV and counsellor of the regent Empress Agnes after Henry III's death (5 October 1056), enormous power tactfully employed to maintain peace, death on 28 July 1057 at Arezzo. Original text: "wielded enormous power, which he employed tactfully to maintain peace". URL: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Victor-II.
9 24 25 62 74 79Wikipedia (English), "Pope Victor II": biographical synthesis, Roman delegation led by Hildebrand as far as Mainz, enthronement on 13 April 1055, Synod of Florence of June 1055, regency for Henry IV and Agnes, death on 28 July 1057, body seized by citizens of Ravenna and buried at Santa Maria Rotonda; Victor II presented as the last pope of German origin until the election of Benedict XVI 948 years later. Original text: "the last pope of German origin until Pope Benedict XVI was elected 948 years later". URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Victor_II.
15 22 44 60Neue Deutsche Biographie, art. "Victor II. (bis 1055 Gebhard)": parents Hartwig and Biliza, Alemannic noble house distantly related to the Salian dynasty, brother Gotebold future Patriarch of Aquileia, proposed for Eichstätt in late 1042 by Gebhard III of Regensburg, invested at Goslar at Christmas 1042 despite his youth thanks to the support of Archbishop Bardo of Mainz, Henry III's most reliable counsellor, designated pope in September 1054, accepts at the diet of Regensburg of March 1055, enthroned on 13 April 1055, keeps his see of Eichstätt as pope, pursues reform (simony, nicolaitism, Church property), death on 28 July 1057 at Arezzo of a fever, probably malaria. URL: https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/sfz83735.html.
27 28 30 32 34 35 39 46 53 54 90 106 112Catholic Answers, "Pope Victor II" (online encyclopaedia, after the Catholic Encyclopedia): Hildebrand sent back to France at the beginning of 1056 against simony and concubinage; appointment of Archbishops Raimbald of Arles and Pons of Aix as pontifical legates for the south of France; transfer to the pope of the duchies of Spoleto and Camerino by the emperor. URL: https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/pope-victor-ii.
61 64Philippe Levillain (ed.), Dictionnaire historique de la papauté, Fayard, Paris, 1994, s.v. "Victor II" — French reference notice (a work of 1776 pp. and 912 entries covering each pontificate) on Victor II's accumulation of spiritual and temporal offices.
68Regesta Imperii III, 5, 2 (Papstregesten 1046-1058), no. 1267, 5 October 1056, Bodfeld — Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz: regest on Henry III's death at Bodfeld and the commending of his son to Pope Victor II. URL: https://www.regesta-imperii.de/regesten/3-5-2-papstregesten/nr/1056-10-05_4_0_3_5_2_939_1267.html.
72Philipp Jaffé, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum, 2nd ed. revised by S. Loewenfeld, F. Kaltenbrunner and P. Ewald, Veit, Leipzig, 1885-1888: chronological register of the acts and privileges preserved under Victor II's name.
85 113Diocese of Eichstätt, dossier and notices "Viktor II., der Eichstätter Papst": diocesan memory of Gebhard, Bishop of Eichstätt become pope, the most illustrious of the diocese's bishops; biographical reminders and state of research. URL: https://www.bistum-eichstaett.de/.
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