Pope Leo IX

Pope Saint Leo IX
Papacy began	12 February 1049
Papacy ended	19 April 1054
Predecessor	Damasus II
Successor	Victor II
Orders
Consecration	1026
Personal details
Birth name	Bruno von Eguisheim-Dagsburg
Born	(1002-06-21)21 June 1002 Eguisheim, Alsace, Duchy of Swabia, Holy Roman Empire
Died	19 April 1054(1054-04-19) (aged 51) Rome, Papal States, Holy Roman Empire
Previous post	Bishop of Toul (1026–49)
Sainthood
Feast day	19 April
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church
Canonized	1082 by Pope Gregory VII
Attributes	Papal vestments Papal tiara Book Crozier
Patronage	Colliano Guardia Lombardi Sessa Aurunca
Other popes named Leo

Papal styles of Pope Leo IX
Reference style	His Holiness
Spoken style	Your Holiness
Religious style	Holy Father
Posthumous style	Saint

Pope Saint Leo IX (21 June 1002 – 19 April 1054), born Bruno of Egisheim-Dagsburg, was Pope from 12 February 1049 to his death in 1054.^[1] He was a German aristocrat and a powerful secular ruler of central Italy while holding the papacy. He is regarded as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church, his feast day celebrated on 19 April.^[2]

Leo IX is widely considered the most historically significant German Pope of the Middle Ages. His citing of the Donation of Constantine in a letter to the Patriarch of Constantinople brought about the Great Schism between the Catholic and Orthodox churches.

Biography

Leo IX portrayed in a contemporary manuscript.

He was born to Count Hugh and Heilwig and was a native of Eguisheim, Upper Alsace (present day Alsace, France).^[3] His family was of noble rank, and his father, Count Hugh, was a cousin of Emperor Conrad II (1024–1039).^[4] He was educated at Toul, where he successively became canon and, in 1026, bishop.^[5] In the latter capacity he rendered important political services to his relative Conrad II, and afterwards to Emperor Henry III. He became widely known as an earnest and reforming ecclesiastic by the zeal he showed in spreading the rule of the order of Cluny.

Papacy

On the death of Pope Damasus II in 1048, Bruno was selected as his successor by an assembly at Worms in December. Both the Emperor and the Roman delegates concurred. However, Bruno apparently favored a canonical election and stipulated as a condition of his acceptance that he should first proceed to Rome and be freely elected by the voice of the clergy and people of Rome. Setting out shortly after Christmas, he met with abbot Hugh of Cluny at Besançon, where he was joined by the young monk Hildebrand, who afterwards became Pope Gregory VII; arriving in pilgrim garb at Rome in the following February, he was received with much cordiality, and at his consecration assumed the name Leo IX.

Leo IX favored traditional morality in his reformation of the Catholic Church. One of his first public acts was to hold the well-known Easter synod of 1049, at which celibacy of the clergy (down to the rank of subdeacon) was required anew. Also, the Easter synod was where the Pope at least succeeded in making clear his own convictions against every kind of simony. The greater part of the year that followed was occupied in one of those progresses through Italy, Germany and France which form a marked feature in Leo IX's pontificate. After presiding over a synod at Pavia, he joined Henry III in Saxony and accompanied him to Cologne and Aachen. He also summoned a meeting of the higher clergy in Reims in which several important reforming decrees were passed. At Mainz he held a council at which the Italian and French as well as the German clergy were represented, and ambassadors of the Greek emperor were present. Here too, simony and the marriage of the clergy were the principal matters dealt with.

After his return to Rome he held another Easter synod on 29 April 1050. It was occupied largely with the controversy about the teachings of Berengar of Tours. In the same year he presided over provincial synods at Salerno, Siponto and Vercelli, and in September revisited his native Germany, returning to Rome in time for a third Easter synod, at which the question of the reordination of those who had been ordained by simonists was considered.

In 1052 he joined the Emperor at Pressburg and vainly sought to secure the submission of the Hungarians. At Regensburg, Bamberg and Worms, the papal presence was celebrated with various ecclesiastical solemnities.

Commemorative shield on the wall of the Castle of Eguisheim, Alsace, birthplace of Pope Leo IX.

In constant fear of attack from the Normans in the south of Italy, the Byzantines turned in desperation to the Normans own spiritual chief, Pope Leo IX and, according to William of Apulia, begged him "to liberate Italy that now lacks its freedom and to force that wicked people, who are pressing Apulia under their yoke, to leave." After a fourth Easter synod in 1053, Leo IX set out against the Normans in the south with an army of Italians and Swabian mercenaries. "As fervent Christians the Normans were reluctant to fight their spiritual leader and tried to sue for peace but the Swabians mocked them – battle was inevitable." ^[6] Leo IX led the army himself but his forces suffered total defeat at the Battle of Civitate on 15 June 1053. Nonetheless, on going out from the city to meet the victorious enemy he was received with every token of submission, pleas for forgiveness and oaths of fidelity and homage. From June 1053 to March 1054 the Pope was nevertheless held hostage at Benevento, in honourable captivity, until he acknowledged the Normans conquests in Calabria and Apulia. He did not long survive his return to Rome, where he died on 19 April 1054.

Leo IX sent a letter to Michael Cærularius, Patriarch of Constantinople, in 1054, that cited a large portion of the Donation of Constantine, believing it genuine.^[7] The official status of this letter is acknowledged in the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 5, entry on Donation of Constantine, page 120:

"The first pope who used it in an official act and relied upon it, was Leo IX; in a letter of 1054 to Michael Cærularius, Patriarch of Constantinople, he cites the "Donatio" to show that the Holy See possessed both an earthly and a heavenly imperium, the royal priesthood."

Leo IX assured the Patriarch that the donation was completely genuine, not a fable, so only the apostolic successor to Peter possessed that primacy and was the rightful head of all the Church. Before his death, Leo IX had sent a legatine mission under Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida to Constantinople to negotiate with Patriarch Michael I Cerularius in response to his actions concerning the church in Constantinople.^[8] Humbert quickly disposed of negotiations by delivering a bull excommunicating the Patriarch.^[5] This act, though legally invalid due to the Pope's death at the time, was answered by the Patriarch's own bull of excommunication against Humbert and his associates and is popularly considered the official split between the Eastern and Western Churches. The Patriarch rejected the claims of papal primacy, and subsequently the One Church was split in two in the Great East–West Schism of 1054.

See also

• List of Catholic saints
• List of popes

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Leo (popes)/Leo IX". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

Further reading

• Migne's Patrologia Latina, Vol. 143 (cxliii), Leo IX Epistolae Et Decreta .pdf – 1.9 Mb. See Col. 744B-769D (pgs. 76–89) for Leo IX's letter.
• Mansi's, Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova Amplissima Collectio, Vol. 19 (xix) .pdf – 66 Mb. See Col. 635–656.
• Acta et scripta quae de controversiis ecclesiae Graecae et Latinae, by Dr. Cornelius Will, 1861. This book has the text of the letters relevant to the Great Schism of 1054. The Greek and Latin texts of the Schism was studied by Michele Giuseppe D'Agostino, Il Primato della Sede di Roma in Leone IX (1049–1054). Studio dei testi nella controversia greco-romana nel periodo gregoriano, Cinisello Balsamo 2008.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Leo IX.

•  "Pope St. Leo IX". Catholic Encyclopedia. 1913. 

Popes of the Catholic Church List of popes canonised Tombs extant non-extant Antipope Pope emeritus Papal resignation Pope-elect 1st–4th centuries During the Roman Empire (until 493) including under Constantine (312–337) Peter Linus Anacletus Clement I Evaristus Alexander I Sixtus I Telesphorus Hyginus Pius I Anicetus Soter Eleuterus Victor I Zephyrinus Callixtus I Urban I Pontian Anterus Fabian Cornelius Lucius I Stephen I Sixtus II Dionysius Felix I Eutychian Caius Marcellinus Marcellus I Eusebius Miltiades Sylvester I Mark Julius I Liberius Damasus I Siricius Anastasius I 5th–8th centuries Ostrogothic Papacy (493–537) Byzantine Papacy (537–752) Frankish Papacy (756–857) Innocent I Zosimus Boniface I Celestine I Sixtus III Leo I Hilarius Simplicius Felix III Gelasius I Anastasius II Symmachus Hormisdas John I Felix IV Boniface II John II Agapetus I Silverius Vigilius Pelagius I John III Benedict I Pelagius II Gregory I Sabinian Boniface III Boniface IV Adeodatus I Boniface V Honorius I Severinus John IV Theodore I Martin I Eugene I Vitalian Adeodatus II Donus Agatho Leo II Benedict II John V Conon Sergius I John VI John VII Sisinnius Constantine Gregory II Gregory III Zachary Stephen II Paul I Stephen III Adrian I Leo III 9th–12th centuries Papal selection before 1059 Saeculum obscurum (904–964) Crescentii era (974–1012) Tusculan Papacy (1012–1044/1048) Imperial Papacy (1048–1257) Stephen IV Paschal I Eugene II Valentine Gregory IV Sergius II Leo IV Benedict III Nicholas I Adrian II John VIII Marinus I Adrian III Stephen V Formosus Boniface VI Stephen VI Romanus Theodore II John IX Benedict IV Leo V Sergius III Anastasius III Lando John X Leo VI Stephen VII John XI Leo VII Stephen VIII Marinus II Agapetus II John XII Benedict V Leo VIII John XIII Benedict VI Benedict VII John XIV John XV Gregory V Sylvester II John XVII John XVIII Sergius IV Benedict VIII John XIX Benedict IX Sylvester III Benedict IX Gregory VI Clement II Benedict IX Damasus II Leo IX Victor II Stephen IX Nicholas II Alexander II Gregory VII Victor III Urban II Paschal II Gelasius II Callixtus II Honorius II Innocent II Celestine II Lucius II Eugene III Anastasius IV Adrian IV Alexander III Lucius III Urban III Gregory VIII Clement III Celestine III Innocent III 13th–16th centuries Viterbo (1257–1281) Orvieto (1262–1297) Perugia (1228–1304) Avignon Papacy (1309–1378) Western Schism (1378–1417) Renaissance Papacy (1417–1534) Reformation Papacy (1534–1585) Baroque Papacy (1585–1689) Honorius III Gregory IX Celestine IV Innocent IV Alexander IV Urban IV Clement IV Gregory X Innocent V Adrian V John XXI Nicholas III Martin IV Honorius IV Nicholas IV Celestine V Boniface VIII Benedict XI Clement V John XXII Benedict XII Clement VI Innocent VI Urban V Gregory XI Urban VI Boniface IX Innocent VII Gregory XII Martin V Eugene IV Nicholas V Callixtus III Pius II Paul II Sixtus IV Innocent VIII Alexander VI Pius III Julius II Leo X Adrian VI Clement VII Paul III Julius III Marcellus II Paul IV Pius IV Pius V Gregory XIII Sixtus V Urban VII Gregory XIV Innocent IX Clement VIII 17th–20th centuries Revolutionary Papacy (1775–1848) Roman Question (1870–1929) Vatican City (1929–present) World War II (1939–1945) Leo XI Paul V Gregory XV Urban VIII Innocent X Alexander VII Clement IX Clement X Innocent XI Alexander VIII Innocent XII Clement XI Innocent XIII Benedict XIII Clement XII Benedict XIV Clement XIII Clement XIV Pius VI Pius VII Leo XII Pius VIII Gregory XVI Pius IX Leo XIII Pius X Benedict XV Pius XI Pius XII John XXIII Paul VI John Paul I John Paul II 21st century Benedict XVI Francis Book Category Pope portal Catholicism portal

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