Pope Clement II

Pope Clement II
Bishop of Rome
Tomb effigy in Bamberg Cathedral, erected c. 1237
Church	Catholic Church
Papacy began	25 December 1046
Papacy ended	9 October 1047
Predecessor	Gregory VI
Successor	Benedict IX
Personal details
Born	Suidger von Morsleben-Horneburg Hornburg, Eastphalia, Duchy of Saxony, Holy Roman Empire
Died	9 October 1047 Pesaro, Papal States
Buried	Bamberg Cathedral, Bamberg, Germany
Other popes named Clement

Pope Clement II (Latin: Clemens II; born Suidger von Morsleben-Horneburg; died 9 October 1047) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 25 December 1046 until his death in 1047.

He was the first in a series of reform-minded popes from Germany. Suidger was the bishop of Bamberg. In 1046, he accompanied King Henry III of Germany, when at the request of laity and clergy of Rome, Henry went to Italy and summoned the Council of Sutri, which deposed Benedict IX and Sylvester III, and accepted the resignation of Gregory VI. Henry suggested Suidger as the next pope, and he was then elected, taking the name of Clement II. Clement then proceeded to crown Henry as emperor. Clement's brief tenure as pope saw the enactment of more stringent prohibitions against simony.

Early career

Born in Hornburg, Duchy of Saxony, in what is now Lower Saxony, Germany, he was the son of Count Konrad von Morsleben-Horneburg and his wife, Amulrad von Meyendorf. In 1040, he became Bishop of Bamberg.

In the autumn of 1046, there were three rival claimants to the papacy, in St. Peter's, the Lateran, and St. Mary Major's. Two of them, Benedict IX and Sylvester III, represented rival factions of the nobility. The third, Pope Gregory VI, in order to free the city from the House of Tusculum, and Benedict's scandalous lifestyle, had paid Benedict money in exchange for his resignation. Regardless of the motives, the transaction bore the appearance of simony. Questions regarding the legitimacy of any of them could undermine the validity of a coronation of Henry as Holy Roman Emperor. King Henry crossed the Alps at the head of a large army and accompanied by a retinue of the secular and ecclesiastical princes of the empire, for the twofold purpose of receiving the imperial crown and of restoring order.

Papacy

In 1046, Suidger accompanied King Henry on his campaign to Italy and in December, participated in the Council of Sutri, which deposed former Benedict IX and Sylvester III and persuaded Gregory VI to resign. Henry nominated Suidger for the papacy and the council elected him, making him the first pope placed on the throne by the power of the German emperors. Suidger insisted upon retaining the bishopric of his see, partly for needed financial support, and partly lest the turbulent Romans should before long send him back to Bamberg. Suidger took the name Clement II. Immediately after his election, Henry and the new pope travelled to Rome, where Clement was enthroned. He then crowned Henry III as emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

Clement's election as pope was later criticized by the reform party within the papal curia due to the royal involvement and the fact that the new bishop of Rome was already bishop of another diocese. Contrary to later practice, Clement kept his old see, governing both Rome and Bamberg simultaneously. Clement's first pontifical act was to crown Henry and Agnes of Poitou. He bestowed on the Emperor the title and diadem of a Roman patrician, a dignity which was commonly understood to give the bearer the right of indicating the person to be chosen pope.

Clement II's short pontificate, starting with the Roman synod of 1047, initiated an improvement in the state of affairs within the Roman Church, particularly by enacting decrees against simony. A dispute for precedence among the Sees of Ravenna, Milan, and Aquileia was settled in favour of Ravenna.

Death

Clement accompanied Henry III in triumphal progress through southern Italy and placed Benevento under an interdict for refusing to open its gates to them. Proceeding with Henry to Germany, he canonized Wiborada, a nun of St. Gall, martyred by the Hungarians in 925. On his way back to Rome, he died near Pesaro on 9 October 1047. His corpse was transferred back to Bamberg, which he had loved dearly, and interred in the western choir of the Bamberg Cathedral. His is the only tomb of a pope north of the Alps.

A toxicologic examination of his remains in the mid-20th century confirmed centuries-old rumors that the pope had been poisoned with lead sugar. It is not clear, however, whether he was murdered or whether the lead sugar was used as medicine.

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Pope Clement II — (Suidger)

Date of birth unknown; enthroned 25 December, 1046; d. 9 October, 1047. In the autumn of 1046 the King of Germany, Henry III, crossed the Alps at the head of a large army and accompanied by a brilliant retinue of the secular and ecclesiastical princes of the empire, for the twofold purpose of receiving the imperial crown and of restoring order in the Italian peninsula. The condition of Rome in particular was deplorable. In St. Peter’s, the Lateran, and St. Mary Major’s, sat three rival claimants to the papacy. (See Benedict IX.) Two of them, Benedict IX and Sylvester III, represented rival factions of the Roman nobility. The position of the third, Gregory VI, was peculiar. The reform party, in order to free the city from the intolerable yoke of the House of Tusculum, and the Church from the stigma of Benedict’s dissolute life, had stipulated with that stripling that he should resign the tiara upon receipt of a certain amount of money. That this heroic measure for delivering the Holy See from destruction was simoniacal, has been doubted by many; but that it bore the outward aspect of simony and would be considered a flaw in Gregory’s title, consequently in the imperial title Henry was seeking, was the opinion of that age.

Strong in the consciousness of his good intentions, Gregory met King Henry at Piacenza, and was received with all possible honours. It was decided that he should summon a synod to meet at Sutri near Rome, at which the entire question should be ventilated. The proceedings of the Synod of Sutri, 20 December, are well summarized by Cardinal Newman in his “Essays Critical and Historical” (II, 262 sqq.). Of the three papal claimants, Benedict refused to appear; he was again summoned and afterwards pronounced deposed at Rome. Sylvester was “stripped of his sacerdotal rank and shut up in a monastery”. Gregory showed himself to be, if not an idiota, at least a man miræ simplicitatis, by explaining in straightforward speech his compact with Benedict, and he made no other defence than his good intentions, and deposed himself (Watterich, Vitæ Rom. Pont., I, 76); an act by some interpreted as a voluntary resignation, by others (Hefele), in keeping with the contemporary annals, as a deposition by the synod. The Synod of Sutri adjourned to meet again in Rome 23 and 24 December. Benedict, failing to appear, was condemned and deposed in contumaciam, and the papal chair was declared vacant. As King Henry was not yet crowned emperor, he had no canonical right to take part in the new election; but the Romans had no candidate to propose and begged the monarch to suggest a worthy subject.

Henry's first choice, the powerful Adalbert, Archbishop of Bremen, positively refused to accept the burden and suggested his friend Suidger, Bishop of Bamberg. In spite of the latter’s protests, the king took him by the hand and presented him to the acclaiming clergy and people as their spiritual chief. Suidger’s reluctance was finally overcome, though he insisted upon retaining the bishopric of his beloved see. He might be pardoned for fearing that the turbulent Romans would ere long send him back to Bamberg. Moreover, since the king refused to give back to the Roman See its possessions usurped by the nobles and the Normans, the pope was forced to look to his German bishopric for financial support. He was enthroned in St. Peter’s on Christmas Day and took the name of Clement II. He was born in Saxony of noble parentage, was first a canon in Halberstadt, then chaplain at the court of King Henry, who on the death of Eberhard, the first Bishop of Bamberg, appointed him to that important see. He was a man of strictest integrity and severe morality. His first pontifical act was to place the imperial crown upon his benefactor and the queen-consort, Agnes of Aquitaine. The new emperor received from the Romans and the pope the title and diadem of a Roman Patricius, a dignity which, since the tenth century, owing to the uncanonical pretensions of the Roman aristocracy, was commonly supposed to give the bearer the right of appointing the pope, or, more exactly speaking, of indicating the person to be chosen (Hefele). Had not God given His Church the inalienable right of freedom and independence, and sent her champions determined to enforce this right, she would now have simply exchanged the tyrrany of Roman factions for the more serious thraldom to a foreign power. The fact that Henry had protected the Roman Church and rescued her from her enemies gave him no just claim to become her lord and master. Short-sighted reformers, even men like St. Peter Damiani (Opusc., VI, 36) who saw in this surrender of the freedom of papal elections to the arbitrary will of the emperor the opening of a new era, lived long enough to regret the mistake that was made. With due recognition of the prominent part taken by the Germans in the reformation of the eleventh century, we cannot forget that neither Henry III nor his bishops understood the importance of absolute independence in the election of the officers of the Church. This lesson was taught them by Hildebrand, the young chaplain of Gregory VI, whom they took to Germany with his master, only to return with St. Leo IX to begin his immortal career. Henry III, the sworn enemy of simony, never took a penny from any of his appointees, but he claimed a right of appointment which virtually made him head of the Church and paved the way for intolerable abuses under his unworthy successors.

Clement lost no time in beginning the work of reform. At a great synod in Rome, January, 1047, the buying and selling of things spiritual was punished with excommunication; anyone who should knowingly accept ordination at the hands of a prelate guilty of simony was ordered to do canonical penance for forty days. A dispute for precedence between the Sees of Ravenna, Milan, and Aquileia was settled in favour of Ravenna, the bishop of which was, in the absence of the emperor, to take his station at the pope’s right. Clement accompanied the emperor in a triumphal progress through Southern Italy and placed Benevento under an interdict for refusing to open its gates to them. Proceeding with Henry to Germany, he canonized Wiborada, a nun of St. Gall, martyred by the Huns in 925. On his way back to Rome he died near Pesaro. That he was poisoned by the partisans of Benedict IX is a mere suspicion without proof. He bequeathed his mortal remains to Bamberg, in the great cathedral of which his marble sarcophagus is to be seen at the present day. He is the only pope buried in Germany. Many zealous ecclesiastics, notably the Bishop of Liège, now exerted themselves to reseat in the papal chair Gregory VI, whom, together with his chaplain, Henry held in honourable custody; but the emperor unceremoniously appointed Poppo, Bishop of Brixen, who took the name of Damasus II. (See Gregory VI; Benedict IX.)

BARONIUS, Annales Eccl., ad ann. 1046, 1047; LAFITEAU, La vie de Clément II (Padua, 1752); WILL, Die Anfänge der Restauration der Kirche im XI. Jahrhundert (Marburg, 1859); WITTMANN, Clemens II. in Archiv. f. kathol. Kirchenrecht (1884), LI, 238; VON REUMONT, Gesch. d. Stadt Rom (Berlin, 1867), II, 339-44; ARTAUD DE MONTOR, History of the Roman Pontiffs (New York, 1867); HEINEMANN, Der Patriziat d. deutschen Könige (Halle, 1887); HEFELE, Conciliengesch., IV, 7606-14.

Bibliography

• Dechant, Alfons; Göller, Luitgar (1997). Clemens II., der Papst aus Bamberg: 24 Dezember 1046 – 9 Oktober 1047 (in German). Bamberg: St.-Otto-Verlag. ISBN 978-3876930787.
• Dolley, M. (1969). "Some Neglected Evidence from Irish Chronicles Concerning the Alleged Poisoning of Pope Clement II," Frühmittelalterliche Studien 3, 1969, pp. 343–346.
• Gresser, Georg (2007). Clemens II.: der erste deutsche Reformpapst (in German). Paderborn: Schöningh. ISBN 978-3506763297.
• Mann, Horace K. (1902). The lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages Volume V (London, K. Paul, Trench, Trübner, & co.), pp. 270–285.
• Migne, J.-P., ed. (1880). Patrologiae cursus completus, Series Latina (in Latin). Vol. Tomus CXLII (142). Paris: apud Garnier fratres, apud J.-P. Migne. pp. 577–590.
• Timmel, R. (1982). "Bischof Suidger von Bamberg – Papst Clemens II., † 1047," Fränkische Lebensbilder 10, 1982, pp. 1–19.
• Zimmermann, G. (1980). "Bischof Suidger von Bamberg – Papst Clemens II.," in: Sorge um den Menschen. Festschrift zum 25jährigen Bischofsjubiläum von Alterzbischof Joseph Schneider, (ed. H.G. Röhrig) Bamberg 1980, pp. 125–135.

External links

• Laqua, Hans Peter (2000). "Clemente II" Enciclopedia dei papi (Treccani 2000).