Benedict III

Benedict was a Roman, the son of Peter, cardinal priest of San Callisto, chosen by clergy and people in July 855 after their first choice had refused. The delegation sent to Louis II for approval was intercepted at Orte by Bishop Arsenius, whose son Anastasius, deposed and excommunicated by Leo IV two years before, wanted the papacy for himself. The imperial envoys were won over, entered Rome with Anastasius, tore Leo's sentence against him from the doors of Saint Peter's, stripped Benedict of his vestments, and locked him up. Anastasius sat in the Lateran for three days. The Roman clergy would not celebrate with him, the people would not acclaim him, and the envoys, finding they had installed a pope no one would obey, gave way. Benedict was consecrated on 29 September 855 in their presence.

His three years were quiet by comparison. King Aethelwulf of Wessex spent a year in Rome with his son Alfred, rebuilt the burned English quarter, and left gifts that fill a page of the Liber Pontificalis. Benedict repaired the churches damaged by the Tiber flood of 856. In the East he refused to confirm the patriarch Ignatius's deposition of Gregory Asbestas of Syracuse unheard, insisting on Rome's right of review, and in the West he rebuked the Frankish bishops for tolerating Ingiltrude, wife of Count Boso, who had left her husband for a lover. He died on 17 April 858 and was buried in Saint Peter's. Anastasius, unexpectedly, was not finished.