Reform and Investiture1046-1198
Damasus II
Henry III's second German nominee, who needed a Tuscan margrave to clear Benedict IX out of Rome, then reigned twenty-three days.
Pope no. 1511048
When Clement II died in October 1047, Benedict IX came down from Tusculum and took Rome back for the third time. A Roman delegation crossed the Alps to ask Henry III for another pope, and the emperor named Poppo, bishop of Brixen in the Tyrol, a Bavarian of no great distinction who had served him steadily.
Poppo could not simply walk in. Benedict held the city, and it took Boniface, margrave of Tuscany, acting under an imperial threat, to expel him. Only on 17 July 1048 was the new pope enthroned as Damasus II. Seventeen days later he left the summer city for the hills at Palestrina, and on 9 August he was dead.
He is buried in San Lorenzo fuori le Mura. Nothing survives that can be called a policy, and no synod met under him. His importance is arithmetical: he is the second of the four German popes Henry III gave to Rome, and the death that made room for the third, who mattered more than all the rest together.
A full essay on this pope is in preparation. The facts and summary above are complete and sourced.
Sources
- J. N. D. Kelly and Michael Walsh, The Oxford Dictionary of Popes (2010)
- Eamon Duffy, Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes (2014)
- I. S. Robinson, The Papacy 1073-1198: Continuity and Innovation (1990)
- Further reading: Wikipedia