Claude J.Fouillade
Legrand, Jacques. L’archiloge Sophie; Livre de bonnes meurs, ed. Evencio Beltran. Paris:
Champion, 1986.
LEO IX
(1002–1054). Pope. Born of Alsatian nobility at Egisheim, Bruno, the future Leo IX, was
educated from an early age at Toul, by Bishop Berthold. After entering an ecclesiastical
career, he accompanied the emperor Conrad II on campaign in Lombardy in 1025 and
became bishop of Toul by imperial appointment in 1026. Known for his piety and
intelligence, Bruno set out to reform the church in his diocese and took advantage of
imperial privileges to achieve his goal. After twenty-two years at Toul, Bruno was
elevated to the papal see by his cousin, Henry III, at Worms in 1048. He was the second
of four German churchmen so elevated by the emperor.
Taking the name of Leo IX, Bruno immediately set out to reform the church
throughout Europe. He traveled widely and spent barely six months in Rome after his
coronation. In 1049, he made the first of several trips north of the Alps, heading first to
Reims, the principal see of France, where the bishops and abbots of the realm were
gathered for a synod. There, he demanded an accounting from suspected simoniacs, those
who had bought their ecclesiastical office. Prelates who thought it more discreet not to
attend the synod were immediately deposed and excommunicated. Leo enforced his
policy for the German realm in a synod held a few weeks later at Mainz.
The following year, at a great synod held in Rome shortly after Easter, Leo took aim at
what was considered the other great clerical abuse of the time, clerical incontinence.
Scandalized by the sexual mores of many clergy and fired by the monastic ideal, Leo
pronounced celibacy to be the norm for the clergy and called for a boycott of priests and
deacons who violated this norm.
Leo also dealt with the heresy of Berengar of Tours over the eucharistic presence of
Christ and the controversy with Michael Cerularius, the patriarch of Constantinople, over
differences in liturgical practice (and implicitly the dignity of Rome), especially the use
of leavened or unleavened bread in the eucharist. The Eastern Schism is traditionally
dated from this controversy.
Although Leo’s reign was marked by many successes, it ended on an ignominious
note: in 1053, he led an expedition of Swabian troops to southern Italy to resist the
encroachments of the Normans, who crushed the papal army at Civitella and captured
Leo. He remained under virtual house arrest near Bari until April 1054. Gravely ill, he
returned to Rome just weeks before his death.
Leo IX brought to the papal court some of the most outstanding clerics of his day,
among them Hildebrand, the future Gregory VII; Humbert of Silva Candida, his legate to
Constantinople; and Peter Damian, a champion of the monastic ideal. It was while Leo
was on the papal throne that the cardinal clergy of Rome became more than liturgical
functionaries and that the laws of the church were compiled in support of the reform in
the Collection in Seventy-four Titles (Diversorum patrum sententiae).
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1020