Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 15.djvu/468

 VICTOR

410

VICTOR

and Pontius of Aix papal legates to battle against the same vices in Southern France. Late in the sum- mer of the same year he accepted the urgent invitation of the emperor to come to Germany, arriving at Goslar on 8 September. He accompanied Henry III to Botfeld in the Hartz Mountains where on 5 October he witnessed the untimely death of the em- peror. Before his death, the emperor entrusted his six-year-old successor, Henry IV, and the regency of the kingdom to the pope. On 28 October, after burying the emperor in the cathedral at Speyer, he secured the imperial succession of Henry IV by having him solemnh' enthroned at Aachen. He still further strengthened the position of the boy-king by recom- mending him to the loyalty of the princes at the im- perial Diet which he convened at Cologne early in December, and at the court Diet of Ratisbon on Christmas Day.

Leaving the regency of Germany in the hands of Agnes, mother of Henry IV, Victor returned to Rome in February, 1057, where he presided over a council at the Lateran on 18 April. On 1-1 June he created Frederick, whom he had a month jireviously helped to the abbacy of Monte Cassino, Cardinal-priest of San Crisogono, thus gaining the friendship of the powerful Duke Godfrey of Lorraine, a brother of the new cardinal. He then went to Tuscany, where he settled (23 July) a jurisdictional dispute between the Bishops of Arezzo and Siena at a synod held in the palace of St. Donatus near Arezzo; five days later he died. His attendants wished to bring his remains to the cathedral at Eichstatt for burial. On their way thither, the remains were forcibly taken from them by some citizens of Ravenna and buried there in the Church of Santa Maria Rotonda, the burial- place of Theodoric the Great.

The chief sources for the life of Victor II are the narrations of an anonymous writer of Herrieden, Anontmus Haserensis. a contemporary of Henry IV; they are printed in Mon. Germ. Hist.: Script.. VII. 263 sq.; Mann, The Lives of the Popes in the Middle Ages, VI (London, 1910), 1S3-206; Joris, Victor II, pope et rigent de Vempire inRevue du monde cathoti<iue(18G2-3),l\\560- ^2■, V, 46-61; HoFLER, Die deutsch. Pdpste, II (Ratisbon, 1839). 217-68; Steindorff in Allgemeine deutsch. Biographic, XXXIX (Leipzig, 1895), 670-3; Idem, Jahrbucher des deutsch. Reiches unter Heinrich III, I, II (Leipzig, 1874-81); Meyer von Kno- N-AU, Jnhrb. des deutsch. Reiches unter Heinrich IV. u. Heinrich V, I ^Leipzig, 1S90); Lefflad, Regesten der BischOfe von Eichstddt, I (Eichstadt, 1871); Sax, Die Bischofe u. Reichsjursten von Eich- stddt, I (Landshut, 1884), 39, 43; Will, Viktor II als Papst und Reichsverweser in Tiibinger Theol. Quartalschrift (1862), 185- 243; jAFFfc, Reoesta Pontif. Rom. (Leipzig, 1885-8), I, 549-553; II. 710-1. 750; Watterich, Pontif. rom. vitce, I (Leipzig, 1862), 177-88; Liber vontif., ed. Duchesne, II, 277.

MiCHAEl. OtT.

Victor III, Blessed, Pope (Dauferius or Dac- fak), b. in 1026 or 1027 of a non-regnant branch of the Lombard dukes of Benevento; d. in Rome, 16 Sept., 10S7. Being an only son his desire to embrace the monastic state was strenuously opposed by both his parents. After his father's death in battle with the Normans, 1047, he fled from the marriage which had been arranged for him and though brought back by force, eventually after a second flight to Cava obtained permission to enter the monastery of S. Sophia at Benevento where he received the name of Desiderius. The life at S. Sophia was not strict enough for the young monk who betook himself first to the island monastery of Tremite in the Adriatic and in 10.53 to some hermits at Majella in the .\h- nizzi. About this time he was brought to the notice of St. Loo IX and it is probable th;it the pope employed him at Benevento to negotiatepeace with the Xoniuuis after the fatal battle of Civitate. S.imewhnt later Desiderius attached himself to the Covirt of Victor 11 at Florence and there met two monks of Monte Cas- sino, with whom he returned to their mon;istery in 10,55. He joined the cninmunity, and was shortly afterwards appointed siiperior of the dependent house at Capua. In 1057 Stephen IX (XI who had retained the abbacy of Monte Cassino came thither

and at Christmas, believing himself to be dying, or- dered the monks to elect a new abbot. Their choice fell on Desiderius. The pope recovered, and, desiring to retain the abbacy during his lifetime, appointed the abbot-designate his legate for Constantinople. It was at Bari, when about to sail for the East, that the news of the pope's death reached Desiderius. Hav- ing obtained a safe-conduct from Robert Guiscard, the Norman Count (later Duke) of Apulia, he re- turned to his monastery and was duly installed by Cardinal Humbert on Easter Daj', 1058. A year later he was ordained cardinal-priest of the title of S. Cecelia and received the abbatial blessing.

Desiderius was the greatest of all the abbots of Monte Cassino with the exception of the founder, and as such won for himself "imperishable fame" (Gre- gorovius). He rebuilt the church and conventual buildings, established schools of art and re-established monastic discipline so that there were 200 monks in the momvstery in his day (see Monte Cassino). On

1 Oct., 1071, the new and magnificent Basilica of Monte Cassino was consecrated by Alexander II. Desiderius's great reputation brought to the abbey many gifts and exemptions. The monej- was spent on church ornaments of which the most notable were a great golden altar front from Constantinople, adorned with gems and enamels and "nearly all the church ornaments of Victor II which had been pawned here and there throughout the city" [Chron. Cass., Ill, 18 (20) ]. The bronze and silver doors of the Cassinese Basilica which Desiderius erected rernain, and in the Church of S. Angelo in Formis near Capua some of the frescoes executed by his ortlers may still be seen. Peter the Deacon gives (op. cit., Ill, 63) a list of some seventy books which Desiderius caused to be copied at Monte Cassino ; they include works of Sts. Augustine, Ambrose, Bede, Basil, Jerome, Gregorj' of Nazianzus, and Cassian, the regist ers of Popes Felix and Leo, the histories of Josephus, Paul Warnfrid, Jordanus, and Gregorj' of Tours, the" Institutes "and "Novels" of Justinian, the works of Terence, Virgil, and Seneca, Cicero's "De natura deorum", and Ovid's "Fasti".

Desiderius had been appointed papal vicar for Campania, Apulia, Calabria, and the Principality of Beneventum with special powers for the reform of monasteries; so great was his reputation with the Holy See that he " w;is allowed by the Roman Pontiff to appoint Bishops and Abbots from among his brethren in whatever churches or monasteries he de- sired of those which had been widowed of their patron" (Chron. Cas., Ill, 34).

Within two years of the consecration of the Cas- sinese Basilica, Pope Alexander died and was suc- ceeded by Hildebrand. Undoubtedly the chief im- portance of Desiderius in papal history lies in his influence with the Normans, an influence which he was able repeatedly to exert in favour of the Holy See. Already in 1059 he had persmided Robert Guiscard and Richard of Capua to become v.issals of St. Peter for their newly conquered territories: now Gregory VII immediately after his election sent for him to give an account of the state of Norman It.tly and entrusted him with the negotiation of an inter- view with Robert Guiscard. This took place on

2 Aug., 1073, at Benevento. In 1074 and 1076 he acted as intermediarv', probably a.s Gregor>''s agent, between the Norman princes themsel\-es, and even when the Iatti>r were at open war with the pope, they still maintained the best relations with Monte Cas- sino (end of 1076). At the end of 1080 it was Deside- rius who obtained Norman troops for Gregorj'. In 1082 he visite<l the emperor at .Mliano, while the troops of the Imperialist antipope were harassing the pope from Tivoli. In 1083 the peace-loving abbot joined Hugh of Cluny in an attempt to reconcile pope and emperor, and his proceedings seem to have arousetl some suspicion in Gregory's entourage. In