medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
The Alsatian Bruno of Eg(u)isheim and Dagsburg (also Bruno of Toul) came from a comital family with connections to the German kingly house. He was educated at the cathedral school of Toul and at the court of Conrad II. As a young man he commanded the Alsatian contingent on campaign in Lombardy. At the ripe old age of twenty-four Bruno was named bishop of Toul, of whose cathedral he was already a canon, and was exempted from paying the usual cash donation to the king. Thus untainted by simony, Bruno proceeded to serve as a reforming bishop of Toul for about twenty years. He was elected pope on the nomination of Henry III in 1048 and was consecrated in 1049, taking the name Leo.
Leo was a very active pope, presiding over numerous synods and repeatedly taking strong stands against simony, lay investiture, and nicolaism. He traveled widely, consecrating many churches and granting privileges to numerous monasteries. Leo's diplomatic dealings with the church of Constantinople were disastrous, leading famously to his excommunication by the patriarch Michael Cerularius. So too were his interventions in the temporal affairs of the Italian south. Defeated militarily by the Normans at Civitate in northern Apulia in 1053, he became a political prisoner at Benevento for eight months. Already ill upon his release in March 1054 (though his captors had treated him with great respect), the aged pontiff died on this day shortly after his return to Rome. Miracles were reported at his tomb. We have an extensive Vita of Leo by a cleric of Toul whom modern scholarship now calls pseudo-Wibert (BHL 4818; begun while Leo was still living); one of his briefer Vitae was written by Bruno of Segni (BHL 4826). Bl. Victor III canonized Leo through elevation in 1087.
Some period-pertinent images of pope St. Leo IX:
a) as depicted (at left, consecrating the abbey church of St. Arnulf at Metz) in a later eleventh-century copy of his Vita BHL 4818 (Bern, Burgerbibliothek, Cod. 292, fol. 92r):
http://www.habsburg.net/typo3temp/pics/5fe6f91c55.jpg
b)as depicted (expelling a demon) in a twelfth-century copy of his Vita BHL 4818 (Cologny, Fondation Martin Bodmer, Cod. Bodmer 127, fols. 190v - 201r, at fol. 191r):
http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/de/fmb/cb-0127/191r
c) as depicted in what is said to be a twelfth-century codex from the abbey of Zwiefalten (perh. Stuttgart, Württembergische Landesbibliothek, Cod. hist. 2o 415 [ca. 1162]):
https://www.heiligenlexikon.de/Fotos/Leo_IX3.jpg
d) as depicted (at upper left) in John Berard's late twelfth-century cartulary chronicle of the abbey of San Clemente a Casauria (Paris, BnF, ms. Latin 5411, fol. 218v):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84526553/f448.item.zoom
e) as depicted (at far right) in a probably fifteenth-century fresco in the romitorio di Selva Oscura outside of Bassiano (LT) in southern Lazio:
http://tinyurl.com/zq76n58
f) as twice depicted (with a leper; in his chamber) in a mid-fifteenth-century copy of Giovanni Colonna's _Mare historiarum_ (betw. 1447 and 1455; Paris, BnF, ms. Latin 4915, fol. 341r):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6000905v/f751.item.zoom
g) as depicted (legendarily) in the late fifteenth-century Holy Blood altarpiece (1489) from the abbey of Weingarten, now in the Landesmuseum Württemberg in Stuttgart:
1) informed by the emperor Henry III of the revelation of the relic's existence in Mantua:
http://tinyurl.com/hg6f76q
2) setting out for Mantua with the emperor and duke Boniface:
http://tinyurl.com/h3nrsk7
3) shown by the blind Adilbero where the relic lay hidden:
http://tinyurl.com/jf95xxd
4) holding the now unearthed box containing the relic (Adilbero no longer blind):
http://tinyurl.com/zfffaqq
5) prevented from removing the entire relic from Mantua:
http://tinyurl.com/jxkyvca
6) holding his part of the relic before the newly built church in Mantua housing that city's part of the relic (at left: the relic is split):
http://tinyurl.com/h4thdjq
7) leaving Mantua along with the emperor:
http://tinyurl.com/j53bmbm
Best,
John Dillon
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