Pope Benedict VII
?–983 CE · Rome
Benedict VII, a Roman aristocrat related to Alberic II and previously bishop of Sutri, was elected in 974 with imperial support after the antipope Boniface VII fled with the papal treasury. His relatively long and stable reign brought a measure of order following years of violent factionalism. A reform-minded pope, he convened a synod condemning simony, strongly promoted monastic life and the Cluniac reform movement, and cooperated with Emperor Otto II in reorganizing church provinces, including ecclesiastical arrangements in Germany. He sought to consolidate papal authority and restore the dignity of the office. His pontificate is generally judged a constructive interlude amid the turbulence of the tenth-century papacy. He died in 983.
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RomeרומאItaly
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Rome in this era
Between the 8th and 15th centuries Rome was the seat of the popes and capital of the Papal States, which grew from the Frankish king Pepin's grant of 756; Charlemagne was crowned emperor in St Peter's in 800. The city shrank far below its ancient size, and from 1309 to 1377 the popes resided at Avignon before returning to Rome.
About Rome
Rome, on the Tiber in central Italy, grew from an Iron Age settlement into the capital of the Roman Republic and then of an empire that by the 1st century CE ruled the whole Mediterranean. Its Jewish community, attested from the 2nd century BCE, is among the oldest in Europe. Christian tradition holds that the apostles Peter and Paul died there, and the city became the seat of the popes. After the Western Empire ended in 476 it passed to Gothic kings, to Byzantium and then to papal rule as capital of the Papal States, until it became the capital of unified Italy in 1871. Vatican City, independent since 1929, lies within it.
In Rome at the same time
Pope Gregory VI, Pope John XIX, Pope Sergius IV, Pope John XVIII, Pope John XVII, Pope John XV
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with Pope Benedict VII’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
In the same tradition
Pope Gregory VI, Pope John XIX, Pope Sergius IV, Pope John XVIII, Pope John XVII, Pope John XV, Pope John XIV, Pope Benedict VI
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Pope Benedict VII’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Works
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