Pope Sergius IV
?–1012 CE · Rome
Sergius IV, born Pietro, the son of a Roman shoemaker, was bishop of Albano before becoming pope. Like his immediate predecessors he ruled under the Crescentii, and his pontificate is poorly documented. A letter attributed to him calling for the liberation of the Holy Sepulchre—after its destruction by the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim in 1009—was long cited as a precursor of the Crusades, but most scholars now regard it as a later forgery. He died in 1012, within days of the patrician Giovanni Crescenzio, after which the rival Tusculani family seized control of the papacy.
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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 John XII, Pope Sylvester II, Pope Gregory V, Pope Gregory VI, Pope John XIX, Pope Benedict VIII
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with Pope Sergius IV’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
In the same tradition
Pope John XII, Pope Sylvester II, Pope Gregory V, Pope Gregory VI, Pope John XIX, Pope Benedict VIII, Pope John XVIII, Pope John XVII, Pope John XV, Pope John XIV, Pope Benedict VII, Pope Benedict VI, Pope John XIII, Pope Benedict V, Pope Leo VIII, Pope Agapetus II, Pope Marinus II, Pope Stephen VIII
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Pope Sergius IV’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Works
No works attributed in the corpus yet.