(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).
Gilchrist, John T., trans. Collection in Seventy-four Titles: A Canon Law Manual of the Gregorian Reform. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1980.
