Pope Benedict VI was pope from January 973 to June 974. His brief pontificate came in the political context of the founding of the Holy Roman Empire, during the transition between the reigns of German emperors Otto I and Otto II and the struggle for power of aristocratic families such as the Crescentii and Tusculani in the region of Rome.
Benedict VI was born in Rome, the son of Hildebrand. He was elected and installed as pope under the protection of Otto I, whose dominance in Roman and ecclesial affairs was resisted by local aristocracy. Record of his reign as pope is scant, though he is known to have confirmed privileges assumed by certain monasteries and churches.
Otto I died soon after Benedict's election in 973, and in 974 Benedict was imprisoned in the Castel Sant'Angelo, at that time a stronghold of the Crescentii. When Otto II sent an imperial representative, Count Sicco, to secure his release, Crescentius I and Cardinal-Deacon Franco Ferrucci, who would subsequently become Boniface VII, an antipope, had Benedict murdered while still in prison.
Famous quotes containing the words pope and/or benedict:
“From pride, from pride, our very reas’ning springs;
Account for moral, as for nat’ral things:
Why charge we Heav’n in those, in these acquit?
In both, to reason right is to submit.”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“The mere fact of leaving ultimate social control in the hands of the people has not guaranteed that men will be able to conduct their lives as free men. Those societies where men know they are free are often democracies, but sometimes they have strong chiefs and kings. ... they have, however, one common characteristic: they are all alike in making certain freedoms common to all citizens, and inalienable.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)