Pope Sergius IV (died 12 May 1012) was the

bishop of Rome The pope is the bishop of Rome and the visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the pope was the sovereign or head of sta ...

and nominal ruler of the

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from 31 July 1009 to his death. His temporal power was eclipsed by the patrician John Crescentius. Sergius IV may have called for the expulsion of Muslims from the

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, but this is disputed. Since his time, the practice that the person who has been elected to the office of pope takes on a new name became a tradition.

Early life

Pietro Martino Buccaporci was born in

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in the "Pina" district, at an unknown date, the son of Peter the Shoemaker and Stephania. ''Buccaporci'' ("Pig's snout") was neither his birth name nor the name of his family, but apparently a nickname given to him because of his personal habits. In 1004, he became the

bishop of Albano The Diocese of Albano () is a Latin suburbicarian see of the Diocese of Rome in Italy, comprising seven towns in the Province of Rome. Albano Laziale is situated on the Appian Way some from Rome. Since 1966, it has both a titular bishop and a ...

.Mann, Horace. "Pope Sergius IV." The Catholic Encyclopedia
Vol. 13. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. 8 November 2017 He was elected

pope The pope is the bishop of Rome and the Head of the Church#Catholic Church, visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the po ...

after the

abdication Abdication is the act of formally relinquishing monarchical authority. Abdications have played various roles in the Order of succession, succession procedures of monarchies. While some cultures have viewed abdication as an extreme abandonment of ...

of John XVIII in 1009, and adopted the name Sergius IV.

Pontificate

The power held by Sergius IV was small and often overshadowed by the patrician, John Crescentius, the ruler of the city of Rome at the time. With the help of Crescentius, Sergius resisted the attempts of Emperor Otto III to establish control over Rome. Sergius IV acted to relieve famine in the city, and he exempted several monasteries from episcopal rule. A

papal bull A papal bull is a type of public decree, letters patent, or charter issued by the pope of the Catholic Church. It is named after the leaden Seal (emblem), seal (''bulla (seal), bulla'') traditionally appended to authenticate it. History Papal ...

calling for

Muslims Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

to be driven from the

after the

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was destroyed in 1009 by the

Fatimid The Fatimid Caliphate (; ), also known as the Fatimid Empire, was a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries CE under the rule of the Fatimid dynasty, Fatimids, an Isma'ili Shi'a dynasty. Spanning a large area of North Africa ...

caliph A caliphate ( ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with Khalifa, the title of caliph (; , ), a person considered a political–religious successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad and a leader of ...

al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah Abu Ali al-Mansur (; 13 August 985 – 13 February 1021), better known by his regnal name al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah (), was the sixth Fatimid caliph and 16th Ismaili imam (996–1021). Al-Hakim is an important figure in a number of Shia Ism ...

has been attributed to Sergius IV, although its authenticity has long been a matter of debate. Carl Erdmann considered it genuine, but it was rejected at length by Aleksander Gieysztor, who suggested that it was actually invented around the time of the

First Crusade The First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the Middle Ages. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Muslim conquest ...

in order to help justify that expedition to

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

. Subsequently, Hans Martin Schaller has argued for the document's authenticity.

Death and legacy

Sergius died on 12 May 1012 and was buried in the Basilica of St. John Lateran. Although not canonized, Sergius is sometimes venerated as a saint by the

Benedictine The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict (, abbreviated as O.S.B. or OSB), are a mainly contemplative monastic order of the Catholic Church for men and for women who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. Initiated in 529, th ...

s of which he was a member. There was some suspicion that he was murdered, as he died within a week of Crescentius, considered by many to have been his patron. Sergius was followed in the papacy by Benedict VIII.

References

Sources

* :: {{DEFAULTSORT:Sergius 4 Popes Italian popes Cardinal-bishops of Albano 11th-century archbishops 1012 deaths Year of birth unknown 11th-century popes Burials at the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran