Damasus II, Pope
DAMASUS II, POPE
Pontificate: July 17, 1048 to Aug. 9, 1048. b. Poppo; d. at Palestrina. A Bavarian, he owed his bishopric of Brixen to Emperor henry iii. He rose to prominence in the reform synods of 1046. When Pope clement ii died on Oct. 9, 1047, the deposed Pope benedict ix again seized Rome. At Poehlde an anti-Tuscan delegation waited on Emperor Henry, who by virtue of his title, patricius romanorum, gave them Poppo to be pope. Margrave Boniface of Tuscany forcibly cleared Rome for the papal coronation on July 17, 1048, but within 23 days Damasus died of malaria.
Bibliography: Liber Pontificalis, ed. l. duchesne (Paris 1886–1958) 2. h. k. mann, The Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages from 590 to 1304 (London 1902–32) 6. a. hauck, Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands (Berlin-Leipzig 1958) 3. a. fliche, La Réforme Grégorienne, v.8 of Histoire de l'église depuis les origines jusqu'à nos jours (Paris 1935). f. x. seppelt, Geschichte der Päpste von den Anfängen bis zur Mitte des 20. Jr. (Munich 1954–59) 3. a. van roey, Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie eccléastiques, ed. a. baudrillart et al. (Paris 1912) 14:53–54. p. bertolini, Dizionario biografico delgi italiani 32 (Rome 1995). g. schwaiger, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, 3d. ed., (1994). j.n. d. kelly, Oxford Dictionary of Popes (New York 1986) 146–147.
[v. gellhaus]