Pope Benedict IX: very young, often enthroned

Theophyl­ac­t­us of Tusculum (c1020–c1056) became the youngest pope ever as Pope Benedict IX. The date of his birth was uncer­t­ain but his first papacy DID start in 1032. Benedict was great-grandson of Marozia, a powerful Roman polit­ician who ?was mist­ress of Pope Sergius III. Via Mar­ozia, Sergius possibly sired Pope John IX. Several of Mar­ozia's descendants became popes, and Ben­edict's immediate predecessors were his loved unc­les Popes Bened­ict VIII and John XIX.  His father was Holy Roman Emperor Alberic. This was arguably the most power­ful Italian family, enabling the family to control the papacy for a century! 

                                          

Pope Benedict IX, c1030 

Hulton Archive

The Catholic Encyclopaedia said Benedict was c20 years old when he became pontiff. But the closest source to the pope himself was the monk-historian Rod­ulfus Glaber (985-1047). He was a critic of Benedict, but still he was one of the few contemp­or­ary sources available. He said the pope was 12 in 1032, the time of his accession! As did med­ieval scholar F Donald Logan, who wrote about Benedict IX in A History of the Church in the Middle Ages.

In terms of theology and activities of the Church, he was entirely orthodox. But Benedict was accused of sodomy, best­ial­ity and homo­sexuality; he was said to have held orgies inside Lat­eran Palace. Clois­tered monk St Peter Dam­ian was horrified and wrote a treat­ise ag­ain­st all sex, especially homosex­ual­ity. Damian’s Book of Gom­orrah said it had been ramp­ant within the Catholic Church for centuries.

Benedict was also accused by Bishop Benno of Piacenza of many ad­ul­t­eries and murders. As did Pope Victor III in his Book of Dial­og­ues. But Benedict came up with one sin that no one before or since has repl­icated: selling the papacy!

The first trouble came in 1036 when political oppon­ents tried to murder Bene­dict in St Peter's Basilica Rome during mass. But Ger­man Emp­eror Conrad II restored him to power before long, and Benedict stay­ed in Rome until 1045. In those years, he continued to steal and murd­er; fed up with him, the people of Rome again drove him out.

When Ben­edict was ousted, his enemies replaced him with the Bishop of Sabina, Pope Sylvester III. But it took only 2 months for Bened­ict IX to re-invade Rome with force, depose Sylvester and re­turn to pow­er again. Amaz­ing­ly Bened­ict allowed Sylvester to return safely to his old diocese, but Sylvester was later declared an anti-pope.

Benedict IX enjoyed his second papacy for c2 months, and then abdic­ated because his godfather arch­priest John Gratian gave him heaps of money. Bened­ict IX had really wanted to marry his cousin and decided he would finan­ce his new life by selling his pontificate to Gratian.

Benedict's tomb in the monastery, died at 35.
All That's Interesting

Grat­ian was a better choice for pope than his god­son. After sealing the deal, Gratian became Pope Greg­ory VI in May 1045. This deal annoyed Syl­vester III who imm­ediately sought to reinstate his own papacy. Gregory had bank­rupt­ed the church in buying out Benedict, so he couldn’t fight off a new claimant. His papacy lasted about as long as Sylv­ester's, but this time it took longer for Benedict to return to power.

Rome’s clergy broke into 3 factions, each supporting 1 claimant (Pope Gregory, Benedict, ex-Pope Sy­l­vester). So Henry III King of Germany & Burgundy invaded Rome and intervened. He met the candid­ates outside Rome in Dec 1046. King Henry wanted to resolve the crisis, so that the legit­im­ate new pope could quickly crown him as the Holy Roman Emperor.

But the Emperor had Sutri Council dismiss all 3 of them. Syl­vester tried to fight for his claim so he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Pope Gregory admitted he was in above his skill-level and resign­ed. Even though Benedict was assured of the support of the libert­ine fact­ion, the young man didn’t show up for the pro­c­eedings and was deposed. So King Henry's selected Bishop Sugier of Bam­berg to become Pope Clement II at Christmas 1046. In return Clement quickly crowned King Henry III as Holy Roman Emperor.

Pope Clement II died mysteriously in Oct 1047, af­ter serving only 11 months as Pope. So Benedict seized the Lateran Palace in Nov 1047, and again installed him­self on the papal throne. But Benedict was driven away by Henry III's German troops in July 1048 who installed Pope Damasus II (July-Aug 1048) instead. Damasus died a month later from ?malaria.

Even after one of the shortest pap­ac­ies in history, Benedict IX did NOT go for a fourth papal term. Emperor Henry III returned to Rome and made Leo IX pope (1049-54), the man who ruled for 6 years and brought stability to the pap­acy. Leo finally put an end to Bened­ict's aspir­at­ions! Benedict retired to a monastery near Rome where he repented and soon died, at only c36 years old.

Emperor Henry III at the Synod of Sutri, 
rejecting all three contenders for pope. 
Hulton Archive 

Conclusion 
What a story! Benedict’s father got the Papal chair for him in Oct 1032. Benedict had three terms as pope: 1] from his election to his expul­sion for Sylvester III (Oct 1032–Sept 1044); 2] from his return to his sel­ling the papacy to Gregory VI (Apr–May 1045); and 3] from his return post-Clement II to Damasus II (Nov 1047–July 1048)'s start. He ruled during a tumultuous church era with 7 diff­erent, rapid papacies, the only man to have been Pope more than once.

Note the close subordination of pope to German emperor. In fact the ful­filment of the emperor’s supreme duty was to watch over the welfare of the ch­urch; the emperor was the representative of St Peter on earth. Thus the 962-1046 era saw the empire at its zenith and the papacy much weaker.

Thank you to Luciano Anastasi for The Tale of Benedict IX: A Papacy for Sale.

Who'll win 2026 Booker Prize, by John Self

2026’s International Booker Prize shortlist writers are a diverse group, both geographically and in style, from main-stream blockbuster to experimental wittiness. Independent presses are rewarded for their efforts in promoting translated fiction, and recognising the translators.

1.German-Iranian novelist Shida Bazyar in her novel The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran (Scribe), translated by Ruth Martin, reminds that Iranians are the victims of history many times over. The story comes from 4 members of an Iranian family over 30 years. In 1979, young Behzad greets the Islamic revolution that deposes the Shah, but his hopes for a communist utopia are thwarted. Instead he’s surrounded by people who have been waiting for the chance to become bullies for life. He and his wife Nahid flee to Germany: she takes the story in 1989 & their daughter takes it in 1999.

Laleh visits Iran, amazed by the cultural differences from Germany. In 2009, Laleh’s brother Mo hears about protests across the Middle East, and his excitement: As soon as Ahmadinejad is gone, it’ll kick off in Egypt too and eventually all the dictators will be out; this is even more heart breaking given Iran today. A timely novel doesn’t always deliver but this one’s empathy could make it worthy.

2.The Witch (Vintage) translated by Jordan Stump is a deep cut from French novelist Marie NDiaye’s back catalogue in 1996. When my daughters turned 12 I initiated them into the mysterious powers, it opens irresistibly. Narrator Lucie has divination powers and can see people’s futures, and when she does, she cries tears of blood. She dislikes being a witch but still teaches her daughters, as her mum taught her.

Set against this weirdness is a complex comedy of domestic discontent: Lucie’s timeshare-salesman husband runs off with the family money; then she tries to reunite her separated parents. She begins to lose everyone, and her powers fail to help her; thus the book raises knotty questions about making use of our capabilities. This accessible but surprising novel is perfect for newcomers to NDiaye, but the acceleration of events as the story proceeds and the arbitrary ending is frustrating. It probably won’t win.

Shortlisted books in 2026

The Booker Prizes

3.In Brazilian Ana Paula Maia’s previous novel Of Cattle and Men, cows were slaughtered. Now in On Earth As It Is Beneath, translated by Padma Viswanathan, it’s the men’s turn. A penal colony for the worst criminals started out with 42 inmates: now there are only 3 prisoners as the warden, eaten away by the system he defends, keeps releasing, hunting and shooting them. Authorities are coming to close the colony down!

Strangely this book has classic sitcom elements: people who can’t get along, stuck together & facing one mess after another. The tension between absurdity and grotesque violence gives the book an effervescent energy, and turns it into an existential thriller, all in 100 pages. Confusion reigns, power balances shift, and nobody on the outside cares what happens to the men anyway. This brilliant novel is loosely connected to Of Cattle and Men; an eccentric but very deserving contender.

4.The most formally inventive book on this year’s shortlist is Bulgarian Rene Karabash’s She Who Remains (Peirene), translated by Izidora Angel. It’s narrated by a 33-year-old woman in rural Albania living under archaic traditions. The narrative jumps about, mostly told in a prose poetry without full-stops. Details bubble up through repetition: her violent father’s disappointment (your father wanted a son, but out came you); how years ago Bekija jilted her fiance and revenge was exacted by his family. Bekija decided to become a sworn virgin, i.e a woman who lives as a man.

There is powerful eye-catching and stomach-turning activity, plus a love story hidden deeply in the backstory, but the book’s eccentric form keeps the reader at a distance, and many elements will only make sense retrospectively. This may have benefited the novel in the Booker stakes, where the judges gain the benefit of things a first-time reader might miss. Still, this spiky story looks unlikely for the prize.

5.Equally experimental but more approachable is Taiwan Travelogue by Taiwanese writer Yáng Shuāng-zi, translated by Lin King. What’s going on here? What’s going on is a novel disguised as a rediscovered travel memoir, complete with multiple afterwords and fictional footnotes alongside the translator’s real ones. It’s set in 1938, where a Japanese-Taiwanese novelist Aoyama goes on a food tour of Taiwan.

Aoyama has monster appetites, which may be concealing something else: she grows fond of her female guide Chi-chan, but struggles to articulate it. Whenever I start craving something, anything, my stomach burns with this insatiable greed. You’ve been the only one to appease this monster. But social strictures of gender & class (Chi-chan is a concubine’s daughter) make things harder. This is a simple love story that educates as it entertains, though it takes a long time to get to where it’s going. The complex structure seems more like window dressing than essential to its ideas. It will charm many, but may not be weighty enough to win.

6.Daniel Kehlmann’s The Director (Riverrun), translated by Ross Benjamin, is the most mainstream novel here: delightful and illuminating literary fiction that animates the wartime experiences of German film-maker GW Pabst, one of the great directors. A master, a legend. Trapped in Germany when the borders close, Pabst must decide whether he will work for the Nazis if that’s the only way he can get to keep making films. The book is full of big characters, real and invented, an obsequious anti-Semitic caretaker; a threatening government minister; Leni Riefenstahl with her skull-like smile. Pabst believes I’m not a political person, but he must learn that everything is political now. No one can ignore what is happening: not film-makers; not prisoner of war PG Wodehouse, who narrates one chapter; not even humble critics. Critics? We have no critics! Criticism is a Jewish genre that no one needs. It is not only its traditional form and direct plot that make The Director stand out on the shortlist, but its range, wit and chilling relevance. This would be a very popular winner and a fully deserving one. The winner will be announced on 19th May.

What should win this year’s International Booker? by John Self Mon 18 May 2026. Winner to be announced at Tate Modern London, Tuesday 19th May 2026.

Latvian shoot-up London 1910-1

Few places in the world were as infamous for murders as the East End of London. Jack the Ripper, The Krays and 1811 Ratcliffe Highway murders were all frightening. But the Latvians threatening London’s East End were UNexpected. They arrived from the Russian Empire against an intense debate about the large numbers of struggling immigrants from Eastern Europe.

Matching the earlier horrors were 2 events in Dec 1910-Jan 1911. Houndsditch is a mainroad running from Bishopsgate to Aldgate High St. Located at 120 Houndsditch was an import business run by Max Weil. In mid Dec 1910 Weil arrived at #120 to find his sister and housemaid in a state of agitation. They heard noises coming from the jeweller’s shop next door, as if someone was breaking at the rear.

Latvian revolutionaries aka Leesma weren't revolutionaries; later research found the c13 members carried out robberies to fund Lenin and his Bolsheviks.

Home Secretary Churchill, watching the Siege close up

Wiki

#119 backed onto a flat at 11 Exchange Buildings. Weil alerted the police of a likely break-in to the Exchange Buildings jewellers. He returned with Constable Piper who knocked on #11’s door. Piper had a brief talk with the man who answered the door and then left to summon help. Fritz Svaars & Josef Sokoloff were from Latvia in the Russian Empire. They’d fled the country after a failed attempt to overthrow the Tsar in 1905. Robbing jewellers was to raise funds for their cause.

Cons. Piper returned with 3 sergeants and 5 constables. Sgt Bentley hit on the door which was answered by the same man who had spoken to Piper. After another brief talk, the man tried to shut the door in Bentley’s face. However the sergeant pushed his way into #11 and chaos erupted. Bentley received two gunshots in the neck. He staggered back through the doorway and died. Standing behind him, Sgt Bryant now saw the gun being turned on him, hitting him in the chest. Constable Woodhams ran to his assistance only to fall to a bullet in the thigh. Both Bryant and Woodhams survived their wounds but were invalided out of the police force. Sgt Tucker was shot in the heart by a man in doorway #11 and died. The killer ran from the building, followed by other men and a woman. As they fled, Cons. Walter Choat jumped out of the darkness at them, grabbing an escapee who fired bullets into his leg. A gang-member came behind Choat and shot 2 bullets in his back. Choat fell.

Murdered police officers, 

London Museum

The gangster who’d been shot by his own cohorts was found dead in his room a day later. George Gardstein had been the de facto leader of the gang of Latvian revolutionaries in Leesma! After Russia’s revolution, one Leesma member Jacob Peters was 2nd in command of Cheka, the feared Bolshevik secret police. Perhaps Latvian Peters had killed Englishmen Bentley, Tucker & Choat, and injured Bryant.

Metropolitan & City Police launched an operation to hunt down the surviving revolutionaries and by that year Peters & others were caught. In Jan 1911 a figure slipped at night into London City’s police headquarters in Old Jewry. Although not officially identified he was perhaps Charles Perelman, former landlord to some Leesma members. Perelman had important information: Svaars & Sokoloff were hiding in a 2nd floor room in Sidney St, armed with Mauser pistols.

On 3rd Jan a file of police officers wound through the silent East End to Sidney St, from Commercial Rd to the northern junction of Whitechapel and Mile End Rds. The officers hadn’t been told about the mission, but they knew that it was dangerous; married policemen were excluded! Some were armed but their weapons were antique, as compared to the powerful hand-guns the Latvians carried. On getting to Sidney St, the police evacuated the first two floors of #100 and by daybreak the stage was set.

Svaara & Sokoloff were soon alerted to their danger. The front door was banged and stones were hurled at the revolutionaries’ window. They answered with some shots. Det Sarg Leeson fell gravely wounded but like Bryant & Woodhams, he survived. Battle commenced, and despite being so heavily outnumbered, it was Svaars and Sokoloff who won the firefight. Equipped with rugged handguns, they easily beat the police’s inferior weapons.

Hours passed, so the police appealed to Scotland Yard for assistance and they in turn sought help. Home Secretary Winston Churchill permitted the army to respond and soon 20 Scots Guards arrived, changing the situation. And the fire brigade arrived, to prevent fire from spreading.

Firing line of Scots Guards. Sidney Street Siege

gravelroots

Now the soldiers elevated their efforts, shooting into #100’s windows. Sokoloff peered at the maelstrom but the burning house collapsed. The ceiling killed him, ending Sidney St’s siege. And one more death. On entering #100 District Fire Officer Charles Pearson was hit by falling masonry, severing his spine and dying 6 months later. A honour plaque to the dead first responders was unveiled there much later.

Detectives inspect the 100 Sidney St house, post-siege

Gravelroots

Other Latvian anarchists, Jacob Peters, Yourka Dubof, John Rosen & Nina Vassileve were tried for the Houndsditch murders in the East End but 3 of them were acquitted. Only Vassileve was found guilty of a minor offence, later quashed. Gardstein, Svaars and Sokoloff were “probably guilty”.

The police soon tracked other revolutionaries, offering rewards for the capture of named suspects. Well covered by the press and captured on newsreels, the Siege also had lasting impacts for the scared communities living in the East End’s early C20th: political refugees, socialists & ex-Eastern European Jews, including my Russian Jewish grandmother.

Read Devilish Kind of Courage: Anarchists, Aliens and the Siege of Sidney St, 2024, by Andrew Whitehead 

Denmark's Golden Age 1800-50: Hansen

The Golden Age (c1800-50) was an era of impressive creat­ivity in Denmark. Although Copenhagen had suffered from fires, bomb­ard­ment and bank­ruptcy, the centre of Denmark's intell­ectual life, first experienced huge fir­es in 1794 and 1795 which dest­royed both Chr­is­tiansborg Palace­ and much of the inner city. The arts took on a new era of cr­eat­ivity, imbued by German Romanticism. Danes from the arts and scienc­es became in­volved in a new era of Roman­tic nation­al­ism. Change became apparent, esp­ in painting. 

Wilhelm Bendz, another student of Eckersberg
Artist in the Evening at Finck's Coffee House 

in MunichThorvaldsen Museum, 1832

The early C19th was a tough time for Denmark-Norway. The crucial fig­ure was Christoffer Eckers­berg who taught at the Acad­emy­ from 1818-53, had an imp­or­t­ant in­fluence on the next gen­erat­ion, including Wilh­elm Bendz and Const­antin Hansen. While art had prev­iously served the monarchy and the Establish­ment, Henrik Steffens (1773–1845) and his st­udents real­ised that the moneyed classes were increas­ingly gaining pow­er and influence, now industr­ial­isa­tion was starting. Grand historical art gave way to more appealing and less grand art; genre painting em­er­ged, with int­eriors and portraits depicting the middle and upper class­es. Students liked to stud­y in Paris with Jacques-Louis David.

Copenhagen on Fire by CW Eck­er­s­berg (1807) showed how Copenhagen exp­erienced the fir­es. In the Golden Age, Copen­hagen in particular acqu­ired a new look as ar­chitects inspired by neo-classicism repaired much of the damage caused by fire in 1795 and by British bombardment of the city. In 1800 Hansen was charged with rebuilding the Pa­l­ace!

In 1801, because of the coun­try's invo­l­vement in the League of Armed Neutrality, the Royal Navy success­fully att­acked a Danish fleet at the Battle of Copenhagen. In 1807, on rum­ours that the French might force Denmark-Norway to close the Bal­tic to their shipping, the British bom­barded and burned large port­ions of Copenhagen. Then in 1813, because the country couldn’t support the war costs, the Danish-Norwegian gov­ernment declared bankruptcy. Wor­se, Norway ceased to be part of the Oldenburg realms when it was ceded to Sweden in Treaty of Kiel (1814).

Yet these crises provided new prospects for Copenhagen. Ar­chitects and planners wid­ened the streets where beautifully desig­ned Neoclass­ical buildings became smarter. With 100,000 people, the smallish city had been built within the confines of the old ramp­arts.

So the lead­ing figures met sharing ideas, unit­ing arts & scien­ces. The main proponent of Classicism in the Golden age was Constantin Han­sen who de­v­eloped a severe style, with large surfaces, in­sp­ired by ancient Greek & Roman architecture. From 1800 he was in charge of all major building projects in Copenhagen where he designed Copen­hagen’s Townhall and Court­house (1805–15), and rebuilt the Church of Our Lady and the square (1811–29). Interior scenes and small portrait gr­oups were also common, with dom­estic objects and furniture, often the art­ist's circle of friends. Danish-trained leader of Ger­man Rom­antic painting Cas­p­ar David Fried­rich was import­ant in spread­ing infl­uence in Germany.

The Golden Age launched a distinct national style for the first time since the Middle Ages. Its style drew on Dutch Gol­d­en Age painting, es­pecially land­scape painting, depicting northern light that was soft, with strong colour contrasts. An idealised version of real­ity.

Const­antin Hansen (1804–80) was born in Rome, son of portrait paint­er Hans Han­sen. The family soon moved to Vienna where Wolfgang Am­ad­eus Mozart’s wid­­ow was his godmother, and with­­in a year, they moved to Co­p­­enhagen. Constantin studied Archit­ect­ure at the Building Sch­ool of the Royal Danish Ac­ademy of Art at 12, but later changed to paint­ing, begin­ning his tr­aining under Christoffer Eckersberg.

Constantin was very in­t­er­­est­ed in literature and mythol­ogy, in­spired by Niels Høyen who want­ed to recr­eate a national hist­or­ical art based on Norse myth­ol­ogy. Høyen, who taught at the Academy, enc­ouraged his st­udents to do landscape painting, especially Danish coun­try scenes.

Paintings by Eckersberg, Ch­risten Købke and Constantin Hansen, using their Italian views, showed the imp­ortant as­p­ects which revealed the Danish Gol­d­­en Age creative process. In 1835 Hansen received a 3-year salary to travel abroad, taking him via Ber­l­in, Dresden, Prague, Nur­emberg and Munich en route to Italy, where he stayed longer in Ro­me, Nap­les and Pomp­eii, and travelled with fellow-Danes. 

Constantin Hansen
A Group of Danish Artists in Rome, 1837
National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen

Copenhagen Art Union commissioned a Hansen painting, A Group of Danish Artists in Rome 1837. This ser­ious work stood out among the pictures of carefree Italian-living that Danish audien­ces enjoyed. The Danish paint­ers and archit­ec­ts in the Rom­an hotel room were Hansen him­­self, Mic­h­­ael Bin­­­d­es­bøll, Mart­inus Rør­b­ye, Wilhelm Marstrand, Küch­ler, Ditlev Blun­ck, Jørg­en Son­ne were gathered to soc­ialise together; but the purpose of the assem­b­ly was to dis­cuss art! Arch­itect Michael Bindes­bøll (1800-56) was re­l­ating the exper­ien­ces of his Greek tra­v­els while the other artists list­en­ed with vary­ing deg­rees of attent­ion. Han­s­en was very ambitious, being insp­ired by Renaissance dep­ictions of artists, suit­ing them to cont­em­porary ideals. He also painted many al­­t­ar­pieces and portr­aits eg Fathers of the  Dan­ish Constituent Assem­bly of 1848. 

 

Fathers of the Dan­ish Constituent Assem­bly 1848

painted by Hansen in 1861

Frederiksborg Museum, Copenhagen

The Golden Age had also seen the develop­ment of Neoclassical Danish arch­itecture, mus­ic, ballet, lit­er­at­ure (eg Hans Ch­ristian And­er­sen), philosophy (eg Søren Kierk­eg­aard) and scien­ce. The Golden Age thus had a profound effect across life in Denmark and even outside.

End of the Golden Age
Danish culture suffered from the First Schleswig War (1848-51). Add­it­ionally, polit­ical reforms involved the end of the ab­solute monarchy in 1848 and the adoption of the Danish constitution in 1849. Finally note that the extension of Copenhagen beyond the old ramparts, during the 1850s, enabled urban exp­an­sion.