Stephen Ix, Pope
STEPHEN IX, POPE, pope from August 1057 to March 1058, succeeded Victor II. (Gebhard of Eichstadt). His baptismal name was Frederick, and he was a younger brother of Godfrey, duke of Upper Lorraine, marquis of Tuscany (by his marriage with Beatrice, widow of Boniface, marquis of Tuscany). Frederick, who had been raised to the cardinalate by Leo IX., acted for some time as papal legate at Constantinople, and was with Leo in his unlucky expedition against the Normans. He shared his brother's fortunes, and at one time had to take refuge from Henry III. in Monte Cassino. Five days after the death of Victor II. (who had made him cardinal-priest and abbot of Monte Cassino) he was chosen to succeed him. He showed great zeal in enforcing the Hildebrandine policy as to clerical celibacy, and was planning the expulsion of the Normans from Italy and the elevation of his brother to the imperial throne when he was seized by a severe illness. He died at Florence on the 29th of March 1058. ir STEPHEN I. [ST STEPHEN] (977-1038), king of Hungary, was the son of Geza, duke of Hungary, and of Sarolta, one of the few Magyar Christian ladies, who obtained the best teachers for her infant son. These preceptors included the German priest Bruno, the Czech priest Radla, and an Italian knight, Theodate of San Severino, who taught him arms and letters (a holograph epistle by Stephen existed in the Vatican Library as late as 1513). In 996 Stephen married Gisela, the daughter of Duke Henry II. of Bavaria, and in the following year his father died and the young prince was suddenly confronted by a formidable pagan reaction under Kupa in the districts between the Drave and Lake Balaton. Stephen hastened against the rebels, bearing before him the banner of St Martin of Tours, whom he now chose to be his patron saint, and routed the rebels at Veszprem (998), a victory from which the foundation of the Hungarian monarchy must be dated, for Stephen assumed the royal title immediately afterwards. In 1001 his envoy Asztrik obtained Pope Silvester II. 's confirmation of this act of sovereignty. Silvester at the same time sent Stephen a consecrated crown, and approved of the erection of an independent Hungarian church, divided into the two provinces of Esztergom and Bacs. But the power of pagan Hungary could not be broken in a day. The focus of the movement was the Maros region, where the rebel Ajtony built the fortress of Marosvar. The struggle proceeded for more than twenty-five, years, the difficulties of Stephen being materially increased by the assistance rendered to the rebels by the Greek emperors, his neighbours since their reconquest of Bulgaria. As early as 1015 Stephen had appointed the Italian priest Gellert bishop of Maros, but he was unable to establish the missionary in his see till 1030. The necessity of christianizing his heathen kingdom by force of arms engrossed all the energies of Stephen and compelled him to adopt a pacific policy towards the emperors of the East and West. When the emperor Conrad, with the deliberate intention of subjugating Hungary, invaded it in 1030, Stephen not only drove him out, but captured Vienna (now mentioned for the first time) and compelled the emperor to cede a large portion of the Ostmark (1031). Of the five sons borne to him by Gisela, only Emerich reached manhood, and this welleducated prince was killed by a wild boar in 1031. Stephen thereupon appointed as his successor his wife's nephew Peter Orseolo, who settled in Hungary, where his intrigues and foreign ways made him extremely unpopular. Stephen died at his palace at Esztergom in 1038 and was canonized in 1083. For an account of his epoch-making reforms see HUNGARY: History. See Gyula Pauler, History of the Hungarian Nation, vol. i. (Hung.; Pest, 1893); Lajos Bahcs, History of the Roman Catholic Church in Hungary, vol. i. (Hung.; Pest, 1885); Antal For, Life of St Stephen (Hung.; Pest, 1871); Janos Karacsonyi, Documents issued by Stephen I. (Hung. ; Pest, 1892), idem, Life of St Gellert(H\ing. ; Pest, 1887); E. Horn, St Elienne, roi apostolique de Hongrie de Ketrszynski, Vita sancti Stephani (Paris, 1899); W. J. Winkler (Cracow, 1897).
(R. N. B.)
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
