Everything about Antipope Gregory Viii totally explained
Gregory VIII (died
1137) was
antipope from
March 10,
1118 to
April 22,
1121.
Biography
He was born Mauritius Burdinus (Maurice Bourdin) in the
Limousin, part of
Aquitaine,
Occitania,
France. He was educated at
Cluny, at
Limoges, and in
Castile, where he was a deacon at
Toledo. In
1098/
1099 his Cluniac connections recommended him as
Bishop of
Coimbra. After a four year pilgrimage to the
Holy Land, he was made
Archbishop of
Braga in
1111. There he was one of the principal agents of the
Burgundian Henry, Count of Portugal, in his reorganization of the
Portuguese church.
Portugal was then a
fief of Castile, and the ambitious Count Henry pursued a vigorous program of ecclesiastical and political autonomy. By
1114, Mauritius had become embroiled in a dispute with the
Spanish primate and
papal legate in Castile,
Bernard of Toledo, to the extent that he was called to Rome and suspended by
Pope Paschal II (1099–1118). Nevertheless, he found favor at the papal court, and in
1116, when Emperor
Henry V (1105–25) invaded Italy during the ongoing confrontations over the Emperor's
rights of investiture of clerics, Paschal II sent Mauritius on an embassy to him, while the Pope and the
Curia fled south to
Benevento. Mauritius defected to the Emperor's side. Henry V went to Rome, and on
Easter Sunday,
March 23,
1117, was crowned
Holy Roman Emperor by Mauritius. Paschal II deposed and
excommunicated Henry V and removed Mauritius from office.
When Paschal II died on
24 January,
1118, he was succeeded by
Pope Gelasius II (1118–19). Henry V went to Rome but Gelasius II escaped to
Gaeta and refused to meet the Emperor to discuss German affairs. Partly in reprisal the imperial party among the cardinals then annulled Gelasius II's election, and on March 1, 1118 Mauritius was proclaimed Pope, taking the name Gregory VIII. Gelasius II, at
Capua, proceeded to
excommunicate both Gregory VIII and Henry V on
April 7,
1118.
After Gelasius II's death, when
Calixtus II had been elected Pope in
1119, Henry V was induced to change papal allegiance, in the
Concordat of Worms of
1122. Calixtus II entered Rome, and Gregory VIII left, going to
Sutri, where he was in April
1121, when papal troops of Calixtus II closed up the city for eight days until its citizens surrendered antipope Gregory VIII. He was taken to Rome and imprisoned in the Septizonium. After having been moved in confinement from monastery to monastery, he finally died at
La Cava,
Salerno, some time after August
1137.
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