Pope Benedict I

Pope Benedict I was pope from 2 June 575 to 30 July 579. Benedict was the son of a man named Bonifacius, and was called Bonosus by the Greeks. The ravages of the Lombards rendered it very difficult to communicate with the Byzantine emperor at Constantinople, who claimed the privilege of confirming the election of the popes. Hence there was a vacancy of nearly eleven months between the death of Pope John III and the arrival of the imperial confirmation of Benedict's election on 2 June 575. Benedict granted an estate, the Massa Veneris, in the territory of Minturnae, to Abbot Stephen of St. Mark's "near the walls of Spoleto" (St. Gregory I, Ep. ix, 87, I. al. 30). Famine followed the devastating Lombards, and from the few words the Liber...