Gerbert (Aurillac) of Aurillac (abt. 946 - 1003)

Born about 0946 in Aquitaine, France

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Biography

Pope Sylvester II (Aurillac) of Aurillac is Notable.

Gerbert was born in Aquitaine.^[1]

He became pope on 2 April 999 and his pontificate ended on 12 May 1003 with his death.^[1]

Platina^[2] states:

Sylvester the Second, before called Gerbert, a Frenchman, got the popedom (as they say) by ill arts. When he was young he was entered and sworn a monk of Fleury, in the diocese of Orleans; but he left the monastery to follow the devil, to whom he had wholly delivered himself up, and went to Seville in Spain to study human sciences; being extremely greedy of knowledge and learning, in which he made such progress, that of a scholar he soon became an excellent master. Martinus writes that the Emperor Otho, King Robert of France, and Lotharius, a man of noble birth and great learning, afterward Archbishop of Sens, were his scholars. Gerbert, therefore, full of ambition and pushed on with the diabolical desire of rule, by simony first gets the Archbishopric of Rheims, and then of Ravenna; at last... he got the popedom, ...

A footnote by the translator Rev W Benham^[2] states:

The whole of this life is utterly unworthy of one who aimed at the character of an historian. Pope Sylvester II was a man of unimpeachable morals, of great learning, and of real piety. But he was unpopular because his election was not by the people but by the bishops, and the severity of his morals offended the loose clergy. Above all he was high in favour with the German Emperor. The origin of the absurd stories of his intercourse with the devil is discussed at length by Milman (ii. 418-419), and by Robertson (ii. 452, note). He was a great student of natural science, and it is remarkable that he invented an organ which worked by steam.

Research Notes

This profile is being updated by the Popes Project.

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} Vatican
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1} Platina, Bartolomeo (1479) The Lives of the Popes From the Time of Our Saviour Jesus Christ to the Accession of Gregory VII, I, London: Griffith Farran & Co., pp264-265, retrieved 2021-04-04.

• The English Historical Review (Longmans, Green, & Co., London, 1892) Vol. 7, Page 625-68.