Saint Leo IX

Pope Leo IX (Italian: Leone IX, German: Leo IX., 21 June 1002 – 19 April 1054), born Bruno von Egisheim-Dagsburg, was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 12 February 1049 to his death in 1054. Leo IX is considered to be one of the most historically significant popes of the Middle Ages; he was instrumental in the precipitation of the Great Schism of 1054, considered the turning point in which the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches formally separated. Leo IX favoured traditional morality in his reformation of the Catholic Church. One of his first public acts was to hold the Easter synod of 1049; he joined Emperor Henry III in Saxony and accompanied him to Cologne and Aachen. He also summoned a meeting of the higher clergy in Reims, in which several important reforming decrees were passed. At Mainz, he held a council at which the Italian and French as well as the German clergy were represented, and ambassadors of the Byzantine emperor were present. Here too, simony and clerical marriage were the principal matters dealt with. He is regarded as a saint by the Catholic Church; his feast day is celebrated on 19 April. Bruno was the youngest son of Count Hugh IV of Nordgau and Hedwig of Dagsburg. He was a native of Egisheim, Upper Alsace (present-day Alsace, France). His father was a first cousin of Conrad II, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. At the age of five, Bruno was committed to the care of Berthold, Bishop of Toul, who had a school for the sons of the nobility. Hagiographic sources state that when Pope Leo IX was born, "his body [was] marked all over with little red crosses". Some authors have considered this to be a form of the stigmata. In 1017, Bruno became a canon at St. Stephen's in Toul. When, in 1024, his cousin Conrad succeeded Henry II as emperor, Bruno's relatives sent him to the new king's court "to serve in his chapel".