Gregory VII, pope (d.1085)
- Biography
- Kelly, Oxford Dictionary of Popes, 154-56: Gregory was born Hildebrand around 1020 in Tuscany and was educated in Rome at Sta Maria All’Aventino and in the Lateran palace. He was a chaplain of Gregory VI and was with him in exile in Cologne. Upon that pope’s death, he entered a Cluniac monastery, perhaps Cluny, but he was recalled shortly after and made a subdeacon by Leo IX, and appointed treasurer of the Roman church as well as prior of St Paul’s. He went to France and Germany and from 1059 was an archdeacon. He was elected pope on 22 April 1073 and died on 25 May 1085 while in exile in Salerno. He was beatified in 1584 and canonised in 1606. His feast day is 25 May.