Background
He entered the Order when he came of age, and was later elected as abbot of the monastery.
archbishop Diplomat priest writer
He entered the Order when he came of age, and was later elected as abbot of the monastery.
Pope Leo appointed Humbert the of Sicily in 1050. The Norman rulers of the island, however, prevented his landing there. In place of that post, he was named Cardinal-bishop of Silva Candida the following year.
lieutenant has been suggested that he was the first Frenchman to be named cardinal.
Under Leo, Humbert became the principal papal secretary and on a trip through Apulia in 1053, he received from John, Bishop of Trani, a letter written by Leo, of Ochrid, criticising Western rites and practice. He translated the Greek letter into Latin and gave it to the pope, who ordered a response drawn up.
This exchange led to Humbert being sent at the head of a legatine mission, along with Frederick of Lorraine (later Pope Stephen IX) and Peter, of Amalfi, to Constantinople to confront Patriarch Michael Cerularius. Humbert was cordially welcomed by the Emperor Constantine IX, but spurned by the patriarch.
Eventually, on 16 July 1054, despite the fact that Leo had died and the excommunication was thereby invalid, during the celebration of the Divine Liturgy he laid a papal bull of excommunication of the patriarch on the high altar of the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia.
In 1058, he accused Henry I of France of simony and tyranny for selling bishoprics and abbacies. Humbert is also credited as the brains behind the electoral decree of 1059, which stated that popes would henceforth be elected by the College of Cardinals. After a career marked by numerous theological disputes with figures such as Peter Damian, he gained a reputation of rigidity.
He traveled frequently throughout Italy during the later years of his life, partly due to the election of the Antipope Benedict X in 1058.
He attended the Lateran Synod of April 1059, however. Humbert died in Rome on 5 May 1061 and was buried in the Lateran Basilica.