Hildebrand of Sovana
Hildebrand was born around 1020, perhaps a few years earlier, at or near Sovana in southern Tuscany. Later tradition made his father a blacksmith; his family was certainly not noble. As a boy he was sent to Rome and educated at a monastery on the Aventine Hill and in the household of the Lateran. There he attached himself to a priest named John Gratian, who in 1045 became Pope Gregory VI, having paid his predecessor to step aside.
The Roman church of Hildebrand's youth was a prize fought over by the noble families of the city, and in 1046 three men claimed to be pope. The German king Henry III came to Rome, and at the Synod of Sutri the rivals were set aside and Gregory VI was deposed for the money that had changed hands. Hildebrand went with his patron into exile in Germany. Later writers said he then spent time at Cluny, the great reforming monastery of Burgundy, but that is uncertain. What is clear is the lesson he drew: the Roman church had been corrupted by money and lords, and the remedy had come from a king who made and unmade popes.
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