NICHOLAS II., pope from _y was a Burgundian named Gerard, who at the time of his election was bishop of Florence. He was set up by Hildebrand, with the support of the empress-regent Agnes and of the powerful Duke Godfrey of Lorraine, against Benedict X., the nominee of the Roman nobles, and was crowned at Rome, after the expulsion of Benedict, on Jan. 24, 1059. He continued the policy of ec clesiastical reform associated with the name of Hildebrand (after wards Gregory VII.). He entered into relation with the Normans, now firmly established in southern Italy, and the new alliance was cemented at Melfi, where Nicholas II., invested (1059) Robert Guiscard with the duchies of Apulia, Calabria and Sicily, and Richard of Aversa with the principality of Capua, in return for fealty and the promise of assistance. The first fruits of this arrangement, based on no firmer foundation than the forged "Donation of Constantine" (q.v.), but destined to make the pa pacy more independent in both the Eastern and Western Empires, was the reduction in the autumn, with Norman aid, of Galera, where the anti-pope had taken refuge, and the end of the sub ordination of the papacy to the Roman nobles.
Meanwhile Nicholas had sent legates to Milan to adjust the difference between the Patarenes and the archbishop and clergy. Archbishop Wido, in face of the ruinous conflict in the Church of Milan, was forced to submit to the terms proposed by the legates, involving the subordination of Milan to Rome; the new relation was advertised by the unwilling attendance of Wido and the other Milanese bishops at the council summoned to the Lateran palace in April 1059. This council continued the Hilde-.
brandine reforms by sharpening the discipline of the clergy, and regulated future elections to the Holy See. (See LATERAN COUN CILS, and CONCLAVE.) The emperor's traditional rights in the mat ter of papal elections were completely ignored. Stephen, cardinal priest of S. Chrysogonus, was sent to the German court to attempt to allay the consequent ill-feeling, but was not received. Pope Nicholas, moreover, had offended the German bishops by what they regarded as arbitrary interference with their rights ; they retaliated, in a synod held early in 1061, by declaring the new electoral law annulled, and the pope himself deposed. But party strife in Germany enabled the pope to ignore these proceedings. Nicholas II. died at Florence in July HAI.
His Diplomata, epistolae, decreta are in Migne, Patrolog. Lat. 143, pp. 1301-1366. See the article "Nikolaus II." by C. Mirbt in Herzog Hauck, Realencyklopadie (3rd ed., Leipzig, 1904), with bibliography. Other lists of authorities are in Potthast, Biblioth. Hist. Med. Aev. (2nd ed., Berlin, 1896), p. 854 ; and Ulysse Chevalier, Repertoire des sources hist. biobibliogr. (Paris, Pm), vol. 3347, s.v. "Nicolas II."