Boso of Sant'Anastasia
Boso (Italian Bosone) was a Roman Catholic cardinal, priest of Sant'Anastasia al Palatino (1116–1122) and bishop of Turin (1122–1126×28).
In 1112, the abbot of San Michele della Chiusa in the Piedmont travelled to Spain to summon its bishops to the council of Benevento being held the following year.
Later that year, he went to Pisa as the papal legate responsible for overseeing the joint military expedition of the Pisans and the Catalans against the Almoravid-occupied island of Majorca.
The fact that no earlier document refers to him as a cardinal may be no more than an accident of documentary survival, since his legatine work in the preceding three years suggests a very high position in the church.
[1] Boso's second voyage to Spain as legate came in response to the election by the cathedral chapter of Barcelona of an unwilling abbot from Provence (west of Piedmont) to be their bishop.
On 23 May 1116, Pope Paschal wrote to Olegarius, the abbot of Saint-Ruf, to inform him he was sending his legate Boso charged with inducing him to accept his election as bishop of Barcelona.
Raymond Berengar and Boso had surely met previously during the Majorcan expedition, since the count of Barcelona was the leader of the Catalans.
Boso and his charge next moved into the north of the Duchy of Aquitaine, where he assisted Bishop Eustorgius of Limoges in consecrating a church near Uzerche.
The anonymous chronicler also claims that a primary purpose of his journey was to mediate between Queen Urraca and King Alfonso, whose rocky marriage had finally been annulled in 1114.
On 4 November 1116, Boso attended the investiture of Arberto II, provost of Oulx, as archpriest of the church of Santa Maria in Susa in the Piedmont.
At the council he also passed judgement in a dispute between Olegarius and the abbot of Sant Cugat del Vallès, the record of which also survives.
[1] It is unknown when Boso left Spain, but he was at Orange in December 1118, where Pope Gelasius II was staying, having been exiled from Rome since November.
According to Orderic Vitalis, Boso was present at Cluny for the papal election of 2 February 1119 that chose Calixtus II as Gelasius' successor.
The pope held another council at Reims in October, whereat, Orderic records, Boso took part in a vigorous debate.
Boso was accompanied in Spain by Bishop Guy of Lescar, and together they visited the shrine of Saint James, a major pilgrimage site, in Santiago de Compostela.
After that, Boso visited the court of Queen Urraca and her son for high-level political discussions—"on the state of the holy church and the Spanish kingdom" (de statu Sanctae Ecclesiae et Hispaniae regni), in the words of the Historia.
Urraca's Galician henchman, Fernando Yáñez, had arrested Diego Gelmírez and, on the queen's orders, several castles belonging to the archdiocese had been seized.
[1] It was probably during his return trip from his last diplomatic mission to Spain that Boso intervened with Bishop Gerald II of Angoulême on behalf of the abbey of La Sauve-Majeure.
[1] Although this sudden absence was once frequently attributed to his death, in fact Boso had merely resigned his cardinalate, as required by canon law, to assume the office of bishop of Turin.
In another document dated to 1120 (but, again, pertaining to either 1122 or 1123), Pope Calixtus confirmed a donation made by a certain Countess Adelaide (or Adalasia) to Boso's church.
