[5] Nicholas II proceeded towards Rome, along the way holding a synod at Sutri, where, in the presence of the Tuscan ruler Godfrey the Bearded and the imperial chancellor, Guibert of Parma, he pronounced Benedict X deposed and excommunicated.

[6] The Normans were by this time firmly established in southern Italy, and later in the year 1059 the new alliance was cemented at Melfi, where the pope, accompanied by Hildebrand, Cardinal Humbert, and Abbot Desiderius of Monte Cassino, solemnly invested Robert Guiscard with the duchies of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, and Richard of Aversa with the principality of Capua, in return for oaths of fealty and the promise of assistance in guarding the rights of the Church.

Its first substantial result was Norman aid in taking Galeria, where Antipope Benedict X was hiding, and the end of the subordination of the papacy to the Roman nobles.

Meanwhile, Nicholas II sent Peter Damian and Bishop Anselm of Lucca as legates to Milan, to resolve the conflict between the Patarenes and the archbishop and clergy.

This council not only continued the Hildebrandine reforms by sharpening the discipline of the clergy but marked an epoch in the history of the papacy by its famous regulation of future elections to the Holy See.

At the synod held in the Lateran at Easter, 1059, Pope Nicholas brought 113 bishops to Rome to consider several reforms, including a change in the election procedure.