Pope Stephen III
In the midst of a tumultuous contest by rival factions to name a successor to Pope Paul I, Stephen was elected with the support of the Roman officials.
[3] Coming to Rome during the pontificate of Pope Gregory III,[4] he was placed in the monastery of St. Chrysogonus, where he became a Benedictine monk.
[3] 768 was consumed by the rival claims of antipopes Constantine II (a layman puppet forcibly installed by a faction of Tuscan nobles[5][6]) and Philip (the candidate of the Lombards), who were forced out of office by the efforts of Christophorus, the primicerius of the notaries, and his son Sergius, the treasurer of the Roman Church.
[7] With the capture of Constantine II, Christophorus set about organising a canonical election, and on 1 August he summoned not only the Roman clergy and army, but also the people to assemble before the Church of St. Adrian in the area of the old Comitium.
[8][9] They then proceeded to the Church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, where they acclaimed Stephen as pope-elect, and escorted him to the Lateran Palace.
[12] Then on the orders of the papal chartularius, Gratiosus, Constantine was removed from his monastic cell, blinded, and left on the streets of Rome with specific instructions that no-one should aid him.
[13] Finally, on a charge of conspiring to kill Christophorus and many other nobles, with the intent of handing over the city to the Lombards, the priest Waldipert, who was the prime mover in the elevation of Philip, was arrested, blinded, and soon died of his wounds.
According to the historian Horace Mann, Stephen was an impotent observer, and that the responsible agent was in reality the chartularius, Gratiosus.
[15] What is clear, however, is that the recent creation of the Papal States had seen the traditional rivalries of the ruling families of Rome transformed into a murderous desire to control this new temporal power in Italy, dragging the papacy with it.
[16] With Constantine's supporters largely dealt with, Stephen wrote to the Frankish king, Pepin the Short, notifying him of his election, and asking for a number of bishops to participate in a council he was seeking to hold to discuss the recent confusion.
[21] Placing his hope in the Franks, he attempted to mediate in the quarrels between Charlemagne and Carloman I, Pepin's sons and successors, which were only helping the Lombards' cause in Italy.
"[28]Stephen's pleas fell on deaf ears, and Charlemagne married Desiderata in 770, temporarily cementing a familial alliance with the Lombards.
[30] When Desiderius attempted to enter Rome in 771 with an army, claiming to be on a pilgrimage to pray at the shrine of St. Peter, Christophorus and Sergius shut the gates of the city against them.
[32] By this stage, Stephen had returned to the Lateran, and he was confronted in the Basilica of St. Theodore by the fleeing Afiarta and his co-conspirators being chased by Christophorus and his supporters.
[34] The Lombard king, shutting Stephen up in his suites in the Basilica, made it clear to the Pope that the price for his help was to be the handing over of Christophorus and Sergius.
"[36] This message from the Lombard king had the desired effect; Christophorus and Sergius began to suspect their associates, who in turn rapidly abandoned them.
[41] Stephen wrote to the rebellious bishops, suspending them and ordering them to place themselves once again under the authority of Grado, or face excommunication.
During early 772, as Stephen fell ill and was soon clear that he was dying, Afiarta took advantage of this to exile a number of influential clergy and nobles from Rome, while others he put into prison.
