Stephen II of Naples

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Stephen II (died 799) was the duke of Naples during an important transitionary period in its history, from 755 to his death. He was styled eminentissimus consul and was the leader of the local aristocracy when he was appointed by the patrician of Sicily. By the end of his reign, through a rupture with the Greek empire, Naples was practically independent. After his abdication, Naples experienced a period of crisis until the election of Sergius I in 840.

At the beginning of his reign, Naples was still a loyal dukedome of the Greeks, her dukes appointed by the emperor. In 761, therefore, she denied entry to the papal envoy, the Bishop Paul, an opponent of the iconoclasm then gripping the Greek world. Stephen was no less a supporter of the iconoclasm than the emperor himself. At that time, Stephen addressed Antiochos, the patrician of Sicily and his technical overlord, as "our lord" and "most excellent patrician and protostrategos" (763). By 764, however, Naples had thrown off iconoclasm and Paul was able to take up his see.

After twelve years of peaceful government, during which he gained much popularity with the people, a plague hit the city of Naples and decimated the citizenry and the clergy, including the bishop himself. The people acclaimed Stephen as bishop. He immediately sought out the pope in Rome and was consecrated. Though he ceased to be duke, he continued to act as bishop for thirty-three years and he transferred the duchy to his son Gregory. He had two other sons, named Caesar, (who 'died in the flower of youth'), and Theophylactus.

  • Gay, Jules. L'Italie méridionale et l'empire Byzantin: Livre I. Burt Franklin: New York, 1904.
  • Chalandon, Ferdinand. Histoire de la domination normande en Italie et en Sicilie. Paris, 1907.


Preceded by
Gregory I
Duke of Naples
755 – 766
Succeeded by
Gregory II


This biography of an Italian noble is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.