Benedict IX

A painting of Benedict IX in the Shadow World. (TV: Extremis)

Pope Benedict IX existed as virtual construct in a world created by the Monks, so that they could plan the perfect invasion of Earth. She was a pope in the 11th century who founded the Haereticum.

She had a relationship of familiarity with the Doctor, knowing that he lived a life of regret. The Twelfth Doctor remembered her as a "bad girl". "Lovely girl, what a night!" he recalled, "I knew she was trouble, but she wove a spell with her castanets." Benedict made a personal recommendation for the Doctor's aid, in writing, in 1045. She once offered the Doctor a chance at confession, feeling that he was "more in need of confession than any man breathing", but the Doctor replied "it would take too much time".

A painting of her guarded the entrance to her library of heresies. (TV: Extremis)

Behind the scenes

In the real world, Pope Benedict IX was a man, and one of intense scandal by Catholic standards: he was described by Catholic historians as "a disgrace to the Chair of Peter" and responsible for "unspeakable acts of violence and sodomy." Benedict IX threw gay orgies in the Lateran Palace, for which a later Pope described his tenure as "so vile, so foul, so execrable, that I shudder to think of it."

Benedict IX is famed for being the first unquestionably gay pope, for being the only man ever to have sold the Papacy, for engaging in bestiality, and for being Pope on three separate occasions. His first departure was due to his expulsion from the Chair of Peter, his second resulted from his sale of the Papal office to Gregory VI, and his third came from his eventual and permanent abdication of the throne. Charged with simony in 1049, Benedict was excommunicated from the Church after refusing to appear.