The short pontificate of the new Nicholas was devoted largely to measures for securing the freedom of papal elections from secular interference. By a decree passed in a numerously attended Council at the Pope's Lateran palace, a College or Corporation was formed of the seven bishops of the sees in the immediate neighbourhood of Rome, together with the priests of the various Roman parish churches and the deacons attendant on them. To the members of this body was now specially arrogated the term Cardinal, a name hitherto applicable to all clergy ordained and appointed to a definite church. To all Roman clergy outside this body and to the people there remained merely the right of assent, and even this was destined to disappear. More important historically was the merely verbal reservation of the imperial right of confirmation, which was further made a matter of individual grant to each Emperor who might seek it from the Pope. In view of the revived influence of the local factions it was also laid down that, although Rome and the Roman clergy had the first claim, yet the election might lawfully take place anywhere and any one otherwise eligible might be chosen; while the Pope so elected might exercise his authority even before he had been enthroned. [Sidenote: Papacy and Normans.] But in the presence of a strong Emperor or an unscrupulous faction even these elaborate provisions Papacy might be useless. The Papacy needed a champion in the flesh, who should have nothing to gain and everything to lose by attempting to become its master. Such a protector was ready to hand in the Normans, who, recently settled in Southern Italy, felt themselves insecure in the title by which they held their possessions. Southern Italy was divided between the three Lombard duchies of Benevento, Capua and Salerno, and the districts of Calabria and Apulia, which acknowledged the Viceroy or Katapan of the Eastern Emperor in his seat at Bari. The Saracens, only recently expelled from the mainland, still held Sicily. Norman pilgrims returning from Palestine became, at the instigation of local factions, Norman adventurers, and their leaders obtaining lands from the local Princes in return for help, sought confirmation of their title from some legitimate authority. The Western Empire had never claimed these lands, but none the less Conrad II and Henry III, in return for the acceptance of their suzerainty, acknowledged the titles which the Norman leaders had already gained from Greek or Lombard. Rome was likely to be their next victim, and Leo IX took the opportunity of a dispute over the city of Benevento to try conclusions with them. A humiliating defeat was followed by a mock submission of the conqueror. The danger was in no sense removed. Pope Stephen's schemes for driving them out of Italy were cut short by his death, and meanwhile the Norman power increased. Thus there could be no question of expulsion,