He became a monk of Monte Cassino, was taken to Rome by Pope Urban II, and made chancellor and cardinal-deacon of Santa Maria in Cosmedin. Shortly after his unanimous election to succeed Pope Paschal II he was seized by Cencius Frangipanè, a partisan of the emperor Henry V, but freed by a general uprising of the Romans in his behalf. The emperor drove Gelasius from Rome in March, pronounced his election null and void, and set up Burdinus, archbishop of Braga, as antipope under the name of Gregory VIII.
Gelasius fled to Gaeta, where he was ordained priest on the 9th of March and on the following day received episcopal consecration. He at once excommunicated Henry and the antipope and, under Norman protection, was able to return to Rome in July; but the disturbances of the imperialist party, especially of the Frangipani, who attacked the pope while celebrating mass in the church of St Prassede, compelled Gelasius to go once more into exile. He set out for France, consecrating the cathedral of Pisa on the way, and arrived at Marseilles in October. He was received with great enthusiasm at Avignon, Montpellier and other cities, held a synod at Vienne in January 1119, and was planning to hold a general council to settle the investiture contest when he died at Cluny.
He was the trusted advisor of Paschal II; shared his captivity and shielded him against the zealots who charged the pope with heresy for having, under dire compulsion, signed the "Privilegium", which constituted the emperor lord and master of papal and episcopal elections (see II and).
Gelasius pronounced a solemn excommunication against both of them; and as soon as the emperor, frustrated of his prey, left Rome, he returned secretly; but soon took the resolution of taking refuge in France.
Gelasius was perfecting plans for the convocation of a great council at Reims, when he succumbed to pleurisy, leaving the consummation of the fifty years' war for freedom to his successor, Callistus II.
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