Stephen was planning for the expulsion of the Normans from southern Italy. At some point in 1057 or 1058, he held a synod in which the citizens of Capua, the capital of the Norman principality, and a cleric named Lando were excommunicated. In order to advance his aims in the south, he decided, at the beginning of 1058, to send a delegation to the new Byzantine Emperor Isaac I Komnenos (1057-1059). The legates were Cardinal Stephen, the Benedictine abbot of the monastery of Ss. Andrea e Gregorio in Rome; Cardinal Mainard, a Benedictine monk of Montecassino; and Desiderius, the Benedictine abbot-elect of Montecassino. These papal delegates departed from Rome, but when they reached Byzantine-held Bari, news came that Stephen IX has died, and the mission was abandoned.