This is the second installment of a series on the thirteen papal namesakes of our new Holy Father Leo XIV; click these links to read part 1 and part 2.
Four Popes named Leo reigned with a span of about 62 years in the 10th century; their reigns are all quite brief, and their careers for the most part so obscure that the precise dates of some of them are not even known, so this will be a short article. First, however, an historical and historiographical note.
The term “dark ages” is used and over-used by bad historians to mean broadly “any period after the fall of the Roman Empire when stuff happened that I dislike.” But if there is an age to which it can justly be applied, and especially in regard to the papacy, it is the 10th century. The Carolingian Empire had fractured, and was no longer the stabilizing political force it had been under Charlemagne. Western Europe was besieged on all sides: by the Vikings from the north, the Magyars from the east, and the Saracens everywhere that touched the Mediterranean. Even if the Popes of that era had been Saints on the model of men like the first Leo, it is hard to imagine that they would have been able to achieve much that we would look back on as exemplary. But many of them were very far indeed from being Saints, and the tenth century is the first in which there is no canonized or beatified pope. |
| A drawing of the third version of the church of Cluny Abbey. |
Given the tremendous political and social instability of the era, it is not surprising that the papacy became essentially a tool of the local secular powers, which were themselves very corrupt, and tainted the papacy as an institution with their corruption. Rather, it is surprising, and should be encouraging, that even in the midst of such chaos, indeed, at its beginning (in the year 910), there was founded the very institution that would lead the Church out of the darkness, the abbey of Cluny.
We are not sure of the date of Leo V’s election, which took place in the second half of 903, or the length of his reign. He was from the region of Ardea, a town about 23 miles south of Rome, and at the time of his election, was a priest of a minor church outside the Roman city walls. A contemporary writer named Auxilius is cited by the Catholic Encyclopedia to the effect that he ruled for only a month, and was “a man of praiseworthy life and holiness.” Record of only one act of his papacy survives, a minor administrative matter.
For reasons unknown, he was deposed and imprisoned by one of the cardinal-priests of Rome, a man named Christopher. The report in one source that he was murdered in prison is considered suspect and unreliable, but the date and circumstances of his death are unknown. Although the deposition was both immoral and uncanonical, Christopher was accepted as the legitimate pope at the time, and is referred to as such by many subsequent documents, including some issued by sainted popes such as Leo IX.
 |
| A portrait of Pope Christopher (not based on any contemporary image of him), copied from the medallion portrait of him in the Roman basilica of St Paul Outside-the-Walls, where he is included as a legitimate pope, despite the irregularity of the manner of his accession. (From the book Ritratti e biografie dei romani pontefici: da S. Pietro a Leone 13, by Davide Vaglimigli, 1879.) |
The length of Leo VI’s reign is known, seven months and five days, but the exact date of his election within the year 928 is not. He was a Roman, the son of a city government official, and cardinal-priest of the church St Susanna at the time of his election. (The same title was previously held by Ss Sergius I (687-701) and Leo III (795-816), and much later, by Nicholas V (1447-55).) Our knowledge of his papacy is limited to some minor administrative acts.
Leo VII was a Roman, the cardinal-priest of the church of St Sixtus, elected in January of 936, and reigning for a bit longer than three and a half years, until his death in mid-July of 939. His election was brought about by Alberic II, Duke of Spoleto, who was then in conflict with another secular prince, Hugo, the king of Italy. As the latter was besieging Rome, Leo summoned St Odo, the second abbot of Cluny, to broker a peace between them, which was successfully achieved. Apart from this, most of what is known of Leo’s reign consists of administrative acts, including the granting of privileges to various monasteries, and especially Cluny. This is more important than it might seem. The word “privilegium” means literally “an exemption from the law”, and it was precisely these kinds of exemption that enabled Cluny, and the reform movement which it represented, to flourish amid so much corruption in both the Church and secular society.
Leo VIII has the rare (but not wholly unique) distinction of being regarded as both an antipope and a legitimate pope, in two different periods, a circumstance very much the product of the chaos of his era. He was a native Roman of a prominent family, and a lay protonotary at the time of his election.
His predecessor, John XII, was intruded into the papacy by the manipulations of his father, the same Alberic mentioned above. He was easily one of the most disgraceful Popes in the Church’s history, not only for his coarse behavior and personal immorality, but also for his political treachery. The famous term of rhetorical exaggeration “pornocracy”, and the equally exaggerated statement, too often taken literally, that the Lateran palace was turned into a brothel, are said especially in reference to his scandalous reign.
 |
| A reconstruction of the Lateran complex as it stood in the Middle Ages. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.) |
In November of 963, the Emperor Otto I deposed this thoroughly unworthy man, an action which was as unlawful as the manner of John’s election had been, but, for all its illegality, difficult to regret. Leo was then put forward as his replacement, and hastily consecrated, receiving all the orders preceding that of bishop in one day, another flagrant violation of canon law. When the emperor departed from Rome the following February, Leo was deposed by a popular uprising, and John XII returned to power, but the latter died only three months later, at which another candidate, a man named Benedict, was elected to replace him.
However, Otto hastened back to Rome, and having once again seized complete control of the city, had Benedict deposed, and Leo put back into his place. A contemporary source states that Benedict acquiesced to his own deposition, allowing Leo to personally remove his pallium. For this second period, therefore, from July of 964 to about the beginning of the following March, Leo VIII is regarded as the legitimate pope, but nothing is known of the deeds of his papacy.
_(14597922217).jpg){kind=link}