Leo III | |
---|---|
Bishop of Rome | |
Church | Catholic Church |
Papacy began | 27 December 795 |
Papacy ended | 12 June 816 |
Predecessor | Adrian I |
Successor | Stephen IV |
Personal details | |
Born | 750 |
Died | 12 June 816 65–66) Rome, Papal States | (aged
Previous post(s) | Cardinal-Priest of Santa Susanna |
Sainthood | |
Feast day | 12 June |
Venerated in | |
Other popes named Leo |
Pope Leo III (died 12 June 816) was bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 26 December 795 to his death. Protected by Charlemagne from the supporters of his predecessor, Adrian I, Leo subsequently strengthened Charlemagne's position by crowning him emperor. The coronation was not approved by most people in Constantinople, although the Byzantines, occupied with their own defenses, were in no position to offer much opposition to it.
According to the Liber Pontificalis , Leo was "of the Roman nation, the son of Atzuppius" (natione romanus ex patre Atzuppio). The Chronicon Anianense says, more specifically, that he was "born in Rome to Asupius and Elizabeth" (natus rome ex patre asupio matre helisabeth). [1] Usually considered to be of Greek origin, his father's name may suggest an Arab background. [2] [3] An earlier person of the same name or nickname, Atzypios, was an iconoclast adversary of John of Damascus. [4]
Leo seems to have known Greek. [2] He was made cardinal-priest of Santa Susanna by Pope Adrian I, and seemingly also vestiarius, or chief of the pontifical treasury, or wardrobe. [5] [6]
He was elected on 26 December 795, the day Adrian I was buried, and consecrated on the following day. It is quite possible that this haste may have been due to a desire on the part of the Romans to prevent any interference by the Franks. With the letter informing the Frankish ruler Charlemagne that he had been unanimously elected Pope, Leo sent him the keys of the confession of St. Peter, and the standard of the city, and requested an envoy. This he did to show that he regarded the Frankish king as the protector of the Holy See. [5] In return, Charlemagne sent letters of congratulation and a great part of the treasure which the king had captured from the Avars. [7]
Charlemagne's gift enabled Leo to be a great benefactor to the churches and charitable institutions of Rome. While Charlemagne's letter is respectful and even affectionate, it also exhibits his concept of the coordination of the spiritual and temporal powers, and he does not hesitate to remind the pope of his grave spiritual obligations. [7]
Prompted by jealousy, ambition, or the thought that only someone of the nobility should hold the office of pope, a number of relatives of Adrian I formed a plot to render Leo unfit to hold his office. On the occasion of the procession of the Greater Litanies, 25 April 799, when the pope was making his way towards the Flaminian Gate, he was suddenly attacked by armed men. He was dashed to the ground, and an effort was made to root out his tongue and tear out his eyes which left him injured and unconscious. He was rescued by two of Charlemagne's missi dominici , who came with a considerable force. [5] Duke Winiges of Spoleto sheltered the fugitive pope, who went later to Paderborn, where Charlemagne's camp then was [7] and where he was received by the Frankish king with the greatest honour. [5] This meeting forms the basis of the epic poem Karolus Magnus et Leo Papa .
Leo was accused by his enemies of adultery and perjury. Charlemagne ordered them to Paderborn, but no decision could be made. He then had Leo escorted back to Rome. In November 800, Charlemagne himself went to Rome, and on 1 December held a council there with representatives of both sides. Leo, on 23 December, took an oath of purgation concerning the charges brought against him, and his opponents were exiled. [5]
Charlemagne's father, Pepin the Short, defended the papacy against the Lombards and issued the Donation of Pepin, which granted the land around Rome to the pope as a fief. In 754 Pope Stephen II had conferred on Charlemagne's father the dignity of Patricius Romanus, which implied primarily the protection of the Roman Church in all its rights and privileges; above all in its temporal authority which it had gradually acquired (notably in the former Byzantine Duchy of Rome and the Exarchate of Ravenna) by just titles in the course of the two preceding centuries. [7]
Two days after his oath, on Christmas Day 800, Leo crowned Charlemagne as emperor. According to Charlemagne's biographer, Einhard, Charlemagne had no suspicion of what was about to happen, and if informed would not have accepted the imperial crown. [8] There is, however, no reason to doubt that for some time previous the elevation of Charlemagne had been discussed, both at home and at Rome, especially since the imperial throne in Constantinople was controversially occupied by a woman, Irene of Athens, and since the Carolingian dynasty had firmly established its power and prestige. [7] The coronation offended Constantinople, which had seen itself still as the rightful defender of Rome, but Empress Irene, like many of her predecessors since Justinian I, was too weak to offer protection to the city or its much reduced citizenry.
In 808, Leo committed Corsica to Charlemagne for safe-keeping because of Muslim raids, originating from Al-Andalus, [9] on the island. [10] Nonetheless, Corsica, along with Sardinia, would still go on to be occupied by Muslim forces in 809 and 810. [11]
Leo helped restore King Eardwulf of Northumbria and settled various matters of dispute between the archbishops of York and Canterbury. [5] He also reversed Pope Adrian I's decision in the granting of the pallium to Bishop Hygeberht of Lichfield. He believed that the English episcopate had been misrepresented before Adrian and that therefore his act was invalid. In 803, Lichfield was a regular diocese again. [12]
Pope Leo III unambiguously supported the current theological position in the West in his time: that Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son; he stated on this position: "it is forbidden not to believe such a great mystery of the faith". However, he refused to change the creed which he said was the product of the "divine illumination" of the council fathers, and considered not everything needed for salvation was in the creed. Leo III "placed two silver shields in Rome with the uninterpolated creed in both Greek and Latin." [13] The Liber Pontificalis states Leo III put those shields at the top of St. Peter's entrance "in his love for and as a safeguard for the orthodox and catholic apostolic faith". [14]
Leo III died in 816 after a reign of more than 20 years. He was originally buried in his own monument. However, some years after his death, his remains were put into a tomb that contained the first four popes named Leo. In the 18th century, the relics of Leo the Great were separated from his namesakes, and he was given his own chapel. [15]
Leo III was canonized by Clement X, who, in 1673, had Leo's name entered in the Roman Martyrology . [16]
Charlemagne or Charles the Great, a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and was crowned as the Emperor of the Romans by the Papacy in 800. Charlemagne succeeded in uniting the majority of western and central Europe and was the first recognized emperor to rule from western Europe after the fall of the Western Roman Empire approximately three centuries earlier. The expanded Frankish state that Charlemagne founded was the Carolingian Empire, which is considered the first phase in the history of the Holy Roman Empire. He was canonized by Antipope Paschal III—an act later treated as invalid—and he is now regarded by some as beatified in the Catholic Church.
The Liber Pontificalis is a book of biographies of popes from Saint Peter until the 15th century. The original publication of the Liber Pontificalis stopped with Pope Adrian II (867–872) or Pope Stephen V (885–891), but it was later supplemented in a different style until Pope Eugene IV (1431–1447) and then Pope Pius II (1458–1464). Although quoted virtually uncritically from the 8th to 18th centuries, the Liber Pontificalis has undergone intense modern scholarly scrutiny. The work of the French priest Louis Duchesne, and of others has highlighted some of the underlying redactional motivations of different sections, though such interests are so disparate and varied as to render improbable one popularizer's claim that it is an "unofficial instrument of pontifical propaganda."
Pope Adrian I was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 1 February 772 to his death. He was the son of Theodore, a Roman nobleman.
Pope Benedict III was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 29 September 855 to his death.
Pope Stephen IV was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from June 816 to his death. Stephen belonged to a noble Roman family. In October 816, he crowned Louis the Pious as emperor at Reims, and persuaded him to release some Roman political prisoners he held in custody. He returned to Rome, by way of Ravenna, sometime in November and died the following January.
Pope Zachary was the bishop of Rome from 28 November 741 to his death. He was the last pope of the Byzantine Papacy. Zachary built the original church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, forbade the traffic of slaves in Rome, negotiated peace with the Lombards, and sanctioned Pepin the Short's usurpation of the Frankish throne from Childeric III. Zachary is regarded as a capable administrator and a skillful and subtle diplomat in a dangerous time.
Pope Valentine was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States for two months in 827. He was unusually close to his predecessor, Eugene II, rumoured to be his son or his lover, and became pope before being ordained as a priest. He was a nobleman and elected by nobility, which later became the custom.
Pope Eugene II was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 6 June 824 to his death. A native of Rome, he was chosen by nobles to succeed Paschal I as pope despite the clergy and the people favoring Zinzinnus. The influence of the Carolingian Franks on the selection of popes was then firmly established. Pope Eugene convened a council at Rome in 826 to condemn simony and suspend untrained clergy. It was decreed that schools were to be established at cathedral churches and other places to give instruction in sacred and secular literature. His involvement in the Byzantine Iconoclasm controversy was largely inconsequential.
Pope Paschal I was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 25 January 817 to his death in 824.
Pope Gelasius I was the bishop of Rome from 1 March 492 to his death on 19 November 496. Gelasius was a prolific author whose style placed him on the cusp between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Some scholars have argued that his predecessor Felix III may have employed him to draft papal documents, although this is not certain.
Pope Vigilius was the bishop of Rome from 29 March 537 to his death. He is considered the first pope of the Byzantine papacy. Born into Roman aristocracy, Vigilius served as a deacon and papal apocrisiarius in Constantinople. He allied with Empress Theodora, who sought his help to establish Monophysitism, and was made pope after the deposition of Silverius. After he refused to sign Emperor Justinian I's edict condemning the Three Chapters, Vigilius was arrested in 545 and taken to Constantinople. He died in Sicily while returning to Rome.
Pope Severinus was the bishop of Rome elected in October 638. He was caught up in a power struggle with Emperor Heraclius, who pressured him to accept Monothelitism. Severinus refused, which for over eighteen months hindered his efforts to obtain imperial recognition of his election. His pontificate was finally sanctioned on 28 May 640, but he died two months later.
Christopher claimed the papacy from October 903 to January 904. Although he was listed as a legitimate pope in most modern lists of popes until the first half of the 20th century, the apparently uncanonical method by which he obtained the papacy led to his being removed from the quasi-official roster of popes, the Annuario Pontificio. As such, he is now considered an antipope by the Catholic Church.
Anastasius Bibliothecarius or Anastasius the Librarian was bibliothecarius and chief archivist of the Church of Rome and also briefly a claimant to the papacy.
The Donation of Sutri was an agreement reached at Sutri by Liutprand, King of the Lombards and Pope Gregory II in 728. At Sutri, the two reached an agreement by which the city and some hill towns in Latium were given to the Papacy, "as a gift to the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul" according to the Liber Pontificalis. The pact formed the first extension of papal territory beyond the confines of the Duchy of Rome and was the first of two land transfers from Liutprand to the Church of Rome.
Papal appointment was a medieval method of selecting a pope. Popes have always been selected by a council of Church fathers, however, Papal selection before 1059 was often characterized by confirmation or nomination by secular European rulers or by their predecessors. The later procedures of the papal conclave are in large part designed to constrain the interference of secular rulers which characterized the first millennium of the Roman Catholic Church, and persisted in practices such as the creation of crown-cardinals and the jus exclusivae. Appointment might have taken several forms, with a variety of roles for the laity and civic leaders, Byzantine and Germanic emperors, and noble Roman families. The role of the election vis-a-vis the general population and the clergy was prone to vary considerably, with a nomination carrying weight that ranged from near total to a mere suggestion or ratification of a prior election.
The Church of Saint Lucy in Selci is an ancient Roman Catholic church, located in Rome, dedicated to Saint Lucy, a 4th-century virgin and martyr.
From 756 to 857, the papacy shifted from the orbit of the Byzantine Empire to that of the kings of the Franks. Pepin the Short, Charlemagne, and Louis the Pious had considerable influence in the selection and administration of popes. The "Donation of Pepin" (756) ratified a new period of papal rule in central Italy, which became known as the Papal States.
An earthquake originating in the Central Apennines was felt in Rome and Spoleto on 29 April 801. It is reported in two independent contemporary sources, Einhard's Royal Frankish Annals and the Liber Pontificalis. The information provided by the written sources has been augmented by archaeology.
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