We are publishing a summer series on the 13 popes who bore the name Leo before the current pontiff. Fifth episode: the unfortunate Pope Leo V (903).
In July 903, a Benedictine monk was elected under the name of Leo V (the first pope by this name not to be recognized as a saint by the Catholic Church). About a month later, he was deposed by a certain Christopher, who went down in history as an antipope, and was probably murdered. What happened?
The question is one of the darkest episodes of what Cardinal Cesare Baronio, in the 16th century, called the “Saeculum obscurum”–the dark century–and remains a mystery to historians to this day.
A complicated political situation
To better understand this brief pontificate, we must go back 15 years earlier, to 888, the year of the death of the Western Emperor Charles III the Fat. The latter, heir to his great-grandfather Charlemagne, left behind a divided empire. His successor, Eudes, was no longer in a position to confirm the election of the pope, as was then the practice.
The Holy See became a pawn in the political reconfiguration that saw the emergence of the powerful family of the Dukes of Spoleto. The pope at the time, Stephen V, was thus forced to crown Guy of Spoleto king of Italy and then emperor.
Upon Guy of Spoleto's death in 894, the new pope, Formosus, refused to crown the designated successor, a certain Lambert. Instead, he decided to crown Arnulf, king of Germany. This was a way for him to free himself from the tutelage of part of the Roman aristocracy, known as the “Spoletans.”
The conflict worsened in the following years, giving rise to the scandalous episode of the Cadaver Synod in 897: the deceased Formosus was exhumed by Boniface VI at the request of the Spoletans and excommunicated before his body was thrown into the Tiber. But the supporters of greater papal autonomy had not said their last word and would henceforth be known as the “Formosans.”
Spoletans against Formosans
The following popes would rehabilitate Formosus, but pressure from the House of Spoleto and other ambitious Roman families continued. It was this explosive situation to which Leo V seems to have fallen victim. Although not a member of the Roman clergy, he was chosen because of his reputation for holiness—but possibly also, according to some sources, because of his affinities with the Formosian camp.
The man often considered his murderer, Christopher, was a staunch Formosian, Leo V's chaplain and protégé. According to the monk Herman Contract, a German chronicler of the following century, Christopher nevertheless betrayed him. He threw Leo V into prison before having him strangled, then replacing him.
A few months later, this antipope seems to have suffered the same fate (or was exiled) at the hands of the supporters of Sergius III, who was elected in January 904.
Some chroniclers, notably the Formosian Eugenio Vulgario, suggest that it was in fact Sergius III, a Spoleto native supported by the powerful Roman family of the Counts of Tusculum, who ordered the two murders.
This hypothesis is difficult to prove, but seems to have been reinforced by the appalling reputation of Sergius III, the first pope of the “papal pornocracy”–a period of serious decline that owes its name to the supposed influence of former prostitutes on the throne of St. Peter.
In a twist of history, Christopher is not officially recognized in the Petrine succession, but appears on the frieze of popes in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, flanked by Sergius III and the short-lived Leo V.
