Leo III (d. 816), pope. A Roman priest who became cardinal-priest of St. Susanna, Leo was chosen as pope in 795. From the beginning of his reign a faction surrounding his predecessor's disappointed nephew bitterly opposed him, even attempting to blind and mutilate him in 799. Leo retired to Paderborn where Charlemagne was; he was given an escort and returned to Rome amid great rejoicing. But his enemies made serious charges against him of perjury and adultery, of which Leo purged himself in a synod. Leo's reliance on the emperor was similar to that of his predecessor, but it was Leo's achievement to cement the alliance between papacy and empire by crowning Charlemagne in St. Peter's on Christmas Day, 800. This symbolic act inaugurated the Christian empire of the West, believed to be equal to the Eastern empire of Constantinople and to realize Augustine's ideal of the City of God. On this alliance was founded the unity of medieval Christendom; but opinions differ about the precise significance of the coronation and whether pope or emperor gained most from it in authority and protection. Leo gained security against his enemies and greater ability to intervene effectively outside the papal states, but he resisted imperial pressure to impose the Filioque clause in the Creed because of the risk of alienating Greek Christians. Leo was concerned with English affairs through Offa's requests to his predecessor to set up Lichfield as a metropolitan see, which had been granted. But after Offa's death Leo in 803 restored the previous status of Canterbury; Lichfield reverted to being one of its suffragans. He also helped to settle differences between archbishops of Canterbury and kings of Kent. The death of Charlemagne in 814 was the occasion for renewed plots against Leo; at the same time there was a Saracen invasion of the Italian coast. Leo restored order but his health gave way: he died on 12 June after a reign of twenty years. His cult dates from the 10th century, but he was canonized only in 1673. A restored near-contemporary mosaic survives in the Lateran depicting St. Peter giving the pallium to Leo and a standard to Charlemagne. Feast: 12 June.
Bibliography
Click here for a list of abbreviations used in this bibliography.
- AA.SS. Iun. II (1698), 572–90; L. Duchesne, Le Liber Pontificalis, ii. 1–48; Letters and other documents in P.L., cii. 1023–72; P. Jaffé, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum, i (1885); 307–16; L. Wallach, ‘The Genuine and Forged Oath of Pope Leo III’, Traditio, xi (1955), 37–63; id., ‘The Roman Synod of December 800 and the alleged trial of Leo III’, Harvard Theol. Rev., xlix (1956), 123–42; see also W. Ullmann, The Growth of Papal Government in the Middle Ages (
2nd edn. , 1962), T. F. X. Noble, The Republic of St Peter: the birth of the Papal State, 680–825 (1984), and O.D.P., pp. 97–9
