Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/469

 LEO 449 been represented at the sixth oecumenical council (that of Constantinople in 680), where Pope Honorius I. was anathe matized for his views in the Monothelite controversy as a favourer of heresy, and the only fact of permanent historical interest with regard to Leo is that he wrote once and again in approbation of the decision of the council and in con demnation of Honorius, whom he regarded as one who &quot; profana proditione immaculatam fidem subvertere conatus ( est.&quot; [u their bearing upon the question of papal infalli- ; bility these words have excited considerable attention and controversy, and prominence is given to the circumstance ] that in the Greek text of the letter to the emperor in which the phrase occurs the milder expression 7rapf^pw fv (&quot;subvert! permisit &quot;) is used for &quot; subvertere conatus est.&quot; This Hefele in his Conciliengesc.hichte (iii. 294) regards as alone expressing the true meaning of Leo. It was during ! Leo s pontificate that the dependence of the see of Eavenna upon that of Eome was finally settled by imperial edict. Benedict II. succeeded him. LEO III., whose pontificate (795-816) covered the last eighteen years of the reign of Charlemagne, was a native of Eome, and having been unanimously chosen successor of Adrian I. on December 26, 795, was consecrated to the office on the following day. His first act was to send to Charles as patrician the standard of Eome along with the keys of the sepulchre of St Peter and of the city ; a gracious and condescending letter in reply made it still ! more clear where all real power at that moment lay. I For more than three years his term of office was quite uneventful ; but at the end of that period the feelings of disappointment which had secretly been rankling in the breasts of Paschalis and Campulus, nephews of Adrian I., who had received from him the offices of primicerius and sacellarius respectively, suddenly manifested themselves in an organized attack upon Leo as he was riding in pro cession through the city on St George s day (April 23, 799) ; the object of his assailants was, by depriving him of his eyes and tongue, to disqualify him for the papal office, and, although they were unsuccessful in this attempt, he found it necessary to accept the protection of Winegis, the Prankish duke of Spoleto, who came to the rescue. Having vainly requested the presence of Charles in Eome, Leo went beyond the Alps to meet the king at Paderborn ; he was received with much ceremony and respect, but his enemies having sent in certain written charges, of which the character is not now known except that they were of a serious nature, Charles decided to appoint both the pope and his accusers to appear as parties before him when he should have arrived in Eome. Leo returned in great state to his diocese, and was received with honour ; Charles, who did not arrive until November in the following year, lost no time in assuming the office of a judge, and the final result of his investigation was the acquittal of the pope, who at the same time, however, was permitted or rather required to clear himself by the oath of computation. The coronation of the emperor an act the precise meaning of which does not fall to be discussed here followed two days afterwards ; the effect of it was to -bring out with increased clearness the personally subordinate position of Leo. The decision of the emperor, however, secured for Leo s pontificate an external peace which was only broken after the accession of Louis the Pious. His enemies began to renew their attacks ; the violent repression of a con spiracy led to an open rebellion at Eome ; serious charges were once more brought against him, when he was over taken by death in 816. It was under this pontificate that Pelix of Urgel, the adoptianist, was anathematized (798) by a Eoman synod. Leo at another synod held in Eome in 810 admitted the dogmatic correctness of the &quot; filioque,&quot; but deprecated its introduction into the creed. On this point, however, the Prankish Church persevered in the course it had already initiated. Leo s successor was Stephen IV. LEO IV., pope from 847 to 855, was a Eoman by birth, and was unanimously chosen to succeed Sergius II. His pontificate was chiefly distinguished by his efforts to repair the damage done by the Saracens during the reign of his predecessor to various churches of the city, especially those of St Peter and St Paul. It was he who built and fortified. the suburb on the right bank of the Tiber still known as the Civitas Leonina. A frightful conflagration, which he is said to have extinguished by his prayers, is the subject of Eaphael s great work in the Sala dell Incendio of the Vatican. He held three synods, one of them (in 850) dis tinguished by the presence of Louis II., but none of them otherwise of importance. The history of the papal struggle with Hincmar of Eheims, which began during Leo s ponti ficate, belongs rather to that of Nicolas I. Benedict III. was Leo s immediate successor. LEO V., a native of Ardea, was pope for some thirty clays in 903 after the death of Benedict IV. He was succeeded by Sergius III. LEO VI. succeeded John X. in 928, and reigned seven months and a few days. He was succeeded by Stephen VIII. LEO VII., pope from 936 to 939, was preceded by John XL, and followed by Stephen IX. LEO VIII., pope from 963 to 965, a Eoman by birth, held the lay office of &quot; protoscrinius &quot; when he was elected to the papal chair at the instance of Otho the Great by the Eoman synod which deposed John XII. in December 963. Having been hurried with unseemly haste through all the intermediate orders, he received consecration two days after his election, which was unacceptable to the people. In February 964, the emperor having withdrawn from the city, Leo found it necessary to seek safety in flight, where upon he was deposed by a synod held under the presidency of John XII. On the sudden death of the latter, the populace chose Benedict V. as his successor; but Otho, returning and laying siege to the city, compelled their acceptance of Leo. It is usually said that, at the synod which deposed Benedict, Leo conceded to the emperor and his successors as sovereign of Italy full rights of investiture, but the genuineness of the document on which this allega tion rests is more than doubtful. Leo VIII. was succeeded by John XIII. LEO IX., pope from 1049 to 1054, was a native of Upper Alsace, where he was born June 21, 1002. His proper name was Bruno ; the family to which he belonged was of noble rank, and through his father he was related to the emperor Conrad II. He was educated at Tcul, where he successively became canon and (1026) bishop ; in the latter capacity he rendered important political services to his relative Conrad II., and afterwards to Henry III., and at the same time he became widely known as an earnest and reforming ecclesiastic by the zeal he showed in spreading the rule of the order of Cluny. On the death of Damasus II, Bruno was in December 1048, with the concurrence botli of the emperor and of the Eoman delegates, selected his successor by an assembly at &quot;Vorms ; he stipulated, however, as a condition of his acceptance that he should first proceed to Eome and be canonically elected by the voice of clergy and people. Setting out shortly after Christmas, he had a meeting with abbot Hugo of Cluny at Besai^on, where he was joined by the young monk Hildebrand, who afterwards became Pope Gregory VII. ; arriving in pilgrim garb at Eome in the following February, lie was received with much cordiality, and at his consecration assumed the name of Leo IX. One of his first public acts was to hold the well-known Easter synod XIV. 57