Lentorama 2025: Perfunctory Popes

Day 22: Leo V

Yes, I am starting a run of Leos (which I should have started with Leo XI, so much for planning ahead). Leo isn't quite as fraught a name as Celestine, but there are a pretty good number of Leos who didn't see out a year in office.

In the case of Leo V, he was elected in 903 and served during the second half of the year. It says something about the power of the papacy at the time that the historical record can only pin down Leo's time in office in general terms. He was the last pope to serve before a period known in the church as the saeculum obscurum, known more colorfully as the Pornocracy or Rule of the Harlots. Covering most of the 10th century, this was a period where the papacy fell under the influence of the Theophylacti, a local noble family that used the power of its members, friends, and hangers-on to get who they wanted made pope.

Leo didn't have much time in office - about the only thing we know that he did was enact a bull that exempted the canons of Bologna from paying taxes - before being deposed by Christopher, a Roman cardinal-priest. Leo was likely imprisoned while Christopher proclaimed himself pope. He didn't last much longer than Leo did, being imprisoned by the Theophylacti, who then got Sergius III onto the throne.

We don't know much about what happened to Leo after all this happened, other than that he died the following year. We know even less about what happened to Christopher. It's likely both died in captivity, possibly in a monastery rather than prison. It's also possible that one (or both) were killed in prison to remove any threat to Sergius.