A Brief History
On November 29, 800, the Frankish King Charlemagne (aka, Charles I) traveled to Rome and The Vatican to investigate charges of adultery and perjury against Pope Leo III, another soap opera in the long saga of the papacy.
Digging Deeper
Charlemagne as King of the Franks (France), was seen as the leading Catholic monarch of the time, and as such, the protector of the faith and the Pope. Leo had been unanimously elected Pope on the death of Pope Adrian I, but the friends and relatives of Adrian apparently resented Leo and undertook to discredit the reigning Pope.
Leo was attacked physically by armed assassins in April of 799, and was subjected to an attempt to rip out his eyes and tongue. Rendered unconscious, Leo was rescued by a larger force of armed men loyal to the Pope. Leo was placed under the protection of Charlemagne who investigated the charges against him and exonerated the Pope. The plotters loyal to Adrian were exiled.
In return for his service, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire on Christmas Day of 800. Ironically, it was Adrian I that had conferred the status of Patricius Romanus (protector of the Roman Catholic Church) on Charlemagne’s father in 774.
The intrigue and politics of the Church, the Papacy, and the Holy Roman Empire continued, especially between the East (Constantinople based) and West (Rome based) parts of the Church and Empire. The history of the papacy would go on to an incredible array of scandals and accusations (sex, murder, intrigue) for centuries, so much so that it amazes me the institution has lasted to this day. This history reads like the most fanciful soap opera that can be imagined, one that would certainly be on cable because it is too sordid for network television!
Question for students (and subscribers): Do you have a favorite bizarre story related to any of the Popes? Feel free to share them with us in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Hodgkin, Thomas. The Life of Charlemagne. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014.
Winston, Richard. Charlemagne. New Word City, Inc., 2015.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="12327 https://www.historyandheadlines.com/?p=12327">28 Comments
I don’t understand why they would resent Leo, he only took his place as pope because the other died. it wasn’t like he killed him.
I don’t have any crazy stories as the popes do but it is interesting to see the shenanigans that happened in those days!
no sadly I don’t have any crazy stories about popes beausce I feel they normally follow the rules they have and not do these crazy things that happened back then
The history of the papacy is full of interesting stories. There are the Anti-Popes, the time there were three popes, and Rodrigo Borgia (the villain of Assassin’s Creed II).
Im glad things have changed since then
I’m not Catholic and don’t know much about the popes. It all seems hypocritical and they are not any sort of leaders I care to follow. That being said, I think Pope Francis may be breaking the mold- I hope so! All these rulers and leaders seem to be in cahoots and in it for personal reasons, not necessarily because they care about the people.
I heard there have been many scandals at the Vatican…. I think Pope Francis is really changing the papacy
Definitely believe there have been changes
The violence of medieval society never ceases to amaze me. The fact that people would try to rip out the eyes and tongue of anyone is just hard to even imagine.
The corruption back in the middle ages was a lot different than today. I enjoy the story of the three different popes at the same time.
With how much power the church was able to coerce among Kings and peasants alike, I would be more surprised if there had been no corruption. Imagine if the peasants had access to the internet and cable news in those days.
I feel that in medieval society violence was very cruel and unusual, almost makes you wonder if the medieval times were one of the main reasons for the cruel and unusual amendment was made by our founding fathers. Also it is honestly sickening to think that people came up with the ides of such violent acts.
(.Y.)
Violence in our world will never get better. It goes from the beginning of our world and it will be here until the end of it.
Violence during medieval times was so cruel, nothing like our society today.
I’m not sure that I have a favorite bizarre story of the papacy. Although I am not Catholic, I prefer to think of the papacy and the pope as a a respectable system and leadership of a religion.
The methods of torture/killing back then is unfathomably painful when considering what it is like today, where we try to make death painless in most scenarios.
These crazy stories are very entertaining to hear.
I love reading these articles, former interesting, but they were very cruel.
and now water boarding is not aloud that was roses compared to this
I can’t imagine the grueling task of ripping out someones tongue, let alone eyeballs.
I coudnt even imagine dying the way some of these people did
This was both interesting and disturbing at the same time.
At least the Pope was saved and exonerated
This was super interesting
reading some of this stuff just leaves me dumbfounded, i dont know how anyone could preform such acts of cruelty. Just shoot them or something
So the stuff said about his pope were not real then? how do we know that for sure or not.
Very brutal. Medieval if you will.