Since the newly elected pope chose Leo as his papal name, much has been made of the immediate link to Pope Leo XIII (r. 1878-1903). His papacy lasted twenty-five years, making it the fourth longest. Given the relative youth of Pope Leo XIV, his papacy may endure for a similarly lengthy time. Some 120 years separate these two popes Leo, following the sporadic pattern of papal Leos across the Middle Ages and into the twenty-first century.
If Leo XIII is the most recent role-model, what about the earlier eleven Popes Leo who were medieval or early modern predecessors? These earlier Popes Leo lived in difficult times; some were brilliantly successful; some made devastating mistakes that still scar the world. Together they provide a fascinating overview of papal history. How might their lives and legacies inspire or caution the incumbent?
Great Popes Leo, for better and for worse
Pope Leo I in the Nuremberg Chronicle
Let’s start chronologically. Pope Leo I (r. 440-461), one of only two popes to have earned the appellative “the Great”, was, frankly, a hard Pope Leo to follow. Not only was he “Great” but he fulfilled his role so exceptionally that he was the catalyst for the transformation of the ordinary Bishop of Rome to the Pope with primacy over all other bishops. This privilege was bestowed in 445 by the Emperor Valentinian III, who justified this elevation because of the dignity of Rome, as capital of the empire, and because whomever was the bishop of Rome was the direct successor of St Peter. Leo himself wrote that: “the care of the universal Church should converge towards Peter’s one seat, and nothing anywhere should be separated from its Head” (Letter 14.12). Thus, both secular and religious authorities converged to develop the unbreakable bond of the Petrine Doctrine from St Peter to Leo XIV. This is a powerful indication of just how great Leo I was.
Leo was pope during a period of chaos, dislocation, and war, when imperial administrative and military assets were drifting eastward to Constantinople. Leo brought considerable skills to the papacy, which helped him not only as the religious leader of Rome but also as its civil administrator. He had been an imperial civil servant and diplomat yet was also sufficiently respected in Christian circles that the people of Rome elected him bishop while he was absent in Gaul. Without imperial support, Leo stepped into the void and coordinated civil society, distributing food, organizing poor relief, and establishing military protection against the invading barbarian armies. His diplomatic skills were put to good use when, in 452, he famously negotiated with Attila the Hun and persuaded him not to sack Rome.
There was, however, another side to Leo I. Not only were Christians and pagans living side-by-side in Rome, but many different interpretations of Christianity co-existed as well. Leo wrote theological tracts that were central to proving these groups were heretical. Moreover, barely 150 years after the persecutions of Christians by Diocletian, which must have endured in common memory, he also justified the persecution and even execution of those he considered heretics, in his zeal to ensure the dominance of Nicene Christianity.
Another great Pope Leo was Leo III (r. 795-816). He was elected in one of the shortest conclaves on record but also enjoyed one of the longest papacies, like Leo I, over twenty years. This was sufficient time for him to leave an indelible mark on history. Leo III’s career was not without scandal and upheaval. He was elected on the day his predecessor Adrian I’s funeral was held, and was consecrated the next day.
A 13th century miniature depicting the attempt to cut out Pope Leo III’s tongue – Wikimedia Commons
This irregular and hasty election was dogged by controversy and complicated by invasions by the ruthless Lombards, the last of the “barbarian” invasions. Rome, itself, was rife with civil disorder. In 799, relatives of Adrian I, who did not consider his election worthy or legitimate, seized Leo and tried to pluck out his eyes and tongue, the classic means to render kings and rulers unfit to continue in office. Leo fled north to the court of Charles the Great, whose Frankish armies swept across the Alps, tamed the Lombards, and reinstated Leo. The pope promptly crowned Charlemagne as Emperor, marking the final break with the ancient world and the shift of political power from the Mediterranean to north of the Alps. Now the Franks held sway across northwestern Europe and south to Italy, constructing a huge if unstable empire to supersede the fictional remains of the Roman Empire
Not until the eleventh century was there another Pope Leo who left an enduring mark on history. Pope Leo IX (r. 1049-1054), despite a short five-year papacy, managed to rock the world. Leo, himself was German and part of the circle surrounding the Holy Roman Emperor. Leo was elected at Worms and approved by both the emperor and the Roman delegates; however, he wanted a canonical election and therefore traveled to Rome for affirmation and consecration. Leo was a conservative reformer who entered into a controversy with Eastern church leaders centred in Constantinople. At stake was the type of bread that ought to be used for the eucharist.
The quarrel escalated until, on his deathbed, Leo issued a bull excommunicating the Patriarch of Constantinople, precipitating the Great Schism that permanently separated Christianity into Eastern Greek Orthodox and Western Latin Catholic churches. Leo IX was canonized in 1082 as a reformer dedicated to eliminating simony and clerical marriage. Some hagiographies record that Leo was born with little red crosses on his body, which were understood as stigmata. Whether a saint or an obdurate pope, by escalating the tensions with Constantinople to the breaking point, Leo IX changed the medieval world as profoundly as Leo I and Leo III, by up-ending the balance of power at a critical time.
Detail of The Coronation of Charlemagne by Raphael’s workshop (1516–17), in which Leo X served in fact as a model for the figure of Leo III – Wikimedia Commons
It is not until the sixteenth century that another pope Leo is credited with equivalent historical impact. No pope had taken the name Leo for almost 500 years when the son of Lorenzo de’Medici, ruler of Florence, was elected pope and boldly and presciently chose the name Leo X (r. 1513-1521). His career strayed from the expected path. When he was elected pope on 9 March 1513, he had not even been ordained a priest although he had been a cardinal since 1489, when he was thirteen years old. Nevertheless, he was quickly proclaimed pope two days later (compared with Leo IX who chose to delay until he could travel from Worms to Rome). On 15 March, Leo was ordained a priest and on 17 March, consecrated a bishop, and finally on 19 March, he ascended to the papacy.
In 1517, Leo X, (acting more like a Borgia than a Medici) alleged some cardinals were plotting to poison him; they were severely punished. Adding to the controversy, he then appointed thirty-one new cardinals, far in excess of any papal predecessor. Leo was also profligate with money; he supported artists and humanists and promoted the study of the classics, all activities befitting a Medici, if not exactly a pope.
During this period, criticism of the church and clergy by reformers was exacerbated by Leo’s own profligacy and indifference to ecclesiastical excesses. In 1517, Martin Luther published his Ninety-five Theses critiquing the flagrant abuse of indulgences for the remission of sins. An indulgence was rather like a spiritual tax receipt for good works such as going on pilgrimage or almsgiving, but they had gotten out of control. Leo X, himself, was implicated in the misuse of indulgences, allegedly selling them to pay for the renovations of St. Peter’s.
Although Leo X had been elected pope during the Fifth Lateran Council, he was unable or unwilling to enact any of its reforms which only intensified criticism. His recalcitrance and his stubbornness in dealing with Luther in particular, was a precipitating factor in the Protestant Reformation, once again shattering the Catholic Church. Indulgences, however, didn’t disappear. During Pope Leo XIV’s first appearance on the papal loggia, after his election on 8 May 2025, the sharp-eared and multilingual may have heard him bestowing plenary indulgences to those in St Peter’s Square and those watching him on television from around the world.
Popes Leo “the lesser”
Pope Leo II in the Nuremberg Chronicle
Clearly, Leo the Great was a bit intimidating to follow. Not all Leos were great or even notable. After Leo I it was almost two hundred years before another pope chose that name. Leo II (r. 682-683) was pope for a single year, so had little time to make his mark. As noted, Leo III grappled with his challenges by seeking out champions to help him. In 847, during another period of invasion and an attack on Rome itself, by Arab armies, Leo IV (r. 847-855) was elected. Perhaps he wanted to channel the strength and success of Leos I and III to protect Rome and the papacy from this new enemy. Although pope for only eight years, Leo restored and widened the city walls, extending them around St Peter’s which had hitherto been unprotected. Although official records indicate he was succeeded by Benedict III, one of the more interesting aspects of Leo IV is, according to less dogmatic sources, the assertion he was succeeded by Pope Joan (r. 855-857). Whether fictive or erased, Pope Joan makes a thought-provoking coda to this rather lacklustre papacy.
Most Leos congregated in the tenth century, which was not a good time for Popes Leo, or probably for any pope by another name. The period is riddled with notably short papacies. Leo VI only managed seven months (r. 927-928). His predecessor, John X, had been imprisoned and murdered, although there are no suspicious circumstances surrounding Leo VI’s death. Leo VII (r. 936-939) managed three years, while Leo VIII (963-965) barely survived thirteen months. He managed to squeeze two distinct roles into his brief papacy, as anti-pope and then as legitimate pope. Leo’s predecessor, John XII, had been deposed by the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I who then arranged the election of Leo VIII. However, the people of Rome supported John XII and upon his death they elected Benedict V. Otto again attacked Rome with Leo in his wake, and he was reinstalled as pope, while Benedict submitted and was demoted to deacon. These confusions of legitimacy were certainly the result of the interference by Otto I. Nevertheless, the last six or eight months of Leo’s papacy appear to have been legitimate and peaceful.
Off- script Elections of Popes Leo
In the Middle Ages, papal elections and conclaves of cardinals were totally unlike the staid, orderly, and stage-managed conclaves of today. Many Popes Leo had unusual elections. From the beginning, Leo I was elected both by vox populi and in absentia and without his consent or knowledge. In early Christianity, the faithful would spontaneously acclaim a bishop, Ambrose of Milan is one well-known example. The right of the people of Rome to approve or reject a candidate was suppressed in 769, although through the centuries, as happens today, people continued to gather outside the conclave to await the results; the roar of approval by the thousands who still gather in St Peter’s Square is the last vestige of vox populi.
The shortest papal election on record was that of Leo III, who was elected on the day his predecessor was buried, and he consecrated the next day. This unseemly haste was the source of his trouble from enemies, and the brutal physical attack that sent him into the arms of Charlemagne.
More dramatic, is the shadowy election of Pope Leo V in 903. The exact date of his election remains unclear, although he succeeded Benedict IV, who died on 30 July 903. This was a dark period in papal history. Leo V was a priest, although apparently not a cardinal-priest in Rome, unlike his rival for the papacy, a certain Christopher, cardinal-priest of San Damaso. Christopher captured, deposed, incarcerated, and probably murdered Leo V, all within a month of his election. Christopher then either had himself elected pope or seized the papacy. (Ironically, for those inclined to Freudian interpretations, Christopher’s father may also have been named Leo.)
Christopher, himself, did not last long, being quickly deposed by Sergius III, who was pope by January 904. The sources are sketchy. It is possible that Christopher murdered Leo or that Sergius murdered them both, all of this within six months of Benedict IV’s death. Christopher is considered an antipope, although his name does not appear on all the lists of antipopes. Perhaps evidence of these events is too fragmented or because Christopher was simply too early or insignificant to stand with the great antipopes of the High and Later Middle Ages.
The election of Leo XI (r. 1605) is another strange papal election (author note: I know I am pushing the premodern period very far, but this seems to fit with the other Leos). There were sixty-one cardinals in the conclave, twenty-one of whom were considered candidates for the papacy. The conclave lasted seventeen days, with ongoing interference from the French, the Spanish, and the Italian Medici. It seemed that the Italians had prevailed, although perhaps the French thought they had (it was certainly not the Spanish who vehemently opposed the election), with the election of another Medici, who chose the name Leo XI, to honour his Medici ancestor. Leo XI did not have time to do anything noteworthy; he died after a mere thirty-seven days as pope.
The conclave to elect his successor was reduced to fifty-nine because Leo and another cardinal had died. But recent experience did not make the election easier. This conclave reveals the extreme emotional tensions that could develop among the cardinals. This is the only conclave on record where the cardinals broke into a physical brawl that could be heard outside on the streets; one cardinal suffered multiple broken bones. (Pace: Pius II describes during his conclave, one cardinal being grabbed by others who tried to drag him out before he could change his vote, although manhandling is less violent than fisticuffs).
Popes Leo Trivia
Overall, when looking at Leos, few selected the name consecutively. It took two hundred years for Leo II to follow Leo I and more than another hundred years before Leo III assumed the name. While there was a cluster of Leos in the tenth century, over 450 years separate Leo IX (d. 1054) and Leo X (r. 1513) and yet another century before Leo XI. There were no Leos between 1605 – 1823, and more than a hundred years separate popes Leo XIII and Leo XIV. This suggests that Leo was not a name for the twentieth century, but that’s a story for a modernist.
Quite a few medieval Popes Leo had unusually lengthy papacies, even measured against more recent popes and popes by other names. Leo I and Leo III were over twenty years (as was the modern Leo XIII). Interestingly, the longest papacies were also at times of social and religious turmoil, invasions, and political, economic, and cultural transformation. Easy times do not correlate with long papacies.
Pope Leo IX depicted in a 12th-century manuscript – Cod. Bodmer 127, fol. 191r
On the other hand, some Leos had amazingly short papacies. Leo II was pope for only two years. Across the tenth century, Leo V lasted only a month or so; Leo VI was pope for seven months; Leo VII for three years; and Leo VIII for only a year. Leo XI was pope for 26 days; his election and death did not encompass the full month of April 1605. His is the shortest papacy in history.
Five Popes Leo have been canonized: Leo I, the Great, obviously; Leo II, who knows exactly why; Leo III, who preserved Rome by opening the way north; Leo IV who defeated the Arab fleet in the Battle of Ostia (849); and Leo IX who precipitated the Great Schism. Although Leo IX was buried in St Peter’s, sometime afterwards his bones were moved to a communal tomb with the other canonized Popes Leo. After many centuries together, in the eighteenth century, the remains of Leo I were removed from those of his canonized brothers and placed in an individual tomb, perhaps appropriately for the only one considered “Great.” On the other hand, it is impossible not to wonder if the five St Leos enjoyed each other’s company.
There are two other Leos inspiring the papacy of Pope Leo XIV and they, too, have interesting stories. But Leo XII and Leo XIII belong to the nineteenth century and are within the purview of modernists. They may well be the most obvious inspiration for Pope Leo XIV, even more so than their medieval predecessors. But maybe not. Whether through wisdom, errors, or achievements, their lives all have something to say to the current pope. Some of those medieval Popes Leo really were pretty great.
Jacqueline Murray is a medieval historian based at the University of Guelph. Her scholarly research focuses primarily on medieval genders and sexualities, especially masculinities. As a public-facing historian, she seeks to intrigue and inform audiences about the Middle Ages and why they matter. You can follow her on Bluesky @jacquelinemurray.bsky.social
Top Image: A Pope Leo among the saints – British Library MS Royal 2 B.VII, f.308
By Jacqueline Murray
Since the newly elected pope chose Leo as his papal name, much has been made of the immediate link to Pope Leo XIII (r. 1878-1903). His papacy lasted twenty-five years, making it the fourth longest. Given the relative youth of Pope Leo XIV, his papacy may endure for a similarly lengthy time. Some 120 years separate these two popes Leo, following the sporadic pattern of papal Leos across the Middle Ages and into the twenty-first century.
If Leo XIII is the most recent role-model, what about the earlier eleven Popes Leo who were medieval or early modern predecessors? These earlier Popes Leo lived in difficult times; some were brilliantly successful; some made devastating mistakes that still scar the world. Together they provide a fascinating overview of papal history. How might their lives and legacies inspire or caution the incumbent?
Great Popes Leo, for better and for worse
Let’s start chronologically. Pope Leo I (r. 440-461), one of only two popes to have earned the appellative “the Great”, was, frankly, a hard Pope Leo to follow. Not only was he “Great” but he fulfilled his role so exceptionally that he was the catalyst for the transformation of the ordinary Bishop of Rome to the Pope with primacy over all other bishops. This privilege was bestowed in 445 by the Emperor Valentinian III, who justified this elevation because of the dignity of Rome, as capital of the empire, and because whomever was the bishop of Rome was the direct successor of St Peter. Leo himself wrote that: “the care of the universal Church should converge towards Peter’s one seat, and nothing anywhere should be separated from its Head” (Letter 14.12). Thus, both secular and religious authorities converged to develop the unbreakable bond of the Petrine Doctrine from St Peter to Leo XIV. This is a powerful indication of just how great Leo I was.
Leo was pope during a period of chaos, dislocation, and war, when imperial administrative and military assets were drifting eastward to Constantinople. Leo brought considerable skills to the papacy, which helped him not only as the religious leader of Rome but also as its civil administrator. He had been an imperial civil servant and diplomat yet was also sufficiently respected in Christian circles that the people of Rome elected him bishop while he was absent in Gaul. Without imperial support, Leo stepped into the void and coordinated civil society, distributing food, organizing poor relief, and establishing military protection against the invading barbarian armies. His diplomatic skills were put to good use when, in 452, he famously negotiated with Attila the Hun and persuaded him not to sack Rome.
There was, however, another side to Leo I. Not only were Christians and pagans living side-by-side in Rome, but many different interpretations of Christianity co-existed as well. Leo wrote theological tracts that were central to proving these groups were heretical. Moreover, barely 150 years after the persecutions of Christians by Diocletian, which must have endured in common memory, he also justified the persecution and even execution of those he considered heretics, in his zeal to ensure the dominance of Nicene Christianity.
Another great Pope Leo was Leo III (r. 795-816). He was elected in one of the shortest conclaves on record but also enjoyed one of the longest papacies, like Leo I, over twenty years. This was sufficient time for him to leave an indelible mark on history. Leo III’s career was not without scandal and upheaval. He was elected on the day his predecessor Adrian I’s funeral was held, and was consecrated the next day.
This irregular and hasty election was dogged by controversy and complicated by invasions by the ruthless Lombards, the last of the “barbarian” invasions. Rome, itself, was rife with civil disorder. In 799, relatives of Adrian I, who did not consider his election worthy or legitimate, seized Leo and tried to pluck out his eyes and tongue, the classic means to render kings and rulers unfit to continue in office. Leo fled north to the court of Charles the Great, whose Frankish armies swept across the Alps, tamed the Lombards, and reinstated Leo. The pope promptly crowned Charlemagne as Emperor, marking the final break with the ancient world and the shift of political power from the Mediterranean to north of the Alps. Now the Franks held sway across northwestern Europe and south to Italy, constructing a huge if unstable empire to supersede the fictional remains of the Roman Empire
(Author note: For a brilliant explanation of the instability of the Carolingian Empire see Oathbreakers: The War of Brothers That Shattered an Empire and Made Medieval Europe, by Matthew Gabriele and David M. Perry in 2024).
Not until the eleventh century was there another Pope Leo who left an enduring mark on history. Pope Leo IX (r. 1049-1054), despite a short five-year papacy, managed to rock the world. Leo, himself was German and part of the circle surrounding the Holy Roman Emperor. Leo was elected at Worms and approved by both the emperor and the Roman delegates; however, he wanted a canonical election and therefore traveled to Rome for affirmation and consecration. Leo was a conservative reformer who entered into a controversy with Eastern church leaders centred in Constantinople. At stake was the type of bread that ought to be used for the eucharist.
The quarrel escalated until, on his deathbed, Leo issued a bull excommunicating the Patriarch of Constantinople, precipitating the Great Schism that permanently separated Christianity into Eastern Greek Orthodox and Western Latin Catholic churches. Leo IX was canonized in 1082 as a reformer dedicated to eliminating simony and clerical marriage. Some hagiographies record that Leo was born with little red crosses on his body, which were understood as stigmata. Whether a saint or an obdurate pope, by escalating the tensions with Constantinople to the breaking point, Leo IX changed the medieval world as profoundly as Leo I and Leo III, by up-ending the balance of power at a critical time.
It is not until the sixteenth century that another pope Leo is credited with equivalent historical impact. No pope had taken the name Leo for almost 500 years when the son of Lorenzo de’Medici, ruler of Florence, was elected pope and boldly and presciently chose the name Leo X (r. 1513-1521). His career strayed from the expected path. When he was elected pope on 9 March 1513, he had not even been ordained a priest although he had been a cardinal since 1489, when he was thirteen years old. Nevertheless, he was quickly proclaimed pope two days later (compared with Leo IX who chose to delay until he could travel from Worms to Rome). On 15 March, Leo was ordained a priest and on 17 March, consecrated a bishop, and finally on 19 March, he ascended to the papacy.
In 1517, Leo X, (acting more like a Borgia than a Medici) alleged some cardinals were plotting to poison him; they were severely punished. Adding to the controversy, he then appointed thirty-one new cardinals, far in excess of any papal predecessor. Leo was also profligate with money; he supported artists and humanists and promoted the study of the classics, all activities befitting a Medici, if not exactly a pope.
During this period, criticism of the church and clergy by reformers was exacerbated by Leo’s own profligacy and indifference to ecclesiastical excesses. In 1517, Martin Luther published his Ninety-five Theses critiquing the flagrant abuse of indulgences for the remission of sins. An indulgence was rather like a spiritual tax receipt for good works such as going on pilgrimage or almsgiving, but they had gotten out of control. Leo X, himself, was implicated in the misuse of indulgences, allegedly selling them to pay for the renovations of St. Peter’s.
Although Leo X had been elected pope during the Fifth Lateran Council, he was unable or unwilling to enact any of its reforms which only intensified criticism. His recalcitrance and his stubbornness in dealing with Luther in particular, was a precipitating factor in the Protestant Reformation, once again shattering the Catholic Church. Indulgences, however, didn’t disappear. During Pope Leo XIV’s first appearance on the papal loggia, after his election on 8 May 2025, the sharp-eared and multilingual may have heard him bestowing plenary indulgences to those in St Peter’s Square and those watching him on television from around the world.
Popes Leo “the lesser”
Clearly, Leo the Great was a bit intimidating to follow. Not all Leos were great or even notable. After Leo I it was almost two hundred years before another pope chose that name. Leo II (r. 682-683) was pope for a single year, so had little time to make his mark. As noted, Leo III grappled with his challenges by seeking out champions to help him. In 847, during another period of invasion and an attack on Rome itself, by Arab armies, Leo IV (r. 847-855) was elected. Perhaps he wanted to channel the strength and success of Leos I and III to protect Rome and the papacy from this new enemy. Although pope for only eight years, Leo restored and widened the city walls, extending them around St Peter’s which had hitherto been unprotected. Although official records indicate he was succeeded by Benedict III, one of the more interesting aspects of Leo IV is, according to less dogmatic sources, the assertion he was succeeded by Pope Joan (r. 855-857). Whether fictive or erased, Pope Joan makes a thought-provoking coda to this rather lacklustre papacy.
Most Leos congregated in the tenth century, which was not a good time for Popes Leo, or probably for any pope by another name. The period is riddled with notably short papacies. Leo VI only managed seven months (r. 927-928). His predecessor, John X, had been imprisoned and murdered, although there are no suspicious circumstances surrounding Leo VI’s death. Leo VII (r. 936-939) managed three years, while Leo VIII (963-965) barely survived thirteen months. He managed to squeeze two distinct roles into his brief papacy, as anti-pope and then as legitimate pope. Leo’s predecessor, John XII, had been deposed by the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I who then arranged the election of Leo VIII. However, the people of Rome supported John XII and upon his death they elected Benedict V. Otto again attacked Rome with Leo in his wake, and he was reinstalled as pope, while Benedict submitted and was demoted to deacon. These confusions of legitimacy were certainly the result of the interference by Otto I. Nevertheless, the last six or eight months of Leo’s papacy appear to have been legitimate and peaceful.
Off- script Elections of Popes Leo
In the Middle Ages, papal elections and conclaves of cardinals were totally unlike the staid, orderly, and stage-managed conclaves of today. Many Popes Leo had unusual elections. From the beginning, Leo I was elected both by vox populi and in absentia and without his consent or knowledge. In early Christianity, the faithful would spontaneously acclaim a bishop, Ambrose of Milan is one well-known example. The right of the people of Rome to approve or reject a candidate was suppressed in 769, although through the centuries, as happens today, people continued to gather outside the conclave to await the results; the roar of approval by the thousands who still gather in St Peter’s Square is the last vestige of vox populi.
The shortest papal election on record was that of Leo III, who was elected on the day his predecessor was buried, and he consecrated the next day. This unseemly haste was the source of his trouble from enemies, and the brutal physical attack that sent him into the arms of Charlemagne.
More dramatic, is the shadowy election of Pope Leo V in 903. The exact date of his election remains unclear, although he succeeded Benedict IV, who died on 30 July 903. This was a dark period in papal history. Leo V was a priest, although apparently not a cardinal-priest in Rome, unlike his rival for the papacy, a certain Christopher, cardinal-priest of San Damaso. Christopher captured, deposed, incarcerated, and probably murdered Leo V, all within a month of his election. Christopher then either had himself elected pope or seized the papacy. (Ironically, for those inclined to Freudian interpretations, Christopher’s father may also have been named Leo.)
Christopher, himself, did not last long, being quickly deposed by Sergius III, who was pope by January 904. The sources are sketchy. It is possible that Christopher murdered Leo or that Sergius murdered them both, all of this within six months of Benedict IV’s death. Christopher is considered an antipope, although his name does not appear on all the lists of antipopes. Perhaps evidence of these events is too fragmented or because Christopher was simply too early or insignificant to stand with the great antipopes of the High and Later Middle Ages.
The election of Leo XI (r. 1605) is another strange papal election (author note: I know I am pushing the premodern period very far, but this seems to fit with the other Leos). There were sixty-one cardinals in the conclave, twenty-one of whom were considered candidates for the papacy. The conclave lasted seventeen days, with ongoing interference from the French, the Spanish, and the Italian Medici. It seemed that the Italians had prevailed, although perhaps the French thought they had (it was certainly not the Spanish who vehemently opposed the election), with the election of another Medici, who chose the name Leo XI, to honour his Medici ancestor. Leo XI did not have time to do anything noteworthy; he died after a mere thirty-seven days as pope.
The conclave to elect his successor was reduced to fifty-nine because Leo and another cardinal had died. But recent experience did not make the election easier. This conclave reveals the extreme emotional tensions that could develop among the cardinals. This is the only conclave on record where the cardinals broke into a physical brawl that could be heard outside on the streets; one cardinal suffered multiple broken bones. (Pace: Pius II describes during his conclave, one cardinal being grabbed by others who tried to drag him out before he could change his vote, although manhandling is less violent than fisticuffs).
Popes Leo Trivia
Overall, when looking at Leos, few selected the name consecutively. It took two hundred years for Leo II to follow Leo I and more than another hundred years before Leo III assumed the name. While there was a cluster of Leos in the tenth century, over 450 years separate Leo IX (d. 1054) and Leo X (r. 1513) and yet another century before Leo XI. There were no Leos between 1605 – 1823, and more than a hundred years separate popes Leo XIII and Leo XIV. This suggests that Leo was not a name for the twentieth century, but that’s a story for a modernist.
Quite a few medieval Popes Leo had unusually lengthy papacies, even measured against more recent popes and popes by other names. Leo I and Leo III were over twenty years (as was the modern Leo XIII). Interestingly, the longest papacies were also at times of social and religious turmoil, invasions, and political, economic, and cultural transformation. Easy times do not correlate with long papacies.
On the other hand, some Leos had amazingly short papacies. Leo II was pope for only two years. Across the tenth century, Leo V lasted only a month or so; Leo VI was pope for seven months; Leo VII for three years; and Leo VIII for only a year. Leo XI was pope for 26 days; his election and death did not encompass the full month of April 1605. His is the shortest papacy in history.
Five Popes Leo have been canonized: Leo I, the Great, obviously; Leo II, who knows exactly why; Leo III, who preserved Rome by opening the way north; Leo IV who defeated the Arab fleet in the Battle of Ostia (849); and Leo IX who precipitated the Great Schism. Although Leo IX was buried in St Peter’s, sometime afterwards his bones were moved to a communal tomb with the other canonized Popes Leo. After many centuries together, in the eighteenth century, the remains of Leo I were removed from those of his canonized brothers and placed in an individual tomb, perhaps appropriately for the only one considered “Great.” On the other hand, it is impossible not to wonder if the five St Leos enjoyed each other’s company.
There are two other Leos inspiring the papacy of Pope Leo XIV and they, too, have interesting stories. But Leo XII and Leo XIII belong to the nineteenth century and are within the purview of modernists. They may well be the most obvious inspiration for Pope Leo XIV, even more so than their medieval predecessors. But maybe not. Whether through wisdom, errors, or achievements, their lives all have something to say to the current pope. Some of those medieval Popes Leo really were pretty great.
Jacqueline Murray is a medieval historian based at the University of Guelph. Her scholarly research focuses primarily on medieval genders and sexualities, especially masculinities. As a public-facing historian, she seeks to intrigue and inform audiences about the Middle Ages and why they matter. You can follow her on Bluesky @jacquelinemurray.bsky.social
Top Image: A Pope Leo among the saints – British Library MS Royal 2 B.VII, f.308
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