John VIII (Pope)

John VIII (* before 852 in Rome ; † December 16, 882 ibid) was Roman Catholic Pope from 872 to 882.

Live and act

John came from Rome , was the son of a certain Gundo and became archdeacon in 852 . On December 14, 872 he was elected to the chair of Peter. As Pope he tried to maintain papal supremacy in Italy after the fall of the Frankish Empire and to defend the country against the Arabs . 875 he crowned the West Frankish (French) King Charles the Bald to the Emperor . He also crowned his successor, the East Franconian King Karl III. the fat one .

John took over from its predecessors the conflict with Photius I , the Patriarch of Constantinople Opel , with which the Western Church since Nicholas I in the schism was. The council of 879 in Constantinople led to an agreement that ended the Photius schism. A compromise was reached in which the Bishop of Rome was recognized as having jurisdiction over the bishops of the West and, at the same time, the honorary primacy of Rome was confirmed for the other patriarchates, but Roman jurisdiction was rejected.

He supported the Slav Apostle Methodius and in 880, in his Bull Industriae tuae, allowed the Slavic language in the liturgy : "He who created the three main languages Hebrew, Greek and Latin also created all other languages for his praise and glory."

John VIII is the first of eight medieval popes whose lives are known to have ended by a violent death. Different versions can be documented from the sources: Either he died in the battle against the Saracens on December 16, 882 or he died another violent death in Rome: After his relatives had first tried to poison him, they said he was the poison did not act fast enough to have killed with a hammer.

Legends about the pope's sex

The legend that the Pope was female can be traced back to the 13th century and is widespread in fiction and feature films up to the present day .

Already some chroniclers of the late Middle Ages , such as B. Martin von Troppau (1278) and Bartolomeo Sacchi (1479), claimed that John VIII was a woman. This claim developed into the legend of Popess Joan, for which there is no scientifically recognized evidence. In recent times there have been various hypotheses for the creation of legends , for example that late medieval authors misunderstood a satire in which Pope John VIII was ridiculed for his behavior, like that of other popes, perceived as "effeminate"

literature

Michael Plathow : Johannes VIII. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 3, Bautz, Herzberg 1992, ISBN 3-88309-035-2 , Sp. 203-204. ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )

Web links

Commons : John VIII - collection of images, videos and audio files

Iohannes VIII papa in the repertory "Historical Sources of the German Middle Ages"
Literature by and about John VIII in the catalog of the German National Library
Enciclopedia dei Papi (Italian)

Remarks

↑ Epistolae (in quart) 7: Epistolae Karolini aevi (V). Edited by Erich Caspar , Gerhard Laehr u. a. Berlin 1912, pp. 222–224 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitalisat ), here p. 224: "Qui fecit tres linguas principales, Hebraeam scilicet Graecam et Latinam ipse creavit et alias omnes ad laudem et gloriam suam."
↑ Jan von Flocken: The legend of the Popess Johanna. In: Die Welt , published February 9, 2007, accessed October 17, 2013.

predecessor	Office	successor
Hadrian II	Pope 872-882	Marinus I.

personal data
SURNAME	John VIII
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Pope
DATE OF BIRTH	before 852
PLACE OF BIRTH	Rome
DATE OF DEATH	December 16, 882
Place of death	Rome

[1] Epistolae (in quart) 7: Epistolae Karolini aevi (V). Edited by Erich Caspar , Gerhard Laehr u. a. Berlin 1912, pp. 222–224 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitalisat ), here p. 224: "Qui fecit tres linguas principales, Hebraeam scilicet Graecam et Latinam ipse creavit et alias omnes ad laudem et gloriam suam."

[2] Jan von Flocken: The legend of the Popess Johanna. In: Die Welt , published February 9, 2007, accessed October 17, 2013.