LEO VIII, POPE. — He was the protoscribonarius of the Roman Church, chosen as pope by the council convoked by Emperor Otto I of Saxony and presided over by him in St. Peter’s (4 Dec. 963); Leo was a layman and was rapidly ordained through all the sacred orders; he must have been a worthy person and his election pleased the sovereign greatly, but clearly the appointment was illegal since the legitimate pope, John XII, was still alive.
The reasons for Otto’s opposition to John lay in the fact that, after crowning him, John had turned to the side of Berengar II, so that the emperor had him deposed after John refused to appear before the aforementioned synod. The Roman populace, however, remained largely favourable to John, and at the beginning of January 964 a revolt broke out in the city and Leo suffered an attack; Otto hastened to Rome and immediately quelled the uprising, but at the intercession of his pope he punished no one. John took advantage of this to return and drive Leo out, who was forced to take refuge in Camerino while another synod declared his election void. After John’s death in May, the Romans chose another pope, Benedict V, but Otto marched against the city again to restore his protégé; this led to a siege that reduced the inhabitants to desperation and convinced them to abandon Benedict. Thus, finally, at the end of June 964, a third synod deposed the latter and ratified the choice of Leo; in turn, the pope made ample concessions to Otto, recognizing his right of selection in the appointment of bishops and reconfirming all the privileges granted by his predecessors to the Carolingian emperors. The emperor spent Christmas of 964 in Rome as well, but in the following spring Leo died and no further incidents are recorded.
As for his activity in the more strictly ecclesiastical sphere, apart from the confirmation of privileges to various monasteries, nothing has been handed down.