Pope John VIII

Pope John VIII (Latin: Ioannes VIII ; died 16 December

882) was Pope from 13 December 872 to his death in
882. He is often considered one of the ablest pontis of
the 9th century.[1]

anointed two Holy Roman Emperors: Charles II and

Charles III.

2 Pope Joan and connection to the

name John VIII

He was assassinated in 882[13] - the rst pope in history to

suer such a fate.[14] His murder has been blamed upon
He devoted much of his papacy attempting to halt and multiple factors, including, his exhaustion of the papal
reverse the Muslim gains in southern Italy and their march treasury, his lack of support among the Carolingians, his
northwards, which was destroying the economy of papal gestures towards the Byzantines, and his failure to resolve
patrimony.[2]
the Muslim problem.[15]

Early life and career

He was born in Rome and as a young man witnessed

the Arab raid against Rome by the Muslim Aghlabids.[3]
Among the reforms achieved during his ponticate was a
notable administrative reorganisation of the papal Curia.
He asked for military aid from Charles the Bald and later
Count Boso of Provence, in response to Saracens who
were raiding Campania and the Sabine Hills.[4] His efforts failed and he was forced to pay tribute to the Emirate
of Sicily.[5] This threatening Muslim military presence
(which he believed was Gods punishment against bad
Christians),[6] coupled with alliances they formed with
the local Christians, prompted John to promote a new
and uncompromisingly hostile view of the Saracens.
This included a ban on forming alliances with the Muslims. However, his eorts proved unsuccessful,[7] partly
because Christian leaders viewed his calls for unity as an
excuse to assert papal authority in southern Italy.[8]

According to the legend of Pope Joan, a woman reigned

as pope under the name of John earlier in the 9th century.
Her true sex was discovered, and she would eventually
be erased from the historical record because of this. If
she existed, when regnal numbering was applied to papal
reigns in the 10th century, she would have been designated John VIII and the Pope John that is the subject of
this article would have been John IX. However, there are
no contemporary references to a female pope; the legend
was apparently created during the 13th century, and included in medieval mystery plays. The tarot scholar Paul
Huson was persuaded by this inclusion to believe in the
reality of the legend, but this is not supported by modern research. The historical John VIII is not otherwise
connected with this legend.

However, according to Patrick Madrid, author of Pope

In 873, John VIII learned of St.
Methodius' Fiction, a book about the legend of Pope Joan, Pope John
imprisonment.[9] Methodius had been imprisoned VIII *himself* may have been the origin of the legend.
by his German enemies, who objected to his use of He writes,
the Slavonic language in the liturgy. John forbade the
celebration of Mass in Bavaria until Methodius was
He appears to have had a very weak perreleased. Following Methodius release John allowed
sonality, even perhaps somewhat eeminate.
him to resume his episcopal duties in Illyricum, but
Cardinal Caesar Baronius, in his history
forbid him to celebrate Mass in the Slavonic language.[10]
Church Annals, suggests that John VIIIs reputation as eeminate gave rise to the legend.
In 876, John VIII traveled throughout Campania in an
Indeed, it would seem that over time, the comeort to form an alliance among the cities of Salerno,
mon folk added ever more lurid embellishCapua, Naples, Gaeta and Amal against Muslim raids.
ments until the vulgar jokes about the hapless
By 877, all ve cities sent delegates to Traietto to formal(and certainly male) pope ballooned and metaize an alliance.[11]
morphosed into a female popessa.
In 879 he recognised the reinstatement of Photius as the
legitimate patriarch of Constantinople; Photius had been
condemned in 869 by Pope Adrian II. This was undertaken mainly to appease the Byzantines, since in them he 3 See also
saw the only hope of removing the Arabs from Italy.[12]
In 878 John crowned Louis II, king of France. He also
List of murdered popes
1

6 FURTHER READING

References

[1] Catholic Encyclopedia, Pope John VIII page undated,

URL retrieved on 10 June 2007
[2] Barbara M. Kreutz (7 Jun 2011). Before the Normans:
Southern Italy in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries. University
of Pennsylvania Press. p. 57. ISBN 9780812205435.
[3] Barbara M. Kreutz, Before the Normans: Southern Italy in
the Ninth and Tenth Centuries, (University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1991), 57.
[4] Pierre Riche, The Carolingians: A family who forged Europe, Transl. Michael Idomir Allen, (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), 203.
[5] The Expansion of Saracens:Africa and Europe, C.H.
Becker, The Cambridge Medieval History, Vol.2, Ed.
John Bagnell Bury, (The Macmillan Company, 1913),
387.
[6] John Victor Tolan; Gilles Veinstein; Henry Laurens
(2013). Europe and the Islamic World: A History (illustrated ed.). Princeton University Press. p. 35. ISBN
9780691147055.
[7] Andrew Shryock (30 Jun 2010).
Islamophobia/Islamophilia: Beyond the Politics of Enemy and
Friend. Indiana University Press. p. 32. ISBN
9780253004543.
[8] John Victor Tolan; Gilles Veinstein; Henry Laurens
(2013). Europe and the Islamic World: A History (illustrated ed.). Princeton University Press. p. 35. ISBN
9780691147055.
[9] Eric Joseph Goldberg, Struggle for Empire: Kingship and
Conict Under Louis the German, 817876, (Cornell University Press, 2006), 319.
[10] Eric Joseph Goldberg, Struggle for Empire: Kingship and
Conict Under Louis the German, 817876, 319320.
[11] Barbara M. Kreutz, Before the Normans: Southern Italy in
the Ninth and Tenth Centuries, (University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1991), 58.
[12] Barbara M. Kreutz (7 Jun 2011). Before the Normans:
Southern Italy in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries. University
of Pennsylvania Press. p. 60. ISBN 9780812205435.
[13] [Dawson, Christopher, Religion and the Rise of Western
Culture, (Doubleday 1950), pp. 108]
[14] Anura Guruge (16 Feb 2010). The Next Pope (illustrated
ed.). p. 88. ISBN 9780615353722.
[15] Barbara M. Kreutz (7 Jun 2011). Before the Normans:
Southern Italy in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries. University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 5960. ISBN
9780812205435.

5 External links
Find-A-Grave prole for John VIII
Opera Omnia by Migne Patrologia Latina with analytical indexes

6 Further reading
Fred E. Engreen, Pope John the Eighth and the
Arabs, Speculum, 20 (1945), pp. 318330

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