Pope John VIII

John VIII
Pope; John VIII
Papacy began	14 December 872
Papacy ended	16 December 882
Predecessor	Adrian II
Successor	Marinus I
Personal details
Born	Rome, Papal States
Died	16 December 882; Rome, Papal States
	Other popes named John

Pope John VIII can also refer to Pope John VIII of Alexandria.

Pope John VIII (Latin: Ioannes VIII; died 16 December 882) was Pope from 14 December 872 to his death in 882. He is often considered one of the ablest pontiffs of the 9th century.^[1]

He devoted much of his papacy attempting to halt and reverse the Muslim gains in southern Italy and their march northwards, which was "destroying the economy of papal patrimony."^[2] When his efforts to obtain assistance from either the Franks or the Byzantines was unavailing, John was forced to focus on strengthening the defenses of the city of Rome. To this end he reinforced the walls around the Vatican, and had defense works constructed at Saint Paul Outside the Walls.

Pope John supported Methodius in his mission to the Slavs, and defended him against the German episcopy, which felt that Methodius was intruding on their terrain. He authorized the translation of the Bible into Slavonic and extended diplomatic recognition to the Duchy of Croatia. Pope John resolved the Photian schism by agreeing to recognize Photios as Patriarch of Constantinople.

Early life and career[edit]

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 pontificate was a notable administrative reorganisation of the papal Curia.

Support for Methodius[edit]

Pope Adrian II had consecrated Methodius archbishop and supported his mission to the Slavs. In 873, John VIII learned of the imprisonment of Methodius^[4]by his German enemies, who objected to his use of the Slavonic language in the liturgy. John forbade the celebration of Mass in Bavaria until Methodius was released. Following Methodius' release John allowed him to resume his episcopal duties in Illyricum, but forbid him to celebrate mass in the Slavonic language,^[5] a prohibition Methodius may have largely ignored.

The imprisonment of Methodius seems to have been caused by Aldwin of Salzburg, who viewed Methodius as encroaching on his jurisdiction in Moravia. Upon the release of Methodius, the Pope extended his jurisdiction not only to Great Moravia and Pannonia, but to Serbia as well, and authorized Methodius to translate the Bible into Slavonic. "He who made three main languages - Hebrew, Greek, and Roman - also made all other languages to sing his praise and glory."^[6]

During the solemn divine service in St. Peter's church in Rome in 879, John VIII gave his blessing to duke Branimir of Croatia and the whole Croatian people, about which he informed Branimir in his letters. His country received papal recognition as a state. John made the decision on 21 May and confirmed it in his letter of 7 June 879.^[7]

Saracen incursions[edit]

Pope John 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.^[8] His efforts failed and he was forced to pay tribute to the Emirate of Sicily.^[9] The threatening Muslim military presence (which he believed was God's punishment against "bad Christians"),^[10] 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 efforts proved unsuccessful,^[11] partly because Christian leaders viewed his calls for unity as an excuse to assert papal authority in southern Italy.^[10]

In 876, John VIII traveled throughout Campania in an effort to form an alliance among the cities of Salerno, Capua, Naples, Gaeta and Amalfi against Muslim raids. By 877, all five cities sent delegates to Traietto to formalize an alliance.^[12] The Pope John VIII urged HRE Charles to come to his defence in Italy. Charles again crossed the Alps, but this expedition was received with little enthusiasm by the nobles, and even by his regent in Lombardy, Boso, and they refused to join his army. At the same time Carloman of Bavaria, son of Louis the German, entered northern Italy. Charles, ill and in great distress, started on his way back to Gaul, but died while crossing the pass of Mont Cenis on 6 October 877.^[13]

Obtaining relatively little support from outside sources, John fell back on what resources he could command. He reinforced the walls previously restored by Pope Leo IV. As the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls was located outside the Aurelian Walls, and had been damaged in a Saracen raid, the Pope fortified the Basilica, the monastery, and the nearby dwellings of the peasants. He also founded a papal fleet.^[14]

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 saw the only hope of removing the Arabs from Italy.^[15]

In 878 John crowned Louis II, king of France.^[16] He also anointed two Holy Roman Emperors: Charles II and Charles III.^{[citation needed]}

John VIII was assassinated in 882,^[17] almost certainly by his own clerics^[14] —the first pope in history to suffer such a fate. According to Barbara M. Kreutz, the assassination has been blamed upon such factors as his exhaustion of the papal treasury, his lack of support among the Carolingians, his gestures towards the Byzantines and his failure to stop the Saracen raids.^[18] Without the protection of powerful magnates such as the Emperor, the papacy became increasingly subject to the machinations and greedy ambition of the rival clans of the local nobility.^[14]

References[edit]

^ Mann, Horace. "Pope John VIII." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 8. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. retrieved 10 June 2007.
^ 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.
^ Barbara M. Kreutz, Before the Normans: Southern Italy in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries, (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991), p. 57.
^ Eric Joseph Goldberg, Struggle for Empire: Kingship and Conflict Under Louis the German, 817–876, Cornell University Press, 2006, p. 319.
^ Eric Joseph Goldberg, Struggle for Empire: Kingship and Conflict Under Louis the German, 817–876, pp. 319–20.
^ Murphy, p. 79.
^ Stjepan Antoljak, Pregled hrvatske povijesti, Split 1993, str. 43.
^ Pierre Riche, The Carolingians: A family who forged Europe, Transl. Michael Idomir Allen, (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), p. 203.
^ The Expansion of Saracens:Africa and Europe, C.H. Becker, The Cambridge Medieval History, Vol.2, Ed. John Bagnell Bury, (The Macmillan Company, 1913), p. 387.
^ ^a ^b John Victor Tolan; Gilles Veinstein; Henry Laurens (2013). Europe and the Islamic World: A History (illustrated ed.). Princeton University Press. p. 35. ISBN 9780691147055.
^ Andrew Shryock (30 June 2010). Islamophobia/Islamophilia: Beyond the Politics of Enemy and Friend. Indiana University Press. p. 32. ISBN 9780253004543.
^ Kreutz (1991), p. 58.
^ Riche, Pierre. The Carolingians:The Family who forged Europe. 1983. University of Pennsylvania Press
^ ^a ^b ^c O'Malley, John W., A History of the Popes, New York, Sheed & Ward, 2010
^ 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.
^ John VIII, Pierre Riche, The Papacy: Gaius-Proxies, Vol. 2, ed. Philippe Levillain, (Routledge, 2002), p. 837.
^ Dawson, Christopher, Religion and the Rise of Western Culture, (Doubleday 1950), p. 108
^ Barbara M. Kreutz (7 June 2011). Before the Normans: Southern Italy in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries. University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 59–60. ISBN 9780812205435.

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Pope John VIII". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton.

Bibliography[edit]

Balan, Pietro (1880). Il pontificato di Giovanni VIII (in Italian). Roma: Tip. di Roma.
Cariello, Nicola (2002). Giovanni VIII: papa medioevale (872-882). Studi e documenti, 19 (in Italian). Roma: Edilazio. ISBN 978-88-87485-34-9.
Dvornik, Francis (1948). The Photian Schism: History and Legend. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Ostrogorsky, George (1956). History of the Byzantine State. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Siecienski, Anthony Edward (2010). The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy. Oxford University Press.

External links[edit]

"Iohannes VIII papa". Repertorium "Historical Sources of the German Middle Ages" (Geschichtsquellen des deutschen Mittelalters).
Literature by and about Johannes VIII. in the German National Library catalogue
Profile, Enciclopedia dei Papi; accessed 27 August 2016.(in Italian)