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Pope Lando

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His Holiness
Lando
Bishop of Rome
Church Catholic Church
Installed August or September 913
Term ended February or March 914
Predecessor Anastasius III
Successor John X
Previous post Cardinal-Deacon of the Holy Roman Church (910–913)
Personal details
Born Unknown
Sabina, Papal States
Died February or March 914
Rome, Papal States

Lando (also known as Landus)[1][2] was the Pope for about 6 months from 913 until his death in 914.[3] His short pontificate is very poorly attested and occurred during an obscure period in papal and Roman history, the so-called Saeculum obscurum (904–964).

According to the Liber pontificalis, Lando was born in the Sabina (Papal States), and his father was a wealthy Lombard count named Taino[4] from Fornovo.[5] The start of his pontificate has been placed as early as July or as late as November 913.[6] The Liber claims that his pontificate lasted only four months and twenty-two days. A different list of popes, appended to a continuation of the Liber pontificalis at the Abbey of Farfa and quoted by Gregory of Catino in his Chronicon Farfense in the twelfth century, gives Lando a pontificate of six months and twenty-six days. This is closer to the duration recorded by Flodoard of Reims, writing in the tenth century, of six months and ten days.[6] The end of his pontificate can be dated to between 5 February 914, when he is mentioned in a document of Ravenna, and late March or early April, when his successor, John X, was elected.[6]

Lando is thought to have been the candidate of Count Theophylact I of Tusculum and Senatrix Theodora, who were the most powerful couple in Rome at the time.[7] The Theophylacti controlled papal finances through their monopoly of the office of vestararius, and also controlled the Roman militia and Senate.[6] During Lando's reign, Arab raiders, operating from their stronghold on the Garigliano river, destroyed the cathedral of San Salvatore in Vescovio in his native diocese.[8] No document of Lando's chancery has survived. The only act of his reign that is recorded is a donation to his native diocese of Sabina mentioned in a judicial act of 1431.[6] Lando made the large personal gift in order to restore the cathedral of San Salvatore so that the clergy who were then living at Toffia could return.[9][10]

Lando was the last pope to have a papal name never used before until Pope John Paul I in 1978, and the last with a unique name requiring no regnal number until Pope Francis in 2013.[11][12]

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Pope Lando — (913-14).

A native of the Sabina, and the son of Taino, elected pope seemingly in July or August, 913; d. in February or March, 914, after a reign of a little over six months. Nothing more is known of him except that he was a worthy man, and granted a privilege to a church in his native Sabina.

Liber Pontificalis, II, 239; KERR, Italia Pontificia, II (Berlin, 1907), 73; MANN, Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages, IV, 147 sqq.

References

  1. Back to citation In the second declension. Although sometimes less common in Medieval Latin, names ending in -o in Latin tend to be written in third declension (e.g. Landonis, Platonis in genitive case).
  2. Back to citation Platina, Bartolomeo (1479), The Lives of the Popes from the Time of our Saviour Jesus Christ to the Accession of Gregory VII, vol. I, London: Griffith Farran & Co., p. 245, retrieved 2013-04-25
  3. Back to citation Pietro Fedele, "Ricerche per la storia di Rome e del papato al. sec. X", Archivo della Reale Società Romana di Storia Patria, 33 (1910): 177–247; Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Pope Lando". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company; J. N. D. Kelly and Michael Walsh, "Lando", The Oxford Dictionary of Popes, 2nd ed. (Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 120.
  4. Back to citation Ferdinand Gregorovius, History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages (Cambridge University Press, 1897), Vol. 3, p. 238, gives his father's name as Raino.
  5. Back to citation J. N. D. Kelly and Michael Walsh, "Lando", The Oxford Dictionary of Popes, 2nd ed. (Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 120; Umberto Longo, "Landone, papa", Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 63 (2004); Harald Zimmerman, "Lando", in Philippe Levillain, ed., The Papacy: An Encyclopedia, Vol. 2, Gaius–Proxies (New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 896.
  6. Back to citation occurrence 6.0 Back to citation occurrence 6.1 Back to citation occurrence 6.2 Back to citation occurrence 6.3 Back to citation occurrence 6.4 Umberto Longo, "Landone, papa", Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 63 (2004).
  7. Back to citation "Lando", The Oxford Dictionary of Popes, ed. J. N. D. Kelly, (Oxford University Press, 1988), 121.
  8. Back to citation Roger Collins, Keepers of the Keys of Heaven: A History of the Papacy, (Basic Books, 2009), 175.
  9. Back to citation Harald Zimmerman, "Lando", in Philippe Levillain, ed., The Papacy: An Encyclopedia, Vol. 2, Gaius–Proxies (New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 896.
  10. Back to citation J. N. D. Kelly and Michael Walsh, "Lando", The Oxford Dictionary of Popes, 2nd ed. (Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 120.
  11. Back to citation Budde, Michael L. (June 2, 2017). New World Pope: Pope Francis and the Future of the Church. Wipf and Stock Publishers. ISBN 9781498283724 – via Google Books.
  12. Back to citation Collinge, William J. (August 15, 2021). Historical Dictionary of Catholicism. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9781538130186 – via Google Books.
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