Lando (also known asLandus)[a][1] was thepope from 913 until his death in 914.[2][3][4] His short pontificate fell during an obscure period in papal and Roman history, the so-calledSaeculum obscurum (904–964).
According to theLiber pontificalis, Lando was born in theSabina (Papal States), and his father was a wealthyLombard count named Taino[b] fromFornovo.[4][5][6] The start of his pontificate has been placed as early as July or as late as November 913.[5] TheLiber claims that his pontificate lasted only four months and twenty-two days. A different list of popes, appended to a continuation of theLiber pontificalis at theAbbey of Farfa and quoted byGregory of Catino in hisChronicon Farfense in the twelfth century, gives Lando a pontificate of six months and twenty-six days. This is closer to the duration recorded byFlodoard of Reims, writing in the tenth century, of six months and ten days.[5] The end of his pontificate can be dated to between 5 February 914, when he is mentioned in a document ofRavenna, and late March or early April, when his successor,John X, was elected.[5]
Lando is thought to have been the candidate of CountTheophylact I of Tusculum and SenatrixTheodora, who were the most powerful couple in Rome at the time.[7] The Theophylacti controlled papal finances through their monopoly of the office ofvestararius, and also controlled the Roman militia andSenate.[5] During Lando's reign,Arab raiders, operating from their stronghold on theGarigliano river, destroyed the cathedral of San Salvatore inVescovio inhis native diocese.[8] No document of Lando's chancery has survived. The only act of his reign that is recorded is a donation to the diocese of Sabina mentioned in a judicial act of 1431.[5] Lando made the large personal gift in order to restore the cathedral of San Salvatore so that the clergy who were then living atToffia could return.[6][4]
^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.
