Leo III pope

Elected in 795, Leo III was attacked mid-procession by a Roman faction that tried to blind him and cut out his tongue; taking refuge with Charlemagne at Paderborn, he returned to Rome under Frankish escort. On Christmas Day 800, in Saint Peter's, he set the imperial crown on the head of the king of the Franks — a gesture that revived in the West an Empire extinct for three centuries and bound the papacy to temporal power for a thousand years. He governed sixteen years more, defending the Creed without the Filioque the Franks wished him to add.