Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/745

POPES.] JOHN 711 succeed Stephen VII. at the early age of twenty-one. He was the mere exponent of the purposes of his mother, until her son Alberic succeeded in 933 in overthrowing their authority. The pope was kept a virtual prisoner in the Lateran, where he is said to have died in 93G, in which year Leo VII. was consecrated his successor. JOHN" XII. (pope from 955 to 964) was the son of Alberic, whom he succeeded as patrician of Rome in 954, being then only sixteen years of age. His original name was Octavian, but when he assumed the papal tiara as suc cessor to Agapetus II., he adopted the apostolic name of John, the first example, it is said, of the custom of altering the surname in connexion with elevation to the papal chair. As a temporal ruler John was devoid of the vigour and firmness of his father, and his union of the papal office which through his scandalous private life he made a byword of reproach with his civil dignities proved a source of weakness rather than of strength. In order to protect himself against the intrigues in Rome and the power of Berengar II. of Italy, he called to his aid Otho the Great of Germany, to whom he granted the imperial crown in 962. Even before Otho left Rome the pope had, however, re pented of his recognition of a power which threatened altogether to overshadow his authority, and had begun to conspire against him on whom he had newly conferred the dignity of emperor. His intrigues were discovered by Otho, who after he had defeated and taken prisoner Berengar, returned to Rome and summoned a council which deposed John, who was in hiding in the mountains of Campania, and elected Leo VIII. in his stead. An attempt at an insur rection was made by the inhabitants of Rome even before Otho left the city, and on his departure John returned at the head of a formidable company of friends and retainers, and caused Leo to seek safety in immediate flight. Otho determined to make an effort in support of Leo, but before he reached the city John had died, in what manner is uncertain, and Benedict V. had mounted the papal chair. JOHN XIII. (pope from 965 to 972) was descended from a noble Roman family, and at the time of his election as successor to Leo VIII. was bishop of Narni. He had been somewhat inconsistent in his relations with his prede cessor Leo, but his election was confirmed by the emperor Otho, and his submissive attitude towards the imperial power was so distasteful to the Romans that they expelled him from the city. On account of the threatening pro cedure of Otho, they permitted him shortly afterwards to return, upon which, with the sanction of Otho, he took savage vengeance on those who had formerly opposed him. Shortly after holding a council along with the emperor at Ravenna in 967, he gave the imperial crown to Otho II. at Rome in assurance of his succession to his father; and in 972 he also crowned Theophania as empress immediately before her marriage. On his death in the same year, he was followed by Benedict VI. JOHN" XIV. (pope from 984 to 985), successor to Benedict VII., was born at Pavia, and before his elevation to the papal chair was imperial chancellor of Otho II. Otho died shortly after his election, and, taking advantage of the opportunity, Boniface VII., on the strength of the popular feeling against the new pope, returned from Con stantinople and placed John in prison, where he died either by starvation or poison. JOHN XV. (pope from 985 to 996) is now generally recognized as the successor of Boniface VII., the pope of the same name who was said to have ruled for four months after the murder of Boniface being now omitted by the best authorities. John XV. was the son of Leo, a presbyter in Gallina Alba. At the time he mounted the papal chair Crescentius was patrician of Rome, but, although his influence was on this account very much hampered, the presence of the empress Theophania in Rome from 989 to 991 restrained also the ambition of Crescentius. On her departure the pope, whose venality and nepotism had made him very unpopular with the citizens, found it necessary to flee to Tuscany. The news of the approach of Otho III. made it possible for him soon afterwards to return, but he died of fever before the arrival of Otho, who elevated his own kinsman Bruno to the papal dignity under the name of Gregory V. JOHN XVI. (pope or antipope from 997 to 998) was a Calabrian Greek by birth, and a favourite of the empress Theophania, from whom he had received the bishopric of Placentia. His original name was Philagathus. In 995 he was sent by Otho III. on an embassy to Constantinople to negotiate a marriage with a Greek princess. On his way back he either accidentally or at the special request of Crescentius visited Rome. A little before this Gregory V., in the beginning of 997, had been compelled to flee from the city; and the wily and ambitious Greek had now no scruple in accepting the papal tiara from the hands of Crescentius, to whom he consented to give up the temporal authority on condition that he recognized his subordination to the VVestern empire. The arrival of Otho at Rome in the spring of 998 put a sudden end to the treacherous compact. John sought safety in flight, but was discovered in his place of hiding and brought back to R.ome, where after enduring cruel and ignominious tortures he was immured in a dungeon. JOHN XVII., whose original name was Sicco, succeeded Silvester II. as pope in June 1003, but died in less than five months afterwards. JOHN XVIII. (pope from 1003 to 1009) was, during his whole pontificate, the mere creature of the patrician John Crescentius, and ultimately he abdicated and retired to a monastery, where he died shortly afterwards. His successor was Sergius IV. JOHN XIX. (pope from 1024 to 1033) succeeded his brother Benedict VIII., both being members of the powerful house of Tusculum. He merely took orders to enable him to ascend the papal chair, having previously been a consul and senator. He displayed his freedom from ecclesiastical prejudices, if also his utter ignorance of ecclesiastical history, by agreeing, on the payment of a large bribe, to grant to the patriarch of Constantinople the title of an oecumenical bishop, but the general indignation which the proposal excited throughout the church compelled him almost im mediately to withdraw from his agreement. On the death of the emperor Henry II. in 1024 he gave his support to Conrad IL., who along with his consort was crowned with great pomp at St Peter s in Easter of 1027. In 1033 a conspiracy of the nobles compelled the pope to flee from Rome, but he was restored by Conrad, and died the same year in the full possession of his dignities. A successor was found for him in his nephew Benedict IX., a boy of only twelve years of age. JOHN XXI. (pope from 1276 to 1277), successor to Adrian V,, should, according to the order observed above, be named John XX., but there is an error in the reckoning through the insertion of an antipope before John XV. or some time after John XIX. At the time of his elevation to the papal chair he was cardinal-bishop of Tusculum, and he had previously been archbishop of Braga. He was a Portuguese by birth, and his original name was Pedro Juliani. The son of a physician, he had studied with distinction at Paris, was the author of several medical and scholastic treatises, and is men tioned by some chroniclers as a magician. His small affection for the monks, his unecclesiastical tone and habits, free and unaffected intercourse with every class of men, and proficiency in secular science, awakened against him