Head of the Catholic Church from 931 to 935
John XI
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Church
| Catholic Church
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Papacy began
| March 931
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Papacy ended
| December 935
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Predecessor
| Stephen VII
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Successor
| Leo VII
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Born
| Johannes
910
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Died
| December 935
Rome, Papal States
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Pope John XI
(
Latin
:
Ioannes XI
; 910 ? December 935) was the
bishop of Rome
and nominal ruler of the
Papal States
from March 931 to his death. The true ruler of Rome at the time was his mother,
Marozia
, followed by his brother
Alberic II
. His pontificate occurred during the period known as
Saeculum obscurum
.
Parentage
[
edit
]
John was the son of
Marozia
, the most powerful woman in Rome and the wife of
Alberic I
at the time of John's birth. According to hostile chronicler
Liutprand of Cremona
and the
Liber Pontificalis
, John's father was not Alberic but Marozia's lover
Pope Sergius III
. However, neither
Auxilius of Naples
nor
Eugenius Vulgarius
, both of whom were exact contemporaries of Sergius, and both of whom were hostile towards Sergius for his attacks on
Formosus
, mention this allegation at all.
[1]
The highly reliable chronicler
Flodoard
also refers to John as the brother of Alberic II, and does not mention the allegation either.
[2]
Ferdinand Gregorovius
,
[3]
Ernst Dummler
,
Thomas Greenwood
,
Philip Schaff
, and Rudolf Baxmann
[4]
accept Liutprand's account.
[5]
Horace Kinder Mann
considers this story "highly doubtful", highlighting Liutprand's bias.
[6]
Reginald L. Poole,
[7]
Peter Llewelyn,
Karl Josef von Hefele
, August Friedrich Gfrorer,
[8]
Ludovico Antonio Muratori
, and Francis Patrick Kenrick
[9]
also maintain that Pope John XI was sired by Alberic I of Spoleto.
Pontificate
[
edit
]
Marozia was the
de facto
ruler of Rome at the time and she used her power and influence to ensure that John, who held the
titulus
of
Santa Maria in Trastevere
, was elected to the
papacy
in March 931.
[10]
Following the overthrow of Marozia and her husband
Hugh of Italy
around late 932, John XI fell under the control of his brother
Alberic II
. After being initially imprisoned, he was confined to the
Lateran Palace
for the remainder of his pontificate.
[11]
During this time only authority left to John was the exercise of his purely spiritual duties. All other jurisdiction was exercised through Alberic II. This was not only the case in secular, but also in ecclesiastical affairs.
[12]
Following the deposition of the
Patriarch of Constantinople
Tryphon
in September 931, the
Byzantine emperor
Romanos I Lekapenos
attempted get his young son
Theophylactus
placed on the Patriarchal throne. Due to internal church resistance, Romanos approached John XI to seek the Pope's confirmation and to approve Theophylactus taking the
pallium
. This was eventually granted by John in February 933. This delay of over a year is seen by Horace Mann as evidence of the Pope's initial reluctance to agree to the emperor's request, and was only forced to do it at his brother Alberic II's insistence following the fall of Marozia.
[13]
However, as negotiations also involved a suggested marriage between a sister of Alberic and John's and one of Romanos's sons, such a delay would not be unusual, and in fact it is possible that these marriage negotiations were actually begun by Marozia herself and this policy was continued jointly by her sons.
[14]
[15]
It was also at Alberic II's insistence that the pallium was also granted to Archbishop
Artold
of Reims in 933, setting up a conflict with the incumbent archbishop
Hugh of Vermandois
and his supporters.
[16]
John XI sat in the Chair of Peter during what some traditional Catholic sources consider its deepest humiliation, subjugated under the authority of the Prince of Rome, but it was also he who granted many privileges to the Congregation of
Cluny
, which was later on a
powerful agent
of Church reform.
[12]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Mann, Horace K.,
The Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages, Vol. IV: The Popes in the Days of Feudal Anarchy, 891?999
(1910), pgs. 137?139
- ^
Mann, pg. 192
- ^
Gregorovius, Ferdinand
(1903),
The History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages
, vol. III (2nd ed.), London: George Bell & Sons, p. 254
, retrieved
2008-01-06
- ^
Baxmann, Rudolf (1869),
Die Politik der Papste von Gregor I. bis Gregor VII
, vol. II, Elberfeld, pp. 58?125
{{
citation
}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (
link
)
- ^
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., pp. 248?249
, retrieved
2013-04-25
- ^
Mann, Horace Kinder (1912),
"Sergius III"
,
The Catholic Encyclopedia
, vol. XIII, New York: Robert Appleton Company
, retrieved
2008-01-06
- ^
Poole, Reginald L. (1917), "Benedict IX and Gregory VI",
Proceedings of the British Academy
,
8
: 230.
- ^
Gfrorer, August Friedrich,
Allgemeine Kirchengeschichte
, vol. III, Stuttgart: A. Krabbe, pp. 1133?1275
, retrieved
2008-01-06
- ^
Kenrick, Francis Patrick
(1855),
The Primacy of the Apostolic See Vindicated
, Baltimore: John Murphy & Co., p. 418
, retrieved
2008-01-06
- ^
Mann, pg. 193
- ^
Norwich, John Julius,
The Popes: A History
(2011), pg. 76
- ^
a
b
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the
public domain
:
Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "
Pope John XI
".
Catholic Encyclopedia
. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
- ^
Mann, pgs. 198-199
- ^
Mann, pgs. 199-200
- ^
Drocourt, Nicolas; Kolditz, Sebastian,
A Companion to Byzantium and the West, 900-1204
(2021), pgs. 159-160
- ^
Mann, pgs. 202-203
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