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Pope John XI

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Pope
John XI
Bishop of Rome
Church Catholic Church
Papacy began March 931
Papacy ended December 935
Predecessor Stephen VII
Successor Leo VII
Orders
Created cardinal March 931
by Pope Stephen VII
Personal details
Born 910
Rome, Papal States
Died December 935 (aged 24–25)
Rome, Papal States
Parents Alberic I of Spoleto or Sergius III
Marozia
Other popes named John

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 Duke Alberic II of Spoleto. His pontificate occurred during the period known as Saeculum obscurum.

Parentage

John was the son of Marozia, the most powerful woman in Rome and the wife of Duke Alberic I of Spoleto 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 Dümmler, 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 Gfrörer,[8] Ludovico Antonio Muratori, and Francis Patrick Kenrick[9] also maintain that Pope John XI was sired by Alberic I of Spoleto.

Pontificate

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.

Following the deposition of the Patriarch of Constantinople Tryphon in September 931, the Byzantine emperor Romanos I Lekapenos attempted to 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.[12] 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.[13][14]

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.[15] John was kept a virtual prisoner in the Lateran until his death.[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 a powerful agent of Church reform.

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Pope John XI — Date of birth unknown, became pope in 931; d. 936. He was the son of Marozia by her first marriage with Alberic; some, taking Liutprand and the "Liber Pontificalis" as their authority, assert that he was the natural son of Sergius III ("Johannes, natione Romanus ex patre Sergio papa", "Liber Pont." ed. Duchesne, II, 243). Through the intrigues of his mother, who ruled at that time in Rome, he was raised to the Chair of Peter, and was completely under the influence of the Senatrix et Patricia of Rome. To strengthen her own power Marozia married her brother-in-law Hugh, King of Provence and Italy, whose reign in Rome was so tyrannical that a strong opposition party sprang up among the nobles under the leadership of Alberic II, the younger son of Marozia. This party succeeded in overthrowing the rule of Marozia and Hugh; Marozia was cast into prison, but her husband escaped from the city. In this way Alberic became ruler of Rome, and the pope, who suffered by his mother's fall, now became almost entirely subject to his brother, being only free in the exercise of his purely spiritual duties. All other jurisdiction was exercised through Alberic. This was not only the case in secular, but also in ecclesiastical affairs. It was at the instance of Alberic that the pallium was given to Theophylactus, Patriarch of Constantinople (935), and also to Artold, Archbishop of Reims (933). It was this pope who sat in the Chair of Peter during its deepest humiliation, but it was also he who granted many privileges to the Congregation of Cluny, which was later on so powerful an agent of Church reform.

Liber Pontificalis, ed. DUCHESNE, II, 243; JAFFŠ, Regesta (2nd ed.), I, 454 sq.; LANGEN, Gesch. der r-m. Kirche, II, 329-31; REUMONT, Gesch. der Stadt Rom, II, 231 sqq.

References

  1. Back to citation Mann, Horace Kinder (1910), The Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages, Vol. IV: The Popes in the Days of Feudal Anarchy, 891–999, pp. 137–139
  2. Back to citation Mann 1910, p. 192.
  3. Back to citation 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
  4. Back to citation Baxmann, Rudolf (1869), Die Politik der Päpste von Gregor I. bis Gregor VII, vol. II, Elberfeld, pp. 58–125
  5. 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., pp. 248–249, retrieved 2013-04-25
  6. Back to citation Mann, Horace Kinder (1912), "Sergius III", The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. XIII, New York: Robert Appleton Company, retrieved 2008-01-06
  7. Back to citation Poole, Reginald L. (1917), "Benedict IX and Gregory VI", Proceedings of the British Academy, 8: 230.
  8. Back to citation Gfrörer, August Friedrich, Allgemeine Kirchengeschichte, vol. III, Stuttgart: A. Krabbe, pp. 1133–1275, retrieved 2008-01-06
  9. Back to citation Kenrick, Francis Patrick (1855), The Primacy of the Apostolic See Vindicated, Baltimore: John Murphy & Co., p. 418, retrieved 2008-01-06
  10. Back to citation Mann 1910, p. 193.
  11. Back to citation Norwich, John Julius, The Popes: A History (2011), pg. 76
  12. Back to citation Mann 1910, pp. 198–199.
  13. Back to citation Mann 1910, pp. 199–200.
  14. Back to citation Drocourt, Nicolas; Kolditz, Sebastian, A Companion to Byzantium and the West, 900-1204 (2021), pgs. 159-160
  15. Back to citation Mann 1910, pp. 202–203.
  16. Back to citation Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911), "John XI.", Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 15 (11th ed.), Cambridge University Press, p. 435

Bibliography

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