Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/744

 710 JOHN [POPES. III.) succeeding him. He was enrolled among the martyrs, his day being May 27. JOHN II. (pope from 532 to 535), surnamed on account of his eloquence Mercurius, was elevated to the papal chair on the death of Boniface II. During his pontificate a decree against simony was engraven on marble and placed before the altar of St Peter s. At tire instance of the emperor Justinian he adopted the proposition unus de Trinitate passus est in came as a test of the orthodoxy of certain Scythian monks accused of Nestorian tendencies. He was succeeded by Agapetus I. JOHN III. (pope from 560 to 5 73), successor toPelagius, was descended from a noble Roman family. He is said to have been successful in preventing an invasion of Italy by the recall of tha deposed exarch Narses, but the Lombards still continued their incursions, and, especially during the pontificate of his successor Benedict I., inflicted great miseries on the province. JOHN IV. (pope from 640 to 642) was a Dalmatian by birth, and succeeded Severinus after the papal chair had been vacant four months. While he adhered to the repu diation of the Monothelitic doctrine by Severinus, he endeavoured to explain away the connexion of Honorius I. with the heresy. His successor was Theodorus I. JOHN V. (pope from 686 to 687) was a Syrian by birth, and on account of his knowledge of Greek had in 680 been named papal legate to the sixth oecumenical council at Constantinople. He was the successor of Benedict II., and after a pontificate of little more than a year, passed chiefly in bed, was followed by Conon. JOHN VI. (pope from 701 to 705) was a native of Greece, and succeeded to the papal chair two months after the death of Sergius I. An attempt of the exarch Theo- phylact of Ravenna to extort from him certain concessions to the Byzantine emperor Tiberius was frustrated by the revolt of the Italian portion of the army with which he threatened Rome, who but for the intervention of the pope would have put their leader to death. Partly by persuasion and partly by means of a bribe, John also succeeded in inducing Gisulph, duke of Benevento, to withdraw from the territories of the church. JOHN VII. (pope from 705 to 707), successor of John VI., was also of Greek nationality. He declined to accede to the request of the emperor Justinian II. that he should give his sanction to the decrees of the Quinisext or Trullan council of 691, on the ground that a papal legate was not present, and his death shortly afterwards delivered, him from the necessity of committing himself to a more decided opinion. He was followed by Sisinnius. JOHN VIII. (pope from 872 to 882), successor of Adrian II., was a Roman by birth. His chief aim during his occu pancy of the papal chair was to build up his temporal power by uniting the various discordant political elements of Italy into a theocracy under his own immediate control, and by subordinating the empire to the ecclesiastical authority of Rome. The qualifications he brought to the task he had undertaken were a resolute and unbending will, an unscru pulous readiness to employ any means that might best advance his purpose, and a thorough mastery of diplomatic intrigue. Events, however, were so fatally opposed to his designs that no sooner did one of his schemes begin to realize itself in fact than it was shattered and dissipated by an unlo )ked-for chance. To take advantage of the opportunity of winning a recognition of the dependence of the imperial authority on that of Rome, as well as to obtain an influential alliance against his enemies, he agreed, in 875, to bestow the imperial crown on Charles the Bald, but that monarch was too much occupied in Germany to grant him much effectual aid, and about the time of the death of Charles he found it necessary to come to ignominious terms with the Saracens, who were only prevented from entering Rome by the promise of an annual tribute. Carloman, the opponent of Charles s son Louis, soon after invaded northern Italy, and, securing the sup port of the bishops and counts, demanded from the pope the imperial crown, John attempted to temporize, but Duke Lambert of Spoleto, a partisan of Carloman, whom events had recalled to Germany, entered Rome in 878 with an overwhelming force, and for thirty days virtually held him a prisoner in St Peter s. He was, however, unsuc cessful in winning any concession from the pope, who after his withdrawal carried out a previous purpose of going to France. There he presided at the council of Troyes, which promulgated a ban of excommunication against the sup porters of Carloman amongst others Adalbert of Tuscany, Lambert of Spoleto, and Formosus, bishop of Porto, who was afterwards elevated to the papal chair. In 879 John returned to Italy accompanied by Duke Boso of Provence, whom he adopted as his son, and made an unsuccessful attempt to get recognized as king of Italy. In the same year he was compelled to give a promise of his sanction to the claims of Charles the Fat, who received from him the imperial crown in 881. Previous to this, in order to secure the aid of the Greek emperor against the Saracens, he had agreed to sanction the restoration of Photius to the see of Constantinople, and had withdrawn his consent on finding that he reaped from the concession no substantial benefit. Charles the Fat, partly from unwillingness, partly from natural inability, gave him also no effectual aid, and the last years of John VIII. were spent chiefly in hurling vain anathemas against his various political enemies. According to the authority of Fulda, he was murdered by one of his near relations. His successor was Martin II. JOHN IX. (pope from 898 to 900) was of German birth, and belonged to the Benedictine order. He not only con firmed the judgment of his predecessor Theodore II. in granting Christian burial to Formosus, but at a council held at Ravenna decreed that the records of the synod which had condemned him should be burned. Finding, however, that it was advisable to cement the ties between the empire and the papacy, John gave unhesitating support to Lambert in preference to Arnulf, and also induced the council to determine that henceforth the consecration of the popes should take place only in the presence of the imperial legates. The sudden death of Lambert shattered the hopes which this alliance seemed to promise. John was succeeded by Benedict IV. JOHN X. (pope from 914 to 928) was deacon at Bologna when he attracted the attention of the empress Theodora, through whose influence he was elevated first to that see and then to the archbishopric of Ravenna. In direct oppo sition to a decree of council, he was also at the instigation of Theodora promoted to the papal chair as the successor of Lando. Like John IX. he endeavoured to secure him self against his temporal enemies through a close alliance with the imperial power and the establishment of an inde pendent Italian kingdom. With this view he in December 915 granted the imperial crown to Berengar, and with the assistance of the imperial troops and the forces of the duke of Beneveuto and Naples he took the field in person against the Saracens, over whom he gained a great victory on the banks of the Garigliano. The defeat and death of Beren gar through the combination of the Italian princes again frustrated the hopes of a united Italy subservient to papal purposes, and after witnessing several years of anarchy and confusion John perished through the intrigues of Marozia, daughter of Theodora. His successor was Leo VI. JOHN XI. (pope from 931 to 936) was bom in 906, the son of Marozia and the reputed son of Sergius III. Through the influence of his mother he was chosen to