Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IX.djvu/667

 JOHN 647 tropolitan of the churches which he had founded. (See CYEIL AND METHODIUS.) He made many enemies by his arbitrary conduct and numerous excommunications, and died by violence. There are 326 letters by him extant. III. John X. (GIOVANNI CENCI), horn in Ravenna about 884, died in Rome, June 2, 928. Accord- ing to Luitprand, bishop of Cremona, whose re- lation is discredited by Milman, Giovanni was successively appointed bishop of Bologna, Ra- venna, and Rome, by the influence of the pow- erful and profligate Theodora. He was elect- ed pope in 914, and displayed great energy against the Saracens. He crowned Berenger as king of Italy and emperor, March 24, 916. Uniting with the imperial army the forces of the dukes of Benevento and Naples, he led them against the Saracens intrenched in the territory of Garigliano, and utterly routed them. He confirmed the appointment to the see of Rheims of Hugo, five years old, son of Heribert, count of that city. Having resisted Marozia, the daughter of Theodora, who, with her husband Guido, duke of Tuscany, could brook no rival influence in Rome, he was cast by them into prison and suffocated there. IV. John XI. (GIOVANNI CONTI), regarded by many as the son of Marozia, born in Rome between 905 and 910, died there in January, 936. He was raised to the papacy in 931, and was the mere tool of Marozia and the evil men who sur- rounded her. Her son Alberico, having excited the Romans to throw off her yoke, expelled her husband. King Hugo, made himself master of Rome with the title of consul, imprisoned his mother and the pope, and held them in captivity from 933 till the death of the latter. V. John XII. (OTTAVIANO CONTI), son of Al- berico and grandson of Marozia, born in Rome about 937, died there in 964. He was intruded into the papal office in 956, and as- sumed the name of John, being the first pope who thus changed his name. In 957 he took into his pay the troops of the duke of Spoleto, and marched at their head against Pandolfo, prince of Capua, who defeated him and com- pelled him to sue for peace. He invoked the aid of Otho the Great against Berenger II. Otho, having driven Berenger from Italy, en- tered Rome at the head of an army, and was crowned emperor of the West in February, 962. He secured to the pope his title to the States of the Church, and exacted from him the prom- ise that he, would hold no relation with Beren- ger. John violated this promise ; and the em- peror, incensed at his faithlessness, as well as at the loud complaints about his licentious life, returned to Rome in 963, and caused the pope to be degraded in an assembly of bishops held in St. Peter's in November, and the antipope Leo VIII. to be chosen in his stead. In 964, the Romans having revolted, John reentered Rome at the head of a large force, expelled Leo, and committed many atrocities. Otho was prepar- ing to march once more toward Rome when the pope fell suddenly sick and died. VI. John XXIL (JACQUES D'EUSE), born in Cahors, France, about 1244, died in Avignon in 1334. He was an Augustinian monk, and was transferred from the see of Frejus to that of Avignon by Clem- ent V., who also appointed him cardinal-bish- op of Porto. He was elected pope at Lyons in August, 1316, and crowned there in September. His first act was to create one Italian and seven French cardinals, a step indicating a resolve to make the papacy a permanent French insti- tution. French historians accordingly bestow great praise on this pope, while the Italians are unsparing in their censure. After the death of Henry VII. in 1313, the imperial crown was claimed by Louis of Bavaria and Frederick of Austria. John cited the contestants before him, and Louis refusing to appear, the pope excommunicated him. Louis appealed to a general council. The diet of Frankfort sus- tained him, declaring that the imperial author- ity depended upon God alone. The strife which existed in Italy between the Guelphs and Ghibellines made the latter espouse the cause of Louis, while the former sided with the pope. Robert, king of Naples, who aspired to be sole ruler in the peninsula, became the leader of the Guelphs, while Frederick, king of Sicily, with the Visconti, the Scalas, and the Estes, supported Louis. They were excommunicated as heretics, a crusade was preached against them, and pope and emperor sent armies to the as- sistance of their respective partisans. Louis en- tered Italy in 1327, was crowned at Milan with the iron crown, and at Rome with the impe- rial crown. In an assembly held in the square of St. Peter's he cited the pope to appear and answer to the charges of heresy and high trea- son, deposed him, sentenced him to be burned alive, appointed in his stead Pietro da Corva- ria, who assumed the name of Nicholas V., and made it a law that any pope residing out of Rome for more than three months should be considered as deposed. Louis returned to Ger- many, the leaders of the Ghibellines died soon afterward, and the Guelphs gradually gained the ascendancy. John was indefatigable in his exertions to save Christendom from Saracenic aggression, and succeeded in the last year of his life in forming against the Turks a league composed of the kings of France, Sicily, Cy- prus, and Armenia, and of the Greek emperor Andronicus. He sanctioned the custom intro- duced by St. Bonaventura of ringing the church bells at sunset, and saluting the Virgin with three Ave Marias in honor of the incarna- tion. He confirmed the military order of Christ (March, 1319), founded by King Denis of Portugal, restrained the power of the Teutonic knights, who oppressed the new Christians of Lithuania, and canonized St. Thomas Aquinas. He deprived by statute the people of towns of the right of electing their bishops, established the custom of collecting "annates" or first fruits, and left at his death a well filled treasu- ry. VII. John XXIII. (BALTABSAEE COSSA), born in Naples about 1360, died in Florence, Nov.