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 opposition 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 himself against his temporal enemies through a close alliance with the imperial power and the establishment of an independent 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 Benevento 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 Berengar 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 born in 906, the son of Marozia and the reputed son of Sergius III. Through the influence of his mother he was chosen to succeed Stephen VIL 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 936, 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 successor 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, repented 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 insurrection 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 predecessor 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 procedure 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 Constantinople and placed John in prison, where he died either by starvation or poison.

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 immediately to withdraw from his agreement. On the death of the emperor Henry II. in 1024 he gave his support to Conrad II., 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 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 Western 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 Rome, 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 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 mentioned 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 the jealousy and distrust of the clergy, but probably his comprehensive and liberal policy would have shed exceptional lustre on the church had not his life been brought to a premature close through the fall of the roof which he had planned for one of his rooms in the palace of Viterbo. His successor was Nicholas III.

JOHN XXII. (pope from 1316 to 1334) was born at Cahors about 1244. His original name was Jacques d’Euse, and his father is said to have been a cobbler. Tradition also affirms that the son learned the same employment, but afterwards he was taken charge of by his uncle, a successful merchant, who rose to be chancellor of Robert of Sicily. Through the instruction of a Franciscan friar, Jacques d’Euse acquired, besides an acquaintance with theology, a mastery of canon and civil law which afterwards stood him in good stead; but, although he was also versed in all the details of statemanship, his learning was saturated with scholasticism, and his political ideas were narrowed by a mean and paltry ambition, the principal element of which was a miserly love of gold. He was small in stature and slightly deformed, and his features are said to have unpleasantly indicated his special moral defects. It is uncertain whether he ever joined the Franciscan order, but at any rate he afterwards had intimate connexions with the court of Naples, and some time before 1300 he was, at the instance of the king, appointed by Boniface VIII. bishop of Frejus. By means of forged letters purporting to have the authority of the king of Naples, Clement V. was induced in 1310 to bestow upon him the see of Avignon; and, notwithstanding that the fraud was soon discovered, he so recommended himself to the pope by his prudent conduct and his knowledge of law that in 1312 he was named cardinal-bishop of Porto. Robert of Naples also condescended to forget the liberty that had been taken in the use of the royal seal, and, on the death of Clement V. in 1316, the cardinals, through the liberal expenditure of Neapolitan gold, were won over to elect the bishop of Porto to the papal chair. The leanings of the ...

JOHN XXIII. (pope from 1410 to 1415) was born in Naples about 1360. He was of noble descent, his original name being Balthasar Cossa. In his youth he had, along with his brothers, served as a corsair, and at the university of Bologna, which he afterwards entered, he led a loose and intemperate life. After occupying the office of archdeacon of Bologna, he became chamberlain of Boniface IX., and in that office greatly enriched both himself and the pope by his unscrupulous traffic in indulgences. In recognition of the high value of his services he was in 1402 created by Boniface a cardinal, and shortly afterwards he was appointed papal legate to Bologna, which he succeeded in wresting from the Visconti. The scandalous and cruel excesses in which he indulged when governor of the city caused Gregory

XII. to pass against him a sentence of excommunication, but he was restored to his full dignities by Alexander V. The death of this pope, which took place suddenly at Bologna in 1410, was generally believed to have been contrived by the governor, but the cardinals were unanimous in electing him his successor, other two popes, Benedict...