Pope John XI encyclopedia topics

Parentage

The parentage of John XI is still a matter of dispute. According to Liutprand of Cremona (Antapodosis, ii. c. 48) and the "Liber Pontificalis," he was the natural son of Pope Sergius III (904–911), ("Johannes, natione Romanus ex patre Sergio papa," "Liber Pont." ed. Duchesne, II, 243). Ferdinand Gregorovius, Ernst Dümmler, Thomas Greenwood (Cathedra Petri: A Political History of the great Latin Patriarchate), Philip Schaff, and Rudolf Baxmann agree with Liutprand that Pope Sergius III fathered Pope John XI by Marozia. If that is true, John XI would be the only known illegitimate son of a Pope to have become Pope himself. (Silverius was the legitimate son of Pope Hormisdas). On the other hand, Horace Kinder Mann, Reginald L. Poole, Peter Llewelyn (Rome in the Dark Ages), Karl Josef von Hefele, August Friedrich Gfrörer, Ludovico Antonio Muratori, and Francis Patrick Kenrick maintain that Pope John XI was sired by Alberic I of Spoleto, Count of Tusculum.

Pontificate

His mother was the Roman ruler at the time, resulting in his appointment to the Chair of Peter. Marozia was thus allegedly able to exert complete control over the Pope.

At the overthrow of Marozia, John XI reportedly became subject to the control of Alberic II (932-954), his younger brother. The only control left to the Pope 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.

It was at the insistence of Alberic II that the pallium was given to Theophylactus, Patriarch of Constantinople (935), and also to Artold, Archbishop of Reims (933). It was John XI who sat in the Chair of Peter during what some traditional Catholic sources consider its deepest humiliation, but it was also he who granted many privileges to the Congregation of Cluny, which was later on a powerful agent of Church reform.