Pope John XI
910 CE–935 CE · Rome
John XI became pope as a young man through the direct power of his mother, Marozia, who dominated Rome and arranged his elevation around age twenty. His paternity was a subject of scandalous report even in his own century: some sources call him a son of Alberic I of Spoleto, while the hostile Liber Pontificalis and Liutprand alleged he was the son of Pope Sergius III. His pontificate is the clearest illustration of the Theophylact family's grip on the papacy. After Marozia's son Alberic II seized power in 932, John XI was reduced to a figurehead confined to purely spiritual functions until his death.
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RomeרומאItaly
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Rome in this era
Between the 8th and 15th centuries Rome was the seat of the popes and capital of the Papal States, which grew from the Frankish king Pepin's grant of 756; Charlemagne was crowned emperor in St Peter's in 800. The city shrank far below its ancient size, and from 1309 to 1377 the popes resided at Avignon before returning to Rome.
About Rome
Rome, on the Tiber in central Italy, grew from an Iron Age settlement into the capital of the Roman Republic and then of an empire that by the 1st century CE ruled the whole Mediterranean. Its Jewish community, attested from the 2nd century BCE, is among the oldest in Europe. Christian tradition holds that the apostles Peter and Paul died there, and the city became the seat of the popes. After the Western Empire ended in 476 it passed to Gothic kings, to Byzantium and then to papal rule as capital of the Papal States, until it became the capital of unified Italy in 1871. Vatican City, independent since 1929, lies within it.
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