VOLUME XV SLICE IV Jevons, Stanley to Joint (continued 8)

JOHN XI., pope from 931 to 935, was the son of Marozia and the reputed son of Sergius III. Through the influence of his mother he was chosen to succeed Stephen VII. 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 935, 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 Otto the Great of Germany, to whom he granted the imperial crown in 962. Even before Otto 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 the new emperor. His intrigues were discovered by Otto, 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 Otto 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. Otto 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 Otto, 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 Otto, they permitted him shortly afterwards to return, upon which, with the sanction of Otto, 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 Otto II. at Rome in assurance of his succession to his father; and in 972 he also crowned Theophano as empress immediately before her marriage. On his death in the same year he was followed by Benedict VI.

JOHN XIV., pope from 983 to 984, successor to Benedict VII., was born at Pavia, and before his elevation to the papal chair was imperial chancellor of Otto II. Otto died shortly after his election, when 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 XV., pope from 985 to 996, generally recognized as the successor of Boniface VII., the pope John who was said to have ruled for four months after John XIV., being now omitted by the best authorities. John XV. was the son of Leo, a Roman presbyter. 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 Theophano 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, died of fever before the arrival of Otto III., 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 Theophano, from whom he had received the bishopric of Placentia. His original name was Philagathus. In 995 he was sent by Otto 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., at the end of 996, 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. The arrival of Otto 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 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 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 ecumenical 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. John died in 1033, 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.

(L. D.*)

JOHN XXI. (Pedro Giuliano-Rebulo), pope from the 8th of September 1276 to the 20th of May 1277 (should be named John XX., but there is an error in the reckoning through the insertion of an antipope), a native of Portugal, educated for the church, became archdeacon and then archbishop of Braga, and so ingratiated himself with Gregory X. at the council of Lyons (1274) that he was taken to Rome as cardinal-bishop of Frascati, and succeeded Gregory after an interregnum of twenty days. As pope he excommunicated Alphonso III. of Portugal for interfering with episcopal elections and sent legates to the Great Khan. He was devoted to secular science, and his small affection for the monks awakened the distrust of a large portion of the clergy. His life was brought to a premature close through the fall of the roof in the palace he had built at Viterbo. His successor was Nicholas III.

John XXI. has been identified since the 14th century, most probably correctly, with Petrus Hispanus, a celebrated Portuguese physician and philosopher, author of several medical works—notably the curious Liber de oculo, trans. into German and well edited by A. M. Berger (Munich, 1899), and of a popular textbook in logic, the Summulae logicales. John XXI. is constantly referred to as a magician by ignorant chroniclers.

See Les Registres de Grégoire X. et Jean XXI., published by J. Guiraud and E. Cadier in Bibliothèque des écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome (Paris, 1898); A. Potthast, Regesta pontif. Roman., vol. 2 (Berlin, 1875); F. Gregorovius, Rome in the Middle Ages, vol. v., trans. by Mrs G. W. Hamilton (London, 1900-1902); R. Stapper, Papst Johann XXI. (Münster, 1898); J. T. Köhler, Vollständige Nachricht von Papst Johann XXI. (Göttingen, 1760).

(C. H. Ha.)

JOHN XXII., pope from 1316 to 1334, was born at Cahors, France, in 1249. His original name was Jacques Duèse, and he came either of a family of petty nobility or else of well-to-do middle-class parents, and was not, as has been popularly supposed, the son of a shoemaker. He began his education with the Dominicans at Cahors, subsequently studied law at Montpellier, and law and medicine in Paris, and finally taught at Cahors and Toulouse. At Toulouse he became intimate with the bishop Louis, son of Charles II., king of Naples. In 1300 he was elevated to the episcopal see of Fréjus by Pope Boniface VIII. at the instance of the king of Naples, and in 1308 was made chancellor of Naples by Charles, retaining this office under Charles’s successor, Robert of Anjou. In 1310 Pope Clement V. summoned Jacques to Avignon and instructed him to advise upon the affair of the Templars and also upon the question of condemning the memory of Boniface VIII. Jacques decided on the legality of suppressing the order of the Templars, holding that the pope would be serving the best interests of the church by pronouncing its suppression; but he rejected the condemnation of Boniface as a sacrilegious affront to the church and a monstrous abuse of the lay power. On the 23rd of December 1312 Clement appointed him cardinal-bishop of Porto, and it was while cardinal of Porto that he was elected pope, on the 7th of August 1316. Clement had died in April 1314, but the cardinals assembled at Carpentras were unable to agree as to his successor. As the two-thirds majority requisite for an election could not be obtained, the cardinals separated, and it was not until the 28th of June 1316 that they reassembled in the cloister of the Dominicans at Lyons, and then only in deference to the pressure exerted upon them by Philip V. of France. After deliberating for more than a month they elected Robert of Anjou’s candidate, Jacques Duèse, who was crowned on the 5th of September, and on the 2nd of October arrived at Avignon, where he remained for the rest of his life.

More jurist than theologian, John defended the rights of the papacy with rigorous zeal and as rigorous logic. For the restoration of the papacy to its old independence, which had been so gravely compromised under his immediate predecessors, and for the execution of the vast enterprises which the papacy deemed useful for its prestige and for Christendom, considerable sums were required; and to raise the necessary money John burdened Christian Europe with new taxes and a complicated fiscal system, which was fraught with serious consequences. For his personal use, however, he retained but a very small fraction of the sums thus acquired, and at his death his private fortune amounted to scarce a million florins. The essentially practical character of his administration has led many historians to tax him with avarice, but later research on the fiscal system of the papacy of the period, particularly the joint work of Samaran and Mollat, enables us very sensibly to modify the severe judgment passed on John by Gregorovius and others.

John’s pontificate was continually disturbed by his conflict with Louis of Bavaria and by the theological revolt of the Spiritual Franciscans. In October 1314 Louis of Bavaria and Frederick of Austria had each been elected German king by the divided electors. Louis was gradually recognized by the whole of Germany, especially after his victory at Mühldorf (1322), and gained numerous adherents in Italy, where he supported the Visconti, who had been condemned as heretics by the pope. John affected to ignore the successes of Louis, and on the 8th of October 1323 forbade his recognition as king of the Romans. After demanding a respite, Louis abruptly appealed at Nuremberg from the future sentence of the pope to a general council (December 8, 1323). The conflict then assumed a grave doctrinal character. The doctrine of the rights of the lay monarchy sustained by Occam and John of Paris, by Marsilius of Padua, John of Jandun and Leopold of Bamberg, was affirmed by the jurists and theologians, penetrated into the parlements and the universities, and was combated by the upholders of papal absolutism, such as Alvaro Pelayo and Alonzo Trionfo. Excommunicated on the 21st of March 1324, Louis retorted by appealing for a second time to a general council, which was held on the 22nd of May 1324, and accused John of being an enemy to the peace and the law, stigmatizing him as a heretic on the ground that he opposed the principle of evangelical poverty as professed by the strict Franciscans. From this moment Louis appeared in the character of the natural ally and even the protector of the Spirituals against the persecution of the pope. On the 11th of July 1324 the pope laid under an interdict the places where Louis or his adherents resided, but this bull had no effect in Germany. Equally futile was John’s declaration (April 3, 1327) that Louis had forfeited his crown and abetted heresy by granting protection to Marsilius of Padua. Having reconciled himself with Frederick of Austria, Louis penetrated into Italy and seized Rome on the 7th of January 1328, with the help of the Roman Ghibellines led by Sciarra Colonna. After installing himself in the Vatican, Louis got himself crowned by the deputies of the Roman people; instituted proceedings for the deposition of John, whom the Roman people, displeased by the spectacle of the papacy abandoning Rome, declared to have forfeited the pontificate (April 18, 1328); and finally caused a Minorite friar, Pietro Rainalucci da Corvara, to be elected pope under the name of Nicholas V. John preached a platonic crusade against Louis, who burned the pope’s effigy at Pisa and in Amelia. Soon, however, Louis felt his power waning, and quitted Rome and Italy (1329). Incapable of independent action, the antipope was abandoned by the Romans and handed over to John, who forced him to make a solemn submission with a halter round his neck (August 15, 1330). Nicholas was condemned to perpetual imprisonment, and died in obscurity at Avignon; while the Roman people submitted to King Robert, who governed the church through his vicars. In 1317, in execution of a bull of Clement V., the royal vicariate in Italy had been conferred by John on Robert of Anjou, and this appointment was renewed in 1322 and 1324, with threats of excommunication against any one who should seize the vicariate of Italy without the authorization of the pope. One of John’s last acts was his decision to separate Italy from the Empire, but this bull was of no avail and fell into oblivion. After his death, however, the interdict was not removed from Germany, and the resistance of Louis and his theologians continued.

A violent manifestation of this resistance took place in connexion with the accusation of heresy brought against the pope. On the third Sunday in Advent 1329, and afterwards in public consistory, John had preached that the souls of those who have died in a state of grace go into Abraham’s bosom, sub altari Dei, and do not enjoy the beatific vision (visio facie ad faciem) of the Lord until after the Last Judgment and the Resurrection; and he had even instructed a Minorite friar, Gauthier of Dijon, to collect the passages in the Fathers which were in favour of this doctrine. On the 27th of December 1331 a Dominican, Thomas of England, preached against this doctrine at Avignon itself and was thrown into prison. When news of this affair had reached Paris, the pope sent the general of the Minorites, Gerard Odonis, accompanied by a Dominican, to sustain his doctrine in that city, but King Philip VI., perhaps at the instigation of the refugee Spirituals in Paris, referred the question to the faculty of theology, which, on the 2nd of January 1333, declared that the souls of the blessed were elevated to the beatific vision immediately after death; the faculty, nevertheless, were of opinion that the pope should have propounded his erroneous doctrine only “recitando,” and not “determinando, asserendo, seu etiam opinando.” The king notified this decision to the pope, who assembled his consistory in November 1333, and gave a haughty reply. The theologians in Louis’s following who were opposed to papal absolutism already spoke of “the new heretic, Jacques de Cahors,” and reiterated with increasing insistency their demands for the convocation of a general council to try the pope. John appears to have retracted shortly before his death, which occurred on the 4th of December 1334.1

John had kindled very keen animosity, not only among the upholders of the independence of the lay power, but also among the upholders of absolute religious poverty, the exalted Franciscans. Clement V., at the council of Vienne, had attempted to bring back the Spirituals to the common rule by concessions; John, on the other hand, in the bull Quorundam exigit (April 13, 1317), adopted an uncompromising and absolute attitude, and by the bull Gloriosam ecclesiam (January 23, 1318) condemned the protests which had been raised against the bull Quorundam by a group of seventy-four Spirituals and conveyed to Avignon by the monk Bernard Délicieux. Shortly afterwards four Spirituals were burned at Marseilles. These were immediately hailed as martyrs, and in the eyes of the exalted Franciscans at Naples and in Sicily and the south of France the pope was regarded as antichrist. In the bull Sancta Romana et universa ecclesia (December 28, 1318) John definitively excommunicated them and condemned their principal book, the Postil (commentary) on the Apocalypse (February 8, 1326). The bull Quia nonnunquam (March 26, 1322) defined the derogations from the rule punished by the pope, and the bull Cum inter nonnullos (November 12, 1323) condemned the proposition which had been admitted at the general chapter of the Franciscans held at Perugia in 1322, according to which Christ and the Apostles were represented as possessing no property, either personal or common. The minister general, Michael of Cesena, though opposed to the exaggerations of the Spirituals, joined with them in protesting against the condemnation of the fundamental principle of evangelical poverty, and the agitation gradually gained ground. The pope, by the bull Quia quorundam (November 10, 1324), cited Michael to appear at Avignon at the same time as Occam and Bonagratia. All three fled to the court of Louis of Bavaria (May 26, 1328), while the majority of the Franciscans made submission and elected a general entirely devoted to the pope. But the resistance, aided by Louis and merged as it now was in the cause sustained by Marsilius of Padua and John of Jandun, became daily bolder. Treatises on poverty appeared on every side; the party of Occam clamoured with increasing imperiousness for the condemnation of John by a general council; and the Spirituals, confounded in the persecution with the Beghards and with Fraticelli of every description, maintained themselves in the south of France in spite of the reign of terror instituted in that region by the Inquisition.

See M. Souchon, Die Papstwahlen von Bonifaz VIII. bis Urban VI. (Brunswick, 1888); Abbé Albe, Autour de Jean XXII. (Rome, 1904); K. Müller, Der Kampf Ludwigs des Bayern mit der Curie (Tübingen, 1879 seq.); W. Preger, “Mémoires sur la lutte entre Jean XXII. et Louis de Bavière” in Abhandl. der bayr. Akad., hist. sec., xv., xvi., xvii.; S. Riezler, Die litterar. Widersacher der Päpste zur Zeit Ludwigs des Baiers (Leipzig, 1874); F. Ehrle, “Die Spiritualen” in Archiv für Litteratur-und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters (vols. i. and ii.); C. Samaran and G. Mollat, La Fiscalité pontificale en France au xive siècle (Paris, 1905); A. Coulon and G. Mollat, Lettres secrètes et curiales de Jean XXII. se rapportant à la France (Paris, 1899, seq.).

(P. A.)

1 On the 29th of January 1336 Pope Benedict XII. pronounced a long judgment on this point of doctrine, a judgment which he declared had been included by John in a bull which death had prevented him from sealing.

JOHN XXIII. (Baldassare Cossa), pope, or rather antipope from 1410 to 1415, was born of a good Neapolitan family, and began by leading the life of a corsair before entering the service of the Church under the pontificate of Boniface IX. His abilities, which were mainly of an administrative and military order, were soon rewarded by the cardinal’s hat and the legation of Bologna. On the 29th of June 1408 he and seven of his colleagues broke away from Gregory XII., and together with six cardinals of the obedience of Avignon, who had in like manner separated from Benedict XIII., they agreed to aim at the assembling of a general council, setting aside the two rival pontiffs, an expedient which they considered would put an end to the great schism of the Western Church, but which resulted in the election of yet a third pope. This act was none the less decisive for Baldassare Cossa’s future. Alexander V., the first pope elected at Pisa, was not perhaps, as has been maintained, merely a man of straw put forward by the ambitious cardinal of Bologna; but he reigned only ten months, and on his death, which happened rather suddenly on the 4th of May 1410, Baldassare Cossa succeeded him. Whether the latter had bought his electors by money and promises, or owed his success to his dominant position in Bologna, and to the support of Florence and of Louis II. of Anjou, he seems to have received the unanimous vote of all the seventeen cardinals gathered together at Bologna (May 17). He took the name of John XXIII., and France, England, and part of Italy and Germany recognized him as head of the Catholic church.

The struggle in which he and Louis II. of Anjou engaged with Ladislaus of Durazzo, king of Sicily, and Gregory XII.’s chief protector in Italy, at first went in John’s favour. After the brilliant victory of Roccasecca (May 19, 1411) he had the satisfaction of dragging the standards of Pope Gregory and King Ladislaus through the streets of Rome. But the dispersion of Louis of Anjou’s troops and his carelessness, together with the lack of success which attended the preaching of a crusade in Germany, France and England, finally decided John XXIII. to abandon the French claimant to the throne of Sicily; he recognized Ladislaus, his former enemy, as king of Naples, and Ladislaus did not fail to salute John XXIII. as pope, abandoning Gregory XII. (June 15, 1412). This was a fatal step: John XXIII. was trusting in a dishonest and insatiable prince; he would have acted more wisely in remaining the ally of the weak but loyal Louis of Anjou. However, it seemed desirable that the reforms announced by the council of Pisa, which the popes set up by this synod seemed in no hurry to carry into effect, should be further discussed in the new council which it had been agreed should be summoned about the spring of 1412. But John was anxious that this council should be held in Rome, a city where he alone was master; the few prelates and ambassadors who very slowly gathered there held only a small number of sessions, in which John again condemned the writings of Wycliffe. John was attacked by the representatives of the various nations and reprimanded even for his private conduct, but endeavoured to extricate himself from this uncomfortable position by gratifying their desires, if not by reforming abuses. It is, however, only fair to add that he took various half-measures and gave many promises which, if they had been put into execution, would have confirmed or completed the reforms inaugurated at Pisa. But on the 3rd of March 1413 John adjourned the council of Rome till December, without even fixing the place where the next session should be held. It was held at Constance in Germany, and John could only have resigned himself to accepting such an uncertain meeting-place because he was forced by distress, isolation and fear to turn towards the head of the empire. Less than a year after the treaty concluded with Ladislaus of Durazzo, the latter forced his way into Rome (June 8, 1413), which he sacked, expelling John, to whom even the Florentines did not dare to throw open their gates for fear of the king of Sicily. Sigismund, king of the Romans, not only extorted, it is said, a sum of 50,000 florins from the pontiff in his extremity, but insisted upon his summoning the council at Constance (December 9). It was in vain that, on the death of Ladislaus, which took place unexpectedly (August 6, 1414), John was inspired with the idea of breaking his compact with Sigismund and returning to Rome, at the same time appealing to Louis of Anjou. It was too late. The cardinals forced him towards Germany by the most direct road, without allowing him to go by way of Avignon as he had projected, in order to make plans with the princes of France.

On the 5th of November 1414 John opened the council of Constance, where, on Christmas Day, he received the homage of the head of the empire, but where his lack of prestige, the defection of his allies, the fury of his adversaries, and the general sense of the necessity for union soon showed only too clearly how small was the chance of his retaining the tiara. He had to take a solemn oath to abdicate if his two rivals would do the same, and this concession, which was not very sincere, gained him for the last time the honour of seeing Sigismund prostrate at his feet (March 2, 1415). But on the night of the 20th-21st of March, having donned the garments of a layman, with a cross-bow slung at his side, he succeeded in making his escape from Constance, accompanied only by a single servant, and took refuge first in the castle of Schaffhausen, then in that of Laufenburg, then at Freiburg-im-Breisgau, and finally at Brisach, whence he hoped to reach Alsace, and doubtless ultimately Avignon, under the protection of an escort sent by the duke of Burgundy. The news of the pope’s escape was received at Constance with an extraordinary outburst of rage, and led to the subversive decrees of the 4th and 5th sessions, which proclaimed the superiority of the council over the pope. Duke Frederick of Austria had hitherto sheltered John’s flight; but, laid under the ban of the empire, attacked by powerful armies, and feeling that he was courting ruin, he preferred to give up the pontiff who had trusted to him. John was brought back to Freiburg (April 27), and there in vain attempted to appease the wrath which he had aroused by more or less vague promises of resignation. His trial, however, was already beginning. The three cardinals whom he charged with his defence hastily declined this compromising task. Seventy-four charges were drawn up, only twenty of which were set aside after the witnesses had been heard. The accusation of having poisoned Alexander V. and his doctor at Bologna was not maintained. But enough deeds of immorality, tyranny, ambition and simony were found proved to justify the severest judgment. He was suspended from his functions as pope on the 14th of May 1415, and deposed on the following 29th of May.

However irregular this sentence may have been from the canonical point of view (for the accusers do not seem to have actually proved the crime of heresy, which was necessary, according to most scholars of the period, to justify the deposition of a sovereign pontiff), the condemned pope was not long in confirming it. Baldassare Cossa, now as humble and resigned as he had before been energetic and tenacious, on his transference to the castle of Rudolfzell admitted the wrong which he had done by his flight, refused to bring forward anything in his defence, acquiesced entirely in the judgment of the council which he declared to be infallible, and finally, as an extreme precaution, ratified motu proprio the sentence of deposition, declaring that he freely and willingly renounced any rights which he might still have in the papacy. This fact has subsequently been often quoted against those who have appealed to the events of 1415 to maintain that a council can depose a pope who is scandalizator ecclesiae.

Cossa kept his word never to appeal against the sentence which stripped him of the pontificate. He was held prisoner for three years in Germany, but in the end bought his liberty from the count palatine. He used this liberty only to go to Florence, in 1419, and throw himself on the mercy of the legitimate pope. Martin V. appointed him cardinal-bishop of Tusculum, a dignity which Cossa only enjoyed for a few months. He died on the 22nd of December 1419, and all visitors to the Baptistery at Florence may admire, under its high baldacchino, the sombre figure sculptured by Donatello of the dethroned pontiff, who had at least the merit of bowing his head under his chastisement, and of contributing by his passive resignation to the extinction of the series of popes which sprang from the council of Pisa.

(N. V.)

JOHN I. (925-976), surnamed Tzimisces, East Roman emperor, was born of a distinguished Cappadocian family. After helping his uncle Nicephorus Phocas (q.v.) to obtain the throne and to restore the empire’s eastern provinces he was deprived of his command by an intrigue, upon which he retaliated by conspiring with Nicephorus’ wife Theophania to assassinate him. Elected ruler in his stead, John proceeded to justify his usurpation by the energy with which he repelled the foreign invaders of the empire. In a series of campaigns against the newly established Russian power (970-973) he drove the enemy out of Thrace, crossed Mt Haemus and besieged the fortress of Dorystolon on the Danube. In several hard-fought battles he broke the strength of the Russians so completely that they left him master of eastern Bulgaria. He further secured his northern frontier by transplanting to Thrace some colonies of Paulicians whom he suspected of sympathising with their Saracen neighbours in the east. In 974 he turned against the Abassid empire and easily recovered the inland parts of Syria and the middle reaches of the Euphrates. He died suddenly in 976 on his return from his second campaign against the Saracens. John’s surname was apparently derived from the Armenian tshemshkik (red boot).

See E. Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. vi. (ed. Bury, 1896); G. Finlay, History of Greece, ii. 334-360 (ed. 1877); G. Schlumberger, L’Épopée Byzantine, i. 1-326 (1896).

JOHN II. (1088-1143), surnamed Comnenus and also Kalojoannes (John the Good), East Roman emperor, was the eldest son of the East Roman emperor Alexius, whom he succeeded in 1118. On account of his mild and just reign he has been called the Byzantine Marcus Aurelius. By the personal purity of his character he effected a notable improvement in the manners of his age, but he displayed little vigour in internal administration or in extirpating the long-standing corruptions of the government. Nor did his various successes against the Hungarians, Servians and Seljuk Turks, whom he pressed hard in Asia Minor and proposed to expel from Jerusalem, add much to the stability of his empire. He was accidentally killed during a wild-boar hunt on Mt Taurus, on the 8th of April 1143.

See E. Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, v. 228 seq. (ed. Bury, 1896).

JOHN III. (1193-1254), surnamed Vatatzes and also Ducas, East Roman emperor, earned for himself such distinction as a soldier that in 1222 he was chosen to succeed his father-in-law Theodore I. Lascaris. He reorganized the remnant of the East Roman empire, and by his administrative skill made it the strongest and richest principality in the Levant. Having secured his eastern frontier by an agreement with the Turks, he set himself to recover the European possessions of his predecessors. While his fleet harassed the Latins in the Aegean Sea and extended his realm to Rhodes, his army, reinforced by Frankish mercenaries, defeated the Latin emperor’s forces in the open field. Though unsuccessful in a siege of Constantinople, which he undertook in concert with the Bulgarians (1235), he obtained supremacy over the despotats of Thessalonica and Epirus. The ultimate recovery of Constantinople by the Rhomaic emperors is chiefly due to his exertions.

See E. Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vi. 431-462 (ed. Bury, 1896); G. Finlay, History of Greece, iii. 196-320 (ed. 1877); A. Meliarakes, Ἱστορία τοῦ Βασιλείου τῆς Νικαίας καὶ τοῦ Δεσποτάτου τῆς Ἠπείρου, pp. 155-421 (1898).

JOHN IV. (c. 1250-c. 1300), surnamed Lascaris, East Roman emperor, son of Theodore II. His father dying in 1258, Michael Palaeologus conspired shortly after to make himself regent, and in 1261 dethroned and blinded the boy monarch, and imprisoned him in a remote castle, where he died a long time after.

See E. Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vi. 459-466 (ed. Bury, 1896); A. Meliarakes, Ἱστορία τοῦ Βασιλείου τῆς Νικαίας (Athens, 1898), pp. 491-528.

JOHN V. or VI. (1332-1391), surnamed Palaeologus, East Roman emperor, was the son of Andronicus III., whom he succeeded in 1341. At first he shared his sovereignty with his father’s friend John Cantacuzene, and after a quarrel with the latter was practically superseded by him for a number of years (1347-1355). His reign was marked by the gradual dissolution of the imperial power through the rebellion of his son Andronicus and by the encroachments of the Ottomans, to whom in 1381 John acknowledged himself tributary, after a vain attempt to secure the help of the popes by submitting to the supremacy of the Roman Church.

See E. Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vi. 495 seq., vii. 38 seq. (ed. Bury, 1896); E. Pears, The Destruction of the Greek Empire, pp. 70-96 (1903).

JOHN VI. or V. (c. 1292-1383), surnamed Cantacuzene, East Roman emperor, was born at Constantinople. Connected with the house of Palaeologus on his mother’s side, on the accession of Andronicus III. (1328) he was entrusted with the supreme administration of affairs. On the death of the emperor in 1341, Cantacuzene was left regent, and guardian of his son John Palaeologus, who was but nine years of age. Being suspected by the empress and opposed by a powerful party at court, he rebelled, and got himself crowned emperor at Didymoteichos in Thrace, while John Palaeologus and his supporters maintained themselves at Constantinople. The civil war which ensued lasted six years, during which the rival parties called in the aid of the Servians and Turks, and engaged mercenaries of every description. It was only by the aid of the Turks, with whom he made a disgraceful bargain, that Cantacuzene brought the war to a termination favourable to himself. In 1347 he entered Constantinople in triumph, and forced his opponents to an arrangement by which he became joint emperor with John Palaeologus and sole administrator during the minority of his colleague. During this period, the empire, already broken up and reduced to the narrowest limits, was assailed on every side. There were wars with the Genoese, who had a colony at Galata and had money transactions with the court; and with the Servians, who were at that time establishing an extensive empire on the north-western frontiers; and there was a hazardous alliance with the Turks, who made their first permanent settlement in Europe, at Callipolis in Thrace, towards the end of the reign (1354). Cantacuzene was far too ready to invoke the aid of foreigners in his European quarrels; and as he had no money to pay them, this gave them a ready pretext for seizing upon a European town. The financial burdens imposed by him had long been displeasing to his subjects, and a strong party had always favoured John Palaeologus. Hence, when the latter entered Constantinople at the end of 1354, his success was easy. Cantacuzene retired to a monastery (where he assumed the name of Joasaph Christodulus) and occupied himself in literary labours. He died in the Peloponnese and was buried by his sons at Mysithra in Laconia. His History in four books deals with the years 1320-1356. Really an apologia for his own actions, it needs to be read with caution; fortunately it can be supplemented and corrected by the work of a contemporary, Nicephorus Gregoras. It possesses the merit of being well arranged and homogeneous, the incidents being grouped round the chief actor in the person of the author, but the information is defective on matters with which he is not directly concerned.

Cantacuzene was also the author of a commentary on the first five books of Aristotle’s Ethics, and of several controversial theological treatises, one of which (Against Mohammedanism) is printed in Migne (Patrologia Graeca, cliv.). History, ed. pr. by J. Pontanus (1603); in Bonn, Corpus scriptorum hist. Byz., by J. Schopen (1828-1832) and Migne, cliii., cliv. See also Val Parisot, Cantacuzène, homme d’état et historien (1845); E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. lxiii.; and C. Krumbacher, Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur (1897).

JOHN VI. or VII. (1390-1448), surnamed Palaeologus, East Roman emperor, son of Manuel II., succeeded to the throne in 1425. To secure protection against the Turks he visited the pope and consented to the union of the Greek and Roman churches, which was ratified at Florence in 1439. The union failed of its purpose, but by his prudent conduct towards the Ottomans he succeeded in holding possession of Constantinople, and in 1432 withstood a siege by Sultan Murad I.

See Turkey: History; and also E. Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vi. 97-107 (ed. Bury, 1896); E. Pears, The Destruction of the Greek Empire, pp. 115-130 (1903).

JOHN (1167-1216), king of England, the youngest son of Henry II. by Eleanor of Aquitaine, was born at Oxford on the 24th of December 1167. He was given at an early age the nickname of Lackland because, unlike his elder brothers, he received no apanage in the continental provinces. But his future was a subject of anxious thought to Henry II. When only five years old John was betrothed (1173) to the heiress of Maurienne and Savoy, a principality which, as dominating the chief routes from France and Burgundy to Italy, enjoyed a consequence out of all proportion to its area. Later, when this plan had fallen through, he was endowed with castles, revenues and lands on both sides of the channel; the vacant earldom of Cornwall was reserved for him (1175); he was betrothed to Isabella the heiress of the earldom of Gloucester (1176); and he was granted the lordship of Ireland with the homage of the Anglo-Irish baronage (1177). Henry II. even provoked a civil war by attempting to transfer the duchy of Aquitaine from the hands of Richard Cœur de Lion to those of John (1183). In spite of the incapacity which he displayed in this war, John was sent a little later to govern Ireland (1185); but he returned in a few months covered with disgrace, having alienated the loyal chiefs by his childish insolence and entirely failed to defend the settlers from the hostile septs. Remaining henceforth at his father’s side he was treated with the utmost indulgence. But he joined with his brother Richard and the French king Philip Augustus in the great conspiracy of 1189, and the discovery of his treason broke the heart of the old king (see Henry II.).

Richard on his accession confirmed John’s existing possessions; married him to Isabella of Gloucester; and gave him, besides other grants, the entire revenues of six English shires; but excluded him from any share in the regency which was appointed to govern England during the third crusade; and only allowed him to live in the kingdom because urged to this concession by their mother. Soon after the king’s departure for the Holy Land it became known that he had designated his nephew, the young Arthur of Brittany, as his successor. John at once began to intrigue against the regents with the aim of securing England for himself. He picked a quarrel with the unpopular chancellor William Longchamp (q.v.), and succeeded, by the help of the barons and the Londoners, in expelling this minister, whose chief fault was that of fidelity to the absent Richard. Not being permitted to succeed Longchamp as the head of the administration, John next turned to Philip Augustus for help. A bargain was struck; and when Richard was captured by Leopold, duke of Austria (December 1192), the allies endeavoured to prevent his release, and planned a partition of his dominions. They were, however, unable to win either English or Norman support and their schemes collapsed with Richard’s return (March 1194). He magnanimously pardoned his brother, and they lived on not unfriendly terms for the next five years. On his deathbed Richard, reversing his former arrangements, caused his barons to swear fealty to John (1199), although the hereditary claim of Arthur was by the law of primogeniture undoubtedly superior.

England and Normandy, after some hesitation, recognized John’s title; the attempt of Anjou and Brittany to assert the rights of Arthur ended disastrously by the capture of the young prince at Mirebeau in Poitou (1202). But there was no part of his dominions in which John inspired personal devotion. Originally accepted as a political necessity, he soon came to be detested by the people as a tyrant and despised by the nobles for his cowardice and sloth. He inherited great difficulties—the feud with France, the dissensions of the continental provinces, the growing indifference of England to foreign conquests, the discontent of all his subjects with a strict executive and severe taxation. But he cannot be acquitted of personal responsibility for his misfortunes. Astute in small matters, he had no breadth of view or foresight; his policy was continually warped by his passions or caprices; he flaunted vices of the most sordid kind with a cynical indifference to public opinion, and shocked an age which was far from tender-hearted by his ferocity to vanquished enemies. He treated his most respectable supporters with base ingratitude, reserved his favour for unscrupulous adventurers, and gave a free rein to the licence of his mercenaries. While possessing considerable gifts of mind and a latent fund of energy, he seldom acted or reflected until the favourable moment had passed. Each of his great humiliations followed as the natural result of crimes or blunders. By his divorce from Isabella of Gloucester he offended the English baronage (1200); by his marriage with Isabella of Angoulême, the betrothed of Hugh of Lusignan, he gave an opportunity to the discontented Poitevins for invoking French assistance and to Philip Augustus for pronouncing against him a sentence of forfeiture. The murder of Arthur (1203) ruined his cause in Normandy and Anjou; the story that the court of the peers of France condemned him for the murder is a fable, but no legal process was needed to convince men of his guilt. In the later quarrel with Innocent III. (1207-1213; see Langton, Stephen) he prejudiced his case by proposing a worthless favourite for the primacy and by plundering those of the clergy who bowed to the pope’s sentences. Threatened with the desertion of his barons he drove all whom he suspected to desperation by his terrible severity towards the Braose family (1210); and by his continued misgovernment irrevocably estranged the lower classes. When submission to Rome had somewhat improved his position he squandered his last resources in a new and unsuccessful war with France (1214), and enraged the feudal classes by new claims for military service and scutages. The barons were consequently able to exact, in Magna Carta (June 1215), much more than the redress of legitimate grievances; and the people allowed the crown to be placed under the control of an oligarchical committee. When once the sovereign power had been thus divided, the natural consequence was civil war and the intervention of the French king, who had long watched for some such opportunity. John’s struggle against the barons and Prince Louis (1216), afterwards King Louis VIII., was the most creditable episode of his career. But the calamitous situation of England at the moment of his death, on the 19th of October 1216, was in the main his work; and while he lived a national reaction in favour of the dynasty was out of the question.

John’s second wife, Isabella of Angoulême (d. 1246), who married her former lover, Hugh of Lusignan, after the English king’s death, bore the king two sons, Henry III. and Richard, earl of Cornwall; and three daughters, Joan (1210-1238), wife of Alexander II., king of Scotland, Isabella (d. 1241), wife of the emperor Frederick II., and Eleanor (d. 1274), wife of William Marshal, earl of Pembroke, and then of Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester. John had also two illegitimate sons, Richard and Oliver, and a daughter, Joan or Joanna, who married Llewelyn I. ab Iorwerth, prince of North Wales, and who died in 1236 or 1237.

Authorities.—The chief chronicles for the reign are Gervase of Canterbury’s Gesta regum, Ralf of Coggeshall’s Chronicon, Walter of Coventry’s Memoriale, Roger of Wendover’s Flores historiarum, the Annals of Burton, Dunstaple and Margan—all these in the Rolls Series. The French chronicle of the so-called “Anonyme de Béthune” (Bouquet, Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, vol. xxiv.), the Histoire des ducs de Normandie et des rois d’Angleterre (ed. F. Michel, Paris, 1840) and the metrical biography of William the Marshal (Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal, ed. Paul Meyer, 3 vols., Paris, 1891, &c.) throw valuable light on certain episodes. H. S. Sweetman’s Calendar of Documents relating to Ireland, vol. i. (Rolls Series); W. H. Bliss’s Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers, vol. i. (Rolls Series); Potthast’s Regesta pontificum, vol. i. (Berlin, 1874); Sir T. D. Hardy’s Rotuli litterarum clausarum (Rec. Commission, 1835) and Rotuli litterarum patentium (Rec. Commission, 1835) and L. Delisle’s Catalogue des actes de Philippe Auguste (Paris, 1856) are the most important guides to the documents. Of modern works W. Stubbs’s Constitutional history, vol. i. (Oxford, 1897); the same writer’s preface to Walter of Coventry, vol. ii. (Rolls Series); Miss K. Norgate’s John Lackland (London, 1902); C. Petit-Dutaillis’ Étude sur la vie et le règne de Louis VIII. (Paris, 1894) and W. S. McKechnie’s Magna Carta (Glasgow, 1905) are among the most useful.

(H. W. C. D.)

JOHN I. (1350-1395), king of Aragon, was the son of Peter IV. and his third wife Eleanor of Sicily. He was born on the 27th of December 1350, and died by a fall from his horse, like his namesake, cousin and contemporary of Castile. He was a man of insignificant character, with a taste for artificial verse.

JOHN II. (1397-1479), king of Aragon, son of Ferdinand I. and of his wife Eleanor of Albuquerque, born on the 29th of June 1397, was one of the most stirring and most unscrupulous kings of the 15th century. In his youth he was one of the infantes (princes) of Aragon who took part in the dissensions of Castile during the minority and reign of John II. Till middle life he was also lieutenant-general in Aragon for his brother and predecessor Alphonso V., whose reign was mainly spent in Italy. In his old age he was engaged in incessant conflicts with his Aragonese and Catalan subjects, with Louis XI. of France, and in preparing the way for the marriage of his son Ferdinand with Isabella of Castile, which brought about the union of the crowns. His troubles with his subjects were closely connected with the tragic dissensions in his own family. John was first married to Blanche of Navarre, of the house of Evreux. By right of Blanche he became king of Navarre, and on her death in 1441 he was left in possession of the kingdom for his life. But a son Charles, called, as heir of Navarre, prince of Viana, had been born of the marriage. John from the first regarded his son with jealousy, which after his second marriage with Joan Henriquez, and under her influence, grew into absolute hatred. He endeavoured to deprive his son of his constitutional right to act as lieutenant-general of Aragon during his father’s absence. The cause of the son was taken up by the Aragonese, and the king’s attempt to join his second wife in the lieutenant-generalship was set aside. There followed a long conflict, with alternations of success and defeat, which was not terminated till the death of the prince of Viana, perhaps by poison given him by his stepmother, in 1461. The Catalans, who had adopted the cause of Charles and who had grievances of their own, called in a succession of foreign pretenders. In conflict with these the last years of King John were spent. He was forced to pawn Rousillon, his possession on the north-east of the Pyrenees, to Louis XI., who refused to part with it. In his old age he was blinded by cataract, but recovered his eyesight by the operation of couching. The Catalan revolt was pacified in 1472, but John had war, in which he was generally unfortunate, with his neighbour the French king till his death on the 20th of January 1479. He was succeeded by Ferdinand, his son by his second marriage, who was already associated with his wife Isabella as joint sovereign of Castile.

For the history, see Rivadeneyra, “Cronicás de los reyes de Castilla,” Biblioteca de antares españoles, vols. lxvi, lxviii (Madrid, 1845, &c.); G. Zurita, Anales de Aragon (Saragossa, 1610). The reign of John II. of Aragon is largely dealt with in W. H. Prescott’s History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella (1854).

JOHN (1296-1346), king of Bohemia, was a son of the emperor Henry VII. by his wife Margaret, daughter of John I., duke of Brabant, and was a member of the family of Luxemburg. Born on the 10th of August 1296, he became count of Luxemburg in 1309, and about the same time was offered the crown of Bohemia, which, after the death of Wenceslas III., the last king of the Premyslides dynasty in 1306, had passed to Henry, duke of Carinthia, under whose weak rule the country was in a very disturbed condition. The emperor accepted this offer on behalf of his son, who married Elizabeth (d. 1330), a sister of Wenceslas, and after Henry’s departure for Italy, John was crowned king of Bohemia at Prague in February 1311. Henry of Carinthia was driven from the land, where a certain measure of order was restored, and Moravia was again united with Bohemia. As imperial vicar John represented his father at the diet of Nuremberg in January 1313, and was leading an army to his assistance in Italy when he heard of the emperor’s death, which took place in August 1313. John was now a candidate for the imperial throne; but, on account of his youth, his claim was not regarded seriously, and he was persuaded to give his support to Louis, duke of Upper Bavaria, afterwards the emperor Louis the Bavarian. At Esslingen and elsewhere he aided Louis in his struggle with Frederick the Fair, duke of Austria, who also claimed the Empire; but his time was mainly passed in quelling disturbances in Bohemia, where his German followers were greatly disliked and where he himself soon became unpopular, especially among the nobles; or in Luxemburg, the borders of which county he was constantly and successfully striving to extend. Restless, adventurous and warlike, John had soon tired of governing his kingdom, and even discussed exchanging it with the emperor Louis for the Palatinate; and while Bohemia was again relapsing into a state of anarchy, her king was winning fame as a warrior in almost every part of Europe. He fought against the citizens of Metz and against his kinsman, John III., duke of Brabant; he led the knights of the Teutonic Order against the heathen in Lithuania and Pomerania and promised Pope John XXII. to head a crusade; and claiming to be king of Poland he attacked the Poles and brought Silesia under his rule. He obtained Tirol by marrying his son, John Henry, to Margaret Maultasch, the heiress of the county, assisted the emperor to defeat and capture Frederick the Fair at the battle of Mühldorf in 1322, and was alternately at peace and at war with the dukes of Austria and with his former foe, Henry of Carinthia. He was a frequent and welcome visitor to France, in which country he had a personal and hereditary interest; and on several occasions his prowess was serviceable to his brother-in-law King Charles IV., and to Charles’s successor Philip VI., whose son John, afterwards King John II., married a daughter of the Bohemian king. Soon after the battle of Mühldorf, the relations between John and the emperor became somewhat strained, partly owing to the king’s growing friendship with the Papacy and with France, and partly owing to territorial disputes. An agreement, however, was concluded, and John undertook his invasion of Italy, which was perhaps the most dazzling of his exploits. Invited by the citizens of Brescia, he crossed the Alps with a meagre following in 1331, quickly received the homage of many of the cities of northern Italy, and soon found himself the ruler of a great part of the peninsula. But his soldiers were few and his enemies were many, and a second invasion of Italy in 1333 was followed by the dissipation of his dreams of making himself king of Lombardy and Tuscany, and even of supplanting Louis on the imperial throne. The fresh trouble between king and emperor, caused by this enterprise, was intensified by a quarrel over the lands left by Henry of Carinthia, and still later by the interference of Louis in Tirol; and with bewildering rapidity John was allying himself with the kings of Hungary and Poland, fighting against the emperor and his Austrian allies, defending Bohemia, governing Luxemburg, visiting France and negotiating with the pope. About 1340 the king was overtaken by blindness, but he continued to lead an active life, successfully resisting the attacks of Louis and his allies, and campaigning in Lithuania. In 1346 he made a decisive move against the emperor. Acting in union with Pope Clement VI. he secured the formal deposition of Louis and the election of his own son Charles, margrave of Moravia, as German king, or king of the Romans, in July 1346. Then journeying to help Philip of France against the English, he fought at the battle of Crécy, where his heroic death on the 26th of August 1346 was a fitting conclusion to his adventurous life.

John was a chivalrous and romantic personage, who enjoyed a great reputation for valour both before and after his death; but as a ruler he was careless and extravagant, interested only in his kingdom when seeking relief from his constant pecuniary embarrassments. After the death of his first wife, who bore him two sons, Charles, afterwards the emperor Charles IV., and John Henry (d. 1375), and who had been separated from her husband for some years, the king married Beatrice (d. 1383), daughter of Louis I., duke of Bourbon, by whom he had a son, Wenceslas (d. 1383). According to Camden the crest or badge of three ostrich feathers, with the motto Ich dien, borne by the prince of Wales was originally that of John of Bohemia and was first assumed by Edward the Black Prince after the battle of Crécy. There is no proof, however, that this badge was ever worn by John—it certainly was not his crest—and its origin must be sought elsewhere.

See J. Schötter, Johann, Graf von Luxemburg and König von Böhmen (Luxemburg, 1865); F. von Weech, Kaiser Ludwig der Bayer und König Johann von Böhmen (Munich, 1860), and U. Chevalier, Répertoire des sources historiques, tome v. (Paris, 1905).

JOHN I. (1358-1390), king of Castile, was the son of Henry II., and of his wife Joan, daughter of John Manuel of Villena, head of a younger branch of the royal house of Castile. In the beginning of his reign he had to contend with the hostility of John of Gaunt, who claimed the crown by right of his wife Constance, daughter of Peter the Cruel. The king of Castile finally bought off the claim of his English competitor by arranging a marriage between his son Henry and Catherine, daughter of John of Gaunt, in 1387. Before this date he had been engaged in hostilities with Portugal which was in alliance with John of Gaunt. His first quarrel with Portugal was settled by his marriage, in 1382, with Beatrix, daughter of the Portuguese king Ferdinand. On the death of his father-in-law in 1383, John endeavoured to enforce the claims of his wife, Ferdinand’s only child, to the crown of Portugal. He was resisted by the national sentiment of the people, and was utterly defeated at the battle of Aljubarrota, on the 14th of August 1385. King John was killed at Alcalá on the 9th of October 1390 by the fall of his horse, while he was riding in a fantasia with some of the light horsemen known as the farfanes, who were mounted and equipped in the Arab style.

JOHN II. (1405-1454), king of Castile, was born on the 6th of March 1405, the son of Henry III. of Castile and of his wife Catherine, daughter of John of Gaunt. He succeeded his father on the 25th of December 1406 at the age of a year and ten months. It was one of the many misfortunes of Castile that the long reign of John II.—forty-nine years—should have been granted to one of the most incapable of her kings. John was amiable, weak and dependent on those about him. He had no taste except for ornament, and no serious interest except in amusements, verse-making, hunting and tournaments. He was entirely under the influence of his favourite, Alvaro de Luna, till his second wife, Isabella of Portugal, obtained control of his feeble will. At her instigation he threw over his faithful and able favourite, a meanness which is said to have caused him well-deserved remorse. He died on the 20th of July 1454 at Valladolid. By his second marriage he was the father of Isabella “the Catholic.”

JOHN I. (b. and d. 1316), king of France, son of Louis X. and Clemence, daughter of Charles Martel, who claimed to be king of Hungary, was born, after his father’s death, on the 15th of November 1316, and only lived seven days. His uncle, afterwards Philip V. has been accused of having caused his death, or of having substituted a dead child in his place; but nothing was ever proved. An impostor calling himself John I., appeared in Provence, in the reign of John II., but he was captured and died in prison.

JOHN II. (1319-1364), surnamed the Good, king of France, son of Philip VI. and Jeanne of Burgundy, succeeded his father in 1350. At the age of 13 he married Bona of Luxemburg, daughter of John, king of Bohemia. His early exploits against the English were failures and revealed in the young prince both avarice and stubborn persistence in projects obviously ill-advised. It was especially the latter quality which brought about his ruin. His first act upon becoming king was to order the execution of the constable, Raoul de Brienne. The reasons for this are unknown, but from the secrecy with which it was carried out and the readiness with which the honour was transferred to the king’s close friend Charles of La Cesda, it has been attributed to the influence and ambition of the latter. John surrounded himself with evil counsellors, Simon de Buci, Robert de Lorris, Nicolas Braque, men of low origin who robbed the treasury and oppressed the people, while the king gave himself up to tournaments and festivities. In imitation of the English order of the Garter, he established the knightly order of the Star, and celebrated its festivals with great display. Raids of the Black Prince in Languedoc led to the states-general of 1355, which readily voted money, but sanctioned the right of resistance against all kinds of pillage—a distinct commentary on the incompetence of the king. In September 1356 John gathered the flower of his chivalry and attacked the Black Prince at Poitiers. The utter defeat of the French was made the more humiliating by the capture of their king, who had bravely led the third line of battle. Taken to England to await ransom, John was at first installed in the Savoy Palace, then at Windsor, Hertford, Somerton, and at last in the Tower. He was granted royal state with his captive companions, made a guest at tournaments, and supplied with luxuries imported by him from France. The treaty of Brétigny (1360), which fixed his ransom at 3,000,000 crowns, enabled him to return to France, but although he married his daughter Isabella to Gian Galeazzo Visconti of Milan, for a gift of 600,000 golden crowns, imposed a heavy feudal “aid” on merchandise, and various other taxes, John was unable to pay more than 400,000 crowns to Edward III. His son Louis of Anjou, who had been left as hostage, escaped from Calais in the summer of 1363, and John, far in arrears in the payments of the ransom, surrendered himself again “to maintain his royal honour which his son had sullied.” He landed in England in January 1364 and was received with great honour, lodged again in the Savoy, and was a frequent guest of Edward at Westminster. He died on the 8th of April, and the body was sent back to France with royal honours.

See Froissart’s Chronicles; Duc d’Aumale, Notes et documents relatifs à Jean, roi de France, et à sa captivité (1856); A. Coville, in Lavisse’s Histoire de France, vol. iv., and authorities cited there.

JOHN (Zapolya) (1487-1540), king of Hungary, was the son of the palatine Stephen Zapolya and the princess Hedwig of Teschen, and was born at the castle of Szepesvár. He began his public career at the famous Rákos diet of 1505, when, on his motion, the assembly decided that after the death of the reigning king, Wladislaus II., no foreign prince should be elected king of Hungary. Henceforth he became the national candidate for the throne, which his family had long coveted. As far back as 1491 his mother had proposed to the sick king that his daughter Anne should be committed to her care in order, subsequently, to be married to her son; but Wladislaus frustrated this project by contracting a matrimonial alliance with the Habsburgs. In 1510 Zapolya sued in person for the hand of the Princess Anne in vain, and his appointment to the voivody of Transylvania (1511) was with the evident intention of removing him far from court. In 1513, after a successful raid in Turkish territory, he hastened to Buda at the head of 1000 horsemen and renewed his suit, which was again rejected. In 1514 he stamped out the dangerous peasant rising under Dozsa (q.v.) and the infernal torments by means of which the rebel leader was slowly done to death were the invention of Zapolya. With the gentry, whose hideous oppression had moved the peasantry to revolt, he was now more than ever popular, and, on the death of Wladislaus II., the second diet of Rákos (1516) appointed him the governor of the infant king Louis II. He now aimed at the dignity of palatine also, but the council of state and the court party combined against him and appointed István Báthory instead (1519). The strife of factions now burnt more fiercely than ever at the very time when the pressure of the Turk demanded the combination of all the national forces against a common danger. It was entirely due to the dilatoriness and dissensions of Zapolya and Báthory that the great fortress of Belgrade was captured in 1521, a loss which really sealed the fate of Hungary. In 1522 the diet would have appointed both Zapolya and Báthory captains-general of the realm, but the court set Zapolya aside and chose Báthory only. At the diets of Hátvan and Rákos in 1522, Zapolya placed himself at the head of a confederation to depose the palatine and the other great officers of state, but the attempt failed. In the following year, however, the revolutionary Hátvan diet drove out all the members of the council of state and made István Verböczy, the great jurist, and a friend of Zapolya, palatine. In the midst of this hopeless anarchy, Suleiman I., the Magnificent, invaded Hungary with a countless army, and the young king perished on the field of Mohács in a vain attempt to stay his progress, the contradictory orders of Louis II. preventing Zapolya from arriving in time to turn the fortunes of the day. The court party accused him of deliberate treachery on this occasion; but the charge must be pronounced groundless. His younger brother George was killed at Mohács, where he was second commander-in-chief. Zapolya was elected king of Hungary at the subsequent diet of Tokaj (Oct. 14), the election was confirmed by the diet of Székesfehérvár (10th of November), and he was crowned on the following day with the holy crown.

A struggle with the rival candidate, the German king Ferdinand I., at once ensued (see Hungary: History) and it was only with the aid of the Turks that king John was able to exhaust his opponent and compel him to come to terms. Finally, in 1538, by the compact of Nagyvárad, Ferdinand recognized John as king of Hungary, but secured the right of succession on his death. Nevertheless John broke the compact by bequeathing the kingdom to his infant son John Sigismund under Turkish protection. John was the last national king of Hungary. His merit, as a statesman, lies in his stout vindication of the national independence, though without the assistance of his great minister György Utiesenovich, better known as “Frater George” (Cardinal Martinuzzi (q.v.)), this would have been impossible. Indirectly he contributed to the subsequent conquest of Hungary by admitting the Turk as a friend.

See Vilmos Fraknoi, Ungarn vor der Schlacht bei Mohács (Budapest, 1886); L. Kupelwieser, Die Kämpfe Ungarns mit den Osmanen bis zur Schlacht bei Mohács (Vienna, 1895); Ignacz Acsády, History of the Hungarian Realm, vol. i. (Hung.) (Budapest, 1902-1904).

JOHN OF BRIENNE (c. 1148-1237), king of Jerusalem and Latin emperor of Constantinople, was a man of sixty years of age before he began to play any considerable part in history. Destined originally for the Church, he had preferred to become a knight, and in forty years of tournaments and fights he had won himself a considerable reputation, when in 1208 envoys came from the Holy Land to ask Philip Augustus, king of France, to select one of his barons as husband to the heiress, and ruler of the kingdom, of Jerusalem. Philip selected John of Brienne, and promised to support him in his new dignity. In 1210 John married the heiress Mary (daughter of Isabella and Conrad of Montferrat), assuming the title of king in right of his wife. In 1211, after some desultory operations, he concluded a six years’ truce with Malik-el-Adil; in 1212 he lost his wife, who left him a daughter, Isabella; soon afterwards he married an Armenian princess. In the fifth crusade (1218-1221) he was a prominent figure. The legate Pelagius, however, claimed the command; and insisting on the advance from Damietta, in spite of the warnings of King John, he refused to accept the favourable terms of the sultan, as the king advised, until it was too late. After the failure of the crusade, King John came to the West to obtain help for his kingdom. In 1223 he met Honorius III. and the emperor Frederick II. at Ferentino, where, in order that he might be connected more closely with the Holy Land, Frederick was betrothed to John’s daughter Isabella, now heiress of the kingdom. After the meeting at Ferentino, John went to France and England, finding little consolation; and thence he travelled to Compostella, where he married a new wife, Berengaria of Castile. After a visit to Germany he returned to Rome (1225). Here he received a demand from Frederick II. (who had now married Isabella) that he should abandon his title and dignity of king, which—so Frederick claimed—had passed to himself along with the heiress of the kingdom. John was now a septuagenarian “king in exile,” but he was still vigorous enough to revenge himself on Frederick, by commanding the papal troops which attacked southern Italy during the emperor’s absence on the sixth crusade (1228-1229). In 1229 John, now eighty years of age, was invited by the barons of the Latin empire of Constantinople to become emperor, on condition that Baldwin of Courtenay should marry his second daughter and succeed him. For nine years he ruled in Constantinople, and in 1235, with a few troops, he repelled a great siege of the city by Vataces of Nicaea and Azen of Bulgaria. After this last feat of arms, which has perhaps been exaggerated by the Latin chroniclers, who compare him to Hector and the Maccabees, John died in the habit of a Franciscan friar. An aged paladin, somewhat uxorious and always penniless, he was a typical knight errant, whose wanderings led him all over Europe, and planted him successively on the thrones of Jerusalem and Constantinople.

The story of John’s career must be sought partly in histories of the kingdom of Jerusalem and of the Latin Empire of the East, partly in monographs. Among these, of which R. Röhricht gives a list (Geschichte des Königreichs Jerusalem, p. 699, n. 3), see especially that of E. de Montcarmet, Un chevalier du temps passé (Limoges, 1876 and 1881).

JOHN III. (Sobieski) (1624-1696), king of Poland, was the eldest son of James Sobieski, castellan of Cracow, and Theofila Danillowiczowna, grand-daughter of the great Hetman Zolkiewski. After being educated at Cracow, he made the grand tour with his brother Mark and returned to Poland in 1648. He served against Chmielnicki and the Cossacks and was present at the battles of Beresteczko (1651) and Batoka (1652), but was one of the first to desert his unhappy country when invaded by the Swedes in 1654, and actually assisted them to conquer the Prussian provinces in 1655. He returned to his lawful allegiance in the following year and assisted Czarniecki in his difficult task of expelling Charles X. of Sweden from the central Polish provinces. For his subsequent services to King John Casimir, especially in the Ukraine against the Tatars and Cossacks, he received the grand bâton of the crown, or commandership-in-chief (1668). He had already (1665) succeeded Czarniecki as acting commander-in-chief. Sobieski had well earned these distinctions by his extraordinary military capacity, but he was now to exhibit a less pleasing side of his character. He was in fact a typical representative of the unscrupulous self-seeking Polish magnates of the 17th century who were always ready to sacrifice everything, their country included, to their own private ambition. At the election diet of 1669 he accepted large bribes from Louis XIV. to support one of the French candidates; after the election of Michael Wisniowiecki (June 19, 1669) he openly conspired, again in the French interest, against his lawful sovereign, and that too at the very time when the Turk was ravaging the southern frontier of the republic. Michael was the feeblest monarch the Poles could have placed upon the throne, and Sobieski deliberately attempted to make government of any kind impossible. He formed a league with the primate Prazmowski and other traitors to dethrone the king; when (1670) the plot was discovered and participation in it repudiated by Louis XIV., the traitors sought the help of the elector of Brandenburg against their own justly indignant countrymen. Two years later the same traitors again conspired against the king, at the very time when the Turks had defeated Sobieski’s unsupported lieutenant, Luzecki, at Czertwertyworska and captured the fortress of Kamieniec (Kamenetz-Podolskiy), the key of south-eastern Poland, while Lemberg was only saved by the valour of Elias Lancki. The unhappy king did the only thing possible in the circumstances. He summoned the tuszenia pospolite, or national armed assembly; but it failed to assemble in time, whereupon Michael was constrained to sign the disgraceful peace of Buczacz (Oct. 17, 1672) whereby Poland ceded to the Porte the whole of the Ukraine with Podolia and Kamieniec. Aroused to duty by a series of disasters for which he himself was primarily responsible, Sobieski now hastened to the frontier, and won four victories in ten days. But he could not recover Kamieniec, and when the tuszenia pospolite met at Golenba and ordered an inquiry into the conduct of Sobieski and his accomplices he frustrated all their efforts by summoning a counter confederation to meet at Szczebrzeszyn. Powerless to oppose a rebel who was at the same time commander-in-chief, both the king and the diet had to give way, and a compromise was come to whereby the peace of Buczacz was repudiated and Sobieski was given a chance of rehabilitating himself, which he did by his brilliant victory over an immense Turkish host at Khotin (Nov. 10, 1673). The same day King Michael died and Sobieski, determined to secure the throne for himself, hastened to the capital, though Tatar bands were swarming over the frontier and the whole situation was acutely perilous. Appearing at the elective diet of 1674 at the head of 6000 veterans he overawed every other competitor, and despite the persistent opposition of the Lithuanians was elected king on the 21st of May. By this time, however, the state of things in the Ukraine was so alarming that the new king had to hasten to the front. Assisted by French diplomacy at the Porte (Louis XIV. desiring to employ Poland against Austria), and his own skilful negotiations with the Tatar khan, John III. now tried to follow the example of Wladislaus IV. by leaving the guardianship of the Ukraine entirely in the hands of the Cossacks, while he assembled as many regulars and militiamen as possible at Lemberg, whence he might hasten with adequate forces to defend whichever of the provinces of the Republic might be in most danger. But the appeal of the king was like the voice of one crying in the wilderness, and not one gentleman in a hundred hastened to the assistance of the fatherland. Even at the end of August Sobieski had but 3000 men at his disposal to oppose to 60,000 Turks. Only his superb strategy and the heroic devotion of his lieutenants—notably the converted Jew, Jan Samuel Chrzanowski, who held the Ottoman army at bay for eleven days behind the walls of Trembowla—enabled the king to remove “the pagan yoke from our shoulders”; and he returned to be crowned at Cracow on the 14th of February 1676. In October 1676, in his entrenched camp at Zaravno, he with 13,000 men withstood 80,000 Turks for three weeks, and recovered by special treaty two-thirds of the Ukraine, but without Kamieniec (treaty of Zaravno, Oct. 16, 1676).

Having now secured peace abroad Sobieski was desirous of strengthening Poland at home by establishing absolute monarchy; but Louis XIV. looked coldly on the project, and from this time forth the old familiar relations between the republic and the French monarchy were strained to breaking point, though the final rupture did not come till 1682 on the arrival of the Austrian minister, Zerowski, at Warsaw. After resisting every attempt of the French court to draw him into the anti-Habsburg league, Sobieski signed the famous treaty of alliance with the emperor Leopold against the Turks (March 31, 1683), which was the prelude to the most glorious episode of his life, the relief of Vienna and the liberation of Hungary from the Ottoman yoke. The epoch-making victory of the 12th of September 1683 was ultimately decided by the charge of the Polish cavalry led by Sobieski in person. Unfortunately Poland profited little or nothing by this great triumph, and now that she had broken the back of the enemy she was left to fight the common enemy in the Ukraine with whatever assistance she could obtain from the unwilling and unready Muscovites. The last twelve years of the reign of John III. were a period of unmitigated humiliation and disaster. He now reaped to the full the harvest of treason and rebellion which he himself had sown so abundantly during the first forty years of his life. A treasonable senate secretly plotting his dethronement, a mutinous diet rejecting the most necessary reforms for fear of “absolutism,” ungrateful allies who profited exclusively by his victories—these were his inseparable companions during the remainder of his life. Nay, at last his evil destiny pursued him to the battlefield and his own home. His last campaign (in 1690) was an utter failure, and the last years of his life were embittered by the violence and the intrigues of his dotingly beloved wife, Marya Kazimiera d’Arquien, by whom he had three sons, James, Alexander and Constantine. He died on the 17th of June 1696, a disillusioned and broken-hearted old man.

See Tadeusz Korzon, Fortunes and Misfortunes of John Sobieski (Pol.) (Cracow, 1898); E. H. R. Tatham, John Sobieski (Oxford, 1881); Kazimierz Waliszewski, Archives of French Foreign Affairs, 1674-1696, v. (Cracow, 1881); Ludwik Piotr Leliwa, John Sobieski and His Times (Pol.) (Cracow, 1882-1885); Kazimierz Waliszewski, Marysienka Queen of Poland (London, 1898); Georg Rieder, Johann Sobieski in Wien (Vienna, 1882).

(R. N. B.)

JOHN I. (1357-1433), king of Portugal, the natural son of Pedro I. (el Justicieiro), was born at Lisbon on the 22nd of April 1357, and in 1364 was created grand-master of Aviz. On the death of his lawful brother Ferdinand I., without male issue, in October 1383, strenuous efforts were made to secure the succession for Beatrice, the only child of Ferdinand I., who as heiress-apparent had been married to John I. of Castile (Spain), but the popular voice declared against an arrangement by which Portugal would virtually have become a Spanish province, and John was after violent tumults proclaimed protector and regent in the following December. In April 1385 he was unanimously chosen king by the estates of the realm at Coimbra. The king of Castile invaded Portugal, but his army was compelled by pestilence to withdraw, and subsequently by the decisive battle of Aljubarrota (Aug. 14, 1385) the stability of John’s throne was permanently secured. Hostilities continued intermittently until John of Castile died, without leaving issue by Beatrice, in 1390. Meanwhile the king of Portugal went on consolidating the power of the crown at home and the influence of the nation abroad. In 1415 Ceuta was taken from the Moors by his sons who had been born to him by his wife Philippa, daughter of John, duke of Lancaster; specially distinguished in the siege was Prince Henry (q.v.) afterwards generally known as “the Navigator.” John I., sometimes surnamed “the Great,” and sometimes “father of his country,” died on the 11th of August 1433, in the forty-eighth year of a reign which had been characterized by great prudence, ability and success; he was succeeded by his son Edward or Duarte, so named out of compliment to Edward III. of England.

See J. P. Oliveira Martins, Os filhos de D. João I. and A vida de Nun’ Alvares (Lisbon, 2nd ed. 1894).

JOHN II. (1455-1495), the Perfect, king of Portugal, succeeded his father, Alphonso V., in August 1481. His first business was to curtail the overgrown power of his aristocracy; noteworthy incidents in the contest were the execution (1483) of the duke of Braganza for correspondence with Castile, and the murder, by the king’s own hand, of the youthful duke of Viseu for conspiracy. This reign was signalized by Bartholomeu Diaz’s discovery of the Cape of Good Hope in 1488. Maritime rivalry led to disputes between Portugal and Castile until their claims were adjusted by the famous treaty of Tordesillas (June 7, 1494). John II. died, without leaving male issue, in October 1495, and was succeeded by his brother-in-law Emmanuel (Manoel) I.

See J. P. Oliveira Martins, O principe perfeito (Lisbon, 1895).

JOHN III. (1502-1557), king of Portugal, was born at Lisbon, on the 6th of June 1502, and ascended the throne as successor of his father Emmanuel I. in December 1521. In 1524 he married Catherine, sister to the Emperor Charles V., who shortly afterwards married the infanta Isabella, John’s sister. Succeeding to the crown at a time when Portugal was at the height of its political power, and Lisbon in a position of commercial importance previously unknown, John III., unfortunately for his dominions, became subservient to the clerical party among his subjects, with disastrous consequences to the commercial and social prosperity of his kingdom. He died of apoplexy on the 6th of June 1557, and was succeeded by his grandson Sebastian, then a child of only three years.

JOHN IV. (1603-1656), the Fortunate, king of Portugal, was born at Villaviciosa in March 1603, succeeded to the dukedom of Braganza in 1630, and married Luisa de Guzman, eldest daughter of the duke of Medina Sidonia, in 1633. By the unanimous voice of the people he was raised to the throne of Portugal (of which he was held to be the legitimate heir) at the revolution effected in December 1640 against the Spanish king, Philip IV. His accession led to a protracted war with Spain, which only ended with the recognition of Portuguese independence in a subsequent reign (1668). He died on the 6th of November 1656, and was succeeded by his son Alphonso VI.

JOHN V. (1689-1750), king of Portugal, was born at Lisbon on the 22nd of October 1689, and succeeded his father Pedro II. in December 1706, being proclaimed on the 1st of January 1707. One of his first acts was to intimate his adherence to the Grand Alliance, which his father had joined in 1703. Accordingly his general Das Minas, along with Lord Galway, advanced into Castile, but sustained the defeat of Almanza (April 14). In October 1708 he married Maria Anna, daughter of Leopold I., thus strengthening the alliance with Austria; the series of unsuccessful campaigns which ensued ultimately terminated in a favourable peace with France in 1713 and with Spain in 1715. The rest of his long reign was characterized by royal subservience to the clergy, the kingdom being administered by ecclesiastical persons and for ecclesiastical objects to an extent that gave him the best of rights to the title “Most Faithful King,” bestowed upon him and his successors by a bull of Pope Benedict XIV. in 1748. John V. died on the 31st of July 1750, and was succeeded by his son Joseph.

JOHN VI. (1769-1826), king of Portugal, was born at Lisbon on the 13th of May 1769, and received the title of prince of Brazil in 1788. In 1792 he assumed the reins of government in name of his mother Queen Mary I., who had become insane. He had been brought up in an ecclesiastical atmosphere, and, being naturally of a somewhat weak and helpless character, was but ill adapted for the responsibilities he was thus called on to undertake. In 1799 he assumed the title of regent, which he retained until his mother’s death in 1816. (For the political history of his regency, see Portugal.) In 1816 he was recognized as king of Portugal but he continued to reside in Brazil; the consequent spread of dissatisfaction resulted in the peaceful revolution of 1820, and the proclamation of a constitutional government, to which he swore fidelity on his return to Portugal in 1822. In the same year, and again in 1823, he had to suppress a rebellion led by his son Dom Miguel, whom he ultimately was compelled to banish in 1824. He died at Lisbon on the 26th of March 1826, and was succeeded by Pedro IV.

JOHN (1801-1873), king of Saxony, son of Prince Maximilian of Saxony and his wife Caroline of Parma (d. 1804), was born at Dresden on the 12th of December 1801. As a boy he took a keen interest in literature and art (also in history, law, and political science), and studied with the greatest ardour classical and German literature (Herder, Schiller, Goethe). He soon began to compose poetry himself, and drew great inspiration from a journey in Italy (1821-1822), the pleasure of which was however darkened by the death of his brother Clemens. In Pavia the prince met with Biagioli’s edition of Dante, and this gave rise to his lifelong and fruitful studies of Dante. The first part of his German translation of Dante was published in 1828, and in 1833 appeared the complete work, with a valuable commentary, which met with a great success. Several new editions appeared under his constant supervision, and he collected a complete library of works on Dante.

On his return from Italy he was betrothed to Princess Amalia of Bavaria, daughter of King Maximilian Joseph. He thus became the brother-in-law of Frederick William IV., king of Prussia, with whom he had a deep and lasting friendship. His wife Amalia died on the 8th of November 1877, having borne him nine children, two of whom, Albert and George, later became kings of Saxony.

On his return to Dresden, John was called in 1822 to the privy board of finance (Geheimes Finanzkollegium) and in 1825 became its vice-president. Under the leadership of the president, Freiherr von Manteuffel, he acquired a thorough knowledge of administration and of political economy, and laid the foundations of that conservatism which he retained throughout life. These new activities did not, however, interrupt his literary and artistic studies. He came into still closer relations with politics and government after his entry into the privy council in 1830. During the revolution in Saxony he helped in the pacification of the country, became commandant of the new national guard, the political tendencies of which he tried to check, and took an exceptionally active part in the organization of the constitution of the 4th of September 1831 and especially in the deliberations of the upper chamber, where he worked with unflagging energy and great ability. Following the example of his father, he taught his children in person, and had a great influence on their education. On the 12th of August 1845, during a stay at Leipzig, the prince was the object of hostile public demonstrations, the people holding him to be the head of an alleged ultramontane party at court, and the revolution of 1848 compelled him to interrupt his activities in the upper chamber. Immediately after the suppression of the revolution he resumed his place and took part chiefly in the discussion of legal questions. He was also interested in the amalgamation of the German historical and archaeological societies. On the death of his brother Frederick Augustus II., John became, on the 9th of August 1854, king of Saxony. As king he soon won great popularity owing to his simplicity, graciousness and increasingly evident knowledge of affairs. In his policy as regards the German confederation he was entirely on the side of Austria. Though not opposed to a reform of the federal constitution, he held that its maintenance under the presidency of Austria was essential. This view he supported at the assembly of princes at Frankfort in August and September 1863. He was unable to uphold his views against Prussia, and in the war of 1866 fought on the side of Austria. It was with difficulty that, on the conclusion of peace, Austrian diplomacy succeeded in enabling the king to retain his crown. After 1866 King John gradually became reconciled to the new state of affairs. He entered the North German confederation, and in the war of 1870-71 with France his troops fought with conspicuous courage. He died at Dresden on the 29th of October 1873.

See J. Petzholdt, “Zur Litteratur des Königs Johann,” Neuer Anzeiger für Bibliographie (1858, 1859, 1871, 1873, 1874); “Aphorismen über unsern König J.,” Bote von Geising (1866-1869); Das Büchlein vom König Johann (Leipzig, 1867); H. v. Treitschke, Preussische Jahrbücher 23 (1869); A. Reumont, “Elogio di Giovanni, Rè di Sassonia,” Dagli Atti della Accademia della Crusca (Florence, 1874); J. P. von Winterstein, Johann, König von Sachsen (Dresden, 1878), and in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (1881); H. Ermisch, Die Wettiner und die Landesgeschichte (Leipzig, 1902); O. Kaemmel, Sächsische Geschichte (Leipzig, 1899, Sammlung Göschen).

(J. Hn.)

JOHN I. (d. 1294), duke of Brabant and Lorraine, surnamed the Victorious, one of the most gifted and chivalrous princes of his time, was the second son of Duke Henry III. and Aleidis of Burgundy. In 1267 his elder brother Henry, being infirm of mind and body, was deposed in his favour. In 1271 John married Margaret, daughter of Louis IX. of France, and on her death in childbirth he took as his second wife (1273) Margaret of Flanders, daughter of Guy de Dampierre. His sister Marie was espoused in 1275 to Philip III. (the Bold) of France, and during the reign of Philip and his son Philip IV. there were close relations of friendship and alliance between Brabant and France. In 1285 John accompanied Philip III. in his expedition against Peter III., king of Aragon, but the duchy of Limburg was the scene of his chief activity and greatest successes. After the death of Waleran IV. in 1279 the succession to this duchy was disputed. His heiress, Ermengarde, had married Reinald I. count of Gelderland. She died childless, but her husband continued to rule in Limburg, although his rights were disputed by Count Adolph of Berg, nephew to Waleran IV. (see Limburg). Not being strong enough to eject his rival, Adolph sold his rights to John of Brabant, and hostilities broke out in 1283. Harassed by desultory warfare and endless negotiations, and seeing no prospect of holding his own against the powerful duke of Brabant, Reinald made over his rights to Henry III. count of Luxemburg, who was a descendant of Waleran III. of Limburg. Henry III. was sustained by the archbishop of Cologne and other allies, as well as by Reinald of Gelderland. The duke of Brabant at once invaded the Rhineland and laid siege to the castle of Woeringen near Bonn. Here he was attacked by the forces of the confederacy on the 5th of June 1288. After a bloody struggle John of Brabant, though at the head of far inferior numbers, was completely victorious. Limburg was henceforth attached to the duchy of Brabant. John consolidated his conquest by giving his daughter in marriage to Henry of Luxemburg (1291). John the Victorious was a perfect model of a feudal prince in the days of chivalry, brave, adventurous, excelling in every form of active exercise, fond of display, generous in temper. He delighted in tournaments, and was always eager personally to take part in jousts. On the 3rd of May 1294, on the occasion of some marriage festivities at Bar, he was wounded in the arm in an encounter by Pierre de Bausner, and died from the effects of the hurt.

Bibliography.—H. Barlandus, Rerum gestarum a Brabantiae ducibus historia usque in annum 1526 (Louvain, 1566); G. C. van der Berghe, Jean le Victorieux, duc de Brabant (1259-1294), (Louvain, 1857); K. F. Stallaert, Gesch. v. Jan I. van Braband en zijne tijdvak (Brussels, 1861); A. Wauters, Le Duc Jean Ier et le Brabant sous le règne de ce prince (Brussels, 1859).

JOHN, or Hans (1513-1571), margrave of Brandenburg-Cüstrin, was the younger son of Joachim I., elector of Brandenburg, and was born at Tangermünde on the 3rd of August 1513. In spite of the dispositio Achillea which decreed the indivisibility of the electorate, John inherited the new mark of Brandenburg on his father’s death in July 1535. He had been brought up as a strict Catholic, but soon wavered in his allegiance, and in 1538 ranged himself definitely on the side of the Reformers. About the same time he joined the league of Schmalkalden; but before the war broke out between the league and the emperor Charles V. the promises of the emperor had won him over to the imperial side. After the conclusion of the war, the relations between John and Charles became somewhat strained. The margrave opposed the Interim, issued from Augsburg in May 1548; and he was the leader of the princes who formed a league for the defence of the Lutheran doctrines in February 1550. The alliance of these princes, however, with Henry II., king of France, does not appear to have commended itself to him and after some differences of opinion with Maurice, elector of Saxony, he returned to the emperor’s side. His remaining years were mainly spent in the new mark, which he ruled carefully and economically. He added to its extent by the purchase of Beeskow and Storkow, and fortified the towns of Cüstrin and Peitz. He died at Cüstrin on the 13th of January 1571. His wife Catherine was a daughter of Henry II., duke of Brunswick, and as he left no sons the new mark passed on his death to his nephew John George, elector of Brandenburg.

See Berg, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Markgrafen Johann von Küstrin (Landsberg, 1903).

JOHN (1371-1419), called the Fearless (Sans Peur), duke of Burgundy, son of Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy, and Margaret of Flanders, was born at Dijon on the 28th of May 1371. On the death of his maternal grandfather in 1384 he received the title of count of Nevers, which he bore until his father’s death. Though originally destined to be the husband of Catherine, sister of Charles VI. of France, he married in 1385 Margaret, daughter of Duke Albert of Bavaria, an alliance which consolidated his position in the Netherlands. In the spring of 1396 he took arms for Hungary against the Turks and on the 28th of September was taken prisoner by the Sultan Bayezid I. at the bloody battle of Nicopolis, where he earned his surname of “the Fearless.” He did not recover his liberty until 1397, and then only by paying an enormous ransom. He succeeded his father in 1404, and immediately found himself in conflict with Louis of Orleans, the young brother of Charles VI. The history of the following years is filled with the struggles between these two princes and with their attempts to seize the authority in the name of the demented king. John endeavoured to strengthen his position by marrying his daughter Margaret to the dauphin Louis, and by betrothing his son Philip to a daughter of Charles VI. Like his father, he looked for support to the popular party, to the tradesmen, particularly the powerful gild of the butchers, and also to the university of Paris. In 1405 he opposed in the royal council a scheme of taxation proposed by the duke of Orleans, which was nevertheless adopted. Louis retaliated by refusing to sanction the duke of Burgundy’s projected expedition against Calais, whereupon John quitted the court in chagrin on the pretext of taking up his mother’s heritage. He was, however, called back to the council to find that the duke of Orleans and the queen had carried off the dauphin. John succeeded in bringing back the dauphin to Paris, and open war seemed imminent between the two princes. But an arrangement was effected in October 1405, and in 1406 John was made by royal decree guardian of the dauphin and the king’s children.