Chapter 15

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” inAbhandl. 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” inArchiv für Litteratur-und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters(vols. i. and ii.); C. Samaran and G. Mollat,La Fiscalité pontificale en France au xivesiècle(Paris, 1905); A. Coulon and G. Mollat,Lettres secrètes et curiales de Jean XXII. se rapportant à la France(Paris, 1899, seq.).

(P. A.)

1On 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 ofMarch1413 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 escapefrom 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, ratifiedmotu propriothe 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 isscandalizator 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 Armeniantshemshkik(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.orVI.(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.orV.(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 suspectedby 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. HisHistoryin 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’sEthics, 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.orVII.(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.

SeeTurkey: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 (seeHenry 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; seeLangton,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’sGesta regum, Ralf of Coggeshall’sChronicon, Walter of Coventry’sMemoriale, Roger of Wendover’sFlores 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.), theHistoire 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’sCalendar of Documents relating to Ireland, vol. i. (Rolls Series); W. H. Bliss’sCalendar of Entries in the Papal Registers, vol. i. (Rolls Series); Potthast’sRegesta pontificum, vol. i. (Berlin, 1874); Sir T. D. Hardy’sRotuli litterarum clausarum(Rec. Commission, 1835) andRotuli litterarum patentium(Rec. Commission, 1835) and L. Delisle’sCatalogue des actes de Philippe Auguste(Paris, 1856) are the most important guides to the documents. Of modern works W. Stubbs’sConstitutional history, vol. i. (Oxford, 1897); the same writer’s preface toWalter of Coventry, vol. ii. (Rolls Series); Miss K. Norgate’sJohn Lackland(London, 1902); C. Petit-Dutaillis’Étude sur la vie et le règne de Louis VIII.(Paris, 1894) and W. S. McKechnie’sMagna 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 theinfantes(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’sHistory 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 dukesof 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 mottoIch 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 afantasiawith some of the light horsemen known as thefarfanes, 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 afrequent 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’sChronicles; Duc d’Aumale,Notes et documents relatifs à Jean, roi de France, et à sa captivité(1856); A. Coville, in Lavisse’sHistoire 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 (seeHungary: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.

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