John XIV, Pope
JOHN XIV, POPE
Pontificate: November or December 983 to Aug. 20, 984; b. Peter Canepanova. Bishop of Pavia and archchancellor for Italy, he was chosen pope by otto ii. A letter to Alo, Archbishop of Benevento, the only extant document of his pontificate, reveals his concern for the reform of the Church. When Otto II died at Rome, Dec. 7, 983, the Empress Theophano was forced to leave the city to defend the claim of her three-year-old son, otto iii. John was now at the mercy of the crescentii and their antipope, Boniface VII, who returned to Rome from Constantinople. He was deposed and imprisoned in the Castel Sant' Angelo in April 984, and died from either hunger or poison.
Bibliography: l. jaffÉ, Regesta pontificum romanorum ab condita ecclesia ad annum post Christum natum 1198, ed. s. lÖwenfeld (Graz 1956) 1:484–485. Liber pontificalis, ed. l. dushesne (Paris 1958) 2:259. h. k. mann, The Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages from 590 to 1304 (London 1902–32) 4:330–338. a. fliche and v. martin eds. Historie de l'église depuis les origines jusqu'à nos jours (Paris 1935–) 7:62–63. j. haller, Das Papsttum, (2d, rev. ed. Stuttgart 1950–53) 2:217, 555. r. aubert, Dictionnaire d'histoire de géographie ecclésiastiques, 26 (Paris 1997). r. benericetti, La cronologia dei Papi dei secoli IX–XI secondo le carte di Ravenna (1999) 50. j. n. d. kelly, Oxford Dictionary of the Popes (New York 1986) 132–133.
[s. mckenna]