From The Lives of the Popes from the Time of our Saviour Jesus Christ to the Accession of Gregory VII. Written Originally in Latin by B. Platina, Native of Cremona, and translated into English (from an anonymous translation, first printed in 1685 by Sir Paul Rycaut), Edited by William Benham, Volume I, London: Griffith, Farran, Okeden & Welsh, [1888, undated in text]; pp. 255-256.
The Lives of the Popes,
BY
B. Platina
Volume I.
JOHN XIII.
A.D. 965-972.
JOHN the Thirteenth, bishop of Narni, a Roman, son of John, a bishop, succeeded Leo. But the Romans, having got the trick of expelling their Popes, vexed this man also with seditions; for having called to their assistance Geoffrey, Lord of Terra di Lavoro, they broke into the Lateran Palace, and seized upon John, whom they first cast into the prison of Castle St Angelo, and soon after banished to Capua; but Geoffrey, with his only son, being slain by John, prince of Capua, the Pope returned straight to Rome in the eleventh month of his exile. Otho also, upon notice of the Pope’s distress, together with his son Otho and a good army, by long journeys came to Rome, and immediately threw the consuls, the prætor, and the decarchons into prison in order to await trial for their treason; who being by torture forced to confess, the consuls were banished into Germany, the decarchons were hung up, and Peter, the prætor, the cause and ringleader of all the mischief, was several times dragged most ignominiously, and whipped with rods through the most public places of the city, and then sent prisoner to Germany. Others say his punishment was thus, — being delivered to suffer at the will of the Pope, his beard was first shaved off, then he was hung by his hair upon the head of the statue of Constantine’s horse, for the terror of all such ill men; from whence being taken, he was set upon an ass with his face backward, and his hands tied under its tail, and so led through the city, being, as he went, whipped almost to death with rods; and then banished into Germany. The like severity (for example’s sake) was used by the emperor against Count Geoffrey and his son, who were killed (as I said before) by John, prince of Capua, — their carcases being dragged out of their graves and denied Christian burial. At this time the Sclavi, who (when Hadrian III. was Pope), under Sueropylus, prince of Dalmatia, had received the Christian faith, crossed the sea into Italy, gave the Saracens a great route at Monte Gargano, and drove them thence; and the Hungarians by their example so broke their remaining force by recovering Cosenza out of their hands, that it became easy for Otho, son of the great Otho (who came for that purpose with his army), to make a perfect conquest of 256 them; nor was he content to have vanquished the Saracens, but he subdued too the Greeks who had made a league with the Moors, and drove them out of almost all Apulia and Calabria. Some say, indeed, that Otho made this war upon the Greeks because Nicephorus, Emperor of Constantinople, had denied to give him to wife his daughter, who had been espoused to him before. This is certain, that Otho, who was a generous young man, deposed Nicephorus, and made his son John emperor, himself marrying his sister Theophania, who together with her husband were crowned by this Pope in the Lateran Church with an imperial diadem, by the consent of Otho, the father, who had made his son his partner in the empire. During the great and universal rejoicing upon this occasions, Pope John raised the Church of Capua to a metropolitan see. But Otho, now worn with old age, returning into Germany, died at Vienna; Pope John had died not long before him, after he had sat six years, eleven months, and five days; after which the see was vacant thirteen days.
Previous Pope: 136. Leo VIII. 137. John XIII. Next Pope: 138. Benedict VI.