JOHN X, Pope. - Elected in March (?) 914, deposed in June 928, d. in 929 (?). Historical tradition, resting above all on Liutprand's slanderous account, gives a very unfavorable portrait of the man; recent studies have brought to light his vigorous figure. G. of Ravenna, formerly a deacon and several times envoy to Rome by Archbishop Cailone, was already in July 905 archbishop of Ravenna, the eleventh of this name. From that time on he showed himself convinced of the necessity that spiritual and temporal authority should give each other mutual support against feudal anarchy; for this reason he favored Berengar I.
He was elected pope with the support, or at least with the consent, of Theophylact and Theodora, who were extremely powerful in Rome and with whom he had long been on cordial terms; but his illicit relations with Theodora are very probably a malicious invention. He gathered into a league the Romans, the Byzantines, Alberic marquis of Spoleto and Camerino, and the states of southern Italy, in order to drive the Saracens out of the Garigliano, and he took part in the enterprise, se ipsum corpusque suum opponendo, and obtained a full victory (Aug. 915). In Dec. 915 he gave the imperial crown to Berengar. In Rome he could not prevent the authority of Marozia, "senatrix" and "patricia," from becoming established, and, later, as the wife of Guy, marquis of Tuscany. He favored the election as king of Italy of the energetic Hugh of Vienne, and concluded with him at Mantua (926) a "foedus"; Marozia and Guy became suspicious of this, also because of the authority given by the Pope to his brother, the marquis Peter. The Lateran was invaded by their soldiers and Peter was killed; not long afterward, in the absence of Hugh from Italy, the Pope was taken prisoner, deposed, probably killed.
In the government of the Church, G. X maintained the prestige of papal authority on high; he took measures for the maintenance of ecclesiastical discipline and the improvement of morals; but his program of strengthening royal authority, as a precondition of religious reform, forced him into dangerous concessions, such as that, made to the kings of Germany and France, of interfering in the appointment of bishops. He sent a legate to Germany, who presided over the Synod of Hohenaltheim (Sept. 916), in which the subjects were bound by ecclesiastical sanctions to fidelity toward the King. He facilitated the conversion of the Normans to Christianity. He worked to make peace between the Greeks and the Bulgarians and between the latter and the Croats; he sent the imperial crown to the tsar of the Bulgarians, Simeon, and probably created Tomislav king of the Croats. He sought to keep the people of Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia in obedience to the Roman See, and recommended that children be accustomed to the study of Latin letters and that Mass not be celebrated "in barbara seu slavinica lingua." He rebuilt the Lateran Basilica and adorned it with paintings greatly admired at the time.