JOHN XIX, POPE. - Elected on 10 May 1024, died in 1032. A Roman of the counts of Tusculum, brother of Benedict VIII, he had been, during the pontificate of the latter, “consul, duke, and senator of all the Romans.” Elected through simony, still a layman, to succeed him, he thus gathered into his hands both religious and civil power. Under him the abuses reappeared which Benedict VIII had attempted to combat. When Basil II, emperor of Constantinople, sought to have the patriarch of Constantinople recognized as ecumenical, John XIX at first seemed disposed to yield; but opposition, especially from the Cluniac monks, induced him to resist. He crowned Conrad the Salian as emperor (26 March 1027) in the presence of Rudolph III of Burgundy and Canute, king of Denmark and England; and from that point he became an instrument in the hands of the emperor.
Thus, in the long-standing controversy between the patriarchs of Aquileia and Grado, while at first he had granted to the patriarch of Aquileia, Poppo, the rights over Grado, he later recognized the independence of the patriarch of Grado. Yet in a bull of September 1027 he confirmed the decisions of a council held on 6 April in the Lateran in the presence of the emperor, favoring Poppo’s claims, and moreover declared the see of Aquileia second only to that of Rome and its vicar, metropolitan over all the sees of Italy. He granted many privileges to the Cluniac monks and would have wished their abbot, Odilo, to accept the archbishopric of Lyons. The favor shown to Guido d’Arezzo, the introduction of the new musical notation, would seem to indicate in John XIX some interest in the arts.
G. Battista Picotti