Pope John XVII (16 May - 6 November 1003)

A fleeting pope between Sylvester II and the Tusculan return

John XVII promulgated no doctrinal decree, presided over no council, and fought no canonical battle. His pontificate is, materially, almost empty of archives. Why, then, devote an encyclopedic article to him? Because he occupies a singular chronological position: he is the first successor of the brilliant Sylvester II — the first French pope in history, mathematician and astronomer, friend and adviser of Emperor Otto III — and the first link in a sequence of three pontificates imposed by the Crescenzi before the definitive victory of the counts of Tusculum in 1012.^{[9] [10]}

Sylvester II had embodied, for a decade, an imperial and scholarly papacy — supported by the young emperor Otto III and projecting a renovatio imperii Romanorum that sought to refound Christian Rome on the model of Constantine and Charlemagne. With the death of Otto III at Paterno on 24 January 1002, at the age of twenty-one, that dream collapsed. Sylvester himself, remaining in Rome, survived his protector by fifteen months, but without any longer carrying real political weight. At his death, on 12 May 1003, it was the patrician John Crescentius III alone who disposed of the choice of successor.

The election of John XVII, four days later, therefore marks the turning point: from the Ottonian papacy looking northward to a Roman papacy again taken in hand by local aristocracy. This shift would last twelve years (1003-1012) before the counts of Tusculum imposed their own pope in turn, Benedict VIII (1012-1024). John XVII is, in this mechanism, the first marker.

A name troubled by the antipope John XVI

The simple fact that this pope is the seventeenth John requires a preliminary detour. When Sicco chose his regnal name in May 1003, he followed a long pontifical line, but also came after the antipope John XVI Filagathos (997-998), a Greek from Calabria imposed by Crescentius II the Nomentan against Gregory V before being deposed, mutilated, and imprisoned by Otto III. Papal numbering after this antipope John XVI is confusing: some medieval catalogues counted John XVI Filagathos as a legitimate pope, which made the rank of the later Johns vary between XVII and XVIII depending on the manuscript.^{[11] [12]}

This is why the Catholic Encyclopedia explicitly titles its entry "Pope John XVII (XVIII)" — the double numbering marks this historiographical hesitation. Today the Holy See and modern criticism firmly hold that John XVI Filagathos is an antipope and that the Pope Sicco elected in May 1003 is indeed the seventeenth legitimate John — therefore the 140th pope of the Catholic Church.^[13]

This numerical stability is, in itself, a silent doctrinal act: it affirms that no election produced outside canonical right — even if it was accepted for several months by the Romans and recognized by part of the Curia — can be inscribed in the apostolic succession. John XVI remains, nine centuries later, a name struck from the list, and John XVII is the numerical beneficiary of that correction.

The silence of the contemporary chroniclers

The third interest of John XVII is, paradoxically, his silence. Where other fleeting popes of the tenth century — Leo V in 903, Benedict V in 964, John XII in 964 — left at least a few hostile chroniclers or apologists (Auxilius, Liutprand, Hermann of Reichenau), John XVII has, strictly speaking, no contemporary witness. The notice in the Liber Pontificalis (ed. Duchesne, vol. II, p. 265) is extremely brief: a few formulaic lines. The chronicle of Thietmar of Merseburg (†1018), though it covers Roman events of 1002-1003 from the German imperial point of view, does not explicitly name him. Bruno of Querfurt, who should have received the missionary licentia from him, does not name him either in the Vita quinque fratrum.^[14]

"Concerning his activities during the few months of his pontificate nothing has come down to us." — Johann Peter Kirsch, Catholic Encyclopedia, art. Pope John XVII (XVIII), 1910^[15]

This scarcity is itself a historical fact. It speaks of the discretion of a pope without political ambitions, in a city dominated by an all-powerful patrician, at a moment when real power was exercised outside the Lateran. The silence of John XVII is therefore an indirect witness to the subordination of the papacy of the early eleventh century to the Roman oligarchy.

The death of Otto III (24 January 1002)

To understand the election of John XVII, one must go back fifteen months before his elevation — to 24 January 1002, in the castle of Paterno near Mount Soracte, about fifty kilometers north of Rome. Emperor Otto III — grandson of Otto the Great through his father, nephew of Theophanu of Byzantium through his mother — died there at twenty-one, struck down by fever. With him ended abruptly the political program he had carried for six years since his imperial coronation in 996: a renovatio imperii Romanorum, that is, the refoundation of a Christian Roman empire capable of dominating at once the Germanic Holy Roman Empire, Italy, and the papacy.^{[16] [17]}

Otto III had placed two popes of his choice on the See of Peter. First his cousin Bruno of Carinthia, who became Gregory V (996-999) — the first German pope in history — briefly deposed by the Crescenzi in 997 and restored in 998. Then his former tutor Gerbert of Aurillac, who became Sylvester II (999-1003) — the first French pope, mathematician and astronomer, translator of Aristotle, importer of Arabic numerals into the West. With these two pontificates, the papacy left the game of Roman families and became, for a generation, the ally of a European imperial project.

The sudden death of the young emperor, without a direct heir, undid this structure in a few weeks. Henry II of Bavaria, elected king of Germany on 7 June 1002, would need twelve years to consolidate his power in Germany before descending to Rome to be crowned emperor there (14 February 1014). During this imperial vacancy, Rome had no external protector. The vacuum was immediately filled.

The return of the Crescenzi

The Crescenzi had been the principal aristocratic family of Rome since the middle of the tenth century. Their political fortune began with Crescentius the Elder († c. 985), husband of Theodora; it continued with his son Crescentius II the Nomentan, patricius Romanorum in the 990s, who imposed the antipope John XVI Filagathos in 997. When Otto III returned to Italy in 998 to suppress the rebellion, he had the antipope — first blinded and mutilated of nose and ears — humiliated, and had Crescentius II beheaded at the top of Castel Sant'Angelo on 29 April 998, after a surrender obtained under guarantee of life. The body was hung by the feet from the fortifications of the Mons Aventinus as a warning.^{[18] [19]}

John Crescentius III was the son — and heir — of this beheaded Crescentius II. At the death of Otto III in 1002, he reappeared in Rome, took the title patricius Romanorum — a title he would bear until his own death in May 1012 — and imposed both his family as the ruling class and his power over the papal curia. For ten years, he chose the popes. Three successive pontiffs would owe their election to him:

Sources: Holy See, Catholic Encyclopedia (Kirsch 1910), Treccani (Sennis 2000), Kelly Oxford Dictionary of Popes.^{[20] [21] [22] [23]}

The title patricius Romanorum

The title borne by Crescentius III — patricius Romanorum, "patrician of the Romans" — is not an ecclesiastical dignity: it is a civil office inherited from the Carolingian period, originally conferred by Charlemagne, and designating the recognized lay head of the city of Rome with a right of tutelage over papal election. In the tenth century, this title was claimed by the principal Roman families — first by Theophylact I of Tusculum (†924), then by his daughter Marozia, then by Alberic II of Spoleto (932-954), and finally by the Crescenzi from the 970s onward.^{[24] [25]}

In 1002, by assuming this title, John Crescentius III claimed two things: continuity with his father Crescentius II, whom Otto III had precisely blamed for claiming the patriciate; and the imperial vacancy, which left Rome without an outside sovereign. It was a strong political claim, coupled with a message to Germany: "Rome has its own master; you no longer have to intervene there."

The learned pope dies on 12 May 1003

Sylvester II — Gerbert of Aurillac in his earlier monastic life — died in Rome on 12 May 1003, at about sixty years of age, after four years of solitary pontificate since the death of his protector Otto III. His end was peaceful, without political drama. He had been able, despite the emperor's disappearance, to keep the See of Peter, a sign that the Crescenzi had preferred to let the old learned pope die naturally rather than engage in a premature coup. He was buried in the Lateran Basilica; an epitaph, engraved later, recalled his scholarly career.^{[26] [27]}

A later medieval legend would claim that Gerbert, after becoming pope, had made a pact with the devil — a story forged in the twelfth century by anti-scholarly chroniclers to discredit the Arabic science he had brought into the West. This fable has no historical value, but it says something about the lasting impression Sylvester II had left: a pope too foreign, too learned, too different. At his death, the Crescenzi could return to a more traditional model — that of a native Roman, from a known family, with less dazzling culture.

The Catholic Encyclopedia summarizes without detour the power vacuum that then opened:

"When Sylvester II died on 12 May 1003, there was no actual authority in Rome which could curb the nobles. Thus the faction of Crescentius again won the upper hand." — Johann Peter Kirsch, Catholic Encyclopedia, art. Pope John XVII (XVIII), 1910^[28]

Four days to elect a pope

The interval between the death of Sylvester II (12 May) and the consecration of John XVII (16 May according to the Holy See, 13 June according to the Catholic Encyclopedia for episcopal consecration strictly speaking) is extremely short — four days, or at most one month. This speed is itself an indication. It suggests that the choice had already been made before Sylvester II's death, probably prepared during his final months by the Crescenzi, who were waiting for the vacancy to impose their candidate.

The exact dating has been debated. The official Vatican.va entry simply gives "16.V.1003 — 6.XI.1003" — election on 16 May 1003 as the beginning of the pontificate.^[29] The Catholic Encyclopedia specifies that he was "consecrated on 13 June 1003," distinguishing election (16 May) from episcopal consecration (13 June), a one-month interval coherent with the need formally to ordain the new elect if he was not already a bishop.^[30] Modern historiography (Treccani Sennis 2000, Kelly 2005) generally retains 16 May 1003 as the official date of accession, while recognizing that the effective sacramental consecration may have taken place a month later.

Why Sicco?

The exact motivations behind Crescentius III's choice of Sicco are not preserved. By cross-reading the sources, three non-exclusive hypotheses can be drawn.

First hypothesis — age. Sicco must have been an elderly man at the time of his election: he had supposedly been married before ordination and had — according to later tradition — at least three children who became ecclesiastics, one of them already bishop of Praeneste. Choosing an old, ill, or weakened man meant choosing a pope who would not reign long — and who could be replaced, when the occasion came, by another candidate younger and more available. That is exactly what happened: Sicco died five months after his election, and Crescentius could, in December 1003, install John Fasanus, a man of his own, as John XVIII.

Second hypothesis — docility. Sicco had, as far as we know, no remarkable earlier political or ecclesiastical career. No source presents him as a Roman cardinal or suburbicarian bishop before 1003. The choice of a man without his own political entourage guaranteed Crescentius a total absence of counterweight: Sicco could not rely on a curial party to resist.

Third hypothesis — family respectability. If one accepts as true the filial reading of the 1040 inscription — John bishop of Praeneste, Peter deacon, Andrew secundicerius of the Lateran — then Sicco already belonged to an ecclesiastical family well established in the papal chancery. Choosing the patriarch of a clan already inserted into the curia ensured the cooperation of a whole line of Lateran officials.^{[31] [32]}

None of these hypotheses can be strictly demonstrated, but they converge toward the same conclusion: the choice of Sicco was a choice of political management, not a doctrinal or pastoral choice.

The district of the Biberatica

Medieval sources place Sicco's origin in the Roman district of the Biberatica — also attested as Biveretica — designating the area "between Trajan's Column and the Basilica of the Holy Apostles."^[33] Today the name survives in the Via Biberatica, an ancient street of Trajan's Markets winding along the northern flank of the Quirinal and linking the former imperial fora to the Basilica of the Santi XII Apostoli. It was a dense, popular district, crossed by craftsmen and merchants, halfway between senatorial aristocracy and the urban people.

To be born in the Biberatica in 950 or 960 therefore says nothing aristocratic. It places Sicco in a probably urban family, perhaps of the lesser Roman nobility — distinct both from the high comital aristocracy (Tusculans, Crescenzi) and from the anonymous populus. This intermediate status would fit the career of a man whose family name no chronicler thought worth preserving.

The nickname Sicco

The name Sicco is not a family name: it is a cognomen, a personal nickname added to the baptismal name Iohannes. Treccani states it soberly:

"His name was John, but he was nicknamed Sicco." — Antonio Sennis, art. Giovanni XVII, Enciclopedia dei Papi, Treccani, 2000^[34]

The etymology of the nickname is conjectural: it may derive from Latin siccus ("dry," "thin"), designating a slender man; or it may be a late Germanic diminutive. No contemporary manuscript explains its origin.

The Italianized form Siccone (with the augmentative suffix -one) appears in some modern authors — Britannica in particular — and was taken up by the Holy See entry. Sicco remains the attested Latin form in contemporary sources (inscriptions, papal catalogues).

The father: a certain John

Sicco was apparently the son of a John whose exact family name is not preserved. A Roman papal catalogue of the late eleventh century — later edited by Georg Waitz in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica — gives simply "filius cuiusdam Iohannis," "son of a certain John."^[35] This indication, of no genealogical value for identifying a clan, tells us two negative things: (1) the father was not known enough for a family name to be transmitted; (2) the family did not belong to the major Roman lineages already recorded (Theophylacti, Crescenzi, Boboni).

Some modern reconstructions have sometimes attributed Sicco to the Boboni-Orsini family, but this attribution is anachronistic: the Boboni-Orsini family does not assert itself in Rome until the twelfth-thirteenth centuries, more than one hundred and fifty years after John XVII's death. No contemporary source connects Sicco to that line.^[36]

A dedicatory inscription at Sant'Agata dei Goti (1040)

The only material witness linking eleventh-century Roman ecclesiastics to a pope Sicco is a dedicatory inscription dated 1040 — thirty-seven years after John XVII's death — still visible in the early sixteenth century in the Roman church of Sant'Agata dei Goti, on the Quirinal close to the Biberatica.^{[37] [38]}

This inscription commemorated the consecration or restoration of a religious building by three high-ranking Roman ecclesiastical donors:

• John, bishop of Praeneste (Palestrina, one of the seven suburbicarian sees of Rome)
• Peter, regional deacon
• Andrew, secundicerius — a second-ranking official in the schola cantorum or the Lateran chancery

The three men solemnly described themselves as "avi cretos Siconis sanguine papae" — a Latin formula that can be translated literally as "ancestors / relatives begotten from the blood of Pope Sicco," or more freely as "descendants by blood of Pope Sicco."

A possible but uncertain filial reading

Older biographers — and most encyclopedic entries until the late twentieth century — read this inscription as direct proof that John XVII had three sons before his ordination, sons who in turn made careers in the Roman clergy. Thus the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1910 states:

"Before his ordination he had been married, and had three sons who also became ecclesiastics." — Johann Peter Kirsch, Catholic Encyclopedia, art. Pope John XVII (XVIII), vol. VIII, Robert Appleton Company, 1910^[39]

This reading is coherent with the clerical customs of the period: the Gregorian reform that would impose strict ecclesiastical celibacy would only be launched seventy-two years later, under Gregory VII (1075). Before that reform, the marriage of priests and even some bishops was common in central Italy; the sons of clerics regularly entered minor or major orders. That a married man and father could be elected pope had, at the beginning of the eleventh century, nothing scandalous about it — he only had to be ordained and to live in continence after ordination.

Modern criticism: "avi cretos" may mean "relatives"

Antonio Sennis, in the Treccani Enciclopedia dei Papi (2000), introduces an important critical nuance. The Latin formula "avi cretos" — where avi means "ancestors," "grandfathers," or simply "relatives," and cretos (past participle of cresco) means "born," "begotten," "sprung from" — does not necessarily imply a direct father-son filiation. It can designate any blood relationship: nephews, grandsons, collateral kin. The translation "descendants by blood" is therefore defensible, but the conclusion "biological sons" is an interpretive leap.^[40]

If the three ecclesiastics in the 1040 inscription were in fact grandsons or nephews of John XVII, the future pope's marriage becomes hypothetical. Sicco may never have been married — in which case the Catholic Encyclopedia overvalued an attractive but fragile biographical reading. Historical prudence today leads to this formulation: "tradition makes John XVII a married man and father before ordination, but that tradition rests on a single late inscription whose filial reading is ambiguous."

A foreshadowing of the pre-Gregorian world

Whether the filial reading is exact or not, the inscription of Sant'Agata dei Goti is interesting for another reason: it testifies to the Roman clergy of the first half of the eleventh century as a milieu in which clerical dynasties were normal, where sons, nephews, and grandsons succeeded fathers in benefices, where the boundary between civil aristocracy and urban clerical office was porous. This is precisely the world that the Gregorian reform would attack from 1075 onward, by imposing priestly celibacy and combating simony (the sale of ecclesiastical offices) and Nicolaitism (clerical concubinage).

John XVII, whether or not he was married, belongs to the world before that reform. His fleeting figure is, in this sense, a cultural witness more than a doctrinal actor: he says what ordinary Roman Church life was before Gregory VII refounded its clerical discipline.

Bruno of Querfurt and the Five Martyred Brothers

The only pastoral act that tradition explicitly associates with John XVII concerns the mission to evangelize the Slavs entrusted to Saint Bruno of Querfurt (c. 974-1009) and his companion Benedict of Benevento. Bruno, a young Saxon count who became a Benedictine monk, friend of King Henry II and chaplain of Emperor Otto III, had received around 1002-1003 the mission to preach the Gospel among the eastern Slavic peoples — Poles, Pomeranians, Prussians — still largely pagan at that time.

The expedition formed around the hermitage of Pereo near Ravenna, founded in 1001 by Saint Romuald, where several Benedictine monks prepared their departure eastward. Five of them — Benedict of Benevento, John of Venice, Isaac, Matthew, and Krystyn (Christin) — went ahead to Poland under the protection of Duke Bolesław I Chrobry, and settled near Międzyrzecz (Meseritz, in Greater Poland).

On the night of 10-11 November 1003 — four or five days after the death of John XVII — local bandits attacked their hermitage and massacred the five monks. They are the Five Martyred Brothers of Poland (Quinque fratres Poloniae), canonized shortly afterward by John XVIII (1004 or 1005).^{[41] [42]}

The Vita quinque fratrum Poloniae (c. 1008)

Bruno of Querfurt, survivor of the initial expedition, wrote around 1008 — five years after the events — a Vita quinque fratrum Poloniae ("Life of the Five Brothers of Poland"), also known as Passio sanctorum Benedicti et Iohannis ac sociorum eorundem. In this hagiographical text, Bruno personally reproaches himself for having delayed in obtaining and transmitting the papal license (licentia) necessary for the mission; this delay weighs, in his account, as a share of personal responsibility in the brothers' martyrdom, because it left them without canonical cover in pagan territory.^[43]

The pope of the licentia: Sylvester II, John XVII, or John XVIII?

The critical question is: which pope issued or should have issued this licentia?

• Hypothesis 1 — Sylvester II. He had, in 1001 or at the very beginning of 1002, given the pallium to Bruno of Querfurt and appointed him missionary archbishop (archiepiscopus gentium). The archiepiscopal appointment is solidly attested. The specific licentia for Benedict of Benevento may, in this reading, have been issued by Sylvester II before his death on 12 May 1003.

• Hypothesis 2 — John XVII. This is the most widespread tradition in modern encyclopedic notices (Catholic Encyclopedia, Wikipedia, Encyclopedia.com). According to this reading, Bruno requested the licentia after Sylvester II's death, and it was John XVII — during his very brief pontificate from May to November 1003 — who granted it.

• Hypothesis 3 — John XVIII. Bruno mentions his negligence in transmitting the licentia; it is possible that it was only issued after the martyrdom of the five brothers (November 1003), that is, under John XVIII, elected in December 1003. In that case Bruno received the licentia too late for it to benefit his companions. It is precisely John XVIII who would canonize the Five Brothers in 1004 or 1005.^[44]

Antonio Sennis, in Treccani, judges the matter very cautiously:

"The identification of John [XVII] with the pope in question is entirely conjectural." — Antonio Sennis, art. Giovanni XVII, Enciclopedia dei Papi, vol. II, Treccani, Rome, 2000^[45]

Why tradition continues to attach the Slavic mission to John XVII

Despite the conjectural character of the attribution, twentieth-century encyclopedic tradition continued to present John XVII as the "pope who authorized the Slavic mission." There are three reasons for this.

First, John XVII's pontificate chronologically coincides with the effective dispatch of the mission (May-October 1003), which makes the attribution plausible. Second, the contrary argument — that it was Sylvester II — is weakened by the fact that the Five Brothers only left for Poland after Sylvester II's death, suggesting that they were waiting for a second authorization. Third, in a pontificate where no other act is preserved, tradition needed to attach at least one positive fact to John XVII so as not to reduce him to a complete void.

It is an attribution by default more than by documentation. It remains defensible, but must be presented for what it is: a tradition rather than a certainty. The classic formulation — "John XVII approved a mission led by Bruno of Querfurt toward eastern Europe and authorized his companion Benedict to evangelize the Slavs" — still circulates in English Wikipedia and the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1910, but it has been weakened by recent scholarly criticism, especially by Antonio Sennis in the Treccani Enciclopedia dei Papi (2000), which describes the identification as "entirely conjectural."^{[46] [47]}

An apparently natural death

John XVII died in Rome on 6 November 1003. The date is attested in agreement by the official Vatican.va entry ("6.XI.1003"), by the Catholic Encyclopedia ("died 6 November 1003"), by Treccani, and by the great majority of modern notices.^{[48] [49] [50]} Only Britannica curiously gives "December 6, 1003" — probably a typographical confusion, without documentary value.

No contemporary source mentions a violent cause. Unlike Leo V (903), Stephen VI (897), or John XII (964), John XVII died neither murdered nor imprisoned. The silence of hostile chroniclers — and there was no lack of them in early eleventh-century Italy — invites the conclusion of a natural death, probably linked to age (Sicco must have been between 60 and 70 in 1003) or illness. The season — early November — excludes the summer malarial fevers typical of Rome, but autumn respiratory illnesses were endemic.

The absence of political drama around his death is, in itself, good news for his pontificate. Crescentius III, his political patron, had no reason to hasten his end: a docile, elderly pope who would reign until dying naturally was precisely what he wanted. The succession of John XVIII in December 1003 took place without visible disturbance, suggesting a well-run mechanism: when a pope under tutelage died, another of the same profile was installed.

Burial at the Lateran

John XVII was buried in the Basilica of Saint John Lateran, the cathedral of the diocese of Rome and Mater et Caput omnium ecclesiarum Urbis et Orbis ("Mother and head of all the churches of the city and of the world"). According to John the Deacon of the Lateran, a canon of the basilica in the twelfth century who composed around 1170 a description of the Lateran dedicated to Pope Alexander III, the tomb was located between the two doors of the main façade.^[51]

The topographical precision is interesting. In the eleventh-twelfth centuries, the Lateran Basilica had, on its eastern façade, several doors: a central main door and several side doors. John XVII's tomb stood, according to John the Deacon, in the space between two of these doors — therefore in the portico or narthex of the basilica. This position, outside the strictly sacred space, indicates an intermediate status: John XVII was not buried at the heart of the building (under the high altar or in the privileged chapels of saints), but he nevertheless received an official burial in the pope's cathedral.

The epitaph reported by John the Deacon

John the Deacon of the Lateran preserved the text of the epitaph engraved on the tomb. The Latin distich is held in two laconic lines that may be translated as follows:

"Here is seen the tomb of the one said to be John, the supreme pontiff; so he was called." — epitaph reported by John the Deacon of the Lateran, Liber de Ecclesia Lateranensi, c. 1170^[52]

The original Latin text — "Cernitur hic tumulus qui praesul dicitur esse / summi Iohannis, sicquoque dictus erat" — perhaps plays, through the spelling sicquoque, on the pope's nickname Sicco (reading Sicco quoque, "and Sicco too"); this philological ambiguity is discussed in the footnote.^[53]

The epitaph is strangely laconic. It merely affirms that the remains are indeed those of a pope John — summi Iohannis — and that he was called so. If one accepts the phonetic hypothesis of the wordplay Sicco quoque, the medieval epigraphist, aware of the deceased's cognomen, may have slipped into the stone a discreet allusion to the nickname: a learned wink halfway between epitaph and rebus.

No mention of holiness, no particular virtue praised, no act recalled. It is the epitaph of a pope of whom one says only that he was pope — an almost tautological formula, emphasizing the documentary poverty of his pontificate more than celebrating him.

The lost tomb

No material element of John XVII's tomb survives today. The Lateran Basilica was ravaged by two major fires in the fourteenth century (1308 and 1361), rebuilt from 1646 under Innocent X according to Borromini's plans, and then heavily transformed until the Leonine renovation of the nineteenth century. In the course of these successive works, most of the medieval burials in the portico were moved, dispersed, or lost. Only textual notices — such as that of John the Deacon — preserve the memory of the tombs that once adorned the entrance to the pope's cathedral.

John XVIII (Fasanus), December 1003 — July 1009

A month and a half after John XVII's death, in December 1003, Crescentius III imposed a new candidate on the Roman curia: John Fasanus, a Roman priest of the titulus of Saint Peter of Rapide. He took the name John XVIII and reigned for five and a half years — much longer than his ephemeral predecessor. Under him, the Roman Church canonized the Five Martyred Brothers of Poland (1004 or 1005), sent missionaries to Sweden under King Olaf Skötkonung, and settled several canonical disputes in France and Germany. John XVIII abdicated in July 1009 and died shortly afterward, retired in a monastery.^{[54] [55]}

Sergius IV (Peter Pig's-Snout), July 1009 — 12 May 1012

As successor to John XVIII, in July 1009 Crescentius III installed Peter Martin Bucca-Porci — "Peter Pig's-Snout," a curious nickname of conjectural origin — who took the name Sergius IV. His pontificate lasted three years, until his death on 12 May 1012 — a strange chronological coincidence: exactly nine years to the day after the death of Sylvester II. Sergius IV died a few days before his own patron Crescentius III, who also died in mid-May 1012 (shortly before the election of Benedict VIII on 18 May). With this nearly simultaneous double death, the era of the Crescenzi over the papacy came to an end.^{[56] [57]}

The Tusculan transition

At the death of Crescentius III in May 1012, another family immediately seized control of Rome: the counts of Tusculum, direct descendants of Theophylact I and Marozia, who had already given the Church the popes John XI (931-936), John XII (955-964), and Benedict VII (974-983) in the tenth century. The Tusculans imposed Theophylact of Tusculum as the new pope — he took the name Benedict VIII (1012-1024). With Benedict VIII began a new sequence of three Tusculan popes (Benedict VIII, John XIX 1024-1032, Benedict IX 1032-1044) that would dominate the papacy for thirty-two years, until the scandal of Benedict IX and the intervention of Emperor Henry III at the Synod of Sutri in 1046.

John XVII, in this political genealogy, is therefore the first pope of the Crescentian sequence — the first of the three puppets installed by John Crescentius III, before the Tusculan victory of 1012 and the great crisis of 1044-1046 that would call forth the Gregorian reform.

The 140th pope according to the official list

Despite his brevity, despite the silence of the chroniclers, despite the political character of his election, John XVII appears in the official list of popes published by the Holy See. The Vatican.va entry assigns him the rank of 140th pope of the Catholic Church and confirms his pontificate "16.V.1003 — 6.XI.1003."^[58] This numerical stability has a silent doctrinal scope: it recognizes the canonical validity of his election (by ecclesial compromise or under political pressure, but according to the accepted forms of the time), and the sacramental regularity of his ministry for five months and three weeks.

No council, later bull, or subsequent decretal ever contested the legitimacy of John XVII. Unlike the antipope John XVI Filagathos struck from the list, he is a real pope. This legitimacy rests on a purely formal criterion: his election was accepted by the Roman clergy present in May 1003, his episcopal consecration was regular (13 June 1003), and his death on 6 November 1003 was followed by a successor election (John XVIII in December 1003) that never claimed a rupture of continuity.

A name inscribed in papal genealogy

The name of John XVII poses, as seen above, an arithmetical difficulty linked to the antipope John XVI Filagathos. Today official numbering is stable: John XVII in 1003, John XVIII in 1003-1009, John XIX in 1024-1032, John XXI in 1276-1277 (with the leap over John XX, who never existed), John XXII in 1316-1334, and so on down to John XXIII (1958-1963), pope of the Second Vatican Council. Saint John XXIII, by choosing this regnal name in 1958, inscribed himself — perhaps without knowing it — in a line that passed through our Sicco.^[59]

A modest heritage reference

In the gallery of medallions in the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, which presents ideal portraits of all the popes from Saint Peter onward, John XVII appears in his chronological place between Sylvester II and John XVIII. No authentic historical portrait of him is preserved; modern representations are ideal iconographic compositions — bearded face, tiara, liturgical ornaments — without biographical value. The present gallery was reconstructed after the fire of 1823, but continues an iconographic tradition going back to the fifth century.

The inscription of 1040 at Sant'Agata dei Goti, which would have constituted the second monument to his memory, is no longer visible today — the inscription, still mentioned in the early sixteenth century, disappeared during the Baroque transformations of the church. Only humanist transcriptions preserve its memory.

John XVII belongs to that singular category of pontiffs whom history remembers without having much to say about them — fleeting popes, elected in tense political circumstances, who had neither time nor means to impose a policy of their own. Beside them stand Leo V (903), John Paul I (1978, 33 days), or Urban VII (1590, 12 days). But where the latter left a strong iconographic trace or a reputation for holiness, John XVII remains almost entirely anonymous: no authentic image, no preserved bull, no work of his own, no contemporary personal testimony.

His figure nevertheless rests on three traits that deserve encyclopedic memory.

First, he is the first pope of the eleventh pontifical century in the strict sense — the one who opens the post-Ottonian era in which the papacy once again becomes, for a time, prey to Roman aristocracy. With him begins the sequence of the three "Crescentian popes" (1003-1012), which prolongs, in an apparently more discreet form than the saeculum obscurum of the tenth century, the same mechanism of capture of the Holy See by a civil family. The break will come twelve years later with the Tusculans, and seventy-two years later with Gregory VII.

Second, through the family tradition attached to his name — whether or not it rests securely on the inscription of 1040 — he is a cultural witness to the pre-Gregorian clergy. Whether Sicco was married and a father or not, the inscription of Sant'Agata dei Goti shows that in Rome, in the first half of the eleventh century, there existed ecclesiastical families that could claim to be of papal blood — a clerical world in which biological dynasty was not a scandal. That world would be extinguished in the following decades under the reforming impulse.

Third, through the tradition of the Slavic mission, he is connected to one of the great missionary gestures around the year 1000: the evangelization of the eastern Slavic peoples by Bruno of Querfurt and Benedict of Benevento. Whether the licentia was issued by Sylvester II before him, by John XVII himself, or by John XVIII after him matters little for the event itself: at the threshold of the second millennium, the Roman Church sent its monks toward the pagans of the East, and the blood of the Five Martyred Brothers sealed, in the night of 10-11 November 1003 — four days after the death of John XVII — the first Christian witness of modern Poland.

Five months, twenty-one days. An epitaph of two verses. A lost tomb. And yet a name inscribed forever in the apostolic succession: Iohannes XVII, papa.

Related articles

• Pope Sylvester II (Gerbert of Aurillac, 999-1003)
• Pope John XVIII (Fasanus, 1003-1009)
• Pope Sergius IV (Peter Pig's-Snout, 1009-1012)
• Pope Benedict VIII (1012-1024)
• Pope John XIX (1024-1032)
• Antipope John XVI Filagathos (997-998)
• Pope Gregory V (996-999)
• Saint Bruno of Querfurt (c. 974-1009)
• The Five Martyred Brothers of Poland (1003)
• John Crescentius III, patrician of Rome (1002-1012)
• The Gregorian reform
• The saeculum obscurum (904-964)
• The Liber Pontificalis
• The Basilica of Saint John Lateran

Main sources

• Holy See, official entry Iohannes XVII, list of sovereign pontiffs: 140th pope, 16.V.1003 — 6.XI.1003, born in Rome, baptismal name Siccone. URL: https://www.vatican.va/content/vatican/en/holy-father/giovanni-xvii.html
• Liber Pontificalis, notice of John XVII, ed. Louis Duchesne, Le Liber Pontificalis, vol. II, Paris, Ernest Thorin, 1892, p. 265. Extremely brief notice, typical for this chaotic period of the papacy.
• John the Deacon of the Lateran, Liber de Ecclesia Lateranensi, c. 1170, dedicated to Alexander III. Critical edition: Codice topografico della città di Roma, ed. Roberto Valentini and Giuseppe Zucchetti, vol. III, Rome, Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, 1946.
• Bruno of Querfurt, Vita quinque fratrum Poloniae (Passio sanctorum Benedicti et Iohannis ac sociorum eorundem), c. 1008, ed. MGH Scriptores, vol. XV, part 2, Hanover, 1888.
• Thietmar of Merseburg, Chronicon, c. 1018, ed. MGH Scriptores rerum Germanicarum, Nova series, vol. IX, Berlin, 1935. Contemporary source on the post-Otto III Roman situation.
• Catalogus pontificum Romanorum (Roman catalogue of the late eleventh century), ed. Georg Waitz, MGH Scriptores, vol. XXIV, 1879.
• Antonio Sennis, art. Giovanni XVII, Enciclopedia dei Papi, vol. II, Rome, Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani, 2000. URL: https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/giovanni-xvii_(Enciclopedia-dei-Papi)/
• Johann Peter Kirsch, art. Pope John XVII (XVIII), Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. VIII, New York, Robert Appleton Company, 1910; New Advent transcription. URL: https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08428b.htm
• Horace K. Mann, The Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages, vol. V: The Popes in the Days of Feudal Anarchy 891-999, London, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1906.
• J. N. D. Kelly & Michael J. Walsh, The Oxford Dictionary of Popes, Oxford University Press, 2nd ed. 2005, notice John XVII.
• John W. O'Malley, A History of the Popes: From Peter to the Present, Lanham (MD), Sheed & Ward, 2010.
• Udo Tavares, art. Johannes XVII, Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon, vol. III, 1992.
• Harald Zimmermann, Papstabsetzungen des Mittelalters, Graz, Böhlau, 1968.