This produced an immediate protest from Archbishop Joannes of Benevento, who, as metropolitan, enjoyed the privilege of consecrated suffragan bishops in his ecclesiastical province.

[3] Agapitus admitted that he had done this in ignorance and contrary to the rules (irrationabiliter a sese episcopis consecratis et ipsum ordinem rei nesciente), and he ordered the clergy and laity of the two dioceses not to receive Leo and Benedict as their rightful bishops.

[4] According to Ferdinando Ughelli,[5] whose information is repeated by nearly all authorities, the earliest known bishop of Termoli was Scio, who subscribed a bull of Pope John XIII in 969, establishing the ecclesiastical province of Benevento.

[9] In 1242, the Venetians, who had long been urged to come to the support of the Papal States in the struggle with Frederick II, finally opened a campaign in Apulia by attacking Termoli.

[11] In the autumn of 1297, Frederick wrote to the justiciar of the Capitinata, appointing Hugo de Abbemara castellan of the castrum of Termoli, and assigning him sufficient soldiers and a port officer.

[19] On 27 June 1818, Pius VII issued the bull De Ulteriore, in which the ecclesiastical province of Benevento was restored, including it suffragans, among them the diocese of Termoli.