[6] Reginald L. Poole,[7] Peter Llewelyn, Karl Josef von Hefele, August Friedrich Gfrörer,[8] Ludovico Antonio Muratori, and Francis Patrick Kenrick[9] also maintain that Pope John XI was sired by Alberic I of Spoleto.
Marozia was the de facto ruler of Rome at the time and she used her power and influence to ensure that John, who held the titulus of Santa Maria in Trastevere, was elected to the papacy in March 931.
Due to internal church resistance, Romanos approached John XI to seek the Pope's confirmation and to approve Theophylactus taking the pallium.
This delay of over a year is seen by Horace Mann as evidence of the Pope's initial reluctance to agree to the emperor's request, and was only forced to do it at his brother Alberic II's insistence following the fall of Marozia.
[17] John XI sat in the Chair of Peter during what some traditional Catholic sources consider its deepest humiliation, subjugated under the authority of the Prince of Rome, but it was also he who granted many privileges to the Congregation of Cluny, which was later a powerful agent of Church reform.