JOHN II

born , Rome died May 8, 535, Rome original name Mercurius pope from 533 to 535 and the first pontiff to change his original name, which he considered pagan. John's pontificate opposed Nestorianism, the heresy that separated the divine and human natures of Christ and denied the Virgin Mary the title Mother of God. Nestorianism had been condemned by the Council of Chalcedon in 451. In 534 the Byzantine emperor Justinian I persuaded John to condemn the Acoemeti, a group of monks in Constantinople who had adopted Nestorianism. They were excommunicated on March 24/25, 534, thus ending the Theopaschite controversy. born c. 1247 died Sept. 11?, 1304, Hainaut also called John of Avesnes, Dutch Jan Van Avesnes count of Hainaut (12801304) and of the Dutch provinces of Holland and Zeeland (12991304), who united the counties and prevented the northward expansion of the house of Dampierre, the counts of Flanders. Eldest son of John of Avesnes, count of Hainaut, and Alida, sister of Count William II of Holland, John secured the title count of Hainaut in 1280 as John I. Long a friend of King Philip IV the Fair of France, the Count influenced his cousin, Count Floris V of Holland, to end his long, friendly relations with King Edward I of England and make an alliance with France, an action that was violently opposed by several Dutch nobles, who seized and murdered Floris (June 27, 1296). John was then named governor of Holland and guardian of Floris' 15-year-old son, after whose death (1299), he became count of Holland as John II. Though the people of Holland accepted his leadership, he had to ward off a challenge by King Albert I of Germany (1300), repel an invasion by English forces (1300?), subdue a rebellion in Zeeland (1301), and fight the army of the Dampierres for two years before driving the Flemish from Holland and Zeeland in 1304. born April 16, 1319, near Le Mans, Fr. died April 8, 1364, London byname John The Good, French Jean Le Bon king of France from 1350 to 1364. Captured by the English at the Battle of Poitiers on Sept. 19, 1356, he was forced to sign the disastrous treaties of 1360 during the first phase of the Hundred Years' War (13371453) between France and England. After becoming king on Aug. 22, 1350, John continued a truce with the English until later that year, when he had an English hostage, Raoul de Brienne, comte d'Eu, former constable of France, executed. By March 1351 King Edward III of England realized the impossibility of remaining at peace; but John committed the first act of hostility by attacking and recapturing Saint-Jean-d'Angly in western France that September 7. John signed a new truce with England on Sept. 12, 1351, but broke it by supporting the partisans of Charles of Blois (a pretender to Brittany, then held prisoner by Edward) in August 1352; the peace, however, was extended until September 23. John's other bitter enemy was Charles II the Bad, king of Navarre, to whom John gave his daughter Joan as an offer of alliance; the enmity still remained strong, however, because John never paid a dowry or recognized a rent of 15,000 livres due to Charles. John further irritated Charles by giving the new constable of France, Charles de La Cerda, lands that were claimed by Charles of Navarre. In revenge, the latter had the new constable assassinated; but in spite of John's rage, the two kings made a superficial peace in February 1354. Charles desired an alliance with Edward, which so frightened John that he made another peace with Charles on Sept. 10, 1355. On April 16, 1356, at Rouen, John took his revenge on Charles by having him imprisoned. Meanwhile Edward, displeased by the 1355 alliance between John and Charles, invaded France later that year but then returned to England before any confrontations. At the same time, Edward's son Edward, prince of Wales (later called the Black Prince), attacked southern France. Unable to halt the English invasions because he lacked funds, John gathered the States General to seek money and to impose an unpopular salt tax. John first went to defend Paris and Chartres. He and the Prince of Wales finally met near Poitiers in September 1356. The French army was decimated, and John was taken prisoner, leaving the French people grief-stricken and confused. John was taken to London in April 1357, where he was lodged in the Savoy palace; there he concluded treaties (January 1358 and March 1359) so harsh that they were repudiated in France. Finally the treaties of Brtigny and of Calais (May and October 1360) fixed John's ransom at 3,000,000 gold cus and surrendered most of southwestern France to Edward. On Oct. 9, 1360, John was released to raise a ransom that France could not afford to pay, and hostages were accepted in his place. When one of the hostages (John's own son) escaped, John, feeling dishonoured, returned to England on his own volition as a prisoner. born March 6, 1405, Toro, Castile died July 21, 1454, Valladolid king of Castile from 1406 to 1454; his political weakness led him to rely on his favourite, lvaro de Luna, whom he made constable. He was nevertheless considered a man of cultivated taste and a patron of poets. John succeeded his father, Henry III, as an infant of less than two years of age, under the joint regency of his mother, Catherine of Lancaster, and his uncle, the infante Ferdinand, who became king of Aragon (as Ferdinand I) in 1412. John took the reins in 1419 but soon placed himself in the hands of his companion Luna, who contested the influence of Ferdinand's sons in Castile. This led to factional struggles among the nobles, during which Luna enriched himself and his supporters. In 1430 a settlement was reached, and John II led a campaign against Granada, defeating the Muslims in the Battle of Higueruela (1431). John II sequestered his son, the future Henry IV, at Segovia, giving rise to fresh rivalries. He and Luna vanquished the dissidents at the Battle of Olmedo in 1445. In 1447 Luna persuaded John, now a widower, to marry Isabella of Portugal, who soon opposed him. After Luna had connived at a murder, the tide turned; and in 1453 John II was persuaded to arrest and execute his favourite. He proved unable to govern alone. During John's reign the revival of learning had its effect on the culture of the court and nobility. The King protected the poet Juan de Mena and encouraged other writers. born 1239 died 1305, Lyon duke of Brittany (from 1286) and count of Richemont, son of John I. He accompanied his father on St. Louis's crusade to Tunisia (1270) and fought also in Palestine. He returned to Europe in 1272 and, in subsequent years, shifted repeatedly from one side to another in the wars between Edward I of England and Philip IV of France, who made him a peer of France (1297). His son, Arthur II, succeeded him. born 1455, Lisbon, Port. died October 1495, Alvor John II of Portugal byname The Perfect Prince, Portuguese O Principe Perfeito king of Portugal from 1481 to 1495, regarded as one of the greatest Portuguese rulers, chiefly because of his ruthless assertion of royal authority over the great nobles and his resumption of the exploration of Africa and the quest for India. born 1398, Medina del Campo, Leon died 1479, Barcelona king of Aragon (145879) and also king of Navarre (142579); he was the instigator of the union of Castile and Aragon through the historic marriage of his son Ferdinand with Isabella of Castile. John was a younger son of Ferdinand of Antequera, elected king of Aragon (as Ferdinand I) in 1412. John and his brothers retained their positions and revenues in Castile, and he married Blanche, the heiress to Navarre, of which he claimed the kingship (142579). On his wife's death, he married Juana Enriques, daughter of the admiral of castile (1447), whose ambitions led to a conflict between John and his eldest son by his first marriage, Charles, prince of Viana. In 1458 John succeeded his elder brother Alfonso V as king of Aragon, with Sicily and Sardinia. He was blamed for the mysterious death of his son Charles, who had a strong following in Catalonia, where John's policies were deeply resented. The Catalans offered the crown to Peter of Portugal, who died, after which they appealed to the French for aid. In October 1469 John arranged for his son by his second marriage, Ferdinand, to marry Isabella, the recognized heiress to Castile, despite the opposition of her brother, Henry IV of Castile. This marriage led to the union of Castile and Aragon and the creation of the modern state of Spain. In Aragon, John's rule deepened the rift between Aragon proper and Catalonia. Additional reading Sources are the contemporary chronicler Rui de Pina, Croniqua Delrey Dom Joham II (1792; modern edition by Alberto Martins de Carvalho, 1950), whose version is borrowed and amplified by Garcia de Resende. A biography in English is that of Elaine Sanceau, The Perfect Prince (1959).