Ioannes 247 was a deacon of the church at Rome ("diaconus quidam Iohannes ipsius ecclesiae"); after the election of Sergius II (Sergios 60) as bishop of Rome in 844, Ioannes, with the support of an ignorant and rustic crowd joined by lawless elements, broke into the papal palace at Rome and occupied it; however within an hour the mob had taken fright and vanished and he was abandoned; the authorities then conveyed Sergios 60 in triumph to the Lateran palace and Ioannes 247 was removed in disgrace and imprisoned; he was then stripped of his title and was in peril of his life until the pope intervened to save him: Lib. Pont. 104. 5-6. The language of this passage is modelled on the description in Rufinus, Historia Ecclesiastica (ed. M. Simonetti, Turnhout, 1961) II 10, of the deacon Ursinus's actions when Damasus became pope (cf. Duchesne, Lib. Pont. II, p. 101, n. 2).

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