The alleged story of the crown and papal legate authority given to Stephen I of Hungary by Sylvester in the year 1000 (hence the title 'Apostolic King') is noted by the 19th-century historian Lewis L. Kropf as a possible forgery of the 17th century.
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At Benevento he received investiture and the pallium from Pope Sylvester II on 9 July 999, and on the following Christmas Day he was consecrated at Cologne.
Born in Hildesheim, he was made an archdeacon by 998 and was appointed to the see of Vercelli as the candidate of the Emperor Otto III and Pope Sylvester II following the assassination of Bishop Peter.
After his death, it was rumored that John XXI had actually been a magician (a suspicion frequently directed towards the few scholars among medieval popes even during their papacy; cf. Sylvester II), and that he was writing a heretical treatise in the room that collapsed on him, by an Act of God.