In 933 Pope John XI granted the bishops of Bari the use of the "pallium". It seems that the bishops were dependent on the Eastern Ecumenical Patriarch until the 10th century. Archbishop Giovanni II (952) was able to withdraw from this influence, refusing to accept the prescriptions of the patriarch concerning liturgical points. All connection with the Eastern Churches was finally severed during the eleventh century, as Bari became a direct ecclesiastical dependency of Rome. So before the 10th c was over, the top ranking Orthodox episcopal dignitary throughout Byzantine Italy, became the archbishop of Melfi, in spite of Bari remaining the center of Byzantine authority in the area, as the seat of the katepano of Italia until the capture of the city by the Normans in 1071.