Titans of History

At fifteen Marozia became Pope Sergius III’s mistress, producing a bastard son, later Pope John XI. In 909 she married Alberic, marquess of Spoleto, producing another son, Alberic II. The senatrix of Rome was now the most powerful of a dominant aristocracy. After Alberic I was killed, she became mistress of the reigning Pope John X, a tough and intelligent man, who resisted her control. (He had been a lover of her mother’s too.) He defeated the Saracens but Marozia came to hate him: she turned against him, marrying his enemy Guy of Tuscany. Together they conquered Rome, imprisoning the pope. Marozia had John X (914–928) strangled in the Castel Sant’Angelo and then seized power for herself, ruling through her puppet popes Leo VI and Stephen VIII before raising her own papal bastard to the throne of St. Peter as John XI, at age twenty-one, in 931. Widowed again, Marozia married Hugh of Arles, king of Italy, with whom she ruled. (Hugh was already married; his wife conveniently died, another victim of Marozia no doubt.) The couple were overthrown by her son Duke Alberic II, who imprisoned his mother until her death. Alberic ruled Rome through four popes. When the fourth resisted him, he was tortured to death. Alberic, on his own deathbed, demanded that his bastard son Octavian be made pope.

Reigning 955–964, Octavian, known as Pope John XII, grandson of Marozia, was the most shameful pontiff to lead the Christian Church, the antithesis of Christian virtues. He lived a private life of brazen immorality, turning the Vatican into a brothel. His behavior was duplicitous, cruel and foolish—he and his grandmother personified the papal “pornocracy” of the first half of the tenth century. Fittingly, he finally brought about his own downfall through his insatiable depravity.

On December 16, 955, Octavian became the highest authority in the Christian Church, both the spiritual and temporal ruler of Rome at only eighteen years old, renaming himself John XII.

Through his mother Alda of Vienne he was a descendant of Charlemagne, but he showed none of the virtues expected of a pope. His private life was a litany of sin. Disdaining the celibacy his position required, he was a rampant adulterer, fornicating with literally hundreds of women, including his father’s concubine Stephna. The sacred Lateran Palace, once the abode of saints, became a whorehouse, in which lounged hundreds of prostitutes, ready to serve his sexual whims. John had incestuous relations with two of his sisters.

Throughout his reign, John’s fortunes were interwoven with those of the German King Otto I the Great, a friend of the Church to whom John appealed for help after suffering defeat in a war against Duke Pandulf of Capua, and then losing the Papal States to King Berengarius of Italy. Otto arrived in Italy with his powerful army, forcing Berengarius to back down. On reaching Rome in late January 962, Otto took an oath of allegiance to recognize John’s authority, and on February 2, 962 John crowned Otto Holy Roman Emperor, along with his wife, Queen Adelaide, whom he made empress.

This powerful alliance was of benefit to both John and Otto but each immediately set about struggling to dominate the other. Shortly after Otto was crowned emperor, he issued his “Ottonian Privilege,” a treaty that promised to recognize the Pope’s claim to the bulk of central Italy in exchange for a pledge that all future popes would only be consecrated after they had sworn allegiance to the holy Roman emperor. However, when Otto left Rome on February 14, 962 to continue his war against King Berengarius, John—fearful of Otto’s strength—began secret negotiations with Berengarius’ son Adalbert to rise up against him, and sent letters to other European rulers, encouraging them to do the same. However German troops intercepted these letters, the plot was laid bare, and if John had any hopes of placating the furious Otto, these soon ended. After John received Adalbert in Rome with great ceremony, bishops and nobles sympathetic to the German king rebelled. On November 2, 963, John was forced to flee Rome as Otto re-entered the city.

While John hid in the mountains of Campania, Otto convened a panel of fifty bishops in St. Peter’s Basilica, who compiled a list of political and personal charges against him. These ranged from sacrilege (swearing oaths and toasting the devil with wine) to adultery, perjury and even murder (he was accused of blinding his confessor, Benedict, leading to his death, and of castrating and murdering his cardinal subdeacon). The excesses of his private life had also led him into flagrant abuses of his office, including simony—bestowing bishoprics and other ecclesiastical titles in return for payments—in order to pay his extensive gambling debts.