286 FOUKTH PERIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
gaged in a fierce contest for power with Marozia and her lover or husband, the Marquis Alberic I. Unwilling to yield any of her secular power over Rome, Marozia seized the Castle of St. Angelo, had John cast into prison and smothered to death, and raised three of her creatures, Leo VI., Stephen VII. (VIII.), and at last John XI., her own (bastard) son of only twenty-one years, successively to the papal chair (928-936). l
After the murder of Alberic I. (about 926), Marozia, who called herself Senatrix and Patricia, offered her hand and as much of her love as she could spare from her numerous para mours, to Guido, Markgrave of Tuscany, who eagerly accepted the prize ; and after his death she married king Hugo of Italy, the step-brother of her late husband (932) ; he hoped to gain the imperial crown, but he was soon expelled from Rome by a rebellion excited by her own son Alberic II., who took offence at his overbearing conduct for slapping him in the face.2 She now disappears from the stage, and probably died in a convent. Her son, the second Alberic, was raised by the Romans to the dig nity of Consul, and ruled Rome and the papacy from the Castle of St. Angelo for twenty-two years with great ability as a despot under the forms of a republic (932-954). After the death of his brother, John XI. (936), he appointed four insignificant pontiffs, and restricted them to the performance of their religious duties.
1 Liutprand, Antapodosis III. 43 (Migne, I.e., 852) : "Papam [John X.] custodia maniciparunt, in qua non multo post est defunctus ; aiunt enim quod cervical super os eius imponerent, sicque eum pessime suffocarent. Quo mortuo ipsius Marotice filium Johannem nomine [John XL] quern ex Sergio papa meretrix genueratt papam constituunt." The parentage of John XI. from pope Sergius is adopted by Gregorovius, Diimmler, Greenwood, and Baxmann, but disputed by Muratori, Hefele, and Gfrorer, who maintain that John XI. was the son of Marozia's husband, Alberic L, if they ever were imrried. For, according to Benedict of Soracte, Marozia accepted him "non quasi uxor, sed in consuetud,inem malignam" Albericus Marchio was an adventurer before he became Markgrave, about 897, and must not be confounded with Albertus Marchio or Adalbert the Rich of Tuscany. See Gregorovius, III. 275; von Keumont, II. 228, 231, and the genealogical tables in Hofler, Vol. L, Append. V. and VI.
2 See the account in Liutprand III. 44.
63. DEGRADATION OF THE PAPACY IX TENTH CENTURY. 287
JOHN XII.
On the death of Alberic in 954, his son Octavian, the grand son of Marozia, inherited the secular government of Home, and was elected pope when only eighteen years of age. He thus united a double supremacy. He retained his name Octavian as civil ruler, but assumed, as pope, the name John XII., either by compulsion of the clergy and people, or because he wished to secure more license by keeping the two dignities distinct, This is the first example of such a change of name, and it was followed by his successors. He completely sunk his spiritual in his secular character, appeared in military dress, and neglected the duties of the papal office, though he surrendered none of its claims.
John XII. disgraced the tiara for eight years (955-963). He was one of the most immoral and wicked popes, ranking with Benedict IX., John XXIII., and Alexander VI. He was charged by a Roman Synod, no one contradicting, with almost every crime of which depraved human nature is capable, and deposed as a monster of iniquity.1
1 Among the charge of the Synod against him were that he appeared con stantly armed with sword, lance, helmet, and breastplate, that he neglected matins and vespers, that he never signed himself with the sign of the cross, that he was fond of hunting, that he had made a boy of ten years a bishop, and or dained a bishop or deacon in a stable, that he had mutilated a priest, that he had set houses on fire, like Nero, that he had committed homicide and adultery, had violated virgins and widows high and low, lived with his father's mistress, con verted the pontifical palace into a brothel, drank to the health of the devil, and invoked at the gambling-table the help of Jupiter and Venus and other heathen demons ! The emperor Otho would not believe these enormities until they were proven, but the bishops replied, that they were matters of public notoriety requiring no proof. Before the Synod convened John XII. had made his escape from Rome, carrying with him the portable part of the treasury of St. Peter. But after the departure of the emperor he was readmitted to the city, restored for a short time, and killed in an act of adultery (" dum se cum viri cujusdam uxore oblectarct"} by the enraged husband of his paramour, or by the devil ("a diabolo cst percussus"}. Liutprand, DC rebus gestis Ottonis (in Migne, Tom. XXXVI. 898-910). Hefele (IV. 619) thinks that he died of apoplexy.