John XII Turned the Papal Palace Into a Whorehouse, and Died While Having Sex
Long before Jude Law played a scandalous pope in the television series The Young Pope, history’s actual youngest Pope ever, John XII (937 – 964), led a papacy that was even more scandalous in real life. He was elevated to the Holy See in 955 at age 18, and unsurprisingly, making a callow teenager pope did not turn out well. His years as Holy Father were as farcical and venal as one could expect from a person thrust into a position of power and influence for which he was clearly unprepared and unqualified.
Scandal attended John XII while he was still in the womb. Born Octavianus, he was the product of an incestuous union between Rome’s most powerful figure, Alberic II, Duke of Spoleto, a self-styled “Prince of Rome”, and his stepsister. In 954, shortly before his death, Alberic extracted an oath from Rome’s aristocracy to appoint his son Octavianus pope the next time the position became vacant. When Pope Agapetus II died in 955, Octavianus was duly elected to succeed him, and chose for himself the regnal name John XII.
This real life Young Pope showed little interest in his spiritual duties and papal obligations. By then his father, Duke Alberic, the only person who might have checked him, had died. The teenaged John XII thus found himself in a position of great power, and with access to great wealth, riches, and resources, without any adult guidance or supervision. He reacted like many teenagers would in similar circumstances, by recklessly diving headfirst into a life of depravity and the pursuit of pleasure. He was particularly devoted to hunting, gambling, wine, and women, and he had a habit of toasting the devil and invoking pagan gods during dice games.
As one historian put it, John XII’s pontificate: “became infamous for the alleged depravity and worldliness with which he conducted it“. Among other things, he started selling church offices and titles to help defray the costs of his lavish spending, and on at least one occasion, he ordained a 10 year old as a bishop. He had so little respect for the dignity of church offices, that he once ordained a deacon in a stable. He was also a violent psychopath, who reportedly castrated a deacon before killing him, and when his own confessor angered him, he blinded him before killing him.
As to licentiousness, contemporaries described him as having turned the Lateran Palace into a brothel. It was not just the calumny of political opponents, but a charge for which there is historical support. There is a near unanimous consensus by historians of the period that John XII was a dissolute pope who had many women in his palace, which became notorious for its orgies and drunken parties.
He got a particular kick out of defiling holy sites by having sex in them. He had sex with both women and men in the papal palace, and if visitors refused his advances, he went ahead and raped them anyhow. This pope carried on with one of his deceased father’s mistresses, with his own niece, and reportedly with his two younger sisters as well.
After a tumultuous and riotous nine years on the papal throne, this Holy Father finally died as he lived, doing what he liked most: he met his Maker while having sex. There are two accounts of John XII’s death. One account has him dying after suffering a massive stroke while having sex. Another account has him dying while having an adulterous sexual encounter, when the woman’s cuckolded husband burst in on the couple and killed the pope.