4. John XII Died in His Mistress’s Bed
After the death of John X, Marozia seized control of Rome and the papacy. She installed three puppet popes, including her son, John XI. Fed up with her antics, her other son, Alberic II, imprisoned her, and he took control of the city. On his deathbed in 954, he gathered the clergy and the nobility, convincing them to support his illegitimate son, Octavianus, as the next pope. The following year, Octavianus was elected Pope John XII.
In his first years as pope, the people of Rome accused John XII of incest, murder, and rape. John used the papal treasury as his personal spending account to finance his many vices. He indulged in the city’s prostitutes, housing many of them in the Lateran Palace for his own pleasure. When he wasn’t in his brothel, John seduced Roman widows and kidnapped female pilgrims on their way to St. Peter’s Basilica. As stories of his inclinations spread throughout Europe, the number of women traveling on pilgrimage significantly decreased.
The pope was a man ruled by his passions. Lavishing wealth and power on one of his mistresses, he made her governor of Rome. No woman was safe from John’s lust. When he seduced his father’s long-time mistress, she became pregnant, and she bled to death during childbirth. After almost a decade of his sexual antics, Pope John XII died in the bed of his latest mistress. Although the Church records state that he died of a stroke, other sources claim that the woman’s husband broke into the room and caught the lovers together. The cuckolded husband beat John to death in a jealous rage.