But it was not strong enough to govern Rome, as it had done after Justinian's conquest, and the
papacy became, for about a hundred years, a perquisite of the Roman aristocracy or of the
counts of Tusculum. The most powerful Romans, at the beginning of the tenth century, were the
"Senator" Theophylact and his daughter Marozia, in whose family the papacy nearly became
hereditary. Marozia had several husbands in succession, and an unknown number of lovers.
One of the latter she elevated to the papacy, under the title of Sergius II ( 904-911). His and her
son was Pope John XI ( 931-936); her grandson was John XII ( 955-964), who became Pope at
the age of sixteen and "completed the debasement of the papacy by his debauched life and the
orgies of which the Lateran palace soon became the scene." * Marozia is presumably the basis
for the legend of a female "Pope Joan."
The popes of this period naturally lost whatever influence their predecessors had retained in the
East. They lost also the power, which Nicholas I had successfully exercised, over bishops north
of the Alps. Provincial councils asserted their complete independence of the Pope, but they
failed to maintain independence of sovereigns and feudal lords. Bishops, more and more,
became assimilated to lay feudal magnates. "The Church itself thus appears as the victim of the
same anarchy in which lay society is weltering; all evil appetites range unchecked, and, more
than ever, such of the clergy as still retain some concern for religion and for the salvation of the
souls committed to their charge mourn over the universal decadence and direct the eyes of the
faithful towards the spectre of the end of the world and of the Last Judgment." â€
It is a mistake, however, to suppose that a special dread of the end of the world in the year 1000
prevailed at this time, as used to be thought. Christians, from Saint Paul onward, believed the
end of the world to be at hand, but they went on with their ordinary business none the less.
The year 1000 may be conveniently taken as marking the end of the lowest depth to which the
civilization of Western Europe sank. From this point the upward movement began which
continued till 1914. In the beginning, progress was mainly due to monastic reform. Outside the
monastic orders, the clergy had become, for the most
* Cambridge Medieval History, III, 455.â
€
Ibid.