History of the Christian Church, Volume IV: Mediaeval Christianity. A.D. 590-1073.

(Rick Simeone) #1

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.^280


§ 64. The Interference of Otho the Great.
Comp., besides the works quoted in § 63, Floss: Die Papstwahl unter den Ottonen. Freiburg, 1858,
and Köpke and Dummler: Otto der Grosse. Leipzig, 1876.
From this state of infamy the papacy was rescued for a brief time by the interference of Otho
I., justly called the Great (936973). He had subdued the Danes, the Slavonians, and the Hungarians,
converted the barbarians on the frontier, established order and restored the Carolingian empire. He
was called by the pope himself and several Italian princes for protection against the oppression of
king Berengar II. (or the Younger, who was crowned in 950, and died in exile, 966). He crossed
the Alps, and was anointed Roman emperor by John XII. in 962. He promised to return to the holy
see all the lost territories granted by Pepin and Charlemagne, and received in turn from the pope
and the Romans the oath of allegiance on the sepulchre of St. Peter.
Hereafter the imperial crown of Rome was always held by the German nation, but the legal
assumption of the titles of Emperor and Augustus depended on the act of coronation by the pope.
After the departure of Otho the perfidious pope, unwilling to obey a superior master, rebelled
and entered into conspiracy with his enemies. The emperor returned to Rome, convened a Synod
of Italian and German bishops, which indignantly deposed John XII. in his absence, on the ground


of most notorious crimes, yet without a regular trial (963).^281
The emperor and the Synod elected a respectable layman, the chief secretary of the Roman
see, in his place. He was hurriedly promoted through the orders of reader, subdeacon, deacon, priest


(^280) Among the charges of the Synod against him were that he appeared constantly 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 ordained 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, converted 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 oblectaret") by the enraged husband of his paramour. or by, the devil ("a diabolo
est percussus"). Liutprand, De rebus gestis Ottonis (in Migne, Tom. XXXVI. 898-910). Hefele (IV. 619) thinks that he died of
apoplexy.
(^281) A full account of this Synod see in Liutprand, De rebus gestis Ottonis, and in Baronius, Annal. ad ann 963. Comp.
also Greenwood, Bk VIII. ch. 12, Gfrörer, vol. III., p. iii., 1249 sqq., Giesebrecht, I. 465 and 828, and Hefele, IV. 612 sqq.
Gfrörer, without defending John XII., charges Otho with having first violated the engagement (p. 1253). The pope was three
times summoned before the Synod, but the answer came from Tivoli that he had gone hunting. Baronius, Floss, and Hefele
regard this synod as uncanonical.

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