6. Sergius III Took His Cousin’s 15-year-old Daughter as His Mistress
At the beginning of the tenth century, a period known as the saeculum obscurum, the nobleman Theophylactus and his wife Theodora ruled the city of Rome. The papacy had no real power under the influence of the elite Theophylacti family. In 904, the ruler’s cousin Sergius invaded with an army, murdering anyone who stood in his path. With the power of the noble family and his soldiers behind him, he took control of the papacy, electing himself Pope Sergius III.
With such a violent beginning to his pontificate, Sergius shouldn’t have been surprised when two pretenders, the Antipope Christopher and Leo V, challenged him for the papal seat. The ruthless pope arrested them and executed them. After dispatching his enemies, the former nobleman embraced the trappings of wealth and power that came with his new position. Sergius frequently indulged in prostitutes, and his cardinals whispered that the pope was “the slave of every vice.” Just because he was pope didn’t mean he couldn’t have a little fun.
As if prostitutes in the Lateran Palace wasn’t shocking enough, the pope took his cousin’s fifteen-year-old daughter, Marozia, as his lover. In his late forties, the pope was thirty years older than her. Marozia gave birth to a son, who would later become pope himself, John XI. Despite his young mistress, Sergius continued to indulge in sexual excess until his death in 911. Later nineteenth-century Protestant historians ridiculed his reign, naming it “The Pornocracy.”
