Benedict IX. Accused of several crimes during his pontificate, including incest and murder, Benedict had a habit of seducing young men in the Lateran Palace. Just for kicks, he also liked to attend orgies and engage in bestiality sessions. Due to his poor reputation and eleventh century upheaval, he is the only pope to serve more than one pontificate. All That Is Interesting. Time.
2. Benedict IX Liked the Occasional Bestiality Session to Spice Up His Sex Life
At only twenty years old, the election of Pope Benedict IX in 1032 elected one of the youngest popes to the throne of St. Peter. Already a wealthy man through the patronage of his two uncles, Pope Benedict VIII and Pope John XIX, Benedict IX’s father bought his papal crown, appointing an immature, licentious youth to the throne of St. Peter. Benedict IX’s sexual antics became the scandal of eleventh century Rome. You can’t be called “a demon from hell in the disguise of a priest” if you don’t engage in a little sinful behavior.
In addition to seducing young boys in the Lateran Palace, his contemporaries accused him of theft, rape, and murder. To spice things up, Benedict enjoyed orgies and bestiality sessions. The Romans tolerated him for twelve years before they exiled him from the city in 1044. Two months into the reign of his successor, Benedict returned to Rome. In the only example of the same man serving as pope more than once throughout history, Benedict excommunicated his replacement and took back the papacy, starting his second pontificate with as much sexual debauchery as the first.
By May 1045, the city of Rome hated the pope so much that he sold the papal chair to his godfather, who took the name Pope Gregory VI. Benedict retired from religious life, marrying his cousin. Two years later, the restless Benedict launched yet another return to the papacy. The people of Rome had enough of the pope’s antics the third time around, the memories of his first two terms recalling the “Pornocracy” of previous years. The population exiled him from the city permanently. One of Benedict’s successors, Pope Victor III criticized Benedict “as a pope was so vile, so foul, so execrable, that I shudder to think of it.”
Pope Boniface VIII. When the domineering Boniface VIII wasn’t badgering medieval European monarchs to bend to his will, he enjoyed sexual escapades with both sexes. Ironically, Dante condemned him to the eight circle of Hell in his Inferno for simony, not his other activities. Papal Artifacts.
1. The Bisexual Boniface VIII Took Male Lovers and Had a Threesome with a Mother and Daughter
Boniface VIII’s papacy was so brutal and scandalous that it was immortalized in classic literature. In 1294, he badgered his predecessor, the morally infallible Celestine V, into resigning; after his election, Boniface threw Celestine into prison, where he died less than a year later. Known for his volatile temper, Boniface bullied Rome and the powers of Europe into acknowledging his authority in both religious and secular matters. If they refused to comply, he burned their cities to the ground.
The pope’s open view of sexuality made him the talk of medieval Europe. The bisexual Boniface liked to seduce young boys, allegedly declaring that sodomy “was no more a sin than rubbing your hands together.” Two of his male lovers publicly quarreled on the streets of Rome, fighting over which one the pope loved more and who received the finer gifts. Most importantly, they argued over which one of them had the right to call himself “the Pope’s whore.”
Pope Boniface VIII did enjoy some dalliances with women, so much so that he had two at one time. He reportedly had regular ménage-a-trois sessions with a mother and a daughter. According to his contemporaries, the pope broke the cardinal sins of incest and adultery and violated his vow of celibacy, all in one turn. After his death in 1303, the result of a kidnapping and beating by his enemies, Boniface’s name endured for his appearance in Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy. As shocking as the pope’s sexual escapades were to medieval society, the author condemned him to the eighth circle of Hell for simony.
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