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Really Inappropriate Deaths in History

Khalid Elhassan December 19, 2020 32 min

14. A Pope Born From a Duke Loving Up His Stepsister

It was perhaps apt that John XII became history’s most scandalous pope, considering that scandal had attended him while he was still in the womb. Born Octavianus in 937, he was the product of an incestuous relationship between Rome’s most powerful figure, Alberic II, Duke of Spoleto, a self-styled “Prince of Rome”, who was fond of loving up his stepsister.

In 954, not long before his death, Alberic made Rome’s aristocrats swear an oath to appoint his son pope the next time the position became vacant. The promise was kept, and when Pope Agapetus II died in 955, Octavianus was duly elected to succeed him. He chose John XII as his regnal name.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.