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Really Inappropriate Deaths in History

Khalid Elhassan December 19, 2020 32 min

9. Deposition and Restoration of a Maniac Pope Obsessed With Carnal Loving

The new Holy Roman Emperor got wind of Pope John XII’s ingratitude, so he turned his armies around, and marched back to Rome. The flesh-loving maniac pope fled the city, taking the papal treasury with him. So Otto summoned a synod, which deposed the fugitive Holy Father in 963, and installed a puppet pope in his place: Leo VIII.

However, when Otto left Rome the following year, John XII returned to Rome with an army of mercenaries. He captured the city in February of 964, and Leo VIII was forced to flee and seek safety with Emperor Otto. John XII then summoned a synod of his own, which pronounced that his deposition had been illegal, and that he was still pope. The restored pope then proceeded to murder and mutilate as many of his enemies as he could lay his hands on.

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.