2023-10-03 02:04:34
En un periodo baptizado como ‘saeculum obscura’ (‘Edad Obscura’) desfilaron por el throne of saint peter a total of 48 popes in just over 150 years (from 880 to 1046). Treason, murder and purchase of positions monopolized the daily life of rome. However, the period corresponding to the 9th and 10th centuries deserved its own name, ‘porngrace’, because different women (called courtesans in a derogatory way) handled the appointment of the pontiffs in the shadows.
As he collected in his ‘Ecclesiastical Annals’ the 16th century cardinal and historian Caesar Baronius, the women’s period was known because of the dark origins of these women but not because they were actually prostitutes. The first made the leap into politics after the very brief papacy of Leo V, in 903, when Pope Sergius III obtained the position through assassination and with the support of the Italian nobility, especially the Spoloto, who were related to a young woman named Marozia.
Marozia was the daughter of an influential noblewoman named Theodora and the Roman senator Theophylact I, although other sources claim that her real father was Pope John X. Becoming the lover of Sergius III, she influenced the Pope so that her family received different positions and perks. These bad influences and her authoritarianism caused great discontent among the ecclesiastics, despite which there was a certain respite compared to the previous and turbulent papacies.
Sergius III died naturally in the year 911 after occupying the place of Saint Peter for seven years. Below – as Luis Jiménez Alcaide reviews in his book ‘The Popes who marked History’ (Editorial Almuzara, 2014)–, Teodora and her daughter Marozia were in charge of elevating the following pontiffs to Rome, weak and of little influence.
Teodora and the Spoletos rule in Rome
After the death of Sergius III, these two women directly or indirectly influenced the next three pontiffs: Anastatius III (911-913), Lando (died after 6 months) and John X, in 914. The senator chose John X because they believed that it could be favorable to their interests and more moldable. Between myth and reality, it is considered that Teodora had been Juan X’s lover years before he carried the throne of Saint Peter and that he had paid with the papal crown for all his past love. Not in vain, Juan warned from the first moment that the Saracen tide constituted an imminent danger for Rome and that she did not have time to pay favors. After convincing the Italian nobles to carry out a raid against the Muslims, John X personally led the troops that expelled the Muslims from Italy in the year 915.
Drawing made by Franco Mistrali of what Marozia could have looked like. ABC
As a result of the campaign against the Saracens, John X distanced himself from the Spoletos and from those two women of excessive ambition. With the support of the people, the Pope managed to remove the Spoleto of Rome. But that gesture cost her dearly… Marozia’s second husband, Guido, Marquis of Tuscia, led a handful of armed people against the Lateran palace and imprisoned the Pope in Sant’Angelo, then took his life by suffocating him under a pillow.
After her mother died, Marozia, called ‘the Donna Senatrix’, became without discussion the mistress and mistress of Rome. Marozia had the pontifical tiara given first to Leo VI, who did not reign for more than six months when he disappeared under strange circumstances; and then to Esteban VIIa straw Pope who is said to have had his nose and ears cut off for defying ‘the Donna Senatrix’ and since then did not go out on the streets, dying under unclear circumstances in 931.
Papas lover, Papas mother, granddaughter?
Marozia used these two straw men in order to stall until her son, the future John XIwill reach an acceptable age to be elevated to the throne of Saint Peter. This young man, who seized power when he was only 20 years old, was the son of Marozia and supposedly of Pope Sergius III, although other authors suggest that her father was actually her first husband, an Italian nobleman named Alberico. .
With a son at the head of the Western Church, what more could that woman who called herself ‘Domna Senatrix’ and dominated the Vatican and half of Italy from her castle of Sant’Angelo ask for? Well, the Holy Roman Empire. Widowed again, Marozia decided to marry Hugo of Provence for the third time, who reigned in northern Italy and also coveted the crown of the Empire. In March of the year 932, King Hugo entered Rome ready to celebrate the wedding with the greatest magnificence and the hope of soon becoming emperor.
The wedding ceremony took place in the castle of Sant’Angelo presided over by the pontiff. Unfortunately for her plans, during the banquet another of Marozia’s sons, the heir from her marriage to Alberico, Alberic II, showed his discontent regarding the relationship by insulting his stepfather. Following the incident, Alberic II mutinied the people of Rome against Marozia and Hugh, who had left his escort outside the city walls. Hugo rushed down a rope ladder from a window, but Marozia fell prisoner to her own son, as well as Pope John XI. And nothing more was heard of the ‘Domna Senatrix’. Yes, on the other hand, of John XI, who after his time in prison was deprived of all political power. He limited himself to acting from now on in purely ecclesiastical matters.
#powerful #women #led #Church #shadows