PAPAL MISTRESSES: THEODORA AND MAROZIA THEOPHYLACT

Theodora and Marozia Theophylact were a mother-and-daughter team of mistresses who had papal lovers. These women became so politically powerful that, unlike millions of anonymous “Marthas,” contemporary accounts, mostly venomous, describe them in some detail. In 890, Theodora and her husband, Theophylact, moved from the charming old Etruscan city of Tusculum to Rome, fifteen miles away. Theophylact was a courageous and capable man who became a senator, a judge and lastly a duke responsible for the papal finances and the Roman militia. Theodora, too, was named a senator.

But Theodora aspired to more than fluttering around the papal flame in a state where the pope was the paramount leader. Her dream was to establish a family dynasty she could manipulate so she herself could rule Rome. Apparently, Theophylact shared her vision. Together, the Theophylacts maneuvered the man known to history as Sergius III, whom they had supported when his party was in exile, into the papacy.

The deal between Sergius and the Theophylacts included giving Sergius their fifteen-year-old daughter, Marozia, as his concubine. Marozia was already ripening into a woman of legendary beauty, and she and Sergius began a steamy sexual relationship. Soon, she bore him a son. After ushering her nubile daughter into Sergius’s bed, Theodora consolidated her position and soon controlled the papal court. In 911, when Sergius died after only seven years in office, Theodora cleverly averted the usual bloody wars of succession by arranging for her nominee, Anastasius III, to take office. When Anastasius died, in 913, she promptly undertook to have Lando installed, and he survived until 914.

It happened that Theodora had fallen rapturously in love with a younger man, Bishop John of Ravenna. Lando’s death inspired her to catapult John into the papacy. He would move permanently to Rome, and not only satisfy her erotic needs but allow her to continue as the éminence grise behind the papal throne. For this “monstrous crime” of forcing her lover to become Pope John X, the much-quoted historian Liudprant condemned Theodora as a “harlot.”8

With John, Theodora became well and truly ensconced in the papal power structure. He proved much longer-lasting and more industrious than her previous puppets. He also worked harmoniously with Theophylact, her cooperative husband, to create a coalition of Italian rulers under the papacy.

Shortly after John’s installation, Theodora turned her attention to her widowed daughter. Marozia was still a highly marketable commodity, and Theodora gave her in marriage to Alberic, Marquis of Camerino. As she had been with Pope Sergius, Marozia was her parents’ reward for services rendered. Alberic was a German soldier of fortune whose band of veterans had been vital to the newly united Italian allies. As their son-in-law, Alberic joined Theodora and Theophylact in the family palace on the Aventine Hill, and he continued to provide essential military protection.

Sometime before 924, Theodora and her husband died; how, where or when we are not certain. By their society’s standards, they had carved out extraordinary lives, Theodora especially. The Theophylact dynasty thrived, and together, Theodora’s husband and her lover and accomplice, Pope John X, facilitated her mission of governance. As a mistress and a wife, Theodora succeeded in doing what few women can, uniting and dominating the two men closest to her, and doing so openly, impervious to the consternation of her compatriots. Her men were intelligent, capable and brave. They shared her dreams and treated her with respect; indeed, they honored her with their personal and professional trust.

But all was not well between Marozia and Pope John. After her parents’ death, Marozia headed the powerful Theophylact dynasty. Unlike them, she was not interested in sharing power with Pope John, their ally. Instead, she pitted herself against him in bitter rivalry. In 924, when Alberic was instrumental in repelling a Saracen attack, Marozia took the credit. At men closest to her, and doing so openly, impervious to the consternation of her compatriots. Her men were intelligent, capable and brave. They shared her dreams and treated her with respect; indeed, they honored her with their personal and professional trust.

But all was not well between Marozia and Pope John. After her parents’ death, Marozia headed the powerful Theophylact dynasty. Unlike them, she was not interested in sharing power with Pope John, their ally. Instead, she pitted herself against him in bitter rivalry. In 924, when Alberic was instrumental in repelling a Saracen attack, Marozia took the credit. At the same time, she seemed to dislike Alberic as a husband, and cheated on him with a series of lovers. But these men satisfied only her erotic desires, not her personal ambitions. To achieve those ambitions, Marozia cast her lot with John, her bastard son by Pope Sergius.

Just as Theodora had envisaged a political dynasty, Marozia contemplated a hereditary papacy, with John as its first pope. But this required getting rid of the incumbent pope, her mother’s former lover. Marozia accomplished this by divesting herself of Alberic and marrying the brother of Pope John’s military. Then, urged on by enthusiastic Romans, she and her new husband’s army orchestrated a siege of the gateway to the Vatican. At last Pope John capitulated, and was thrust into a dungeon, where he died, either starved to death or strangled.

Theodora, the mistress who had loved him, would have been appalled and grieved, but Marozia had no regrets. Instead, she placed two acolytes on the throne of Saint Peter until her son John turned twenty. Then she arranged his installation as Pope John XI, and continued to administer Rome in both its temporal and spiritual dimensions.

With her son ensconced as pope, Marozia no longer needed her new husband and had him murdered. Then, for militarily strategic reasons, she proposed marriage to his brother, a married man notorious for his court’s brothel-like ambiance. He quickly accepted her offer and “arranged” to become a widower. The pope, Marozia’s dissolute and docile son, officiated at their wedding. But during the wedding feast, Alberic, Marozia’s legitimate son, an astute and resourceful teenager, publicly denounced his treacherous, unloving mother and her consort. “The majesty of Rome has sunk to such depths that now she obeys the orders of harlots. Could there be anything viler than that the city of Rome should be brought to ruin by the impurities of one woman?” he bellowed.9

Rome heeded Alberic’s warnings, and mobs of citizens stormed the castle. Marozia’s bridegroom scrambled down a rope over the walls, and fled. Marozia was not so fortunate. Her rebellious people captured her, and though Alberic shrank from killing her, she was too dangerous to release. Instead, he imprisoned her in the bowels of the castle and kept her there until she died months later, unregretted and unmourned.

Marozia’s fate was horrible: entombed by her own child in dank darkness, untouched by the hot sun or fresh breezes and guarded by incorruptible men she could neither seduce, coerce nor persuade to free her. As she languished there, she must have rained curses onto Alberic’s head—all in vain. For above ground, the popular young man reclaimed the temporal power from his unfit brother, leaving him only ceremonial papal duties to attend to.

On his deathbed, Alberic begged his noblemen to elect his son, Octavian, to the papacy. They did so, and thereby ensured Marozia’s extraordinary legacy as the woman who, as mistress to a pope, spawned an entire line of popes, an irony she would likely have appreciated. Marozia’s life was not easy. Her parents had valued her only as a tradable asset, and impounded her into mistressdom. After Sergius died, they imposed Alberic on her. After their deaths finally freed her from their control, Marozia flouted convention and sold herself as she had been sold.

But Marozia went much further than her ambitious mother. She killed and she kept faith with no one, including her husbands or the younger son who was to be her nemesis. And as mistress and mother to popes, Marozia seemed devoid of spiritual conviction, piety or belief in anything other than her own venal world.

NOTES

7 The main sources for this section are E. R. Chamberlin, The Bad Popes (New York: The Dial Press, 1969); F. L. Glaser (ed.), Pope Alexander and His Court (New York: Nicholas L.Brown, 1921); Horace K. Mann, The Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, & Co., 1910); Arnold H. Mathew, The Life and Times of Rodrigo Borgia (London: Stanley Paul & Co., 1912); Peter Stanford, The She-Pope: A Quest for the Truth Behind the Mystery of Pope Joan (London: Heineman, 1998). 
8 Chamberlin, 29. 
9 Ibid., 37.

By Elizabeth Abbott in "Mistresses, A History of the Other Woman", Overlook Press, UK/USA, 2010. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa. 

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