bad popes bad popes whachagonnado
what i learned from the book Bad Popes: if you really hate someone, become their biographer, and hope they become famous.
context: apparently one pope who went by the stage name John XII made a personal enemy of a bishop named Liutprand, the latter who then devoted his life to writing down every single accusation against the young (18 when he started) pontiff. there were a few other people who briefly documented a scandal here and scandal there, but since the Liutprand story is the only extended one that survived, guess who gets cited the most
now, we know that some what Liutprand wrote is exaggerated, but seeing as this happened 1000+ years ago, in what historians refer to as the “pre-twitter” era, it’s hard to refute it. as so his version of the story is included with a little “unverified” footnote in every document about John12. so now we have unverified accusations of the pope summoning demons to help him in gambling and equally unverified accusations of him eventually dying when a husband caught said pope sleeping with his wife and beat him to death.
don’t get me wrong, this pope does come across as something of a bad person overall so don’t feel too much pity for the guy, but man did the cardinal get the last laugh here.
well, sort of. they’re both dead i guess so it can’t matter that much. in any case: if you hate someone, learn to write biographies well. who knows, you might become the topmost source on their life.