Pope John XII
937 CE–964 CE · Rome
John XII, born Octavian, was the son of Alberic II and became pope around age eighteen, uniting Rome's secular and spiritual rule in one young man. He is pivotal: facing the threat of Berengar II, he invited Otto I of Germany to Italy and in 962 crowned him emperor, inaugurating the Holy Roman Empire and the Ottonian-papal relationship. Their alliance soon soured; Otto convened a synod that deposed John on grave moral and political charges, drawn chiefly from the hostile testimony of Liutprand of Cremona. John briefly returned to power before dying suddenly in 964. He remains one of the most notorious yet historically consequential popes of the age.
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RomeרומאItaly
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Rome in this era
Between the 8th and 15th centuries Rome was the seat of the popes and capital of the Papal States, which grew from the Frankish king Pepin's grant of 756; Charlemagne was crowned emperor in St Peter's in 800. The city shrank far below its ancient size, and from 1309 to 1377 the popes resided at Avignon before returning to Rome.
About Rome
Rome, on the Tiber in central Italy, grew from an Iron Age settlement into the capital of the Roman Republic and then of an empire that by the 1st century CE ruled the whole Mediterranean. Its Jewish community, attested from the 2nd century BCE, is among the oldest in Europe. Christian tradition holds that the apostles Peter and Paul died there, and the city became the seat of the popes. After the Western Empire ended in 476 it passed to Gothic kings, to Byzantium and then to papal rule as capital of the Papal States, until it became the capital of unified Italy in 1871. Vatican City, independent since 1929, lies within it.
In Rome at the same time
Pope John XIX, Pope Sergius IV, Pope John XVIII, Pope John XVII, Pope John XV, Pope Benedict V
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with Pope John XII’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
In the same tradition
Pope John XIX, Pope Sergius IV, Pope John XVIII, Pope John XVII, Pope John XV, Pope Benedict V, Pope Leo VIII, Pope Agapetus II
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Pope John XII’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Works
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