[Rapiddude]

(John XII's) "Youth may explain in part his irreligious behaviour - since he was only sixteen when he assumed the burdens of office (in 955). Whole monasteries spent their days and nights praying for his decease. Even for a pope of that period, he was so bad that the citizens were out for his blood. He had invented sins, they said, not known since the beginning of the world, including sleeping with his mother. He ran a harem in the Lateran Palace. He gambled with pilgrims' offerings. He kept a stud of two thousand horses which he fed on almonds and figs steeped in wine. He rewarded the companions of his nights of love with golden chalices from St Peter's. He did nothing for the most profitable tourist trade of the day, namely, pilgrimages. Women in particular were warned not to enter St John Lateran if they prized their honour; the pope was always on the prowl. In front of the high altar of the mother church of Christendom, he even toasted the Devil.