Editing Marozia (section)

==Early life==
{{More citations needed|date=February 2024}}Marozia was born about 890. She was the daughter of the Roman [[consul]] [[Theophylact, Count of Tusculum]], and of [[Theodora (senatrix)|Theodora]], the real power in Rome, whom bishop [[Liutprand of Cremona]] characterized as a "shameless whore... [who] exercised power on the Roman citizenry like a man."

At the age of fifteen, Marozia became the mistress of Theophylact's cousin Pope Sergius III, whom she knew when he was bishop of [[Portus]]. The two had a son, John (the later [[Pope John XI]]). That, at least, is the story found in two contemporary sources, the ''[[Liber Pontificalis]]'' and the ''Antapodosis sive Res per Europam gestae'' (958–62), by [[Liutprand of Cremona]] (c. 920–72). But a third contemporary source, the annalist [[Flodoard]] (c. 894–966), says John XI was brother of [[Alberic II of Spoleto|Alberic II]], the latter being the offspring of Marozia and her husband [[Alberic I of Spoleto|Alberic I]]. Hence John too may have been the son of Marozia and Alberic I.

Marozia married [[Alberic I of Spoleto|Alberic I]], duke of Spoleto, in 909, and their son Alberic II was born in 911 or 912. By the time Alberic I was killed at Orte in 924, the Roman landowners had won complete victory over the traditional bureaucracy represented by the papal curia. Rome was virtually under secular control, the historic nadir of the papacy.