Editing Pope Sergius III (section)

==Legacy==
Much of Sergius' pontificate has been maligned throughout history, principally through the reporting of his character and the state of Rome at the time by [[Liutprand of Cremona]]. His recounting of the period has led sixteenth-century cardinal and historian [[Caesar Baronius]] in his ''[[Annales Ecclesiastici]]'' to call it the ''[[Saeculum obscurum]]'', or dark century.<ref>{{cite book | title=Church history: twenty centuries of Catholic Christianity | author=Dwyer, John C. | year=1998 | page=[https://archive.org/details/churchhistorytwe00dwye/page/155 155] | isbn=0-8091-3830-1 | publisher=Paulist Press. | location=Mahwah, USA. | url=https://archive.org/details/churchhistorytwe00dwye/page/155}}</ref> Similarly 19th-century Protestant historians saw this period as a "pornocracy", or "rule of the harlots",<ref name='Squatriti'>Paolo Squatriti, "Pornocracy", in Christopher Kleinhenz (ed.), ''Medieval Italy: An Encyclopedia'', Vol. 2 (New York and London: [[Routledge]], 2004), pp. 926–27. {{ISBN|978-1-1380-6331-0}}.</ref> a reversal of the natural order as they saw it, according to ''[[Liber pontificalis]]'' and a later chronicler who was also biased against Sergius III. This "pornocracy" was an age with women in power: [[Theodora (senatrix)|Theodora]], whom Liutprand characterized as a "shameless whore... [who] exercised power on the Roman citizenry like a man"{{quote without source|date=January 2021}} and her daughter [[Marozia]], the mother of [[Pope John XI]] and reputed to be the mistress of Sergius III, largely upon a remark by Liutprand.<ref name=Marozia>{{cite book | title=Unzipped: The Popes Bare All: A Frank Study of Sex and Corruption in the Vatican | author=Ide, Arthur Frederick | year=1987 | isbn=0-910309-43-4 | publisher=American Atheist Press | location=Austin, Texas}}</ref>

[[Caesar Baronius]], writing in the 16th century, and basing himself on Liutprand, was particularly scathing, describing Sergius as: "a wretch, worthy of the rope and of fire... flames could not have caused this execrable monster to suffer the punishments which he merited. It is impossible to believe that such a pope was a lawful one."<ref>De Cormenin 1857, p. 282</ref> The reality is that when Sergius was forcibly exiled by [[Lambert of Spoleto]], all the official records were destroyed; consequently, most of the surviving documentation about Sergius comes from his pro-Formosan opponents who had fled to [[Naples]].<ref>Collins 2010, p. 174</ref> Horace Mann, writing in the ''[[Catholic Encyclopedia]]'' states the following concerning the alleged illicit relationship of Pope Sergius III with Marozia: "that he put his two predecessors to death, and by illicit relations with Marozia had a son, who was afterwards John XI, must be regarded as highly doubtful. These assertions are only made by bitter or ill-informed adversaries, and are inconsistent with what is said of him by respectable contemporaries."<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13729a.htm | title=''Catholic Encyclopedia'': Pope Sergius III}}</ref>

Nevertheless, most modern opinions about Sergius' pontificate remain poor. According to [[Horace K. Mann]], "Sergius was, unfortunately, a pronounced party-man, and anxious for the supremacy of his party".<ref>Mann 1910, p. 140</ref> The best that [[Ferdinand Gregorovius]] could say of him was: "That Sergius, who remained Pope throughout the storms of seven years, was at least a man of energy must be admitted, although apostolic virtues are scarcely to be looked for in a character such as his".<ref>Gregorovius 1895, p. 245</ref> James S. Packer described him as malignant and ferocious, slaughtering his enemies with a private army,<ref>Packer, James, S. ''Saints, Sinners, and Christian History: The Contradictions of the Christian Past'' (2008), pg. 162</ref> while Walter Ullmann described Sergius as a typical representative of the House of Theophylact, concerned with power and sexual liaisons.<ref>Ullmann, Walter, ''A Short History of the Papacy in the Middle Ages'' (2003), pg. 113</ref>