John XII
Octavian · 955 – 964
Became pope at eighteen, crowned Otto I as Holy Roman Emperor, and was accused of turning the Lateran into a brothel.
Octavian was the teenage son of the Roman senator Alberic II, who secured the papacy for his boy through raw political power. John XII took the throne of Peter around 955, when he was probably eighteen. He is most consequential for crowning Otto I as Holy Roman Emperor in 962, reviving the imperial title in the West and creating a political arrangement that would shape European history for centuries. But the stories about his personal life are staggering. A synod convened by Otto accused him of ordaining a ten-year-old bishop, committing adultery in the Lateran Palace, invoking pagan gods while gambling, and blinding his spiritual father. He denied the charges and excommunicated his accusers, but Otto deposed him anyway. John retook Rome briefly when Otto left, then died in 964, reportedly while in bed with a married woman. He was twenty-seven.
The Boy Pope
John XII is what happens when the papacy becomes a family heirloom. His father arranged it. He didn't earn it, didn't seem to want it for spiritual reasons, and governed accordingly. The Church survived him, which may be the strongest argument for divine protection of the institution.
Creating the Holy Roman Empire
For all his personal failures, John XII made a decision with enormous historical consequences by crowning Otto. That act tied the papacy and the German monarchy together in a relationship that lasted, in various forms, until 1806.