Conditions in the Eternal City of Rome had meanwhile become no less chaotic. The Pope, having abandoned the security of Byzantium for the protection of the Western rulers, had once again been left stranded, without a protector, threatened not only by the Eastern Empire and the Islamic forces, but once again by the Roman nobility as well. The Papal crown was now being bought and sold almost at will to anyone who could show the influence or necessary wealth, but the throne of St. Peter had became a fatal calling: within one century, six Popes were assassinated, and two more starved to death in prison. Three of these hapless pontiffs perished within less than half a year – one lasted four months, another thirty days, and the third only seventeen days. One Roman consul’s wife became the mistress of Pope John X; together with her daughter Marozia, who herself had already been the mistress of Pope Sergius III, she finally overthrew and imprisoned the doomed John X, who quickly expired in their care. Through a series of calculated marriages and intrigues, the two women gradually gained complete control over all Roman government and finally elevated Marozia’s illegitimate son – whose father may have been Sergius III – to the Papacy under the name of John XI. Since the new pontiff was still under age, however, Marozia and her mother literally ruled over Church affairs as well. This so-called pornocracy finally came to an end when Marozia’s son staged a revolution of his own, gained control over the Roman government, and kept his mother in prison until she died – was murdered, some said – sometime during the 930s. Twenty years later, he pronounced his own son Pope under the name of John XII.
By that time, however, some small signs of order were just beginning to emerge out of the chaos that was Western Europe. A new and forceful king had appeared in the German-speaking East Frankland, though he no longer was a Carolingian or even a Frank, but a Saxon. With Otto I, known to history as Otto the Great, this so recently conquered and Christianized people began the rule of Germany. Elected and crowned king at Aachen in 936, the 24-year old Otto set out to show the rebellious lords of his kingdom that he intended to be a ruler in fact. His reign of 36 years became an uninterrupted succession of wars as he wrested one domain after another from his vassals. In 951, Otto freed all northern Italy from the oppression of its greedy rulers and was crowned King of Lombardy as well. Only ten years later he was proclaimed Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire by a grateful Pope John XII. No sooner had the pontiff found a new protector, however, than the two men began to quarrel. Otto quickly confirmed his new power by deposing John XII and getting Leo VIII elected in his place. Once the new Emperor had left the papal domain, however, John XII returned, excommunicated his rival, and resumed his pontificate. Otto, meanwhile, was far too preoccupied with his own problems at home and spent another ten years fighting to consolidate his realm. When Otto the Great died in 973, his son Otto II inherited the greatest military and political power in all Western Europe.
The remnants of the kingdom of France had meanwhile been passed on to Hugh Capet, the descendant of a long line of French dukes, ignoring the claims of the last Carolingian pretender. But for another two centuries, this change made little difference in France; one weak dynasty had merely replaced another – or so it seemed at the time. But the fact that Hugh Capet’s direct descendants were to remain on the throne of France until the 14th century makes it apparent that Hugh Capet and his successors laid their plans well. And so they did; patiently, tenaciously, orderly, year after year, decade after decade, the early Capetians extended their influence and their domain, always careful not to lose it all again in one hasty decision. By the 12th century, the Capetian kings had not only made the monarchy a hereditary right, but had grown strong enough to control the fortunes of France for centuries to come.
But in the 10th century such authority was little more than wishful thinking, and the Capetians were utterly powerless to prevent the private wars among their feudal lords. When on occasion they tried to exert some show of strength over their nominal vassals, the lords turned against their king as well. So powerful had some of these lords become, in fact, that by the mid-1000s, William, Duke of Normandy, was able to raise an army of more than 1,000 knights, by far the largest in all France. And by that time, too, the ambitious William of Normandy, successor to that barbarian Viking Rollo, had already formed a grand vision of his future – William of Normandy had cast his eyes on nothing less than the throne of England.