this video is sponsored by skillshare [Music] hey kids time to alienate 23.9 percent of the united states for my potential audience because today we're talking popes now don't get me wrong the modern papacy is a great thing just a genuinely virtuous man being elected to govern and set an example for christians everywhere that's awesome but back in the day not so see in the middle ages the church was one of the greatest powers in the western world having massive influence over monarchs and laymen alike and as we know with great power comes great tomfoolery here
are some of the less wholesome popes that history has to offer pope stephen vi assumed the pontificate in may of 896 during a time of great instability for the papacy where rulers and families of all different shapes and sizes were vying for influence over the catholic church as such successive popes from the spirit often had different ideas about how things should be run stephen for example didn't much care for pope for moses the guy before last why ah it's complicated even if i could wrap my head around all this it'd probably be boring as hell
so just take it on good faith that steve had a lot of beef with formosus so much beef or as we call it papal bull that stephen couldn't even be happy that the dude was already dead so he had the eight-month-old corpse of formosus dug up dressed up in pope close sat down on a throne and literally put on trial with a deacon appointed to give all his responses for him so you thought you could get away from the law with that little dying stunt of yours well tell me mr thrombosis did you violate canon
law commit perjury and pretend to be a bishop when you weren't yes pasta fazul i am a fool i've heard all i need to hear this court finds you guilty and everything you did as pope we legally declare to be fake and dumb and stupid and dumb now throw him in the river what the river can can he do that see the hat that means i'm pope p-o-o-p pope you better three-point that [ __ ] into the briny deep right quick or i'm gonna race hell metaphorically so they throw him in the river this whole
thing caused an uproar among formosa's supporters and after formosus corpse was allegedly seen at performing miracles at the riverbank stephen ended up being overthrown imprisoned and executed by strangulation the body now slimy and disgusting was fished out of the tiber and reentered in st peter's basilica where it rests to this day next we'll talk about john the 12th this guy already looks like one of my characters why don't we just uh yeah there we go this guy ascended to the throne when he was just 18 years old which is insane if i was elected world's
biggest hat wearer at that age you better believe things would get real unpainful real quick i'm talking gambling hookers setting fires and toasting to the devil and when you know it these are all things john the 12th did it said that he took the sacred palace and literally made it into a whorehouse matter of fact while researching the guy i stumbled across this list of sexually active popes this is a real wikipedia article take a hike toilet paper orientation daddy's got a new favorite john is featured prominently on this list of course he had a
thing for widows for some reason personally i'm not big on weepy old hags i'm more of a carefree young hag type of guy but to each their own he also banged his niece a bunch which not the most virtuous act but you know middle ages and bloodline [ __ ] whatever his playboy lifestyle eventually caught up to him though leading to the synod of rome where everyone got together to talk about what a piece of [ __ ] he is so they could kick him off the throne besides all the deviancy there was a lot
of things they had problems with for one someone once offered john some money to ordain a 10 year old as a bishop and he was just like all right i would have done it for free honestly look how big those robes are on him that's hilarious he also had a deacon ordained in a horse stable just like oh for [ __ ] sake all right let's get this over with uh shouldn't we be doing this in like a church listen bucko if it's good enough for jesus to be born in it's good enough for you
to have your little cardinal party no sir not cardinal he's just a deacon now if you keep running your mouth you aren't he also like going on hunting trips now and then generally considered to be something popes don't do although my suspicion is that they were just tired of cleaning his big stupid camo hat every time probably his worst act though was putting on a helmet followed closely in second by the time one of his sub deacons got on his nerves so he literally cut off his dick and murdered him so between all this and
some conflicts with otto the first of the holy roman empire jon was uncanonically ousted in 963 except as soon as otto left rome nobody was there to pressure him off physically anymore so john was like lol just kidding rounded up all his groupies kicked the new pope off the throne and continued his role like nothing happened by early 964 but just a few months later fate caught up with jon and he died the way he lived committing adultery now let's be real we all have our little guilty pleasures in life some people like a nice
bag of cheetos others like scented candles or poorly drawn educational videos alexander the six like watching horses [ __ ] according to vatican chronicler johann burkhard he would specifically arrange for his stallions to be introduced to mares and heat outside his palace and he'd stand up on his balcony to watch him violently made which just tickled him pink for some [ __ ] reason and he'd laugh uproariously during the entire spectacle he also once threw a party in the palace called the banquet of chestnuts also referred to as the joust of [ __ ] wait
a minute horace jousting horses banging was dyslexia a thing back then no but during the banquet alexander had 50 of rome's finest raggedy harlots line up and stripped down for him and his guests which by the way included two of his children which by the way he had many children but at this point hardly a concern guests began throwing chestnuts at the ladies who got down on their hands and knees and scrambled frantically like the cook at denny's when i held him at gunpoint trying to collect as many as they could after this went on
for a while alexander was like alright kiddos game time whoever can bang the most brawls before the night's over wins rome's finest silks and the only condition is that anybody who makes a joke about nutting on someone's chest gets disqualified it's too easy this is all according to that one johann guy mind you some secondary sources differ pretty significantly on the more lurid details of all this so do take it with a grain of salt but at the same time this guy was the official record taker for the ceremonies he was involved with so it
seems equally likely to me that the other guys just wanted to save a bit of face but who knows in the end primary sources are usually the most reputable source of information after all what better way to learn about stuff than from people who have direct experience in the subject that's why you need to try skillshare skillshare is an online learning community with over 25 000 classes in design business technology and more premium membership gives you unlimited access to high quality classes on must-know topics so you can improve your skills unlock new opportunities and do
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