Benedict of Soracte, a very meagre and confused chronicler, gives Marozia a dark character in his _Chronicle_.[186] Her son Alberic was, he says, born out of wedlock: presumably before she married the father, Alberic I. Flodoard, the most respectable chronicler of the time, tells us in his _Annals_ (year 933) that John XI. was the son of Marozia and the brother of Alberic II.; but neither there nor elsewhere does he mention the father, and the omission is significant. Flodoard, a deeply religious monk, under personal obligations to the Papacy, was not the man to repeat scandalous Roman gossip; yet in his long poetic history of the Papacy he brands Marozia as an incestuous woman united to an adulterer, and he describes John XI., whom he disdains, as so puny a thing that we can scarcely conceive him as a son of the vigorous Alberic.[187] Lastly, the one-line notice of John XI. in the _Liber Pontificalis_ says that he was "the son of Sergius III." We do not know when or by whom this was written, but recent attempts to represent it as an echo of Liutprand have failed. We must agree with Duchesne that it is a distinct testimony and "more authoritative" than that of Liutprand. I have analyzed afresh the original evidence on this not very important point merely in order to show the futility of recent attempts to rehabilitate the age of John X. Pope Sergius, the chief ecclesiastic of the Italian faction to which John belonged, was a violent and unscrupulous man. He resigned a bishopric, and returned to the rank of deacon, in order that he might have a better chance of the Papacy. He was Anti-Pope to John IX. in 898, and was excommunicated and driven from Rome; and he forced his way back at the point of the sword. The charge that he was responsible for the death of his two predecessors cannot be disregarded, and he certainly dealt violently with his opponents. The charge of loose conduct is not more serious than these things, and it rests on strong evidence. To this party John X. belonged. His early career is not very plain, but he appears first as a deacon at Bologna. He was chosen to succeed Bishop Peter of that city, but, before he was consecrated, Archbishop Kailo of Ravenna died, and John passed to Ravenna and occupied its See. Nine years later, in 914, he was elected Bishop of Rome. It was scarcely thirty years since his party had foully treated the body of Formosus, partly on the charge of passing from another bishopric to that of Rome. One naturally suspects ambition in John and powerful influence in his favour at Rome. We know, in fact, that he was on excellent terms with Theophylactus and Theodora,[188] and no one now doubts that they secured his election. We are therefore not wholly surprised, considering the age, when Liutprand assures us that he was a charming man, and that Theodora, meeting him during one of his missions to Rome, conceived a passion for him.