It is neither possible nor profitable to linger over the subject, and the impartial student will probably neither assent to nor dissent from this unconfirmed statement of the Bishop of Cremona. Liverani ridicules it on the ground that Theodora must have been far from young, since her daughter Marozia married Albert of Camerino about the year 915. It is curious to find a native of Italy, where girls are often mature at twelve, and were in the old days often mothers at thirteen, raising such an objection. Theodora may quite well have been still in her thirties in 915. I would, however, rather call attention to the moral condition of Europe at the time. The pious Bishop of Verona, Ratherius, gives us an extraordinary picture of the life of some of his episcopal colleagues.[189] They rush through their mass in the morning, don gorgeous dresses and gold belts, and ride out to hunt on horses with golden bridles: they return at night to rich banquets, with massive goblets of good wine, and dancing girls for company, and dice to follow: and they retire, too often with their companions, to beds that are inlaid with gold and silver and spread with covers and pillows of silk. Bishop Atto of Vercelli gives us a corresponding picture of the lives of the lower clergy and their wives and mistresses.[190] The proceedings of the Council of Troslé, in the year 909, confirm and enlarge this remarkable picture.[191] Assuredly no historian who knows the tenth century will find the charges against Sergius and John implausible. Whatever may be their value, John was no idle voluptuary. He found the Saracens still devastating southern Italy and he helped, in 915, to form a great league against them. When the Duke of Capua led out his troops, and the Spoletans and Beneventans fell into line at last, and even the Greeks sent a fleet, the Roman militia was marshalled, and John rode at their head beside the fiery young Alberic of Camerino. He was not the first of the many fighting Popes: John VIII. had built a Papal navy and dealt the Saracens some shrewd blows. But John X. was the first Pope to take the field in person, and we lament that the wretched scribes of the time have left us no portrait of the consecrated warrior. We know from his letters that he exposed himself on the field, and from the chronicles that he fired the troops. The Saracens were at last pinned in their camp on a hill near the mouth of the Garigliano, and, after a long blockade, were annihilated.