JOHN XII, pope. — A Roman, elected in February–March 931, died in December 935. Born of Marozia and, according to a very questionable assertion by Liutprand, of Pope Sergius III, or, according to others, of her and Alberic I of Spoleto, he was elected pope while still very young at the behest of his mother. After the expulsion of King Hugh from Rome and the obscure end of Marozia, he remained subject to, and perhaps imprisoned by, Alberic II, his brother or half-brother.
During his pontificate relations with the Byzantine Empire were cordial, adopting its era; indeed negotiations were undertaken to arrange a marriage between a sister of the Pope and a son of Emperor Romanus Lecapenus, and to install as Patriarch of Constantinople another son of his, still a child. In the early years of his pontificate (931–32), when relations between Rome and Hugh were still close, the monastery of Cluny was placed under the protection of the Roman See; thus even in this obscure period the seeds of the future reform of the Church were being unwittingly sown.