Talk:Pope Stephen VIII

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This article was automatically assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 02:06, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Problems with the article
For such a short article, it has significant problems.
 * (i) Stephen was not German, but a Roman - this error stems from the chronicle of Martin of Opava, who put's Otto I's interference in Italian affiars some ten years before it actually happened, and his recount of Stephen's pontificate has largely been discredited.
 * (ii) the statement "His period as pope was during a brief interruption from the period when the church had been ruled by the so-called pornocracy of Roman noblewomen Theodora and Marozia" is factually incorrect, as by Stephen's reign, both Theodora and Marozia were dead, so it is not really an interruption. It would not even be correct to say that the Church was not directly ruled by the Counts of Tusculum, as Stephen was still under the direct control of Alberic II of Spoleto, although Stephen himself was not a member of that family, nor had he any relationship with Marozia, which seems to be the criteria for judging the papacy during this period. I shall expand and correct this article in the next few days. Oatley2112 (talk) 13:28, 29 May 2012 (UTC)