indebted to them for his elevation to the papacy, as well as wasting Marozia in a relationship when, as the daughter of an important house, she would have been a valuable tool to link via marriage to another noble house, is open to debate. The birth of the future John XI in 910, after her marriage to Alberic, would seem to indicate that Sergius was not the father. Death Sergius III died on 14 April 911, and was succeeded by Pope Anastasius III. He was buried in the Church of St. Peter, between the Silver gate and the gate of Ravenna. Legacy Much of Sergius' pontificate has been maligned throughout history, principally through the reporting of his character and the state of Rome at the time by Liutprand of Cremona. His recounting of the period has led sixteenth century cardinal and historian Caesar Baronius in his Annales Ecclesiastici to call it the Saeculum obscurum, or dark century. Similarly 19th century protestant historians saw this period as a "pornocracy", or "rule of the harlots", a reversal of the natural order as they saw it, according to Liber pontificalis and a later chronicler who was also biased against Sergius III. This "pornocracy" was an age with women in power: Theodora, whom Liutprand characterized as a "shameless whore... [who] exercised power on the Roman citizenry like a man" and her daughter Marozia, the mother of Pope John XI and reputed to be the mistress of Sergius III, largely upon a remark by Liutprand. Caesar Baronius, writing in the 16th century, and basing himself on Liutprand, was particularly scathing, describing Sergius as: "a wretch, worthy of the rope and of fire... flames could not have caused this execrable monster to suffer the punishments which he merited. It is impossible to believe that such a pope was a lawful one." The reality is that when Sergius was forcibly exiled by Lambert of Spoleto, all the official records were destroyed; consequently, most of the surviving documentation about Sergius comes from his pro-Formosan opponents who had fled to Naples. Horace Mann, writing in the Catholic Encyclopedia states the following concerning the alleged illicit relationship of Pope Sergius III with Marozia: "that he put his two predecessors to death, and by illicit relations with Marozia had a son, who was afterwards John XI, must be regarded as highly doubtful. These assertions are only made by bitter or ill-informed