For centuries, John X’s pontificate has been seen as one of the most disgraceful during the "Saeculum obscurum". Much of this can be laid at the feet of the Liutprand of Cremona, whose account of the period is both inaccurate and uniformly hostile. His characterisation of John as an unscrupulous cleric who slept his way to the papal chair, becoming the lover of Theodora, and who held the throne of Saint Peter as a puppet of Theophylact I of Tusculum until he was murdered to make way for Marozia’s son John XI, has coloured much of the analysis of his reign, and was used by opponents of the Catholic Church as a propagandist tool.