Pope Formosus and the Cadaver Synod

By Craig: One of my many fascinations for as long as I can remember have been lists, or chronologies of events that have taken place in our worlds remote past.I can remember memorizing the Presidents of the United States from a place mat at a hotel breakfast table in Washington D.C. back in 1975. I was not even seven years old at the time, but it wasn't hard for me to take in all the names and dates. This led to other chronologies like the Kings and Queens of England which I memorized from a set of postage stamps that I somehow acquired when I was nine. I learned their names, William the Conqueror, Richard the Lionheart, Richard III, so on and so on....all the way up to Elizabeth II, who, I guess, will always be Queen since she was then...and still is. Then came the Roman Emperors starting with Caesar and ending in the year 476 with Romulus Augustus. Imagine having a powerful name like that! With a name like Romulus Augustus one might think of some powerful entity wielding a heavy sword and ruling with an iron fist. Unfortunately for Rome, Romulus was a nothing more than an effete, sickly teenager who surrendered hundreds of years of Roman rule to the barbarian hordes.

     Another one of our worlds fascinating chronological achievements is the list of Popes. Yes, there have been 266 of them, from St. Peter all the way to the current Pontiff, Francis. Now I admit, I have never been able to memorize the entire list of Roman Bishops. I'll give an A+ to anyone that has. However, I do know a lot of them, along with some interesting facts. for instance, did you know that one Pope (Stephen VI or VII, depending on the list of Anti-Popes) had his predecessor's corpse (Formosus) exhumed and placed on trial? This event has come down in history known as The Cadaver Synod. From what I gather, Pope Stephen was a fruitcake. He should have been placed in an insane asylum rather than being elevated to the highest level of the Church. Of course, in those days, and for centuries before and after the Cadaver Synod which took place in 897, most of the Popes were anything other than humble, holy, imitators of Jesus Christ. Some of them were thief's, and even murderers. One of them, Urban VI enjoyed hearing the tormented screams of political rivals whom he was having tortured by various barbaric methods.

                                       The Cadaver Synod of 897 by Jean-Paul Laurens

      The Cadaver Synod took place in Rome in January 897. Pope Stephen had been elected Pope after the sudden death of the aged Pope Boniface VI who had reigned for less than a month after Formosus had passed. Stephen immediately set out to denigrate the memory of Formosus, a man that he considered to be a blasphemer who had openly sought the Papacy. Formosus' rotting corpse was charged with perjury. The trial was nothing more than a sham which was supported by Stephens political allies, who have traditionally been thought to have been the true instigators of the trial. Apparently, the Holy Roman Emperor, Lambert of Spoleto had a grudge to settle with the dead pontiff. He had been crowned Emperor by Formosus early in that pontiff's reign only to have Formosus later openly support another candidate, the Frenchman Arnulf. This interpretation of the motive for the trial has been challenged in recent years, but whatever the reason it remains one of the Papacy's most macabre spectacles. Formosus' body garbed in his papal robes was propped on a throne, apparently in front of a jury of his peers who were most probably active supporters of Stephen, or perhaps Lambert. A priest or a Deacon was appointed to answer for the mute corpse. Not surprisingly, Formosus was found guilty. The three fingers of his blessing hand were cut off, and his stripped body unceremoniously cast into the Tiber river where it was later supposed to have been retrieved by a supporter and given a proper burial. It was said that certain miracles occurred shortly after the body appeared on the banks of the Tiber.

      When I first read about the Cadaver Synod many years ago I was fascinated by the story. Imagine sitting on the jury of this most gruesome trial... I find myself sitting amongst a number of hard looking men, singular in their appearance, as if they all had been bred from the same wicked home. The defendant had not yet arrived, but was soon announced preceded by a nauseating odor that soon permeated even the airy hall in which the trial was to be held. The grinning corpse with its hoary beard still attached to the vestiges of whatever flesh remained was seated on a mock throne brought in by four unfortunate paupers who did not seem too pleased with the task that had been delegated to them. A fleshy looking monk with a toothy smile, dressed in a brown habit darted behind a curtain in back of the stinking mass of bone and flesh. He was to answer for the deceased. My eyes were fixed on the corpse, who I almost expected to get up, wield a sword, and start cutting down his accusers like the skeletons in the Ray Harryhausen movie Jason and the Argonauts.

"How to you plead?" asked the prosecutor, who was a tall bearded Bishop in a white robe.

After a moment of hesitation, as if the corpse itself were deliberating over the question, an answer came forth from behind the curtain, though it appeared to issue from the corpse itself.

"Guilty!!!!!" was the response.

The accusations were brought forth by the bearded Bishop and witness' were called in. All of them attested to the accused's ambitious nature which went against the tenets of the Church.

"You are a heretic!!! What does the jury conclude in regard to this fraud and perjurer who has even admitted his guilt with his plea?" asked the Bishop with a gleeful twinkle in his eye.

"Guilty!!!!! was the unanimous response minus one, who quite naturally happened to be me.

With the verdict in, Pope Stephen arose from his tall papal chair and pointed an accusing finger at the hapless remains of Formosus who seemed to be not only grinning mockingly at him, but at each and every person in the hall.

"Sever the fingers of his hand that blessed, and dispose of this trash." exclaimed the vindictive smiling Pope. He glanced around the hall and his eyes met with mine, and his smile immediately vanished.

"And also dispose of this friend of the heretic!" He exclaimed, pointing a bony finger at me.

With horror I began looking for an exit, and soon found myself in full flight down the great hall in which this mock of a trial had taken place. I was soon being pursued by a number of angry soldiers with pikes, and a few monks who had taken off their sandals and began hurling them at me in a ludicrous attempt to arrest my escape. However, these old medieval chaps had no way of knowing that I can run a mile in five minutes and some change, so they had no chance of catching this son of Mercury! As I dashed around a corner and exited the great hall into the courtyard I noticed a bony looking fellow dressed in pontifical garb motioning for me to escape down a certain alley. It was Formosus!  He gave me a hollow wink and a thumbs up, as I passed him, and with this I disappeared down the alley and back into the 21st century.

Elements of Time: The Rusty Car In The Woods

By Craig: When I was a kid I can remember playing in the woods with my brother and my friends. In those days the world was huge. The woods foreboding and mysterious. This was especially true once you lost sight of your house. The further we ventured from our place of security the more enigmatic the terrain became. There was an open patch of grass which I imagined had been created by giants who had destroyed all of the trees and used it as a place to rest their weary gargantuan bodies. However, it was not the giants, or the strange noises that you might hear in the woods and try and discern the source that were the most mysterious. No, it was something solid... something old...something in the state of decay.


 The old car sat rusting about 100 yards from the road. I was told that it was a Model T Ford, but no one seems to know how it got there, or why it was there. Trees had grown all around the hulking mass of rusted metal that had once served a useful purpose. In fact, I distinctly remember a tall pine tree growing through where the engine block once sat...long since removed by some forgotten hand that had probably utilized the various parts. The rubber tires had disintegrated in a previous decade, so it sat on its bare rims looking forlorn and sad. Alas! Where was the glass? It too was missing. Countless New England winters, falling branches from trees, and mischievous kids with rocks from a bygone day had settled that. I wondered how it got there. There was no road, or even a trail that led to the spot. Trees and thick brush had grown up all around it. Was it a time traveler? Who had drove it to it's final resting place, and why there? Was it because it was so out of the way? It's final run had obviously occurred in my grandparents time. To me...that may as well have been in the Devonian times when trilobites ruled the earth.

During the six years or so that I lived near this decaying relic I became a common visitor. I can remember sitting on its rusted frame, a nine year old boy pretending to drive it back onto the road from which it had last departed a half century before. I would sit there and think about the time from when this car was in its hey-day. It was a hot summer day. The car was shiny and new and I tested its horn which sounded like a foghorn from a ship! The tires...They were there! rubber United Royal Cord Tires! I drove it onto the main highway and pulled it into the General Store where a bearded man was listening to the radio. In a crackling voice Calvin Coolidge was addressing the nation. I listened for a minute or two before examining the glass counter top that protected the candy underneath. Was that a Baby Ruth candy bar? I attempted to gain the attention of the bearded gentleman, but of course he could not possibly see me. I was a ghost...a time traveler from another age whose sentimental leanings had landed him here in a time other than his own. A newspaper on the wooden counter had a headline Dempsey beats Willard!!!! I left and walked out onto the newly paved street lined with tall elms from which their canopies gave plenty of shade to walkers on their late afternoon sojourns. And there! the patrolman on his beat! I knew him! It was old Mr. Johnny who lived down the street, but he looked different...younger...more full of youth and vigor. I did not belong here. This was not my time. I found my automobile...yes...MY automobile, for I was to be the last one to drive it. I admired its shiny hood...why it looked as if it had just come out of the factory in Detroit. I climbed in, tooted the horn and drove off down the road. However, something was wrong...the paint...it started peeling off, slowly at first, and then faster...and what's this...RUST! At first only small patches appeared, but soon the car started belching a thick white smoke. I had to get it back....back to its proper place. The scenery began to change. The farmland with the ubiquitous New England stone walls began turning into wooded forests. There it was! A small lane and I barely had time to maneuver the smoking jalopy back to its final resting spot before the forest encroached all around us. It disintegrated before my eyes, and I found myself back in my own time seated on this bucket of rust...a metallic can slowly being reclaimed by the elements from which it was molded. The same elements that will reclaim each and every one of us as we advance down the endless corridor of time.