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.