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.

A World of Black and White: The Student of Prague

By Craig: I do not watch television anymore. In fact, I no longer have cable. It's not that I can't afford it, but to me it is an unnecessary expense. There is nothing on cable television that is worth watching anyway to justify the expense, except perhaps a few programs on the History Channel or Discovery. When we moved into our new house three years ago my wife insisted on getting a plasma TV. I could have done without it. When I did watch television, I always felt that I was wasting my life. I can't explain why I feel like this, but it might have had something to do with the fact that television takes the creativity out of the human mind. It is like a big leach, sucking the brain cells out of a person's head.

     I was born in 1968. When I was a young boy growing up in the 1970s  I somehow perceived that the world was in colour. To me, any event that occurred before I was born happened in black and white. Most news footage from the years prior to 1968 were in black and white. Most movies and television re-runs before the year 1968 were in black and white. Absurdly I also believed that people walked faster in the old days. Naturally I was real young when these notions crossed my juvenile mind, but I still remember having them. I was nothing but a mere product of my limited experiences. The world evolved from the black and white state to that of colour the moment that I was born. Alas! Everything emerged from the darkness on that September day back in 1968. Should not the whole world thank me for giving them colour? It was an absurd and ludicrous notion, yet to me it was real.

     The other day I was going through a few old cardboard boxes and found a DVD that my brother Jay had given me a few years back. Jay likes the old silent movies from the 1920s, especially Lon Chaney movies. I don't believe that he has watched anything on the screen that was made after 1930, but I can't be sure of this. The movie that I pulled out of the box was called The Student of Prague. I can remember Jay raving about it a few years back, but I had never gotten around to watching it. I guess that I was just too busy to sit down and watch a movie that was made the year my grandmother was born. That's right...The Student of Prague was filmed in 1913, a year before the Great War. It is a German film, sort of a gothic/horror that tells the tale of a poor university student named Balduin (played by Paul Wegener) who makes a bargain with a shady sorcerer in which he receives gold in return for his reflection. Balduin spends most of the movie running from his reflection, and at the end of the movie gets the not so bright idea of shooting it with a dueling pistol...which...of course ends up killing him! Not too smart, but hey, if I were running from my reflection I might resort to the same desperate act. Don't we all at some point in our own mundane lives run from our own reflections?

                                                Balduin Sees His Reflection
                                              (The Student of Prague) 1913

     The movie was only about 40 minutes long and I watched it with my 9 year old son who thought it was interesting. I told him that his great-great grandmother played the organ for silent movies when they were in the theatre those many years ago. He asked me if she played for this movie, but of course I had to answer that I had no way of knowing that. Her name was Cora. I can remember my grandmother talking about her. She died of a Brain Abscess at the tender age of 27 back in 1920. My grandmother who as I already mentioned was born in 1913 had very few memories of her. Although she died 48 years before I was born...when the world was still black and white, an image has formed in my mind. There she sits with her hands on the black and white keys of her chosen instrument. She plays a dirge as Paul Wegener glances in horror at the looking glass and is horrified to see that his black and white reflection is not there! Cora observes the reaction of the black and white audience who sit spellbound by the performance. Eventually the movie ends, as does the scene and the act that makes up the duration of Cora's short life. However,... before the scene closes.... as she leaves the theatre, and walks outside into the balmy air of her black and white world, a faint smile crosses her face as a vision of a futuristic world comes to her....a world of colour, a world perhaps where people will no longer have to run from their own reflections.

                                                             Cora O'Hearn (At the Organ)
                                                                    (1892-1920)

Did a Comet strike the Earth in 540 A.D. ?

By Craig: Fireballs and asteroids have received a lot of attention over the last ten days or so. First there was the Siberian meteor, and then the near miss of Asteroid da14 on Friday last. Although my knowledge of fireballs, comets, and meteors is primarily on the historical side, I do know a little bit about the statistics that relate to these otherworldly cosmic bodies. For instance, some of the news reports have erroneously stated that the 2013 Siberian fireball was the largest meteor to enter the earth's atmosphere since the Tunguska blast of 1908. This is wrong. First, there is no concrete evidence that the Tunguska event was the result of a meteor impact. Second, another Siberian fireball, the Sikhote-Alin meteor of 1947 was estimated to have been in the neighborhood of 70 tonnes. As of now estimates regarding the 2013 Siberian meteor range from 10 tonnes to 10,000 tonnes (which I find kind of hard to believe.)

       I have previously written on this blog, and on my website www.fireballhistory.com about historical encounters with fireballs. I have seen a few wild ones in my many years of looking up at the night sky. On the evening of January 24, 2007 at approximately 1950 hours I observed a large bright green bolide in the north-eastern sky. I had a clear view of the meteor and watched it for a good eight seconds or so before it completely disappeared, as if someone had turned off a light switch. I estimate that it's apparent magnitude was about -11 or -12 which is about as bright as the full moon. Other people reported the bolide, and the newspapers soon got hold of it. It found it's way to the Drudge Report, and even the late night talk show Coast-to-Coast. It was the brightest meteor that I had ever seen, and I have seen a few bright ones over the years.

      As spectacular as this bolide was back in 2007, it was nothing compared to what a lot of Russians observed last week in the Ural mountains of Siberia. However, this latest Siberian impact event can not even compare to what this planet has encountered in the past. Even the Tunguska event which has been estimated to be a blast 1000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima would be considered a chump relative to what could one day strike the earth. In fact, "COULD" is not being really accurate. One day in the future a random fragment from space "WILL" careen into our planet destroying civilization as we now know it. When this event will occur is not known. Comet's routinely enter the inner solar system, and the historical, and archaeological records show (even in recorded history) that cometary debris has struck the earth. The year 540 A.D. (or possibly 541) seems to be a good candidate for a possible encounter with a comet. The chronicler Roger of Wendover records that "there appeared a comet in Gaul, so vast that the whole sky seemed on fire." It is also recorded that "blood fell from the heavens, and a great mortality ensued." Irish chroniclers also took note of the dreadful mortality that took place at around this time. The author and Dendrochronologist Mike Baillie who is the author of the book, Exodus to Arthur: Catastrophic Encounters With Comets has made note of growth reduction in the tree rings of European oaks and North American bristlecone pines suggesting that some widespread global event took place around this time. Did the earth have a close interaction with a comet? The jury is still deliberating on this one.

The 2013 Siberian Fireball

By Craig: I don't know what it is about Siberia. For some reason, perhaps known only to the Tungus God, Ogdy, another great fireball has streaked across the sky. Unlike the great Tunguska fireball of 1908, or the Sikhote-Alin fireball of 1947 this one was caught on camera by numerous people. Of course, in 1908 and 1947 cameras with the ability to instantaneously capture an event as it was happening were rare and almost non existent. The 2013 meteor met it's demise over the Ural mountains in Southern Siberia.

2013 Siberian Meteor

                                                            1947 Sikhote-Alin Meteor

                                                              1908 Tunguska Event

      The meteor broke apart in the stratosphere about 25 miles above the earth's surface early this morning. Witness' state that the fireball was as bright as the sun, and footage confirms these reports. As of now it is not certain how large the meteor was, but some sources including the Russian Academy of Science say that it was perhaps 10 tonnes, and about 50 feet long. It is believed that the meteor was of the iron type. In the city of Chelyabinsk the shock wave blew out windows in buildings causing numerous injuries. A large fragment of the meteorite was thought to have landed in a lake near the town of Chebarkul, not far from Chelyabinsk. According to the BBC, Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered a rescue and recovery party to assist people who have been effected by the blast. In a startling coincidence (or perhaps not) asteroid 2012DA, a moderate size near-earth object measuring about 150 feet across, passed within 17,000 miles from the earth today.

www.fireballhistory.com

Battles and Dragons in the Ancient Sky

By Craig: Imagine living in an age before airplanes, weather balloons, helicopters, and, well ok...drones. For most of recorded history this was the way things were, so if a person happened to look up in the sky and see something other than clouds, the moon,  the stars, or the sun, what might that person think? It has been only a little more than a century since the Wright brothers got off the ground at Kitty Hawk. Before this time humans had ventured up into the sky in balloons, but these were rare occasions, and they were for the most part well publicized events. Before the 18th century an airship would have been looked upon as some sort of magic, or perhaps the god's playing tricks! It is interesting to see how our ancestors treated these anomalies from the sky. Meteors were often interpreted as dragons in the air, while aurora's were seen as great battles in the sky.

523 A.D. Strange sights were seen of dragons,lions and other furious wild beasts fighting in the air.

540 (541) A.D. Roger of Wendover records "there appeared a comet in Gaul, so vast that the whole sky seemed on fire. In the same year there dropped real blood from the clouds...and a dreadful mortality ensued.

555 A.D. There was seen the appearance of lances in the north-west quarter of the heavens. (Roger of Wendover)

655 A.D. Fire fell from heaven and great fear came upon men. (The Annals of Waverley)

793 A.D. In this year dire forewarnings came over the land of the Northumbrians, and miserably terrified the people, these were excessive whirlwinds and lightnings, and fiery dragons were seen flying in the air. A great famine soon followed these tokens. (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle)

945 A.D. From the Chronicon Scotorum: Two fiery columns were seen a week before Allhallowtide which illuminated the whole world.

www.fireballhistory.com

The Anonymous Earthlings

By Craig: The man lived many centuries ago. He was a humble man who lived in a small cottage with his wife and children. He was a blacksmith by trade, and spent many a day standing at the forge. Was he sharpening a blade? Perhaps he was fitting some shoes for a neighbors horse? No, wait, he might be making a suit of armor for one of the Duke's knights! It was nearly dark but the glow from the forge along with an open flame nearby cast his burly medieval shadow on the stone wall behind him. His apprentice, a young man barely removed from his teens operated the belows as the blacksmith swung his mighty hammer.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! The mighty hammer fell bending the iron to the blacksmith's will.

The blacksmith's wife was also humble. She spent her days raising the children and keeping house. Was one of the children sick today? She would be making a trip to the apothecary. Her calloused hands added more lye to the barrel where the linen lay soaking in water. She took hold of the big wooden stick that resembled a paddle.

Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish! The paddle went round and round moving the linen to the washerwoman's will.

The children played in the yard. A young girl, perhaps 3 or 4 cuddled with a doll on the stone steps in front of the cottage, while her older brother and sister sat down for a game of marbles. "No fair!" cried the girl to her brother as he scooped up one of her marbles outside of the circle.

Ping! Ping! Ping! Ping! The marbles went as they traveled through the circle moving in the direction of the children's will.

These were the ancestors of old. Your ancestors, my ancestors. Most of them are nameless, yet they lived in a more remote time. Like us they busied themselves with the mundane chores of everyday life.  They were living people. They ate, they drank, they worked, they slept, they laughed, they cried, they aged... they were us, and one day we will be them...anonymous earthlings who perpetuated the species...soon lost through the vast infinite highway of time.