Medieval Madness
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Rome
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897 AD
In 897, Pope Stephen VI ordered the corpse of his predecessor dug up, dressed in papal robes, and placed on trial.
Watch the Odd Past
A pope died. Months later, his successor dug him up, dressed him in papal robes, and put his corpse on trial.
Medieval Rome had seen its share of political intrigue.
But even by medieval standards, this was extraordinary.
In January 897, an unusual defendant appeared before a church council in Rome.
He was Pope Formosus.
There was just one complication.
Formosus had been dead for months.
His body was exhumed from its tomb, dressed in papal vestments, propped up on a throne, and subjected to what became one of the strangest trials in history: the Cadaver Synod.
And somehow, the story gets even stranger.
A Pope With Enemies
Formosus became pope in 891, but the papacy of the late ninth century wasn’t simply a religious office. Rome was caught in violent struggles among powerful families and rival rulers competing for influence over Italy and the imperial crown.
Formosus became entangled in those conflicts.
Before becoming pope, he had served as bishop of Porto. He had also clashed with an earlier pope, John VIII, who accused him of serious offenses and excommunicated him. Formosus was later restored to the Church and eventually elected pope himself.
During his papacy, Formosus became involved in another dangerous political dispute over who should control the Holy Roman Empire.
He initially crowned Lambert of Spoleto co-emperor but later turned to the Frankish king Arnulf of Carinthia for help. In 896, Formosus crowned Arnulf emperor in Rome.
That made Formosus some extremely powerful enemies.
Then, on April 4, 896, Formosus died.
Normally, death would have ended the dispute.
It didn’t.
Enter Pope Stephen VI
Within a year, Stephen VI became pope.
Stephen was associated with the political faction opposed to Formosus, and he apparently wasn’t satisfied with merely reversing his predecessor’s policies.
He wanted Formosus condemned.
There was, of course, a practical problem.
The defendant was already buried.
Stephen’s solution was simple.
Dig him up.
Formosus’ decomposing body was removed from its tomb at St. Peter’s Basilica.
The corpse was dressed again in papal robes.
Then it was placed on a throne.
And a trial began.
The Corpse Takes the Stand
The charges against Formosus largely concerned whether he had illegally occupied the papacy while already serving as bishop of another diocese, along with accusations connected to his earlier disputes within the Church.
But conducting a trial normally requires something rather important:
A defendant capable of answering questions.
So the court provided one.
A deacon was assigned to stand beside Formosus’ corpse and answer on his behalf.
Stephen reportedly addressed and interrogated the dead pope as though he were alive.
Unsurprisingly, the defense did not go particularly well.
Formosus was found guilty.
And the punishment wasn’t finished.
THE ODD PART
After Formosus was convicted, the three fingers of his right hand traditionally used to give papal blessings were cut off.
His papal acts were declared invalid, and the corpse was stripped of its vestments.
Then Formosus was buried again — without the honors normally afforded a pope.
Even that wasn’t the end.
They Threw the Pope in the River
The body was reportedly dug up yet again and thrown into the Tiber River.
At this point, the story starts sounding less like church history and more like a medieval revenge thriller.
According to later accounts, Formosus’ body was eventually recovered from the river and returned to St. Peter’s.
Meanwhile, Pope Stephen’s victory proved remarkably short-lived.
The Cadaver Synod helped provoke outrage in Rome.
Later in 897, Stephen VI was imprisoned.
Then he was strangled.
The entire episode had lasted only months, but the battle over Formosus wasn’t finished.
The Dead Pope Gets the Last Word
Stephen’s successors began undoing what had happened.
Pope Theodore II rehabilitated Formosus and ordered his body honorably reburied.
Pope John IX went further, condemning the Cadaver Synod and taking steps intended to prevent trials of dead people from happening again.
Remarkably, another pope, Sergius III, later revived the anti-Formosus position during yet another shift in Roman politics.
The controversy surrounding a man who died in 896 therefore continued long after he was capable of participating in it.
Why Would Anyone Do This?
The Cadaver Synod makes much more sense when viewed as political theater rather than a genuine attempt to determine whether a corpse had committed ecclesiastical misconduct.
The papacy during this period was caught in fierce political struggles involving Roman aristocratic families, Italian rulers, and competing claimants to imperial power.
Condemning Formosus also attacked his political legacy.
But Stephen VI chose such an extreme method that the spectacle itself became part of history.
More than 1,100 years later, many of the political disputes surrounding Formosus have faded into obscurity.
Yet people still remember the moment when Rome dug up a dead pope…
and put him on trial.
From the Archive
National Geographic — Inside the Cadaver Synod, the trial of a dead pope’s body
JSTOR Daily — The Cadaver Synod: Putting a Dead Pope on Trial
Catholic Encyclopedia — Pope Formosus
