The Pope's Corpse That Was Put on Trial

It happened in the year 897, during a turbulent period in the history of the Catholic Church known as the "Cadaver Synod" or "Synod Horrenda," and it is one of the most bizarre and macabre episodes in Catholic Church history.

After his death, Pope Formosus, who had been elected in 891, was exhumed and subjected to a posthumous trial by his successor, Pope Stephen VI. During this trial, Formosus's corpse was dressed in papal vestments and seated on a throne. A deacon was assigned to answer on behalf of the cadaver to charges that included violations of canon law and acts considered perjury and corruption. In reality, these were pretexts to give the matter a formal appearance, since Formosus had been at the center of Italy's complex politics, affected by the struggle between different aristocratic factions and powerful families. His election as Pope was controversial from the start, and his decisions during his papacy, such as inviting Arnulf of Carinthia (great-great-grandson of Charlemagne) to intervene in Italy, angered many, including influential Italian figures like Lambert of Spoleto. These figures saw Formosus's death as an opportunity to annul his decisions and reassert their power. So at the end of the day, behind the trial lay revenge, political interest, and economic gain.

Something that astonished me when researching this story is that the corpse was exhumed several times during the trial process and placed on the throne, in full decomposition. The image is Dantesque.

At the end of the trial, Formosus was declared guilty, stripped of his papal vestments, and the three fingers of his right hand, used for blessing, were cut off. Subsequently, his remains were initially buried in a humble location, but were later exhumed again and thrown into the Tiber River.

The "Cadaver Synod" has been the subject of study and discussion by historians and is frequently cited as an example of the extremes to which ecclesiastical political disputes could reach in the Middle Ages.