The macabre spectacle of the Cadaver Synod marked a chaotic era in the medieval Catholic Church – and both popes came out looking bad.
Nantes Museum of ArtsDuring the Cadaver Synod, one pope dug up the corpse of another pope and put the body on trial.
The Catholic Church has put a lot of people on trial during its long history. In the 1600s, Galileo found himself on trial for promoting heliocentrism. An ecclesiastical church put Joan of Arc on trial in the 1400s. And Martin Luther found himself on trial in the 1500s, leading to the Protestant Revolution.
But the strangest trial in church history took place in the 800s. Known as the Cadaver Synod, the trial featured two popes – one living, and one dead.
What happened during the Cadaver Synod? In 897, an angry pope decided to put another pope on trial. But there was a problem: the “criminal” had been dead for over a year.
The macabre trial, held at the Basilica San Giovanni Laterno in Rome, marked a dark period in the church’s history.
Putting A Dead Pope On Trial
Pope Formosus had been dead for seven months when his successor, Pope Stephen VI, put him on trial. What were the dead pope’s crimes? Stephen accused Formosus of lying and illegally holding a church office.
Traditionally, courts only put living people on trial. But that did not stop Stephen.
In order to convict the dead pope, Stephen first had to exhume his body. Next, he ordered the corpse to stand trial, making the case against his dead rival.
During the Cadaver Synod, Formosus’s corpse sat in the papal throne as the ecclesiastical court decided his fate. Stephen graciously appointed a deacon to defend the dead pope dressed in ecclesiastical robes.
Nantes Museum of ArtsPope Formosus had been dead for seven months when Pope Stephen exhumed his body and put the corpse on trial.
As Formosus rotted, Stephen laid out his case: the ex-pope had broken canon law by trying to hold multiple bishoprics at the same time. The church banned that practice to avoid bishops becoming too powerful.
Formosus also faced accusations that he committed perjury after promising not to pursue church positions but then accepting the title of pope. Finally, Stephen declared that Formosus was not qualified to be pope because of his oath to remain a layman.
It didn’t take Stephen long to reach a judgment. The corpse was guilty.
The Punishment For A Dead Pope
Pope Formosus had been dead for seven months, but that didn’t prevent a guilty verdict in his trial. But how could the church punish a dead convict? Stephen had a punishment in mind.
By Stephen’s order, the church formally condemned the former pope’s memory. Formusus and his five-year reign as pope would be expunged from the record.
Wikimedia CommonsHistories of the Catholic Church could not ignore the strange trial of the pope’s corpse.
What did that mean in practice? All of Formosus’ measures, decrees, and acts were deemed invalid. Further, the ex-pope was stripped of his papal robes. To drive home the point, the three fingers from Formosus’s right hand, which he had used for blessings, were cut off.
As a final act of desecration, Stephen VI ordered Formosus’ body to be thrown into the Tiber river. A few days later, a local monk reportedly fished Formosus from the river and hid the body nearby.
The Life and Death of Pope Formosus
Who was Pope Formosus, the feared pontiff who was so powerful that he had to be put on trial after his death?
The Cadaver Synod reveals more about the Church than about Formosus. Without the posthumous conviction on his record, Formosus might have looked like one of the better popes of his era.
The late 800s marked a chaotic period in church history. While Rome had once been the undisputed epicenter of Europe, other territories had begun to flourish. Rifts began forming within the Church, which had previously established a unified front, and many saw the papacy as a route to power.
Wikimedia CommonsDuring his life, Formosus was known as a missionary who traveled through Bulgaria.
Formosus rode a reform wave to power. As Bishop of Porto, Formosus traveled widely and gained allies from France’s Carolingian court and the far-off Byzantine Empire in Constantinople. He also built a strong reputation as a missionary during his travels in Bulgaria.
Fearing Formosus’ growing influence, Pope John VIII excommunicated Formosus after accusing him of trying to usurp the papacy. The Church stripped Formosus of his bishopric.
A few years after excommunicating Formosus, John VIII died by assassination, first by poison and then by bludgeoning with a hammer.
With the death of the pope who excommunicated him, Formosus returned to his role as bishop. Then, following a series of short-lived popes, Formosus finally took the papacy in 891.
Formosus was not shy about involving the church in political disputes. In a three-year period, he crowned two rivals as Holy Roman Emperor. Lambert of Spoleto earned the title in 892, but Formosus crowned another, Arnulf of Carinthia, in 895 while Lambert still lived.
Backing rival candidates made Formosus unpopular with many factions.
In 896, Formosus died of natural causes at around 80 years old. Following Formosus, Pope Boniface VI ruled for only 15 days before he died, possibly of poisoning.
Then, Pope Stephen VI took power and ordered the macabre trial of Formosus, which required exhuming the former pontiff’s body.
The Reasons Behind The Cadaver Synod
Within months of Formosus’s death, Pope Stephen VI and Lambert of Spoleto, spurned by Formosus, met in Rome. Not long after, Stephen decided to dig up Formosus and put him on trial.
Stephen’s decision was motivated by politics. But the trial also recognized the power of the papacy.
Medieval popes declared themselves infallible. Then how could Formosus have backed the “wrong” Holy Roman Emperor? Stephen and Formosus’s enemies had to destroy the dead pope’s reputation to void his actions as pope.
But the trial went beyond erasing Formosus’s proclamations as pontiff. The punishment also ensured that living allies of the dead pope could not rally around him.
Statens Museum for Kunst The Cadaver Synod ended with the dead pope’s body thrown into the Tiber river to desecrate it.
Destroying Formosus’s body – cutting off his fingers and throwing his corpse in the river – made sure that the dead pope could not become a holy relic. His followers could not use Formosus’s body to perform miracles or declare the pope a saint.
From Pope Stephen’s perspective, the Cadaver Synod served its purpose. But Stephen would soon discover that he had enemies of his own.
The Legacy of the Cadaver Synod
Not surprisingly, the Cadaver Synod was not popular. Clerics cringed at the macabre trial, and Catholics wondered if the church knew what it was doing.
Stephen’s former supporters turned on him. After a reign of just over one year, Stephen found himself deposed and in jail. The pope who put a dead pope on trial was strangled in a Roman prison.
Deposing Stephen did not create stability in the church. His successor, Romanus, held the title for only a few months, and the next pope, Theodore II, ruled for 20 days. During that brief time, Theodore managed to overturn the Cadaver Synod. But that decision only lasted until a former judge in Formosus’s trial became pope and once again declared Formosus guilty.
Wikimedia CommonsThe late 800s and early 900s were a tumultuous time for the Catholic Church, with new popes taking office almost every year.
Formosus’s body, once thrown in the Tiber, eventually found itself back in Saint Peter’s Basilica among the other deceased pontiffs.
In the decade after Formosus’s death, popes rose and fell nearly every year. Instability, factionalism, and corruption plagued the church – and the Cadaver Synod became known as one of the low points in church history.
Want to read more about the Cadaver Synod? Next, check out the craziest popes in history, and then read about medieval animal trials.
