The Cadaver Synod

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The 9th century was a time of marked instability for Italy and the Roman Catholic Church. The Eternal City’s glory had long faded: The Church hid behind the fortified walls of the Vatican while the rest of the city was starved and slaughtered by Saracens. Papal turnover was high, and assassination was a frequent outcome.

Between 872 and 965, two dozen popes were appointed, and between 896 and 904 there was a new pope every year. Often, these brief papal reigns were the result of the political machinations of local Roman factions, about which few sources survive.

Wikipedia, Cadaver Synod – Context

Caught amidst this madness was Pope Formosus, who during his brief reign dabbled recklessly with French and Imperial politics. As atonement for his sins, he earned the unusual punishment of being the dug up, put on trial, and then declared guilty of his crimes seven months after he actually died.

The resulting trial has been dubbed “The Cadaver Synod”.

Early Ambitions

Formusus became cardinal bishop of Porto, Italy in 864 during the reign of Pope Nicholas I, who also appointed him legate to Bulgaria two years later.

Formosus was particularly good at his job – so good, in fact, that King Boris I, ruler of the First Bulgarian Empire, directly requested he be named archbishop of Bulgaria. It was denied under a canon law forbidding a bishop to change see.

Unfortunately, Formosus’ popularity painted a large target on his back. When Pope John VIII ascended the papacy in 872, he saw the bishop as a political rival and a potential usurper to his holy throne. Formusus also had a habit of backing the wrong horse, so to speak, and his political alliances with the Carolingians of France did not go over well with John VIII.

As such, Formusus and his supporters fled Rome in late 875 fearing political prosecution. A few months later in 876, Pope John VIII levied accusations against Formosus asserting that he was aspiring to seize the Holy See; his excommunication soon followed.

Formosus’ troubles finally came to an end when Pope John VIII was poisoned and then clubbed to death by his own clerics in 882. Formosus resumed his bishopric at Porto under the new pope, and in an ironic bit of foreshadowing, wound up being elected pope himself nine years laters in 891.

Pope Formosus

Formosus’ five year papacy (a good streak at the time!) was likewise beset by political turmoil when he invited the Carolingian King Arnulf of Carinthia to literally invade Italy and overthrow the reigning Holy Roman Emperor, Lambert of Spoleto. Arnulf succeeded at this task in 895, and Formosus crowned him emperor in St. Peter’s Basilica.

Formosus died a few months later in 896. Whether by poison or old age is unknown, though sources note Formosus died in intense agony. His successor, Pope Boniface VI, also died 15 days into the new job.

This left Pope Steven VI, a Lambert supporter, in office. Lambert, understandably upset by the coup orchestrated by Formosus just a few months prior, pressured Steven VI to publicly humiliate him and delegitimize everything he had accomplished as pope.

Thus, the stage was set for the Cadaver Synod in early 897.

The Trial

Stephen VI commanded that Formosus’ corpse be unearthed and brought before the ecclesiastical court to answer for his crimes against the Papacy:

Probably around January 897, Stephen VI ordered that the corpse of his predecessor Formosus be removed from its tomb and brought to the papal court for judgment. With the corpse propped up on a throne, a deacon was appointed to answer for the deceased pontiff.

Bear in mind that Formosus was now seven months decomposed. One wonders what that smell must have been like.

Slouched on the papal throne like a soulless marionette, Formosus remained silent as Stephen VI hurled accusations at his limp, lifeless corpse. The deacon given the unenviable task of answering for Formosus didn’t dare mount much of a defense. The deceased was ultimately declared guilty of all charges.

Formosus was handed down a harsh sentence: All of his measures and acts were annulled, and any orders conferred by him were declared invalid. This wasn’t enough for Stephen VI, however, who took revenge on Formosus by mutilating his corpse:

…after having the corpse stripped of its papal vestments, Stephen then cut off the three fingers of the right hand that it had used in life for blessings, next formally invalidating all of Formosus’ acts and ordinations.

A pauper’s grave was also deemed too generous for the maligned Formosus, and a more suitable resting place was found:

The body was finally interred in a graveyard for foreigners, only to be dug up once again, tied to weights, and cast into the Tiber River.

Aftermath

The vengeful spirit of Formosus would eventually come to haunt Pope Stephen VI, however. Formosus’ body eventually washed up on the banks of the Tiber, where it reportedly began performing miracles. The outrageous event turned public opinion against Stephen VI, and an uprising deposed and imprisoned him later that summer. He lasted two months in the slammer before being strangled to death in July or August 897.

As for poor Formosus, his corpse was recovered from the river by a monk and secretly buried in Porto. Pro-Formosan sentiment exploded among Rome’s inhabitants soon after he washed ashore. Following the imprisonment of Stephen VI, Pope Romanus ruled only four months before eventually being deposed and confined to a monastery:

It is unknown whether he was deposed by supporters of his predecessor, Stephen VI, or by pro-Formosan supporters, who wanted to replace him with a pope who would more actively vindicate Formosus.

Whatever the case, Pope Theodore II next ascended the papacy and followed through with the public’s wishes. He annulled the Cadaver Synod in December 897, rehabilitated Formosus, disinterred him yet again, and finally laid his much-abused corpse to rest in full pontifical vestments beneath Saint Peter’s Basilica.

Legacy

Formosus’ reputation, however, just wouldn’t stay buried with him. A power struggle in the Papal States between the pro-Formosan faction and the Lambert-backed Stephen VI faction continued for over ten years! Indeed, between 896 and 904, there were no fewer than seven popes (and one antipope!) who sought to either consecrate Formosus’ legacy or further degrade it.

A year after Pope Theodore II annulled the Cadaver Synod, Pope John IX (who ascended after Theodore II died twenty days in office) convened two more synods where seven cardinals involved in the Cadaver Synod were excommunicated. He also prohibited any future trials of a corpse as a further precaution that nothing like this would ever happen again.

Yet two popes later, Pope Sergius III re-affirmed the validity of the Cadaver Synod in 904 and once again invalidated all of Formosus’s ordinations, only to have the decision reversed again after his death.

Pope Formosus has finally passed into the annals of obscure history, but his trial is a reminder of the chaos and political turbulence that would frequently consume the Vatican during the waning days of the Early Middle Ages. The next century would see the church further consumed by corruption, ultimately resulting in one of the great crises of the High Middle Ages: The Great Schism.