In January of 897 AD, a grotesque scene unfolded in the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome. Pope Stephen VI ordered the corpse of his predecessor, Pope Formosus, exhumed from its tomb. The decomposing body, dead for nine months, was dressed in full papal vestments, propped up on a throne, and put on trial before a church council. This bizarre event, known as the Cadaver Synod, remains one of the strangest episodes in Catholic Church history.
The Political Background
To understand the Cadaver Synod, we must first understand the chaotic politics of 9th-century Rome. The papacy had become a prize fought over by powerful Italian families. Popes were made and unmade through political intrigue, military force, and assassination.
Pope Formosus, who reigned from 891 to 896, was deeply embroiled in these conflicts. His greatest political sin was inviting Arnulf of Carinthia to invade Italy and claim the imperial crown. This action enraged the powerful Spoleto family. When Formosus died in April 896, his enemies were far from finished with him.
Stephen VI Takes Power
Pope Stephen VI was consecrated in May 896, just weeks after Formosus’s death. He owed his position to the Spoleto faction, particularly to Lambert of Spoleto and his mother, Ageltrude. They demanded revenge against Formosus.
Stephen had additional personal motives. Formosus had consecrated Stephen as Bishop of Anagni, but there were questions about the validity of various clerical appointments Formosus had made. If Formosus’s acts could be declared invalid, it would reshape the entire ecclesiastical landscape.
The Macabre Trial
The trial itself was a nightmarish spectacle. Formosus’s corpse, still wearing decomposing papal vestments, was propped up on a throne. A deacon stood beside the body to speak for the dead pope.
Stephen VI served as both prosecutor and judge, screaming accusations at the silent corpse. The charges included perjury, serving as bishop while actually a layman, and coveting the papacy. The verdict was predetermined. The corpse was, unsurprisingly, found guilty on all counts.
The punishment was swift and humiliating. The papal vestments were stripped from Formosus’s body. The three fingers of blessing on his right hand were hacked off. The mutilated corpse was then dragged through the streets of Rome and thrown into the Tiber River.
Public Reaction
The Cadaver Synod shocked even the jaded populace of medieval Rome. The sight of a pope putting his predecessor’s corpse on trial struck many as genuinely insane.
According to contemporary accounts, the people of Rome were horrified. Supernatural occurrences were reported—the Basilica was said to have been struck by lightning, and the Tiber flooded, allegedly casting Formosus’s body back onto shore. Whether these events actually occurred or were later embellishments, they reflect the deep unease the trial provoked.
A monk reportedly recovered Formosus’s body from the river and secretly buried it. The body would later be exhumed again and given proper burial in St. Peter’s Basilica after Stephen’s downfall.
The Aftermath
Stephen VI’s triumph was short-lived. Public outrage over the Cadaver Synod contributed to a popular uprising in Rome. In the summer of 897, a mob stormed the Lateran Palace. Stephen was arrested, stripped of his vestments, and thrown into prison.
Most sources agree he was strangled in prison. His death served as rough justice for the desecration of Formosus.
The next several years saw a series of short-lived popes, with the Cadaver Synod’s legacy continuing to cause problems.
Historical Significance
The Cadaver Synod represents a nadir in papal history, part of what historians call the “Dark Age” of the papacy. From roughly 870 to 1049, the papal office was dominated by local Roman factions, with popes often serving as puppets.
The trial also highlights medieval understanding of papal authority. In theory, popes were infallible. But what happened when one pope condemned another? The Cadaver Synod created a theological puzzle that challenged the doctrine of papal supremacy.
The event had lasting ecclesiastical consequences. Questions about the validity of Formosus’s ordinations persisted for decades.
Cultural Legacy
The Cadaver Synod has fascinated historians, artists, and writers for centuries. It appears in Dante’s Divine Comedy and countless historical accounts. The image of a pope putting a corpse on trial captures something essential about the intersection of absolute power and human madness.
The trial serves as a reminder of how religious institutions can be corrupted by political ambition. The Cadaver Synod represents the logical extreme of that corruption—a point where political revenge descended into macabre absurdity.
In the end, both Stephen VI and Formosus are footnotes in Church history, remembered primarily for this single grotesque episode. What remains is the image of a corpse on a throne, and a pope so consumed by hatred that he put the dead on trial—a tableau of medieval madness that continues to shock and fascinate more than a millennium later.