The desecration of the body of poor Papa Formoso, who was condemned after his death

2 October 1264. Urban IV, the Frenchman Jacques Pantaléon, died. He was a Pope who never resided in Rome, but in Viterbo, Orvieto and Perugia. A master of canon law (he had studied theology and law in Paris), he became Bishop of Verdun and Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem. His election took place, in accordance with the rule introduced by Innocent IV less than twenty years earlier, in the place where the previous Pope had died – in this case, Viterbo. The College of Cardinals was extremely small, comprising just eight prelates; however, as a chronicle recounts, they were ‘deeply divided amongst themselves’, and the discussions dragged on for three months until the unexpected unanimous choice of Pantaléon – who was not a cardinal – who happened to be in Viterbo at the time to settle a matter concerning the Knights of St John. The new pontiff swiftly set about strengthening the Sacred College by appointing 14 cardinals in less than two years. He urged Charles of Anjou to come to Italy, thereby initiating the direct involvement of the French royal house in anti-imperial activities, a development which later led to the popes’ relocation to Avignon.

6 October 891. Formosus, from Rome, was elected Pope: a learned man, an ascetic leading an exemplary life, enterprising and energetic, who had repeatedly fallen from grace and been persecuted, yet remained an active pontiff. He crowned Lambert of Spoleto as emperor and, four years later, Arnulf of Carinthia. A few months after his death, a macabre incident took place. The indignation of the people of Spoleto at Arnulf’s consecration had been such that, in January 897, Pope Stephen VI, who was sympathetic to their cause, convened and presided over a synod in St Peter’s Basilica to put the now-deceased Pope on trial. Formosus’s mummified corpse was exhumed and, dressed in papal vestments, was seated on a throne and subjected to a solemn judgement. He was accused of perjury (the second imperial consecration was a breach of the commitments made at the first), of ambition (for having aspired to the papal throne), and of violating the canons which at that time prohibited bishops from changing their see (he was Bishop of Porto when he was elected Bishop of Rome). His defence—a farce entrusted to a cowering deacon who, standing beside the corpse, answered on his behalf—was to no avail. Formosus was condemned: stripped of his papal vestments, the three fingers of the hand with which he had sworn and consecrated were cut off, and he was finally thrown into the Tiber. All his acts were declared null and void. Shortly afterwards, there was a strong reaction to the ‘synod of the corpse’ (as the affair came to be known), fuelled in part by accounts of miracles said to have occurred through the body of Formosus, which had been recovered from the Tiber by a pious hermit who had given it a Christian but clandestine burial: in August 897, a popular uprising deposed Pope Stephen, who was taken to prison and strangled there. Subsequently, Formosus’s remains were handed over to Pope Romanus and buried in St Peter’s Basilica.