Fellow ridiculous historians Catholic and non Catholic alike. Thank you so much for tuning into this weekend's classic episode. I am Ben. That's our super producer Max Noel.
There's a.
Lot of Catholicism in the news recently, Yes.
Or a hat or whatever, Yeah, whatever you like, it's true. We've got a conclave, a real life conclave going down as we speak, the process where in a new pope is selected ORIP Pope Francis, he's the good pope. Many have described him ass or maybe that's just me, but yeah, it's kind of a big deal.
Yeah, and tune into our episode on the Prophecy of the Popes from our peer podcast stuff they don't want you to know where. Yeah, we go deep into some lore of the Catholic Church, one of the most important, I would say, one of the most important spiritual and geopolitical entities on the planet as we speak. They're no stranger to scandal and controversy and back in oh gosh, what was it twenty eighteen? Now you and I learned about a thoroughly ridiculous courtroom situation.
Absolutely the title says it all, and it reminds me of like a classic film or something from this fifties. A dead pope goes to court. It's like mister Smith goes to Washington or something like that.
Yes, so listening folks join us to learn what drove Pope Stephen the sixth, also sometimes called Pope Stephen the seventh.
We could just say Pope Stephen is just funny in and of itself. I don't know why, let's just call him Pope Steve.
While we're at Pope Pope Steve sounds like a guy who has his street name. Anyway. True story. One time this dude dug up one of his predecessors who had long passed from this mortal veil, and put the guy's body on trial.
Not weird at all, totally normal.
Nothing weird and super norms. Let's roll the ridiculous tape. Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Okay, Usually when we begin the show, we like to have some sort of bit or some sort of reference, some sort of tangential thing. But this story is so strange that I feel like we I don't know how we open. I'm just laughing to myself, Man, are you at a loss for bits? I'm usually I've got a couple of back pocket bits chomping at the bit, right, Uh, but I'm
not bitter about this. Hey, hey you're Nol.
I am Nol, and you, sir, are Ben the bitmeister bowling.
Oh, thank you, thank you Nol. And we are joined with our super producer, Casey Pegram.
Uh.
I think none of us are Catholic, right.
I went to a Catholic mass like a couple times when I was a kid, and I thought it was very interesting. There was like a like a dude with a robe waving around this like thing with smoke coming out of sane what a thurible? Really?
Yeah, I think that's the word. I yeah, the instance. Yeah. So it's funny you mentioned that the first time I ever saw a Catholic Mass, I was living in Guatemala and my Spanish wasn't very good, let alone my Latin. So I was completely out of my element, and I thought it was fascinating, you know what I mean.
Absolutely.
So you're probably wondering why we're mentioning Catholicism here, ridiculous historians. It's because our show today takes us to a very very strange episode in Catholic history, and for a long time. On another show we do stuff they want you to know, we had a running character that you used to do no knowl which was the Pope. Yes, yes, that's it.
Welcome. But then I kind of came to my attention, maybe just through my own paranoia, that maybe it's not okay to do a voice for the Pope that sounds like a weird, strangulated muppet.
Well maybe, I mean maybe it had its time. Yeah, but I thought that was some good work there. Who's that guy that does that podcast?
You made it weird? Pete Holmes, that's Casey on the Case. Yeah, Pete Holmes. I saw him do stand up in La Prisidents Forget one time, and he had a really good bit about how as a culture we have this bizarre blind spot in our idea of racism, and it's for Italians because it's like somehow okay to go like, hey, it's a mea Mario, like a pizza pie or whatever, that's okay, but any other you know, doing an Asian voice or something or that is not cool. And he
made it. I don't know. I thought it was a really good point.
That is a good point. I wonder if it holds the same in other countries where English is the primary language. Like, do people in the UK if you're listening to the UK, do you folks do the Italian voice? Is it just an American thing? Are we the jerks?
I think we might be.
We might be, but we're not going to be as big of jerks as the popes of the past have been.
Oh man, the past popes, my friend. So here's the thing. There was a time when what we know is the Holy Roman Empire was fresh and young and the new thing, right, And this was in the eighth and ninth centuries. And a really great article from all that is Interesting dot Com called Better Noah Pope Stephen the sixth the Grave Robber outlines quite beautifully the life and times of this papal jerk.
Yeah. Yeah, this period of time, it's just so rife with corruption. That's that's the best way to say it. And there's a term that you and I learned that later historians would use to to describe this period between like eighth and ninth century AD, Holy Roman Empire, right, Yeah, it was the pornocracy, right, pornocracy. Yeah, So you know, google that if you wish, But yeah, we can't guarantee that it won't get you in trouble on your work computer.
But we're not talking about Stephen the sixth right away, not just yet. No, we're talking about another pope named Formosis, which is a great pope name.
I feel like it's a It sounds like a sith lord's name in Star Wars and be like Darth Formosis. So Formoses name aside, he had quite a history with the Catholic Church. Eventually he becomes pope, but before he becomes pope, we have to talk about what happened when he was a cardinal bishop, right, because he had sown the seeds of his later problems in his time as a cardinal bishop.
Yeah, because he was also a very very successful missionary, and those Bulgars that you mentioned earlier, he was converting them to Catholicism left and right. And he was actually accused by the sitting pope at the time, who was a guy named Pope John the eighth, of breaking a law of the Roman Catholic Church that prevented anyone from
being a bishop in more than one place. And because of his missionary work that had sort of could have been perceived as having happened, and so he actually was excommunicated.
He was he was excommunicated by John the eighth because the room was that he was a bishop of Porto in eight sixty four, but then also a bishop in Bulgaria a little bit later on. Right.
Yeah. And the thing was the reason that that law had been passed, and I think it was a pretty new law, was because we talked about that those fractured little fiefdoms throughout Europe, those were a problem because there was division within the church. There was division culturally and ideologically, and the Roman Calataris did not want to feed into that anymore by having any one man in the church have too much power over too many areas, because that could cause a problem.
No one man should have all that power. Casey, can we cut to that clip real quick? No one, I think it's appropriate. We don't know whether Foremosis would have dugged that song, but maybe he would. We don't know much about the guy's musical taste. So he ultimately is, as you said, Noel excommunicated because he had wronged John the a And on April nineteenth of eight seventy five, Pope John the eighth called a synod a synod and requested that all these other papal officials returned to Rome.
It's just a fancy word for this meeting of the clergy. Yeah, it's like like a brain trust, like some sort of like think tank. Yeah yeah, and there can be different versions of it. But remember that word because it becomes very important later. So formosis still in France, says ah, I'm not going to go to that. So since he doesn't comply, he's removed from the ranks of the clergy.
He's excommunicated. And the reason given is that he is excommunicated because he deserted his diocese without the permission of the pope and that double bishopping, double dipping bishop. I like that double dipping bishop.
And he also openly aspired for the papacy whatever that means, like he campaigned for it or what. I don't know. It seems like he was railroaded quite a bit by dudes that did not like the fact that he was kind of better than them. I don't know in terms of just like his goodness, because I'm not reading a whole lot of corruption, actual corruption on his side. On his side, it seems like it's most of the other the other folks just like a lot of politicking very much.
So I sort of like that that Second Star Wars prequel.
The Second Star Double Dip and Bishop. So this is announced in eight seventy two. In July, it's formally announced that Formosis and several other people are excommunicated, But a few years later, in eight seventy eight, the sentence of excommunication was withdrawn after Formosis promised to never again return to Rome, nor to exercise his priestly functions ever for the rest of his life.
He agreed, but it didn't. Isn't this when John the Eighth got murdered?
Yeah, John the eighth assassinated, right, But how did it? How did it happen? Was it one of those shady like may have been an accident or was it pretty clearly a murder?
Oh no, no, I don't. I do not think he was. He was beloved by the people because he was first poisoned and then someone bashed his head in with the hammer because the poison was taking too long. So then you know, then we end up in this kind of like really rough and tumble period where there's like several popes in between him, and ultimately when our guy Formosis
becomes the pope. So immediately after this we have a quick turnaround of popes who got Marinus the first and then is quickly followed by a guy named Saint Adrian the third, and he kind of thinks better of Foremostis and overturns all of those penalties that he had to he had to suffer, right, so he's now allowed. Not only is he allowed to come back to Rome and keep practicing what he's doing, he actually becomes the pope, the next pope and eight ninety one.
Yes, he has unanimously elected the pope on October sixth, eight ninety one, and this ushers in a weird period for the pope. So votes for the pope ben we do not unless we become cardinals in the church.
So if Formosis was so unpopular at the point where he got excommunicated and banned for life, but then was unanimously elected pope, it really just goes to show there were some serious like factions. I mean, this whole idea of the splintered loyalties is on full display here. And I guess after our guy John the eighth got you know, club to death, the tide turned in his favor and he served as pope for I think a good five years, and in that five years he accomplished some pretty cool stuff.
Yeah, I believe we mentioned earlier. He was pope from October sixth, eight ninety one until his death in eight ninety six. And he didn't get a particularly great situation, you know what I mean when he became pope. And obviously, as you can tell from the timeline, he did not serve as pope for very long, but he did try his best to navigate the chaotic geopolitical issues of the day. The problem is, he became engrossed in some real beefs
with some powerful enemies. One of the most prominent is a guy named Guy the third of Spiletto, the Holy Roman Emperor, and started as sort of a just like a somewhat distant struggle for control, but then it was building quickly into open warfare.
Yeah, yeah, it's true. And this guy, this guy, Guy of Suspilato, was on the other end of that open warfare, and Formostus actually ended up having to a mass An army to go to war with him. And when he did this, as he was doing this, rather he died, he got paralyzed, was quote struck by paralysis acrony of
this article in all that is interesting dot com. And he passed away, and so guys, problems were resolved, and the problems were We talked about earlier how there was a lot of vying for control and cash flow from these Holy Roman brothels, and that was kind of at the center of this. See there's the thing I said that foremosts didn't really seem to have too much dirt on him, but it did seem like he was still kind of running the numbers and playing the game in
terms of like where this money went. But I think he just didn't give the right bishops the cash, and he became sort of persona on grata for the ones that were amassed behind guy.
And so Foremoses dies. The next pope is a guy named Pope Bona Face the sixth, and this pope is a native of Rome, and he is pope in April of eight ninety six. He was mainly elected because there were a ton of riots right after the death of Pope Formosis, and after a pontificate of fifteen days, he either died of the gout or he was forcibly ejected to make way for a character named Stephen the Sixth, who he mentioned at the beginning. Thanks for sticking around, folks.
We got there. We did get there. A lot of ground to cover between there and here.
But yeah, Stephen the sixth is sort of our Papal Looney tune in today's episode. He had a lot of problems with Formosas in the first place, because he did not like the way he interpreted doctrine, that idea of the way either the Godhead and all of that. Ben, can you give us a little more on that.
Yeah, it's like we said earlier, there's a difference here in the nature of the Holy Spirit, how it relates to the Trinity, how it relates to the Godhead, and without getting too far in the weeds here, it sounds very technical, but it's an argument that they took very very very very seriously. Gravely seriously, one might say. But the truth is that we don't know too much about Stephen's early life. We don't know what his name originally was, We don't know what yu was born, but we we
do know a little bit about his life. It seems that he was the son of a priest. When he you know, when he attained adulthood, he went into the church, but it was actually Formoses who made him a bishop, and he was made a bishop under pressure from Guy three of Spiletto.
Ah. Yes, So here's how it goes. Stephen the sixth becomes the pope and for whatever reason, like I don't even understand what the point of this is. I mean, I think that's the whole seed of ridiculousness in the story is he was so angry with Foremosis, who, as we've mentioned, has died at this point, that he decided it would be a good idea to hold another one of those synods. Right synod you say, synod synon doesn't matter. Synod sounds very sci fi, So I'm gonna say like that.
There we go.
So he calls one of those sort of like a king's moot in RPG games, and he has the corpse of said pope dug up and dressed up in the papal robes and sat in the papal throne and tried for all of those things that he got reversed, remember the excommunication and the whole like being a bishop in two places and all that. Stephen did not forget those things. And he's here's the thing, you can look at it
one of two ways. That he was legitimately conscientiously outraged about these things, and then that he would not let those heresies stand, or he trying to get a little juice from all of those political factions that were anti Formosis, if we know there were many, and there's a couple more reasons I want to point out before we get into the next bit of the story as to why that was.
If you're listening to this by a computer or a desktop, or you're on your phone, some we're safe, go ahead and pull up this fantastic painting by Jean Paul Lawrence called Pope Formosis and Stephen the Seventh. That's the same guy as Stephen the sixth is a whole different thing, but that's the original title of the painting. So, Noel, what are those other reasons?
Well, in addition to the whole brothel debacle and you know, a bacle, yeah, exactly, he also he just got embroiled in a lot of geopolitical disputes that resulted in people gaining and losing a lot of money. One was he actually intervened in Constantinople, where a patriarch named Photius the First had been ousted, and also the son of Emperor Basil the First, a guy named Stephen had taken his place. It's a different Stephen.
He also refused to reinstate people who have been ordained by the patriarch, by Photius the first.
That's right, Okay, Ben, so I sort of glossed over. We both a little bit glossed over his kind of disagreements with Guy the third of Spilato, who was the Holy Roman Emperor. That's an interesting thing about the Holy Roman Empire. Ride you have it. You have this Holy Roman Emperor and then you have the pope, and they're kind of like the pope is sort of the the uh, the spiritual thing, and then the emperor is the political
head of state or whatever. But he wanted to overthrow Guy the third of Spilato, so he actually supported factions that were going against him, and he actually convinced Arnolf of Corinthia to invade Rome and take con of Italy from Spilato, so you know, and then Spilato was kind of pals with our boy Stephen the sixth. So there we go.
Does that?
Does that? Someone up in a nutshell?
I think we're getting close. I think that's that's good, just.
In terms of why someone would be so angry with this man after he was already dead, that he decided to dig up his rotting bones from the ground, dress him up in this pageantry and shove him in a chair and try him for heresy.
Yeah, let me paint some more of the picture here about how this trial actually wins. And I hope you guys can hear the air quotes when I say trial. So there's a great article on this beliefs from National Geographic Vengeance at the Vatican, the Cadaver's Nod, and this is seen as the lowest point in the continual chaos of ninth century Italy. So there's another player that enters the field here who maybe doesn't get as much mentioned
as they should. Guy the third we mentioned he had sons, right, He had a son named Lambert, and Lambert ended up teaming up with the Pope Stephen to create this pr farce because Lambert said, when he was talking to Stephen the sixth, he said, we have to condemn Formoss's actions and tarnish his reputation, and it has to be in public so that his followers can see it. And it has to feel official. So it has to happen under canon law and be held before the papal curia and
Roman nobility. And we're gonna have Formoss himself attend. So Noel, as you said, they dressed him up, they exhumed him, they put him on trial. They even had someone who was supposed to speak for you, like as a lawyer. Yeah, against those accusations. However, the poor Sap didn't have much luck because Pope Stephen was just continually screaming at this corpse. It's a very undignified way for a pope to act, at least I would think so. In the modern day.
Now it's super just macabre too. And of course, you know, like you had a chance, poor Sap. He was found guilty and they punished him with something called damnascio memorii, which means condemnation of memory in Latin, and it basically means that his tenure as pope was like men in black mind erased from history books. Well, only it doesn't seem to have taken because we're talking about.
It right, Erased from history. Thou shalt nut speak his name, And there are all these different desecrations they did to his body too. They tore his papal vestments off, they cut off the three fingers on his hand that he used to concentrate.
You know, the ones.
Yeah, and they threw his body in a river, and later I think a monk or a fisherman found it.
I think the river thing even came a little later. They originally just like buried him in the ground somewhere like like an unmarked grave, and then Pope Jonathan the sixth thought better of it and was like, you know what, that's too good for that. So and so let's dig him up and just toss him in the in the in the drink.
Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that, because our sources show us that first, yeah, he was dressed in common peon clothed, and then buried in an unmarked grave, a pauper's grave. And then the stories that they decided that wasn't good enough, right, so they dug him up again and threw him in the river. However, it seems like that part the story about a monk or a fisherman pulling the pope from the river might be a myth. But we do know
the story of the body doesn't stop there. This is seen as an act of very bad taste to almost everybody involved. You know, it's kind of a wake up call where they're thinking, we're getting ridiculous. I know, we want kill each other, but this is this is a little too far.
It's a bit much.
And so Stephen six ends up imprisoned a few months afterwards, and he is strangled to death in jail. And two years after that, another pope reinstates Pope Formosis and bans any further trial for dead popes. So it came to pass that Pope Formosis is buried in eighteen ninety seven with full Christian honors, which seems like a heck of a ride.
Yeah, it's sort of not. I mean, I guess it's a pretty good consolation prize. But guy really went through the ringer.
I just have this vision in my head that I can't I can't erase the memory. Oddly enough, or this this fanciful notion of people having to sit and watch this because they had they had to sit and observe it trial.
And do you think they were into it or do you think they are like, ye, I don't know about this, I don't know.
I mean, surely it's like a warning to some of Moses's followers.
Yeah, I guess because again, like he definitely had some and you know, there's nothing that I was able to find about them, like doing some sort of mass execution of anyone that was in his camp or whatever. So maybe this was their way of, like, you know, let this be a warning to you for emotions.
Yeah, and you know what, man, We're We're not perfect, no one is. But I can say that we have never put a corpse on trial, you know what I mean? So go us.
Yeah, you know, I'll tell you, Ben, the fact that we're not perfect is what makes the show work.
Let's hope. So, and we hope you enjoyed hearing this story. We've talked about it off air, folks. We could probably do an entire podcast on popes a popecast, but that's that's a different show, right. Also, we're trademarking popecast. If that's not already a thing, we just called it. We called dips. Does that count sure? If we called DIBs on air.
DIBs is a thing, that's a thing, that's those rules surrounding it. Yeah, it's part of the Geneva convention. Yeah, there we go.
So dibbs on popecasts. But write to us and let us know what strange stories you learned about when you've read up on papal history, because we assure you there are multitudes of strange stories about popes. You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. We highly recommend our community page Ridiculous Historians, where you can meet and speak with some of your fellow listeners.
There is a popecast by the way. Damn it very disappointing installment of Casey on the case.
It was too you know what. Popecast was too good to not be a thing. Of course, it was like a podcast chorus. We flew too close to the sun.
And if you want to fly too close to the podcast sun too. You don't want to do any of that social media stuff, you can write us an email at Ridiculous at HowStuffWorks dot com, but most importantly, please join us for our next episode where we talk about spooky Filipino vampire alien monster creatures that haunt the Hills.
I am so excited. I'm so excited. Thank you to super producer Casey Pegrim. Thanks to our research associate for this episode, Eve's Jeffcoat. Thanks to Alex Williams who can posed this track, and Hey, Noil, thanks to you.
He're looking at you. Ben. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.