Noble Blood - The Corpse on Trial

Episode Date: May 21, 2024

When Pope Stephen was putting his predecessor on trial, there were signs that what he was doing wasn't quite right. For one, in the middle of the trial, an earthquake shook Rome. For another, his opponent was a dead body.Support Noble Blood:— Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon— Noble Blood merch— Order Dana's book, 'Anatomy: A Love Story' and its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story'See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Will Ferrell's Big Money Players and IHart Podcast presents soccer moms. So I'm Leanne. Yeah. This is my best friend, Janet. Hey. And we have been joined at the hips since high school.

Absolutely. A redacted amount of years later, we're still joined at the hip. Just a little bit bigger hips. This is a podcast. We're recording it as we tailgate our youth soccer games in the back of my Honda Odyssey. With all the snacks and drinks. Why did you get hard seltzer instead of beer? Oh, they hit a bogo. Well, then you got it. Listen to soccer moms on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and grim and mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. In January 897, Pope Stephen the 6th ordered that his predecessor, Pope Formosis, stand trial. The charge, ambitions to illegally usurp the papal throne. In Rome at the Basilica of St. John Lataron, Stephen stood up and hurled insults at Formosus, who was sitting down and, according to medieval sources, looked a little pale. This wasn't the first time Formosus was accused of betraying his fellow churchmen. The medieval Catholic Church was possibly one of the most litigious institutions in the world at that time. Being a bishop in the church, especially during the tumultuous 9th century, often meant you had to excommunicate your rivals or suffer being excommunicated by them.

The liturgical equivalent of kill or be killed. These excommunications took place at synods. councils where high-ranking members of the clergy would meet to discuss religious law with regards to the accused, who usually happened to be their political opponents, who defied said laws. Formosis had been on the receiving end of these synods plenty of times before, three times, to be precise. At one point, he was even excommunicated, albeit temporarily. But the trial of 897 felt different. Certainly, the audience at the trial thought so.

Was it because Rome had just undergone a series of invasions? Certainly, the city was in an unstable condition, but that wasn't quite it. Was it because Pope Stephen was obviously in the pockets of rich Italian dukes? No, the church had always had a hard. time keeping politics and money outside of its religious proceedings. Maybe it was because an earthquake ripped through the city in the middle of the trial. That was certainly spectacular. The roof of the basilica reportedly collapsed in. But if you can believe it, there was something even more unsettling about the whole state of affairs. An observer of the trial would have quickly noted that Stephen was

single-handedly dominating the synod, raising accusation after accusation against a sitting, silent Formosis. Why didn't Formosis defend himself? Why didn't he say a word during the trial that would forever determine his status in the eyes of God? It's because Stephen was told. talking to a corpse. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. Pope Formosis's early life is a blur. What we know comes from sparse references, fragments really in medieval manuscripts, and also from plenty of hearsay. It said that Formosis was born around 816, not long after the death of Charlemagne, King of the Franks. Charlemagne's rule had an unlawful. unforeseen butterfly effect on the political career of our future cadaver.

In the year 800, Old Charlie struck a deal with the then-sitting Pope, Leo III. Charlemagne would protect the Papacy from Italian troublemakers, and the papacy would recognize Charlemagne and his heirs with a fancy new title, Holy Roman Emperor, which we covered in more depth in the episode No Way Holy Nor Roman. nor an empire. In all fairness, Charlemagne's dominion almost resembled the Roman Empire of the glorious past. It spanned France, present-day Germany, and most of the Italian peninsula. But all good things had to come to an end, especially considering that Charlemagne had plenty of heirs among which his domains had to be divided. For more than half a century after Charlemagne's death

in 814, his sons and grandsons jockeed for control over Central Europe and over the Roman Catholic Church. And so if we're to understand Formosus' early contentious life and later as even more contentious afterlife, we need to keep these Carolinian heirs in mind. For all of Formosus's power and prestige, he was often at the whims of these monarchs, riding atop the waves of their imperial ambitions. The beginning of the 9th century marked an unprecedented period of Frankish influence over the Roman Catholic Church. The popes were technically responsible for crowning the Holy Roman Emperor, but in practice it was really the emperors who were crowning the popes. If you're wondering what that looked like in effect, a good example is in 827.

The Cardinals selected a new pope, Gregory IV, but they had to wait an entire year before they could consecrate him because they hadn't yet received approval from the emperor. While these Frankish lords exerted control over the church in Rome, the Byzantine Empire in the East was doing the same thing to the church in Constantinople. In fact, in 858, the Byzantine emperor, Michael III, deposed the sitting patriarch of Constantinople and elected a layman named Fosius in his stead. The whole affair outraged then Pope Nicholas in Rome. Certainly, the Byzantine emperor could elect and depose his vassals, but he should never, ever be doing the same with clergy. those decisions concerned Rome and Rome alone.

By 863, the churches in the East and West had effectively split as they became the religious arms for neighboring empires. To make matters more interesting, they split right as pagan lands in the middle of Europe were on the verge of Christianization, a seemingly innocent term that, in fact, hides plenty of forced conversion and mass.

subjugation. The most important of these lands in question was Bulgaria, formerly a loose collection of territories, now some territories barely held together by the Bulgarian king Boris I. Boris was a savvy ruler. His ultimate aim was to establish an independent Bulgarian church, and he would succeed at that by pitting Roman missionaries against Byzantine missionaries. When the Byzantines invaded his kingdom in 86 and imposed their own bishopric, Boris courted missionaries from Rome to help resist Eastern influence. Formosus, an up-and-coming bishop from a neighborhood in Rome, was called for that task by Pope Nicholas.

The beliefs of the Bulgarian people would have seemed beyond strange to a Christian reformer from the West like Formosis. A letter from Pope Nicholas addressed. to King Boris I, reveals the sort of customs common among the Bulgarian people at the time that the church had little tolerance for. Using magic stones to cure ailments, that's a no-no. Baring those who had died from suicide, committing ritual sacrifices before special occasions, you get the idea. Boris even sent a letter asking the Pope about the spiritual validity of Bulgarian fashion choices, especially their apparently unique trousers.

In a letter, Pope Nicholas responded, What you seek to learn concerning trousers, we consider superfluous, for we do not wish the external fashion of your clothing to be changed, but the moral of your inner man within you. That's not really relevant to Formosa's really, but I do find it very funny. But, you know, in the bigger picture, Formosis's task was to see the believer beneath the trousers and hopefully bring the Bulgarians over to the Roman Catholic Church. If not much is known about Formosus' early life, what can be said with certainty is that he was pretty exceptional at his job.

Almost every source that reports on his time in Bulgaria mentions how in less than a year he managed to convert a whole mass of pagans. In no time he was ordaining priests and consecrating newly built churches. In 867, King Boris I even requested that Formosis become the archbishop of a new Bulgarian diocese. You'd think this would be a victory for the Roman church, right? The Romans finally beat the Byzantines and won over the Bulgarian nobility using their secret weapon, a humble priest named Formosis. But Pope Nicholas denied Boris's request and promptly recalled Formosis back to his post in Rome. Formally, Nicholas took issue with the fact that Formosis had been behaving already like a bishop of Bulgaria, consecrating and ordaining, even though he only had authority in his own diocese in Porto in Rome.

But it takes more than breaking a little canon law to call back an evangelical superstar. like Formosis. In all likelihood, Boris planned to use Formosis to create his own national church, one independent from the seas of Rome and Constantinople. To Nicholas, this must have seemed like a repeat of the split with Constantinople. An overzealous monarch takes it upon themselves to appoint their own bishop. Better to nip that sort of conspiracy in the bud, just in case. Horus made the very same request about establishing Formosis as a bishop in Bulgaria to the new Pope after Nicholas died in 867, but once again the request was denied. The Papacy had other plans for Formosis.

After he was recalled to Rome, Formosis was reassigned to France for the job of attempting to mend the bond between Charlemagne's male heir, La Thayer, and his wife, Thutberga, a woman that Lothair had imprisoned, cheated on, and blamed for infertility. That mission pretty neatly sums up about half the job of a bishop in medieval Europe, tending to the toxic relationships of royals and protecting the church's interests. In this case, the church was looking for a stable monarch with a suitable male heir in the Carolinian dynasty who could carry on as Holy Roman Emperor. Lothair was not stable, and his uncle, Louis the German, did not have a male heir.

And so, in 875, the church designated Charles the Bald, grandson of Charlemagne, as holy Roman emperor. Formosis joined the entourage that delivered that happy news to Charles, and the new emperor was crowned in Rome on Christmas Day. But for unclear reasons, Formosis took issue with. Charles the Bald's coronation. Despite having helped deliver the news of Charles' selection in the first place, Formosis joined a faction of disaffected

Roman clergy who favored Louis the German over Charles. Disputing a papal coronation, by the way, was no small transgression. Formosis became a fugitive, probably escaping to the south of France. The then-sitting Pope John the 8th convened

two synods in 875 that condemned Formosus and his allies. In the first synod on April 19th, Pope John VIII blamed Formosus for aspiring to the Archbishopric of Bulgaria, for betraying the emperor and for deserting his diocese. If Formosus didn't return, he would be stripped of his titles and excommunicated from the church. After a few months, Formosus was nowhere to be found. John convened another synod on June 30th that heaped a new list of accusations on Formosus's head. Apparently, he had looted the cloisters of Rome and even conspired to destroy the papacy. By 876, Formosis agreed not to return to Rome nor to exercise any of his former functions as bishop or diplomat. The church agreed to withdraw his excommunication, but they still kept him at arm's distance.

Formosis spent six years in the sleepy French town of Sen, waiting patiently for the winds of fortune to change direction. Sure enough, in 883, Pope John's successor recalled Formosis to Rome and restored him to his old office as Bishop of Porto, charges of looting andrew. Charges of looting and treachery aside, Formosus more or less returned to his former prestige. As Pope, Formosus inherited many of the same problems that occupied his predecessors. He negotiated with allies in the Byzantine Empire to restore Roman control over the patriarchs in Constantinople. He resolved dynastic disputes between the heirs of Charlemagne. But the single most pressing issue on Formos' plate had to do.

do with an Italian Duke breathing down his neck. Duke Wido of Spiletto was a former ally of Emperor Charles the Bald, who, during that time Formosus waited patiently in France, was growing his inheritance into a kingdom that spanned most of Italy. In 891, the Duke forced the Pope before Formosus to crown him holy Roman emperor. By the time Formosus took office, he had little choice but to recognize Duke Wido and his son Lambert as rightful heirs to Charlemagne. Some sources suggest that after Formosis went through the forced coronation ceremony, he secretly solicited the aid of Arnulf of Corinthia, another heir to the throne, and told him to invade Italy and depose Wido.

According to the early 20th century historian Johann Peter Kirsch, quote, Emperor Wido of Spiletto, the oppressor of the Holy See and the Papal Territories, was too near Rome, so Formosus secretly persuaded Arnulf to advance to Rome and liberate Italy, end quote. In 893, Arnulf sent his son to aid allies in the north of Italy that were resisting Wido's advances. The following year, Arnulf himself marched across the Alps, where he conquered Milan and made his way south to liberate Rome. Unlucky Weido died before he could muster enough troops to fight back.

In February 896, Arnulf came to Rome, in what the medieval historian Liantprand of Cremona describes as great fanfare. Apparently Arnulf delivered a poem to his troops to inspire them to scale Rome's formidable walls, though that should be taken with a grain of salt. In any case, whether by poetry or not, Arnolf entered the city, ordered that Weido's allies be executed, and solemnly knelt before Pope Formosus, who placed the imperial crown upon his head. This happily ever after was short-lived. Arnolf died on his way to pursue Weedo's heir, Lambert.

Formosis, the talented diplomat turned excommunicant turned pope, died on April 4, 896, just five weeks after the, quote, liberation of Rome. His body was clad in the finest vestments, placed within an exquisite sarcophagus, and interred within the hallowed halls of St. Peter's. According to Catholic tradition, Formosis's soul awaited judgment in the heaven. Little did he know that his body also awaited judgment, back on earth. Most of what we know about Formosa comes from the writings of a bishop of northern Italy, Lodbrand of Cremona, who I briefly mentioned, who was writing in the 950s, over half a century after Formosus's death. According to Ludprind, Formosus made many enemies.

It's not hard to do that on your way to the top of the Catholic. church. But there was one rival in particular that would go on to haunt Formosus, quite literally, when he was beyond the grave. As Ludoprond tells the story, the papal election of 891 that eventually elected for Moses was a very contested one. A faction of prominent Romans had planned to elect a deacon named Stephen, but then, quote, that part which supported the faction of Formosus drove Stephen from the altar with a tumult and great insult and made Formosus pope. End quote. Did the election actually happen like that? I mean, what even was being described? We can't really be sure, but what's fascinating is how Lutpran felt the urge to rationalize the events following Formosus's passing.

Why would Stephen go to such great lengths to punish his dead rival, if not revenge? The Pope who immediately followed Formosus was actually Boniface the 6th, but he lasted no more than two weeks in office before he either died from gout or was driven out. Stephen was by all accounts a well-supported candidate. He was an ally of the wealthy Spoletto dynasty, close with both Weido. heir Lambert and Lambert's mother. Remember them? They, the ousted family, managed to march back into Rome after King Arnolf's untimely death, and their first measure was to install their ally, Stephen, as Pope. But it wasn't enough for the Spiletto's to reclaim control of the

eternal city, and it wasn't enough for Stephen to merely sit upon the throne that had once belonged to his enemy. In medieval Europe, devout Catholics often treated the physical bodies of popes as relics. These relics attracted pilgrims from across Christendom for their reportedly miraculous powers. These severed body parts of saints have been said to cure earthly sicknesses and eliminate sin. It was written that, quote, where the bones of martyrs are buried, devil's flee as from fire and unbearable torture, and quote. In 787, the second council of Nicaa went so far as to decree that no altar could be consecrated without a relic. These sacred objects were bridges between the mortal and immortal realms, and a way for holy men of the past to participate in the present church

community. As long as Formosus's corpse remained in its sarcophagus undisturbed, it would have the potential to turn into a powerful relic and eventually a sign of Formosus' saintliness. If Stephen wanted to fully vanquish his enemy, he needed to vanquish his corpse. In January 897, Pope Stephen VI ordered that Formosus stand trial for perjury and ambition, speaking to his rival as though he were still alive. Stephen's men disinterred Formosus's corpse from its tomb, where it had been rotting for the past nine months. The men propped up the cadaver on a chair in the basilica of St. John Latyrin, and Stephen appointed a deacon to speak for the accused. It was a ghastly sight for all who attended.

Some described Formosus' flesh as surprisingly lifelike. The bones and muscles still in the body. their proper place, blood dripping from his mouth onto the exquisite papal vestments he had been buried in. The whole affair wasn't just gruesome to look at. It was also a fundamental transgression of the law. The French Archbishop Hinkmar of Rheim, a contemporary of Formosus, insisted that nobody, even non-Christians, should be denied burial, quote, in the other of us all. that is, the earth. Moreover, a posthumous trial by humans

could very easily be interpreted as an affront to God's authority. After all, what jurisdiction did mortals have over souls? Like a sign from God, an earthquake shook the foundations of the basilica in the middle of the trial. Clearly, Stephen did not have the Heavenly Father

on his side, but the vengeful Pope, persisted. Stephen revived the same arguments that had been used to excommunicate Formosus back when he was alive. Stephen claimed that Formosus wrongfully abandoned his bishopric in Rome in order to start one in Bulgaria. He also argued that Formosus had plans to take over the papacy entirely. Lutprin recounts him yelling out in the middle of the basilica, quote, when you were bishop of Porto, why did you usurp the universal Roman sea in a spirit of ambition. Stephen tried his best to depict Formosis as a cunning, backstabbing worm who wriggled his way onto St. Peter's seat. Unsurprisingly, the deacon

representing Formosis didn't put up much of a fight. Stephen declared that Formosus was unworthy of the papacy, and therefore that each of his decisions, ordinations, and confirmations, were retroactively invalid. Stephen stripped Formosis of his vestiments and replaced them with clothes fit for a lowly layman. Most cruelly of all, he cut off the three fingers of Formosus's right hand, which he would have used to bless and ordain. The men first buried the corpse in an inconspicuous plot of land, but some days after, possibly on account of paranoia, Stephen ordered the body thrown into the Tiber River, just as the ancient Romans did with executed criminals.

With the body lost in the river, there would be no way to venerate Formosus' remains. The Vatican also used to house a fresco depicting Formosus kneeling before Christ. Stephen had the image of his face removed, and any references to his name erased. Stephen did not merely intend to excommunicate Formosis. He intended to annihilate him from the church's collective memory once and for all. Of course, by doing an incredibly memorable thing,

which is putting the corpse of a man on trial, he made him more memorable to modern-day people looking up macabre bits of history. Why did Stephen go through the hassle of a trial if the whole point was just to get rid of the body? The medieval historian Dylan Elliott notes that even though this sort of posthumous excommunication was basically unheard of, the very fact that Stephen felt the need to pursue a trial shows an adherence to tradition. You could not condemn someone without an official ceremony if it took pretending that, for Formosus were somehow alive in order to condemn his memory and discard his remains, then Stephen would do it.

The Pope had to resurrect his opponent in order to kill him the way he wanted. But by all accounts, the trial immediately backfired. The stories we have diverge, but they all agree that the people of Rome found Formosus' body, and they honored it the way they would a relic. Lutprond wrote that Formosis's body was found in the river by fishermen who took it to a church where the corpse was greeted by the image of saints. According to another count, Formosus' soul appeared before a monk to request that he retrieved the body and give it a secret burial. The body allegedly performed miracles, curing the sick and speaking in tongues.

exactly what Stephen had been trying to avoid. Priests and laymen alike had been outraged by the trial of a dead body. Not long after, Stephen was deposed, imprisoned, and strangled. In 897, his successor, Theodorus II, reversed the decision of the famous cadaver Synod and called for Moses' body back into St. Peter's Basilica for a... proper burial, one fit for a distinguished pope. Stephen's attempts to condemn his rival had only made Formosus more saintly. The church was chock-full of martyrs whose suffering conferred holy status onto them.

Every commentator sympathetic to Formosus emphasized just how much suffering his body had endured, just how much he suffered at the hands of a wicked man, the implication being. that he, Formosis, was Christ-like. Stephen would have turned in his grave to learn that Formosis was reburied. And while we can't know what sort of trial awaited Stephen in the afterlife, we might expect it looked a little something

like what he did to Formosis. That's the story of the Cedarver Synod, but keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear a little more about posthumous popes. Everyone, I'm Ego Wadam. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night

Live, and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with them one day, and I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot.

I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings, I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place they come, look for up-and-coming town, He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit.

If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat, just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. It wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks Dad on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodam.

My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with them one day, and I was like, and Dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through and I know it's a place that come look for up and coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're

banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right. It wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you can believe it, it just so happens that Pope Stephen was not the only Pope to throw his dead competitor into the Tyber. Pope Pascal II. Pope Pascal II did the same to anti-Pope Clement III in 1,100. In 1080, the heads of the Catholic Church split on the issue of ecclesiastical appointments.

The Holy Roman Emperor at the time Henry IV insisted on electing his own bishops, but the sitting Pope Gregory the 7th would have none of it. Pope Gregory excommunicated Henry, a scandal that led a powerful group in the Holy See to break away and elect their own Pope, Pope Clement III. So from 1084 to 1,100, two sets of different popes ruled over the Catholic Church until Pope Clement III died in 1,100. His supporters wasted no time venerating his remains.

They even compiled a book full of supposed miracles that Clement's body had facilitated, everything from curing simple diseases to causing heavenly light to appear above the city of Ravana. The opposing Pope in Rome, Pascal II, knew a threat to his legacy when he saw it. The Pope posthumously charged Clement with Simony, the buying and selling of clerical offices. To be fair, it was already an open secret that Clement had been in the pockets of the Holy Roman Emperor, but the Pope did not stop there. He ordered the exhumation of Clement's body,

and its disposal in the waters of the tiber. A contemporary chronicler, sympathetic to the Pope actually, described the exhumation as the, quote, zeal of divine law boiling over to such a degree that the cadavers of pseudo-bishop's were eliminated from the churches. And quote. Perhaps needless to say, this posthumous trial went much better for this Pope than it did for Stephen.

To this day, we remember Clement, and not Pascal as the anti-Pope. Apparently, there was neither fishermen nor monk to retrieve Clemens corpse from the river. Noble Blood is a production of I-Heart Radio and Grimmin-Mild from Aaron Menke. Noble Blood is hosted by me, Danish forts, with additional writing and researching

by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Courtney Sender, Julia Melani and Armand Kasam. The show is edited and produced by Noemi Griffin and Rima Il K. Ali with supervising producer Josh Thane and executive producers Aaron Manky, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from IHeart Radio, visit the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Will Ferrell's Big Money Players and IHeart Podcast presents soccer moms. So I'm Leanne. Yeah. This is my best friend, Janet.

Hey. And we have been joined at the hips since high school. Absolutely. A redacted amount of years later, we're still joined at the hip. Just a little bit bigger hips. This is a podcast. We're recording it as we tailgate our youth soccer games in the back of my Honda Odyssey. With all the snacks and drinks. Why did you get hard seltzer instead of beer? Oh, they hit a bogo.

Well, then you got it. Listen to soccer moms on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Thank you.