6. Pope Stephen VI Took Vindictiveness to Macabre Heights
The macabre trial, conviction, and punishment of Formosus’s corpse failed to satisfy Pope Stephen VI and sate his vindictiveness for long. Soon thereafter, still raging at the deceased Holy Father’s insult to the Spoleto family, he again had Formosus’ corpse dug up, then ordered it loaded down with stones and tossed into the Tiber river. The man was clearly insane, and his bizarre behavior led to widespread rioting that finally ended with his ouster. The rioters got a hold of Stephen VI, and he was stripped of his papal vestments, imprisoned, and strangled to death in his cell.
Pope Stephen VI and the Cadaver Synod might have been the era’s weirdest pope and papal episode, but neither would prove to be the worst in a period that is often described as the nadir of the papacy. In the following few decades, before serious reform efforts were finally made, the woeful list of Stephen VI’s successors would include Pope Sergius III, who murdered two predecessors and fathered an illegitimate child (who would go on to become pope). Another pope, John XII, became a serial rapist and murderer and transformed the papal palace into a de facto brothel. Yet another Holy Father, Benedict IX, sold the papacy in order to fund his retirement.
Also Read: 8 Dreadful Papal Scandals From the Middle Ages.
