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The Vindictive Pope Who Dug Up and Tried a Rival’s Corpse

Khalid Elhassan November 29, 2024 13 min

Cadaver - The corpse of Pope Formosus, as defendant in the Cadaver Synod — The corpse of Pope Formosus, as defendant in the Cadaver Synod. Sick History

14. Dark Ages Italy’s Decline

Cadaver - Rome under attack in the Dark Ages — Rome under attack in the Dark Ages. Fall of Rome

After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century, Italy was fought over by the Ostrogothic Kingdom which ruled the peninsula, and the Byzantine Empire, which sought to reunify the former Roman Empire. The interminable resultant wars, fought on Italian soil, wreaked widespread havoc and devastation. Fighting did not peter out until the seventh century, when the Byzantines, weakened by the Muslim conquests, were forced to focus on survival at home instead of military adventurism abroad. By then, Italy had been reduced from what had once been the central region of an urbanized, thriving, and sophisticated civilization, to a depopulated ruin. The vast infrastructure built during centuries of Roman rule was wrecked. Aqueducts, roads, bridges, and ports, had been either deliberately destroyed or allowed to fall into decay for lack of maintenance.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.