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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

10. The Papal States

The Donation of Constantine, as depicted in a medieval fresco. Wikimedia

Rome and the surrounding region were the heart of the Papal States – a swath of territory in central Italy ruled directly by the popes. Interestingly, the Papal States came into being as a result of a huge swindle. Back in the eighth century, some monks forged a document to record a generous gift from Emperor Constantine I. In what came to be known as “The Donation of Constantine”, the emperor supposedly transferred authority over Rome and the entire Western Roman Empire to Pope Sylvester I and his successors. Such shenanigans were par for the course in a period of astonishing papal corruption and degeneracy. It was so bad, that it came to be known as the “nadir of the papacy”.

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.