Word: formosus
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Beginning in 896, there was a veritable epidemic of papal brevity: four Popes in 20 months. Boniface VI, who died after 15 days, was a rascal who had been dismissed from several ecclesiastical offices. His successor, Stephen VI (or VII), had the decomposing body of his predecessor-but-one, Formosus I, disinterred, clothed in papal robes, and set on the throne in St. Peter's; whereupon Stephen called a synod to "depose" him, had the dead man's blessing forefinger cut off, and the corpse flung into the Tiber...