In the year 897, one of the strangest events in medieval history unfolded in Rome. 

A pope ordered the body of his predecessor to be dug up… and placed on trial. 

The event became known as the Cadaver Synod, and it remains one of the most bizarre episodes in the long history of the Catholic Church. 

In this Messy Morsel, Jess explores the strange political rivalry that led to this shocking spectacle, the surreal courtroom scene that followed, and the consequences that came when the people of Rome saw what their leaders had done. 

Sometimes history is serious. 

And sometimes… 

it involves putting a corpse on trial. 

@MessyMindedPod

Music by: SoundPlusUS Label and Mr. Lex Oleksii Bezalov for "Spark Groove", Nikita Kondrashev for "Cosy, Quirky, Comedy", “Bone Tower” by DSTechnician 

For further reading try: Liutprand of Cremona. 

Antapodosis (Retribution) – Book VI. 

10th-century chronicle describing the Cadaver Synod and papal politics of the period. 

Auxilius of Naples. 

Libellus de Ordinationibus a Formoso Papa Factis. 

Written during the controversy surrounding Formosus’s ordinations and the Cadaver Synod. 

Moore, Michael Edward. 

The Body of Pope Formosus. 

Speculum 84, no. 2 (2009). 

One of the most detailed modern academic analyses of the Cadaver Synod and its political context. 

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