Funeral synod
The synod of corpses (also synod of cadavers or synod horrenda in Latin ), which took place in Rome in January 897 , was an ecclesiastical show trial to which Pope Stephan VI. exhumed the body of his predecessor Formosus in order to have him tried for alleged abuses during his pontificate .
prehistory
The rulers of the crumbling Carolingian Empire increasingly lost influence in the Italian part of the empire in the second half of the 9th century. After the deposition of Emperor Charles III. des Dicken by the Diet of Tribur near Frankfurt am Main in 887, Margrave Berengar I of Friuli and Duke Wido II of Spoleto competed for power in Italy. At the same time, Charles' nephew, the new East Frankish King Arnulf of Carinthia , maintained his claim to power.
In 889 Wido defeated Berengar, who had been crowned King of Italy the year before, and had the crown put on himself in Pavia . The then Pope Stephen V reluctantly supported the House of Spoleto , as Wido's Duchy was in the immediate vicinity of Rome and the new king also exerted great influence in the city itself. In 891 Pope Wido even crowned Emperor .
Formosus succeeded Stephan V on the papal throne in the same year. He retained the cautious policy of his predecessor, repeated Widos' coronation in 892 and made his son Lambert of Spoleto co-emperor. At the same time he secretly renewed a request for help from his predecessor to King Arnulf. He followed the call 894, came to Italy and defeated Wido, who died shortly afterwards. On February 22nd, 896 Formosus finally crowned Arnulf of Carinthia as emperor, although the widow Widos, Duchess Ageltrude , ruled Rome at that time.
Shortly after Arnulf left Rome, only six weeks after his coronation, Pope Formosus died at the age of around 80 on April 4, 896. This probably saved him from becoming the target of the Spoletins' lust for revenge while he was still alive.
Stephan VI. and the Synod of Corpses
Formosus' successor Boniface VI. died after only 14 days of pontificate . Stephan VI elected in May 896. initially also recognized Arnulf as emperor, but changed sides after Wido's son Lambert had re-established his position of power in Rome. Whether he initiated or only tolerated the subsequent synod of bodies is a matter of dispute in research. The fact that Lambert had to consider the validity of his elevation to co-emperor by Formosus and that he was later involved in his rehabilitation speaks for a mere tolerance.
The accusation
An important reason for the show trial is likely to have doubts about the legality of Stephen VI's election as Pope. have been. Since the First Council of Nicaea in 325, it was canon law that a cleric like himself, who had already been elected bishop in one diocese, could not become bishop of another diocese. Because of this so-called translation ban, Stephan was only the third Pope - after Marinus I and Formosus - who had previously been bishop of another city. Like all bishops, before Marinus' election, the popes also came from the ranks of deacons and priests in their diocese. So if a bishop was elected pope, it meant that he had to swap his previous diocesan seat for that of the city of Rome. According to the canon law of the time, such a translation was only permitted in cases of necessity ( necessitas ) or usefulness ( utilitas ). However, it was forbidden if it only served the ambition of the official.
Stephan Formosus, who was bishop of Porto before his election as Pope, accused this of precisely that . That was actually the main charge, although - or better said: because - Stephan himself was guilty of the translation. Before moving to the chair of Peter, he had been Bishop of Anagni , an office that none other than Formosus had given him. When this was subsequently condemned and his ordinations were declared invalid, Stephen VI broke up. "Translation problem" by itself. After an invalid ordination, he would never have been a bishop de jure and thus could not have been guilty of moving to another diocese.
In order to achieve the desired condemnation, Formosus was also charged with breaking an oath he had taken to Pope John VIII in 878 at the Synod of Troyes . According to this oath, he should never have returned to Rome. He was also accused of disregarding his return to the laity by Pope John. Against these charges, however, spoke that John's successor, Pope Marinus I, had reinstated Formosus as bishop as early as 883 and released him from his oath.
Trial and verdict
Nevertheless, nine months after the death of Formosus, Stephan had his already decomposing corpse taken from the crypt, clad in papal robes and placed on the throne. Then Formosus, who was represented by a deacon , was formally charged and sentenced in a three-day procedure. The verdict was clear from the start: Formosus was deposed and all of his official acts and orders he had donated were declared invalid.
After his conviction, Formosus was again stripped of the papal robes. Because of the alleged perjury was also chopped his two oath fingers from his right hand. Stephan VI left his body. first buried in the burial place of the strangers in Rome. Shortly afterwards, Formosus was exhumed again and thrown into the Tiber . A monk later claimed that Formosus appeared to him in a dream, whereupon he pulled him out of the river and secretly buried him again.
According to the concept of mirror punishment , the condemnation corresponded to the reverse of the allegations made against Formosus: instead of remaining enthroned on the cathedra beati Petri , the deceased was torn from the papal chair. In place of the solemn dressing of the elect before the consecration in St. Peter's Basilica, there was baring down to the last shirt. Instead of papal robes, he was wrapped in the folk costume. The loss of the fingers referred to the accusation of perjury, perhaps also to the loss of the Pope's power of blessing. The beheading was a reminder of the former position of the dead as head of the church. The dragging of the deceased over the threshold of the church and the burying of the body in the foreign cemetery robbed Formosus of his earthly homeland: He lost the protection of the church and the security of his hometown. He was also denied the honor of burial. The excavation of the corpse in the cemetery was a counter-image to the solemn elevation of sacred bones. The discovery ( inventio ), elevation ( elevatio ) and transfer of relics to the actual place of their veneration ( translatio , adventus / occursio ) formed essential elements for a new cult of saints well into the High Middle Ages. Instead, the body of Formosus was banished from its own grave in a repentance ritual. The sinking into the Tiber completed the eradication of the dead from the memory of the living ( damnatio memoriae ). Individual references to sources can even be interpreted to the effect that the holiness of the papal office should also be preserved.
Post-history
Stephan VI. could not long enjoy his triumph. In August 897 he was overthrown, thrown into dungeon and strangled there. The Roman city population is considered to be the originator of the deposition: They probably saw the collapse of the Lateran basilica , which took place during the pontificate of Stephen VI. had occurred, a sign of God's wrath against the initiators of the Synod of Corpses. Stephen's second successor Theodor II , who sat on the papal throne for only twenty days, had the body of Formosus, which had been recovered from the Tiber by his followers, honorable burial in December 897 and repealed all resolutions of the synod of corpses.
Pope John IX undertook a comprehensive rehabilitation attempt. who together with Emperor Lambert at the Synod in Ravenna in 898 condemned, among other things, the decisions of the Synod and declared the pontificate and ordinations of Formosus to be valid.
The power struggles between the various aristocratic parties increased in intensity and cruelty over the next few years. With Sergius III. , according to the testimony of the historian and Bishop Liutprand of Cremona a "murderer on the papal throne", another partisan of Stephen VI came in 904. to power. He persecuted the party of Formosus again and declared all clerics who had received ordination through him or through a bishop appointed by him to be lay . Sergius had the dead Pope's corpse exhumed a second time and, after the remaining fingers of the oath hand had been severed, thrown back into the Tiber. However, she is said to have got caught in a fisherman's net and was later brought back to St. Peter 's Church to be buried there for the third time.
During this time a number of pamphlets were written by followers of Formosus. Their authors - Auxilius , Vulgarius and a stranger - were priests who were ordained by Formosus and who were under Sergius III. had been placed in the laity. Based on precedents, which differentiates it from Canon Law and the Council texts were collected, they hoped to prove the validity of their ordinations.
research
In historical research, the synod of corpses plays a role primarily in four subject areas. On the one hand, there is the consecration problem associated with the Formosus case, which Ernst Dümmler examined in more detail. Harald Zimmermann sees the process as a legal process that has been brought against Formosus. Johannes Laudage recognizes in the treatise of Auxilius an important bridge between ideas of the early church about the validity of the sacraments and the Simoniedebat of the 11th century. Sebastian Scholz, in turn, deals with the question of translation and the change in the church constitution, which becomes clear in the change of bishopric.
swell
- Albert Bauer , Reinhold Rau (arrangement): Sources on the history of the Saxon imperial era (= selected sources on German history in the Middle Ages. Freiherr vom Stein memorial edition. Vol. 8). Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1971, p. 260 f.
literature
- Wilfried Hartmann : The synods of the Carolingian era in the Franconian Empire and in Italy. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 1989, ISBN 3-506-74688-X .
- Marie-Luise Heckmann : The Formosus case - unjustified accusation against a dead person, corpse crime or staged desecration of the sacred? In: Stefan Weinfurter (Ed.): Papal rule in the Middle Ages. Functioning, strategies, forms of representation (= medieval research. Vol. 38). Thorbecke, Ostfildern 2012, ISBN 978-3-7995-4289-0 , pp. 223-238, ( online ).
- Harald Zimmermann : Papal appointments in the Middle Ages. Böhlau, Graz et al. 1968.
- Jochen Johrendt : A dead Pope in court, in: Damals Heft 4/2020, pp. 72–76.
Remarks
- ^ Stephan VI. In: Salvador Miranda : The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church. ( Florida International University website ), accessed March 18, 2012.