Free The Conclave: A Sometimes Secret and Occasionally Bloody History of Papal Elections by Michael Walsh Page A

political background to the story is unclear: it may very well have been that Stephen was a partisan of the Spoletans, and opposed to Formosus’s alliance with Arnulf. Whatever the reason, Stephen was a bitter foe of the late pope. Early in 897 a synod was called in Rome, Formosus’s body was exhumed, dressed in pontifical vestments, placed on a throne before the assembly and accused of various crimes, including that of moving from one bishopric to another, contrary to Church law. The odd thing was that Stephen himself had done likewise, having been created Bishop of Anagni by Formosus himself. It is possible that Stephen was having qualms of conscience. One way of solving this was to declare Formosus’s election to the bishopric of Rome illegitimate and therefore all his acts null and void – including the consecration of Stephen. In due course Formosus’s corpse was found guilty, and therefore the sacraments he had bestowed invalid. The corpse was now stripped of its vestments, two fingers from the hand with which the late pope had given blessings were cut o ff , and his body thrown into the River Tiber – from which it was rescued and given a dignified, but nonpapal, burial by a hermit. Unfortunately for Stephen, not only had this extraordinary behav- ior aroused the hostility of the Roman mob, but Formosus’s remains were reported to be working miracles. Moreover, the con- comitant collapse of the Lateran basilica was interpreted as a sign of God’s displeasure. There was a rising, Stephen was imprisoned – possibly in a monastery – and shortly afterward strangled. Rome and the papacy were descending into chaos.
    One sign of this is that little is known of the lives, and extremely short reigns, of the next couple of popes, though both Romanus and Theodore were of the party of Formosus. So was John IX, who followed Theodore, despite the e ff orts of the anti-Formosans to elect Sergius, Bishop of Caere; the bishopric had been imposed upon him by Formosus, possibly to dampen his papal ambitions. If so, the ploy did not work. Sergius briefly occupied the Lateran, but
    Descent into Chaos 49
    with the help of the Spoletan emperor was turned out by the Formosus faction. John, the Spoletan choice, was a monk of Lombard descent who had been ordained priest by Formosus.
    John called a synod in 898 which not only rehabilitated Pope Formosus and forbade any future posthumous trials, but enacted a decree to regulate papal elections. In e ff ect it revived that of Lothair in 824 (cf. above, p. 41). The electors were to be the sen- ior clergy – the bishops, priests, and deacons – of Rome, but in the presence of the senate (the nobility) and the people of the city. Imperial interests were to be served by the presence of rep- resentatives of the emperor. The preeminent role of the clergy, the cardinals, was preserved; the laity’s task was to look on and, in the case of the imperial emissaries, to confirm. The role of the cardinals had been growing throughout the ninth century. In 853 Leo IV had laid down for them a weekly meeting – it later became fortnightly – to oversee the ecclesiastical discipline of Rome, including their own standards of behavior. Now they were to dominate papal elections.
    If these proposals were meant to bring peace to the city, they did not work. The aristocratic Benedict IV, also of the Formosan party, followed John but such was the confusion of the age that little is known about him, not even the date of his election. He reverted to supporting French candidates for the imperial title, in 901 crowning Louis the Blind of Provence. This was a disastrous choice, because the emperor was defeated and forced out of Italy, leaving the papacy without a protector. The date of Leo V’s election is also unknown, but it is insignificant because within the month he was ousted from o ffi ce and thrown into jail. It is not clear why or how he aroused such hostility so soon after being the choice of the