Jean-Paul Laurens, Pope Formosus and Stephen VII , 1870.

Have you ever gotten so mad you couldn’t see straight? Have you said or done things you later regret? Have you ever dug up a corpse and put it on trial?

Believe it or not, this actually happened in 897 A.D. with what became known as Synodus Horrenda, or the Cadaver Synod.

This macabre event occurred during a time of great turbulence. Between 872 and 965, two dozen different popes ruled the Holy Roman Empire. In one eight year period alone, popes turned over every twelve months. This “turning over” sometimes took the form of murder. Needless to say, the political situation was tense. People scrambled to choose the right side, hoping they would pick the pope who would guarantee their salvation.

Into this mix stepped Formosus, a bishop from Bulgaria. He was so good that Bulgarian ruler Boris I asked Pope Nicolas I to appoint Formosus the archbishop of his country. The pope didn’t like this. Fearing a threat to his rule, he forbade Formosus from overseeing more than one territory. Pope Nicolas I also accused the bishop of trying to grab power, “corrupting” the minds of his followers “so they would not accept any other bishop from the apostolic see.” In other words, Formosus was doing his job a little too well. In 876, the pope excommunicated him.

That should have been the end of things. But Formosus managed to bide his time. He fought his excommunication. On October 6, 891, in one of the most amazing comebacks ever, he was crowned pope. His reign only lasted six years, until 897. Seven months after his death, the pope who succeeded him, Stephen VI, ordered that Formosus be dug up and brought before the papal court on charges of illegally seizing power. His corpse was brought into the Vatican and propped on the throne. A bemused deacon was appointed to serve as the dead pope’s defense attorney. The trial did not go well for poor Formosus. He was quickly found guilty. His body was stripped of its ecclesiastical garments and dumped into the Tiber River.

This bit of political theater didn’t sit well with the public. An uprising followed and Pope Stephen VI was arrested. He was strangled in prison only months after the Cadaver Synod.

Once again, Formosus rose above it all. His body was recovered from the river and he was reburied in Saint Peter’s Basilica. The cardinals involved in the spectacle were excommunicated. And every pope since, from Anastasius III to the current Pope Francis, has reaffirmed Formosus as pope and declared the Cadaver Synod “invalid and illegal”.

So the next time you’re so mad you could dig up your enemy’s corpse…take a moment to cool down.

Detail of the accused with his bewildered defender