Boniface VI

Boniface was a Roman, the son of a bishop named Adrian, and his record before his election was a disgrace: John VIII had degraded him from the subdiaconate and then, after he had been ordained again, from the priesthood, both times for immoral life, and no pope had restored him. When Formosus died on 4 April 896, with the emperor Arnulf paralysed and retreating and the Spoletan party not yet back in the city, a crowd carried Boniface to the Lateran and had him consecrated. He reigned for fifteen days. He issued nothing that survives, appointed no one whose name is known, and died in the last week of April.

The Roman synod of 898, under John IX, declared his election null, as that of a man twice degraded, and forbade any future election by tumult, without the clergy and the assent of the senate. He is nevertheless counted, because he was consecrated and acknowledged in Rome for those fifteen days. His pontificate is the shortest of the ninth century, and the only thing it decided was that the electoral machinery of Rome, which had worked so cleanly for Valentine in 827, had stopped working at all.