Stephen VI

Stephen was a Roman, the son of a priest named John, and Formosus had made him bishop of Anagni, which under the canons should have kept him out of the see of Rome. He was elected in May 896, with the Spoletan party back in the city and Lambert's mother Agiltrude directing it, and in January 897 he did what he is remembered for. Formosus's body was taken from its tomb in Saint Peter's, nine months dead, dressed in the papal vestments, and set on a throne in the Lateran basilica before a synod of bishops. A deacon stood beside it to answer for the dead man. Stephen put the questions himself, shouting at the corpse: why had it coveted the papacy, why had it left Porto for Rome against the canons, why had it broken the oath of 878? The synod found Formosus guilty on every count. His acts were annulled, his ordinations declared void, the three blessing fingers of his right hand were cut off, and the body was buried in a pilgrims' grave, then dug up and thrown into the Tiber.

Rome did not take it well. That spring the Lateran basilica collapsed, from the altar to the doors, and the city read the ruin as a judgment. In the summer of 897 a rising of the Formosan party deposed Stephen, stripped him of his insignia, and put him in prison, where in August he was strangled. The body of Formosus had meanwhile been recovered from the river, and the next pope but one would put it back.