Three Odd Books: A Taste for the Macabre
Three odd books on famous hauntings, macabre collections, and tales of the unquiet dead, from Odd Salon Fellow and producer of radio play tales of mystery and horror, Aimee Pavy.
Le Pape Formose et Étienne VII, by Jean-Paul Laurens, 1870 via Wikipedia
January 897, Rome: the exhumed corpse of Pope Formosus is put on trial, found guilty
In January 897 Pope Stephen VII charged controversial Pope Formosus with crimes against the papacy and called for Formusus to stand trial. However, Formosus had been dead for 7 months before the formal accusation. In a horribly misguided bid to gain favor from Formosa’s enemies, Pope Stephen VII moved to disinter Pope Formosus and have the corpse undergo a gruesome ecclesiastic trial, now known as the Cadaver Synod, or in Latin: Synod Horrenda.
