Pope Formosus
816 CE–896 CE · Rome
As bishop of Porto, Formosus was a noted missionary to Bulgaria and a skilled legate before twice falling foul of John VIII, who excommunicated and deposed him; he was later rehabilitated. Elected pope in 891, he was caught between rival claimants to the imperial crown, eventually crowning Arnulf of Carinthia. His enduring infamy came posthumously: in 897 his successor Stephen VI had his corpse exhumed, dressed in papal vestments, and put on trial at the macabre 'Cadaver Synod,' which condemned and mutilated him. The reaction helped trigger years of Roman turmoil.
Life journeyclick any stop, or use ←/→Trace on the map →
RomeרומאItaly
We know they were here, but the specifics of what they did at this stop aren’t recorded yet in our corpus.
Rome in this era
Between the 8th and 15th centuries Rome was the seat of the popes and capital of the Papal States, which grew from the Frankish king Pepin's grant of 756; Charlemagne was crowned emperor in St Peter's in 800. The city shrank far below its ancient size, and from 1309 to 1377 the popes resided at Avignon before returning to Rome.
About Rome
Rome, on the Tiber in central Italy, grew from an Iron Age settlement into the capital of the Roman Republic and then of an empire that by the 1st century CE ruled the whole Mediterranean. Its Jewish community, attested from the 2nd century BCE, is among the oldest in Europe. Christian tradition holds that the apostles Peter and Paul died there, and the city became the seat of the popes. After the Western Empire ended in 476 it passed to Gothic kings, to Byzantium and then to papal rule as capital of the Papal States, until it became the capital of unified Italy in 1871. Vatican City, independent since 1929, lies within it.
In Rome at the same time
Pope St. Leo III, Pope Stephen IV, Pope St. Leo IV, Pope St. Nicholas I, Pope Stephen VI, Pope Boniface VI
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with Pope Formosus’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
In the same tradition
Pope St. Leo III, Pope Stephen IV, Pope St. Leo IV, Pope St. Nicholas I, Pope Stephen VI, Pope Boniface VI, Pope Stephen V, Pope St. Adrian III, Pope Marinus I, Pope John VIII, Pope Benedict III, Pope Sergius II, Pope Gregory IV, Pope Valentine, Pope Eugene II, Pope St. Paschal I
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Pope Formosus’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Works
No works attributed in the corpus yet.