Pope Stephen VI
?–897 CE · Rome
Stephen VI is remembered almost entirely for the 'Cadaver Synod' of 897, in which he had the exhumed corpse of Pope Formosus tried, condemned, stripped of its vestments, and cast into the Tiber, while annulling Formosus's ordinations. The grotesque spectacle, driven by factional and dynastic rivalries between the Spoletan party and supporters of Formosus, provoked revulsion in Rome. Amid the ensuing unrest Stephen was deposed, imprisoned, and strangled. His brief, violent reign stands as the nadir of the late-ninth-century papacy and prompted later popes to reverse his acts.
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RomeרומאItaly
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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 Formosus, Pope Theodore II, Pope Romanus, Pope Boniface VI
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with Pope Stephen VI’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Pope Stephen VI’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Works
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