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Pope

Stephen VI
Pope; Stephen VI
Bishop of Rome
Church	Catholic Church
Papacy began	22 May 896
Papacy ended	August 897
Predecessor	Boniface VI
Successor	Romanus
Personal details
Born	Rome, Papal States
Died	August 897; Rome, Papal States
	Other popes named Stephen

Pope Stephen VI (Latin: Stephanus VI; died August 897) was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 22 May 896 to his death. He is best known for instigating the Cadaver Synod, which ultimately led to his downfall and death.

Family and career

Stephen was born in Rome.^[1] His father was a priest named John. Stephen was made bishop of Anagni by Pope Formosus,^[2] possibly against his will.^[3]

Pontificate

The circumstances of his election as pope are unclear, but he was sponsored by one of the powerful Roman families, the dukes of Spoleto, that contested the papacy at the time.

Stephen is chiefly remembered in connection with his conduct towards the remains of Pope Formosus. The rotting corpse of Formosus was exhumed and put on trial, before an unwilling synod of the Roman clergy, in the so-called Cadaver Synod in January 897. Pressure from the Spoleto contingent and Stephen's fury with Formosus probably precipitated this extraordinary event.^[4] With the corpse propped up on a throne, a deacon was appointed to answer for the deceased pontiff. During the trial, Formosus's corpse was condemned for performing the functions of a bishop when he had been deposed and for accepting the papacy while he was the bishop of Porto, among other revived charges that had been levelled against him in the strife during the pontificate of John VIII. The corpse was found guilty, stripped of its sacred vestments, deprived of three fingers of its right hand (the blessing fingers), clad in the garb of a layman, and quickly buried; it was then re-exhumed and thrown in the Tiber. All ordinations performed by Formosus were annulled.^{[citation needed]}

The trial excited a tumult. Though the instigators of the deed may actually have been Formosus' Spoletan enemies, notably Guy IV of Spoleto, who had recovered their authority in Rome at the beginning of 897 by renouncing their broader claims in central Italy, the scandal ended in Stephen's imprisonment and his death by strangulation that summer.^[5]

References

^ The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. "Stephen VI (or VII)". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 30 August 2016.
^ Platina, Bartolomeo (1479), The Lives of the Popes From The Time Of Our Saviour Jesus Christ to the Accession of Gregory VII, vol. I, London: Griffith Farran & Co., pp. 237–238, retrieved 25 April 2013
^ Mann, Horace. "Pope Stephen (VI) VII." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 14. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. Retrieved: 21 September 2017.
^ Cummings, Joseph: "History's Great Untold Stories", page 14. National Geographic, 2006.
^ O'Malley, John W., A History of the Popes, New York, Sheed & Ward, 2010, page 79.

Sources

Dümmler, Ernst (1866). Auxilius und Vulgarius: Quellen und Forschungen zu Geschichte des Papsttums im Anfange des zehnten Jahrhunderts (in German and Latin). S. Hirzel. pp. 9–12, 71–72, 95.
Jégou, Laurent (2015). "Compétition autour d'un cadavre. Le procès du Pape Formose et ses enjeux (896-904)." (in French) Revue Historique vol. 317, no. 3 (675), 2015, pp. 499–523. Accessed 11 April 2020.
Leyser, Conrad (2010). "Episcopal Office in the Italy of Liudprand of Cremona, C.890-c.970." The English Historical Review 125, no. 515 (2010), pp. 795–817, at pp. 800–802; 811–813. Accessed 11 April 2020.
Llewellyn, Peter (1971). Rome in the Dark Ages. New York: Praeger. pp. 292–296.
Mann, Horace Kinder (1910). The Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages. Vol. IV, 891–999. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner. pp. 68–85.
Di Vito Loré, Marina C. Sarramia (2019). "Stefano VI, papa." Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (in Italian) Volume 94 (Treccani: 2019).