20 Wild Historical Facts That Sound Completely Fake But Are True

In 897, Pope Stephen VI ordered the corpse of his predecessor, Pope Formosus, exhumed and placed on trial during the infamous Cadaver Synod. Formosus’s body was dressed in papal robes, seated on a throne, and formally accused of violating church law. A deacon answered questions on behalf of the corpse, which unsurprisingly lost the case. Its papal acts were declared invalid, fingers were cut away, and the body was eventually thrown into the Tiber. Medieval politics rarely lacked commitment.