ABSTRACT
Sometime during the year 896–7, Pope Stephen VI convened a synod (church council) at Rome, as a result of which the rotting corpse of his predecessor Formosus was exhumed, dressed in his papal robes, put on trial, convicted and thrown into the River Tiber. To most western Christians, the bishop of Rome was a remote and irrelevant figure. The popes themselves rarely if ever left Rome, and they made little attempt to assert anything that might be described as ‘universal’ authority over the Church. While the popes remained largely peripheral, often irrelevant, figures for much of this period, the lead in ecclesiastical affairs across Western Europe was taken by the bishops. Simplicity and humility were the very essence of monastic practice, and monks were revered for living the highest form of Christian life achievable on Earth. Ordinary people were fallible and weak, and they needed resolute, indomitable monks to pray for them and keep evil at bay.
