29. The Dead Defendant’s Prosecutor
The deceased Formosus’ prosecutor, or lunatic persecutor, Pope Stephen VI, was born into the ruling family of Spoleto, an independent duchy in central Italy. In 891, an earlier Pope Stephen V had reluctantly crowned Guy III, Duke of Spoleto, as Holy Roman Emperor. However, his preference had actually been for the East Frankish King Arnulf of Carinthia. When Formosus became pope, he was lukewarm at best towards the Spoletan Emperor Guy, and like Stephen V before him, he also preferred Arnulf.
In 892, Guy and the Spoletans forced Pope Formosus, against his will, to crown Guy’s underage son Lambert as co-emperor. While at it, the Spoletans also forced him to make their relative, Stephen, the future pope and persecutor of Formosus’s corpse, a bishop. Resenting such ham-handedness, Formosus persuaded Arnulf to invade Italy and liberate it from the Spoletans. When Stephen VI became Pope, he would not let that slide.