A pope was put on trial nine months after he died

In January 897, Pope Stephen VI had the corpse of his predecessor, Pope Formosus, exhumed, dressed in papal vestments and propped on a throne to face charges of perjury and violating church law. A deacon answered on the corpse's behalf; it was found guilty, stripped, mutilated and thrown into the Tiber. The scandal helped trigger years of papal instability afterward.

— Auxilius of Naples and Liutprand of Cremona, near-contemporary chroniclers, Cadaver Synod — January 897 AD