Early Medieval Papacy (Radio Edit)

Summary

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You’re Dead to Me: Early Medieval Papacy (Radio Edit)

Podcast: You’re Dead to Me (BBC Radio 4)
Host: Greg Jenner
Guests: Prof. Brett Whalen (historian, UNC Chapel Hill), Alison Spittle (comedian)
Original Air Date: October 24, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the Early Medieval Papacy―specifically the chaotic “Papal Dark Ages” of the 9th to 11th centuries, an era of political intrigue, scandal, and rapid-fire papal turnover. Host Greg Jenner guides comedian Alison Spittle and expert Prof. Brett Whalen through unforgettable stories, most notoriously the ghoulish “Cadaver Synod.” The conversation blends historical nuance and comic commentary, making the tumultuous past vivid and relatable.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: What Was the Early Medieval Papacy?

[01:10–04:40]

• Greg introduces the period when the Catholic Church’s leadership in Rome fell into chaos, a time called the “Papal Dark Ages.”
• Popes were the Bishops of Rome, eventually styled as "Supreme Pontiff."
• The number of Popes? According to the Vatican, just 266—not the thousands Alison joked about ([04:49]).
• Prof. Whalen explains that while many bishops were called “Papa” (father/pontiff), only the Bishop of Rome became “the Pope” over time ([05:13]).

“Four or 500 years after the time of St. Peter, you start to see the title of pope being reserved for not all bishops, but just the bishop of Rome.”
—Prof. Brett Whalen ([06:45])

2. Why Rome?

[06:45–07:19]

• The papacy is based in Rome because of its centrality in the Roman Empire and the tradition that both St. Peter and Paul were martyred there ([06:59]).

3. Descent into the Papal Dark Ages

[07:19–08:22]

• Greg and Brett describe the “Book of Popes,” a medieval chronicle, stopping after the 9th century—a sign of the system’s break down.
• Alison likens the forgotten popes to “the middle Sugarbabes” ([07:57]).

4. The Notorious Cadaver Synod

[08:22–13:06]

• Pope Formosus: Once a successful bishop, eventually Pope, caught in deadly Roman power struggles ([08:51]).
• After Formosus’s death, his successor Stephen VI held a posthumous trial―literally exhuming Formosus’s corpse in 897 to stand trial for alleged crimes.
• The scene is described as grotesque and comic:

“Formosus’s rotting body… is dressed up in the full papal regalia. He’s propped up on the throne, and his body is put on trial. Pope Stephen VI is there, leveling the charges against him… Supposedly, there was a deacon off to the side or behind him, acting like a ventriloquist.”
—Prof. Brett Whalen ([11:07])

• Alison’s comic riff: “Now, how does the defendant plead? Dead, you, Honor. Dead.” ([11:31])
• Punishments: all Formosus’s acts as pope were nullified, his regalia stripped, three blessing fingers snapped off, and he was reburied in a commoner’s grave. Later his body was fished from the Tiber after an attempted cover-up ([12:09]–[13:06]).

5. The Fallout & Runaway Papal Turnover

[13:06–18:21]

• Stephen VI’s fate: he’s deposed, demoted, and eventually strangled ([15:26]).
• A revolving door of short-lived popes (Romanus, Theodore II, and others) follows.
• Within just eight years (896–904), nine popes come and go—depicted with dark humor as “caretaker popes” ([18:01]).

6. Roman Noble Families: The Papal ‘Mafia’

[18:01–18:48]

• Powerful families, e.g., Theophylacti, Crescentii, and Tusculani, control papal elections, turning the papacy into a pawn for local politics ([18:21]).

7. Wider European Politics and Royal Stakeholders

[18:48–20:01]

• Despite chaos, the Papacy remains vital for crowning emperors—Otto I, II, and III in Germany seek papal legitimacy and partnership ([19:20]).
• The symbolic and political pull of Rome never wanes.

8. Reform and the End of the Dark Ages

[20:12–21:48]

• By the 11th century, reform-minded popes like Leo IX and especially Gregory VII (the “Gregorian Papacy,” [20:38]) lead a sweeping cleanup:
  • Imposing clerical celibacy
  • Eliminating “simony” (selling church offices)
  • Raising the pope above influence from laymen and monarchs.

“There really is this idea… that the papacy is the ultimate spiritual head of the Christian world. And that’s how you’re going to reform the church—by the pope stepping up into this role.”
—Prof. Brett Whalen ([21:48])

9. The Rise to Power: Urban II and the Crusades

[21:48–24:10]

• Urban II, elected in 1088, builds authority even while in exile. Alison jokes about the name “Urban” ([22:13]).
• Urban II launches the First Crusade in 1095, a major assertion of papal clout and European unity against external foes ([23:09], [23:25]).

“In the Crusade… the show stopping demonstration of the Pope’s authority on a, I guess now we might call it an international level.”
—Prof. Brett Whalen ([23:25])

10. Reflection: Why the Dark Ages?

[25:08–26:59] Nuance Window

• Professor Whalen clarifies:
  • “Dark Ages” is often used to caricature the period as uniquely barbaric, but even contemporaries knew the Cadaver Synod was outrageous and called for reform.
  • The papal crises reflect broader patterns in medieval politics and society—not just random madness.
  • The chaos ultimately spurred long-term change, leading to a stronger, more independent papacy.

“Even in the middle of these troubles, you see these calls for reform, which really pick up steam in the 11th century…”
—Prof. Brett Whalen ([26:35])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Alison Spittle [02:54]:
  “Saints, for me, were like superheroes, and popes were like the guys in the FBI supporting them quietly.”

• Greg Jenner [03:25]:
  “There’s a lot of drama. This is an extraordinary story and some serious shenanigans happening.”

• Alison Spittle [04:40]:
  “10,000 popes—that's another name of a band that I would love.”

• Greg Jenner [08:39]:
  “You get a handsome pope. The Jude Law pope. The young pope.”

• Brett Whalen [11:07]:
  “Supposedly, there was a deacon ...acting like a ventriloquist.”

• Alison Spittle [11:31]:
  “Now, how does the defendant plead? Dead, you, Honor. Dead.”

• Alison Spittle [13:12]:
  “I visited St. Valentine’s bones… I’m no longer Catholic. Love the iconography. I won’t lie. Love sitting in a church.”

• Greg Jenner [18:21]:
  “These are the kind of medieval mafia mob bosses of papal politics, aren’t they?”

• Greg Jenner [21:48]:
  “Are there going to be reforms coming down the pipeline?”

• Alison Spittle [27:04]:
  “I feel nuanced up to the eyeballs. My mind has been opened so hard.”

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Important Timestamps

• [01:10–04:40] ― Introduction to the topic, history of the papacy.
• [07:19–08:22] ― The breakdown of papal biographies and the “Papal Dark Ages” defined.
• [08:22–13:06] ― Story of Pope Formosus, the Cadaver Synod, and its fallout.
• [15:26] ― The fate of Pope Stephen VI: deposition and murder.
• [17:44] ― Nine popes in eight years: the peak of papal instability.
• [18:21] ― The role of powerful Italian families in papal politics.
• [19:20–20:01] ― Involvement of the German emperors and the continued importance of papal approval for secular rulers.
• [20:38–21:48] ― The Gregorian Reform and new model of papal authority.
• [23:09] ― Urban II calls the First Crusade: papal power at its zenith.
• [25:08–26:59] ― The Nuance Window: Why these events matter and what “Dark Ages” really means.

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Tone & Style

• Entertaining, breezy, irreverent, yet always respectful to the historical nuance.
• Frequent comedic asides from Alison Spittle and witty hosting by Greg Jenner.
• Detailed and accessible historical context from Prof. Brett Whalen.

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Conclusion

This episode masterfully balances the absurd and the significant, using infamous moments like the Cadaver Synod to illuminate the broader forces shaping the medieval church. It's both a laugh-out-loud and highly educational journey through a once-notorious era that set the stage for the papacy's later global power.

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Transcript

[Professor Brett Whalen]

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[Greg Jenner]

Hello and welcome to youo're Dead To Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we are donning our fanciest vestments and going on pilgrimage to 9th century Rome to learn all about the early medieval papacy, when the political heart of the Catholic Church was plunged into such chaos that historians have called it the Papal Dark Ages. And that's not even the meanest thing they've said. And to help me shed some light on this tantalizingly tumultuous time, I am joined by two very special guests in History Corner. He's a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he works on Christian intellectual and cultural history during the Middle Ages. He has published on the Crusades, apocalypticism and pilgrimage. And luckily for us, he literally wrote the book on the medieval papacy. It's Professor Brett Whalen. Welcome Brett.

[Professor Brett Whalen]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Greg Jenner]

And in Comedy Corner, she's a comedian, writer, radio producer and actress. You might have seen her hilarious stand up shows or seen her sitcom Nowhere Fast. Maybe you've heard her on the Guilty Feminist podcast or her BBC show Wheel of Misfortune. She's podding fabulous. It's Alison Spittle. Welcome Alison.

[Alison Spittle]

Hello. I'm so excited about being here. And what a subject. First of all, the Papal Dark Ages sounds like an entry for Finland in the Eurovision. It's an incredible band. I would love to see.

[Greg Jenner]

Me too. Absolutely. Alison, this is your debut performance on the show, which means I have to contractually ask you, do you like history? Did you like it at school?

[Alison Spittle]

I did. I loved history. I had a great history teacher. So, yeah, I've always been very interested in history.

[Greg Jenner]

Today we're doing medieval history. It's quite far back and it's quite specific as well. And I know you were raised Catholic, you're comfortable with the history of Catholicism, but perhaps less so with medieval papacy, the political papacy. Do you know anything about it?

[Alison Spittle]

No, I know nothing about it. Being former Catholic, like, I was very big into saints. For me, Popes are administration people. Saints for me were like the superheroes and Popes were like the guys in the FBI supporting them quietly. So for medieval, medieval popes as well, it's. There must have been some absolute skullduggery, I'd say. I don't know, I don't want to predict, but I want drama. I want this to be a mini series on an American network TV show with Jeremy Irons in it or something like that.

[Greg Jenner]

I can promise you today there's a lot of drama. This is an extraordinary story and some serious shenanigans happening. So what do you know? That brings us onto the first segment of the podcast called the so what do you know? This is where I have a go at guessing what our listener might know about today's subject. I'm guessing you know what the Pope is, you know where the Vatican is. But the power struggles of the Papacy a thousand years ago. Yeah, that's not going to register, is it really? In terms of pop culture or rather, I guess in terms of Pope culture, there aren't loads of TV shows or films I can point to. I mean, there's the sort of Dan Brown Angels and Demons. If you have to read that or watch that, I'm so sorry. There's Jude Law in the Young Pope. There are some TV series that bounce around in this era, things like the Last Kingdom, but that's all about kings and princes and warriors, not popes. So I reckon the so called Papal Dark Ages is pretty dark and dingy for non specialists, which is a shame because it was extremely chaotic and debauch and corrupt. So let's crack on. First of all, papal history is all about Popes. And the Popes of course are the Bishop of Rome, head of the worldwide Catholic Church, the Supreme Pontiff. They have more names than the Mother of Dragons. Sir Alison, how Many popes have there been since the very beginning, do you think?

[Alison Spittle]

Oh, okay, so people lived for a short time before. I'm gonna go for 10,000 popes. Like, that's another name of a band that I would love.

[Greg Jenner]

That does sound like the name of a band.

[Professor Brett Whalen]

10,000.

[Alison Spittle]

They're like, so Sada Crew. We don't know how many people are in innumerable.

[Greg Jenner]

The Vatican says 266 popes.

[Alison Spittle]

That's less people. That's been on RuPaul's Drag Race.

[Greg Jenner]

Brett, in terms of setting the papal stage, was St Peter the first pope, or is it a political office constituted after his death? Where do we start? Papal history?

[Professor Brett Whalen]

I mean, it sort of depends on where you look at it. You know, on one level, the pope is just the bishop of Rome. He's the leader of the local church in the city. And there were certainly Christians in Rome back in the first century, back in the days of St. Peter, and they presumably had had a bishop pretty early on, and there were Christians with bishops spreading all around the Roman Empire. All those bishops were sometimes called popes, by the way, Papa in Latin. But what's going on different in Rome is the fact that the idea that Jesus Christ in the gospel of Matthew 16:18, made the apostle Peter his kind of deputy, right? He was the rock that Jesus founded the church on, and he gave him the keys to the kingdom of heaven. And then, according to tradition, Peter went to Rome and actually founded the church there and handed down that power to the next bishop, his successor, according to some of the lists named Linus. It gets passed down this power down through the ages, right? So by the second, third centuries, what you start to see are bishops like Victor, he's pope around the year 199, weighing in on controversies in the Church. There was a big controversy about the correct way to date Easter at the time. And they start to claim a power that isn't just about being the bishop of Rome, but is a universal power over the entire church. So, you know, four or 500 years after the time of St. Peter, you start to see the title of pope being reserved for not all bishops, but just the bishop of Rome. And that's when he's really becoming like the pope. No one was keeping a list of popes in the first, second century. And I think in the third and fourth century, people kind of retroactively made these nice, tidy lists. So I think we can be, you know, appropriately suspicious of the exact number of popes.

[Greg Jenner]

And, Alison, do you know why the papacy is Based in Rome. It's not just the gelato.

[Alison Spittle]

It only occurred to me today. Where does the term Roman Catholic come from? Tell me why. I'm trying to think of something funny, but the curiosity has overtaken my brain.

[Professor Brett Whalen]

St. Peter's critical here and also St. Paul. You get two for the price of one here. Because there's a tradition that St. Paul also went to Rome. It's the capital of the Roman Empire. It's the heart of the Roman world. And so the idea that these two really important apostles went there and they founded the church there, I think, you know, I guess nowadays we call it an origin story. Right?

[Greg Jenner]

So that is the origin story. But today we're looking at the early medieval European situation. So we're scrolling forward into the sort of 8 hundreds and 9 hundreds. We've got this massively important religious and political institution, but it descends into absolute infamy. The Papal Dark Ages is the nice way of describing what happens.

[Professor Brett Whalen]

Yeah, they had this chronicle. It's called the Book of Popes.

[Alison Spittle]

Amazing name, isn't it?

[Professor Brett Whalen]

I think that runs from about the 6th to 9th century, and it gives these little, like, mini papal biographies. But after the 9th century, it kind of trails off. No one writes another papal biography for, like, 100 years.

[Greg Jenner]

So for 300 years, they've done the papal biographies, and then they get to the crisis, and they're like, you know what? We haven't got time. We haven't got time. There's another pope in.

[Alison Spittle]

The popes are like the sugar babes in the way that, like, the middle. Sugar babes are not really talked about that much. It's just. Siobhan, remember the early days.

[Greg Jenner]

This is for a mel. That's what I say. I know. Okay. We reach the late 800s. The Papal Dark Ages is a phrase that's sort of commonly used by historians to talk about this period where, politically speaking, the papacy is weak and vulnerable and chaotic. Alison, ever heard of Formosus?

[Alison Spittle]

I've never heard of Formosus before. Is it a type of yogurt? It sounds like it would keep my blood pressure down.

[Greg Jenner]

Formosus in Latin means handsome.

[Alison Spittle]

Do we get a handsome pope?

[Greg Jenner]

You get a handsome pope. The Jude Law pope. The young pope.

[Alison Spittle]

Young pope.

[Professor Brett Whalen]

He is handsome. Undeniably.

[Greg Jenner]

He's handsome for a bit, and then it goes a bit wrong. Brett, can you tell us about Pope Formosus and the notorious thing that happens to him?

[Professor Brett Whalen]

Formosus is a bishop. He's the Bishop of Porto, which is just outside Rome. The Pope Nicholas I sends him up to Bulgaria on a mission to convert the Bulgarians, and he does a good job. He's a successful missionary. Later on, though, he gets tangled up in these kind of local, nasty Roman politics. He's deposed at one point, and eventually he actually manages to become Pope himself. This is in 891. He's now holding the top spot in the church, but again, he gets caught up in this political infighting, including this question of who's going to be the next king of Italy. He dies apparently of natural causes. In 896. There's a pope right after him, Boniface VI, but he's only pope for like, 15 days, so we don't really need to worry about him. The Pope after that. Stephen VI is not a fan of Formosus, and some things happen from there that are a bit shocking.

[Greg Jenner]

Some things happen is a very, very kind way of describing what is about to happen. Alison, in 897, we get the most unhinged courtroom drama you can possibly imagine. How do you think Pope Stephen VI continues his beef with Pope Formosus, who, by this point, is dead?

[Alison Spittle]

They're gonna dig him up, aren't they?

[Professor Brett Whalen]

Good job.

[Alison Spittle]

This is gonna happen. Okay, okay, cool, cool, cool. Oh, wow. I mean, you gotta have a special type of spite to dig as well, you know. What did they do? Okay, tell me, tell me, tell me.

[Greg Jenner]

Pope Stephen VI orders the exhumation of the corpse of Formosus, and he is put on trial. So it is called. It is called the Cadaver Synod. And Brett, do you want to give us the lurid details?

[Alison Spittle]

This is amazing. This is amazing.

[Greg Jenner]

How do you try a rotting corpse?

[Professor Brett Whalen]

Weekend at Bernie's just, like popped into my head. So there's this great painting by Jean Paul laurent. It's from 1870. It's not medieval at all, but it's one of these great, I think one of the more famous representations of the Cadaver Synod. So Formosius is rotting bodies after nine months in the tomb, he was dug up. He's dressed up in the full papal regalia. He's propped up on the throne, and his body is put on trial. Pope Stephen VI is there, leveling the charges against him and kind of interrogating him. And supposedly there was a deacon off to the side or behind him, acting like a ventriloquist.

[Greg Jenner]

No.

[Professor Brett Whalen]

Yeah, speaking for Primogius.

[Alison Spittle]

Oh, I'd love to see that on Britain's Got Talent. So he put his hand into the back of the head.

[Professor Brett Whalen]

I don't know if he really like, shoved his hand in and moved his jaw. That would be really the bridge too far.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay, yeah, there's definitely someone giving answers on behalf of Formosus, who is a rotting shell of a man. But anyway, Alicent, that is the scene, so, I mean, can you imagine that as a TV drama?

[Alison Spittle]

Now, how does the defendant plead? Dead, you, Honor. Dead.

[Greg Jenner]

So Stephen is yelling his questions. The deacon is doing the corpse ventriloquism. The corpse is found guilty, obviously. Of course he is, because they're not going to be like, oh, he got off on a technicality. Clearly they're finding him guilty. What do you think his posthumous punishment is?

[Alison Spittle]

Please say it's death again, please. It has to be. This is double death.

[Greg Jenner]

This is great death squared.

[Alison Spittle]

It can't be. Nine months in on community service, he's not going to be able to sweep up. He's a corpse. It has to be death.

[Greg Jenner]

It's a sort of reputational death.

[Alison Spittle]

Oh.

[Greg Jenner]

All of his acts as pope were nullified.

[Alison Spittle]

Oh, no.

[Greg Jenner]

He was stripped of his papal vestments that they put on him. Do you remember those robes they put on him? They took him off again ceremonially. They snapped off his three fingers he had used to bless people. Whoa. And then they reburied him in a commoner's grave. And Stephen said it was because Formosus had committed perjury, coveting the papacy, violating the laws of the church. So those are the sort of crimes.

[Alison Spittle]

He'S accused of because we're hearing about him now. Was there, like a retrospective on. This is a frumbrosia.

[Greg Jenner]

Formosus.

[Alison Spittle]

Formosus was there. Kind of like a Renaissance for him, because why do we know so much about him?

[Greg Jenner]

Great question. Thinking like a historian, Alison. Very nice. He's reburied in a commoner's grave and then. The chaos is not over yet, is it, Brett?

[Professor Brett Whalen]

Pope Stephen seems to get concerned that some of Formos supporters might actually dig up the body and kind of turn it into, like, a martyr or almost like a saint. Right. Get the relics and turn those into a focal point for devotion. Stephen orders the body to be dug up again.

[Alison Spittle]

Again.

[Professor Brett Whalen]

And according to some of these chronicles, he gets thrown in the Tiber. The cult of relics was a really big deal in the Middle Ages.

[Alison Spittle]

I mean, I visited St. Valentine's Bones. There's an incredible thing in Dublin where you can look at, like, wish books and I'm no longer Catholic. Love the iconography. I won't lie. Love sitting in a church. But, like, yeah, this is so interesting to me. Sorry. I totally interrupted you there.

[Professor Brett Whalen]

No, not at all.

[Alison Spittle]

With my enthusiasm, Brett. Continue, continue, continue.

[Professor Brett Whalen]

No, you're spot on. And you're the one who first brought up saints the beginning of the show. That's really helpful to remember that there's this whole kind of culture around dead bodies, you know, breaking them up into little bits and sending them around and putting them into altars. That's what they do to Formosis, though, that they throw him in the river because they want to make sure that no one gets their hands on his body and turns it into a saintly relic. And yet he doesn't become a saint. But there are stories here that a monk or other stories, it's like a fisherman who's in the Tiber. Imagine that you're like, fishing in the Tyburn. You know, you put the Pope's corpse. Wow, where'd that come from? And the body does get rediscovered. Right. And some sympathetic supporters of Formosius get their hands on it to do it. I think Stephen was probably worried about. There's this one priest, actually. Yeah. This other story, Auxilius of Naples, is this guy he's writing at the time, he says there was a thunderstorm. So this is where maybe God was getting involved, and it caused the Tiber to rise up, and at that point, the body was discovered. According to another story, this monk had a prophetic dream. Of course, these are signs that Formosius was wrongly, I think, convicted. Right. Clearly. Auxilius, by the way, is one of these priests who was ordained, made into a priest by, guess who. By Formosius. So I think he has his own vested interest in wanting to be team Formosius. And when Formosius acts are all nullified, that would send these kind of ripples through the whole Church if you just nullified everything a Pope did. And so someone like Auxilius, I think, probably had his own reasons for wanting to rehabilitate Pope Formosus.

[Greg Jenner]

So I guess Stephen has failed in his quest. He buried him and then threw him in the river, and both times it's gone wrong. What do you think happens to Pope Stephen vi, Alison, do you think it all ends very nicely for him?

[Alison Spittle]

Does he get tried when he's dead?

[Greg Jenner]

I wish. Aw, sweet justice. He doesn't get tried in a court of law, but he gets his comeuppance, doesn't he, Brett? And it's a pretty violent comeuppance.

[Professor Brett Whalen]

Yeah. I mean, so people like Auxilius of Naples have it out for Stephen after this all goes down, and he gets pushed, of Power. Not too long after, and he's stripped of his vestments. He's demoted to being a monk, kind of on a house. Monastic arrest, and he's eventually strangled to death.

[Alison Spittle]

There's so much bloodlust for these popes. I am aghast. I'm from Ireland. They love popes there.

[Greg Jenner]

So thank you for that, Brett. That's an excellent summary of the Cadaver Synod and its consequences. So karmic justice for Stephen. Then we get the new guy, Pope Romanus. Now, he's got a good name. It's Rome, he's called Romanus. I've got a good feeling about him. Does he do well?

[Professor Brett Whalen]

I'm sorry? Yeah, he gets overthrown pretty quickly and trundled off to a monastery and dies four months later.

[Alison Spittle]

What of?

[Greg Jenner]

We think may be poisoned, but I've got a really strong feeling that Pope Theodore ii, the best of the chipmunks, he's gonna nail this. How long does he last?

[Alison Spittle]

Alison, let's. I'm gonna go two years, three weeks.

[Greg Jenner]

No.

[Professor Brett Whalen]

Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

When I say three weeks, that's the generous version of the story, because the other story is that he dies within 12 days. So Theodore II has not gone great. He's murdered by foul play. But, Brett, he is still linked to the Cadaver Synod. He's still linked to formosis, isn't he, Theodore?

[Professor Brett Whalen]

Yeah. I mean, already, Romanus had already started this process of actually of annulling Steven the Sixth Acts, Right. And kind of rehabilitating Formosius. Romanus held a synod reinstating Formosius and condemning Stephen. And then. Yeah, Theodore keeps this process going. It's interesting, right? There's like multiple synods by multiple popes after condemning Stephen VI's actions and overturning the verdict of the Cadaver Synod. So you get the sense of how important this was for people to unwind this putting a corpse on trial, it wasn't really a winning move in the long run.

[Alison Spittle]

Now it makes you look petty, I have to say.

[Greg Jenner]

It's really petty.

[Alison Spittle]

Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay, so we have Theodore dies after only three weeks maximum. He's then replaced by another pope. Things are unfortunately not massively improving. Alison, we asked you at the beginning to guess how many popes there were in total. I'm now going to ask you to guess how many popes were there in the eight years between 896 and 904.

[Alison Spittle]

I'm gonna go for 18.

[Greg Jenner]

I love the way you embrace the chaos. It was nine popes in eight years, so. Which is still pretty bad. But not all of those did one year. Some of those were doing just a few months.

[Alison Spittle]

There were some caretaker popes involved in.

[Greg Jenner]

This, some definite caretaker popes, These popes being elected, you know, inverted commas. But there's actually an awful lot of sort of sinister underhand politics happening here. We have some very powerful families with wonderful names. The Theophylacti, the Crescentii and the Tusculani. They are the kind of medieval mafia mob bosses of papal politics, aren't they?

[Professor Brett Whalen]

Yeah, I mean, you can't understand what's happening without really thinking about these powerful Roman families.

[Greg Jenner]

And so they're putting their own on the throne. And then within a few months or a year, that pope is bumped off, murdered, deposed. So many popes were killed or deposed, we don't even have time to list them. Alison. That's how many it was. The papacy clearly is in dire straits here, Brett. The obvious question, I suppose, is, are various kings and princes and rulers and political decision makers? Have they just given up on the papacy?

[Professor Brett Whalen]

No, I don't. I mean, Rome still, it is still such a touchstone point, right? Pope have this layering of legitimacy. They're the only ones that can bestow you can be a really powerful king. But if you want to really have the imperial title and have people recognize it as meaningful, you need a pope to be the one to hand that crown over. Just to give you an example, there are these rulers in Germany in the late nine hundreds conveniently named Otto the First, Otto II and Otto iii. They become really powerful, powerful enough that they want to reclaim the imperial title. So Otto goes down, I think around it's like nine goes down to knock some heads in northern Italy and actually meets with the Pope and gets crowned as emperor. The Ottonians, as they're called, the Ottonian dynasty donates properties to the papacy. Emperor Otto III is interesting. He works really closely with Pope Sylvester ii, who is his former tutor, actually. And they seem to have these big ambitious plans to kind of bring back the glory of the Roman Empire. They both die at 1002 and 1003, like within a year of each other. And nothing much comes of this partnership. And it takes another decade or so before another emperor is crowned. These rulers don't walk away from the appeal of Rome, okay?

[Greg Jenner]

But there's clearly a crisis going on. So alicent, if you were the chief exec of the papacy, we've reached the year 1000 here. So what reforms would you be putting in place to try and protect the brand?

[Alison Spittle]

Is there celibacy now or Is that later on in the.

[Professor Brett Whalen]

It's theoretically on the books at this point. Not always observed, let's put it that way. It's a great question.

[Alison Spittle]

I would get the devil out of church. That would be my big thing if I was folks, Right?

[Professor Brett Whalen]

Step one.

[Greg Jenner]

Step one, Brett, how do you remove the devil from the church? How do you reform the Papacy? After 200 years of absolute crisis, we've reached the early 1000s. Are there going to be reforms coming.

[Professor Brett Whalen]

Down the pipeline, the 11th century? I'm certainly not the first medieval historian to talk about sometimes called the papal reform movement, where people are trying to sort of clean house here. But one example of this is in 10, you get a new pope, Leo IX. He's generally considered the first reformer pope of the 11th century, and he's more or less installed by the emperor at the time, Henry iii. But when he shows up, actually shows up in Rome to take up the papal office, he comes, it's described in some accounts, in the manner of a pilgrim. He's barefoot, he's humble. He tells the people of Rome that if he's not worthy to be their bishop, he'll leave. Right? So, and then in the 1070s, you get to Pope Gregory VII, and he left such a stamp on this new spirit of reform. It's sometimes actually called the Gregorian papacy. And to your point, he wants to get priests to be celibate. He wants priests to stop getting married and passing their church property on to their kids. He wants to get rid of simony, which is the idea that you can, like, buy a bishopric or buy a position as an abbot. And so there really is this idea. They want to get the pope out from under the thumb of lay people, which includes kings and emperors, by the way, and really broadcast the idea that the papacy is the ultimate spiritual head of the Christian world. And that's how you're going to reform the church, is by the pope stepping up into this role.

[Alison Spittle]

So was it given to pope ultimate power?

[Professor Brett Whalen]

In some ways that I think when we think of the papacy as being a big deal in the Middle Ages, it's really the 11th century when that starts to happen. So you wind up with Clement, and then you have a series of popes over the following decades who are basically kind of popes in exile, right? They're not actually in Rome, but they have a lot of support. You see the popes, a series of popes, what was it? Sticking with the reform, up to their eyeballs. One of the interesting ones is Urban II. He's elected pope in 1088, Pope Urban.

[Alison Spittle]

That's the genre of music that was happening a bit too fast.

[Professor Brett Whalen]

Have you heard of Urban, Alison? Does that name ring any bells?

[Alison Spittle]

I haven't I related to Keith Urban, the husband of Nicole Kidman?

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, Karl Urban. Pope Urban and Keith, they're all the same Urban, all the same family. No, it's.

[Professor Brett Whalen]

He's an important Pope. He's savvy. He gathers a lot of support from different European rulers and bishops.

[Greg Jenner]

Pope Urban II is one of the most famous popes from history. He's going to do something very, very famous. Do you know what it is, Alison? It's in the 1090s.

[Professor Brett Whalen]

Oh, I am. Alright, I'm gonna give a hint. Can I give a hint please? Orlando Bloom.

[Alison Spittle]

Orlando Bloom, the Calcium Kid. Does he become a boxer? Does he become a boxer or is he a pirate?

[Greg Jenner]

You've gone two pirates at the Caribbean, Brett. We should have gone the other way. We should have gone with Ridley Scott.

[Alison Spittle]

Oh, yes, yes.

[Professor Brett Whalen]

Kingdom of Heaven.

[Alison Spittle]

So Kingdom of Heaven. Okay, cool. So is he a tough pope?

[Greg Jenner]

He calls the First Crusade.

[Alison Spittle]

Ah, yes. Okay.

[Greg Jenner]

Which is a huge moment in global history. It's obviously gonna be a horrifically violent religious war. Brett. This is, you know, in terms of medieval Christianity, this is a sort of watermark moment, isn't it, for the papacy? Because this is an assertion of strength.

[Professor Brett Whalen]

I think so. You know, here's Urban. He's in the middle still of this ongoing fight with Henry iv. He can't even really go to the city of Rome, but he's out working the crowd, sometimes literally. And in 1095 he preaches this sermon in Clermont in France and calls for Christians to go and as he sees it, liberate the holy city of Jerusalem. And this becomes known as the First Crusade. At the time, and certainly in retrospect, the kind of show stopping demonstration of the Pope's authority on a, I guess now we might call it like an international level. In the Crusade. It actually captures Jerusalem in July 1099 and Pope Urban II dies just like a few weeks before news reaches Rome that the Crusaders had actually, after this three year campaign, managed to, to capture the city. Urban's very symbolic of a kind of a new direction with the papacy.

[Greg Jenner]

I think we now get into a new phase where the papacy is still political, it's still controversial, but there is more strength in the office, I suppose.

[Alison Spittle]

Was Erben looking for that war to get the Europeans together against what they would perceive as a common enemy and give these rich people something to do?

[Professor Brett Whalen]

Rich also inviolant yeah, the peace of God is happening at the same time and there's this idea like stop killing.

[Alison Spittle]

Each other and start killing other people.

[Professor Brett Whalen]

Sadly, go kill the so called infidels as they view them.

[Alison Spittle]

Interesting.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, I mean that's a whole other episode. Alicent. But you know, that's brought us to the end of our conversation, to the end of the papal Dark Ages, the nuance window. This is where Alison and I spend our two minutes reburying a pope we've just dug up while Brett has two uninterrupted minutes to tell us something we need to know about today's conversation. So my stopwatch is read, Brett, if you are ready, the nuance window, please.

[Professor Brett Whalen]

Yeah. Great. And you know, you've made this, Alison, particularly, I think with all of your great comments, you've made this pretty easy. I think we've really grabbed a hold of some of the nuance of the situation. Right. I'll be the first to admit that something like the cadaver sin, you can see it as a sign of the fact that the Middle Ages were the Dark Ages and it was irrational, it was grotesque, it was barbaric. But I do think we need to avoid this impulse, Right. I think of it as like a historical confirmation bias, if you, if you see what I mean, for the way we view the medieval as opposed to the, to the modern world. But we saw on the show today, right, Bishops around medieval Europe, like the popes of Rome, were deeply enmeshed in political life, right. Italian politics. The Pope is the biggest landlord in medieval Italy, after all, and they're certainly involved in local politics with these families that Greg mentioned earlier struggling for control of the, of the city. And this was really the case after the collapse of the Carolingian empire. Governing institutions like of all different kinds were really, really under new kinds of pressure. In that context, the Cadaver Synod kind of makes sense, so to speak. It has its own kind of internal log. You know, on the other hand, keep in mind, contemporaries knew the cadaver sin was outrageous, right? This wasn't just like another day in the crazy Middle Ages. I mean, people in the 9th century knew that this isn't how the successor of St. Peter is supposed to act with the keys to the kingdom of heaven. And the same thing goes for like being murdered with a hammer or sleeping with your mistress or using church property for your own personal gain. So even in the middle of these struggles and in the middle of these troubles, you see these calls for reform, which really pick up steam in the 11th century to get the Roman popes out from under the thumb of these local families, out from under the thumb of emperors, and, and really do things differently. And, you know, that leads to something like Urban II being in a position to stand up as the leader of Christendom and call for the first Crusade. So from that kind of more nuanced perspective, I think that the people of Dark ages, and I'm making air quotes here with my fingers, really become less, like, sensationalistic and more historically important because, you know, they allow us to kind of to see and track these broader changes in medieval European history as a whole.

[Greg Jenner]

Thank you so much, Brett. That's fascinating. Alison, any thoughts on that?

[Alison Spittle]

I feel nuanced up to the eyeballs. My mind has been opened so hard, like, with medieval ages, I just thought it was like eating large drumsticks and jousting, but this has been so, so great.

[Greg Jenner]

Fabulous. Well, thank you so much, Alison. Thank you so much, Brett. And listener. If after today's episode you want to know about the Crusades, why not go listen to our episode on Saladin? And remember, if you've enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review, share the show with your friends. Make sure to subscribe to youo're Dead to Me on BBC Sound so you never miss an episode and subscribe. But all that's left for me to do is say a huge thank you to my guests. In History Corner, we had the fantastic Professor Brett Whalen from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Thank you, Brett.

[Professor Brett Whalen]

Thank you so much. Thank you, Alison. I had such a great time.

[Greg Jenner]

Thanks.

[Alison Spittle]

Me too, Brett. You're a legend. Thanks so much.

[Greg Jenner]

And in Comedy Corner, we had the awesome Alison Spittle.

[Alison Spittle]

Thank you, Alison, Greg, Brett, everybody else, it's been knowledgeable and beautiful. Thank you.

[Greg Jenner]

Pleasure. Thanks for coming. And to you, lovely listener, join me next time as we excitedly exhume more forgotten historical subjects and then put them on trial. But for now, I'll have to go and change my name to Corpse Ventriloquist.

[Alison Spittle]

Bye.

[Greg Jenner]

You're dead to me at the BBC Studios production for BBC Radio 4.

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