Episode 46: The Afterlife Trial of a Pope and Mayan Beauty Rituals
Jan 08, 2024Episode 46
Marty Smarticus
Step right up to the grand stage of history where the dead speak and the living listen—in a most literal sense! Join Phoenix and I as we recount the spine-chilling story of Pope Formosus, whose earthly deeds led to an otherworldly trial, long after his last breath. This week's episode is a tapestry of intrigue and gastronomy, where we not only unearth ecclesiastical enigmas but also share the divine pleasure of a pork loin recipe worthy of saintly acclaim. You'll be left pondering the lengths of medieval politics while savoring the richness of Vatican cuisine, as we intertwine tales of the past with the culinary adventures that await in your kitchen.
But our journey doesn't stop at the Vatican's walls. We venture further into the annals of cultural expression, shedding light on the Mayans' striking practice of cranial deformation and the quest for beauty that knows no bounds. Through vivid discussions and historical insights, we navigate the world of body modifications, revealing how civilizations across the globe have sculpted their bodies in the pursuit of aesthetic ideals. So grab your apron and your curiosity, as Phoenix and I guide you through an episode that serves up a feast for the mind and the taste buds, seeking the extraordinary in the folds of history and the flavors of tradition.
Step right up to the grand stage of history where the dead speak and the living listen—in a most literal sense! Join Phoenix and I as we recount the spine-chilling story of Pope Formosus, whose earthly deeds led to an otherworldly trial, long after his last breath. This week's episode is a tapestry of intrigue and gastronomy, where we not only unearth ecclesiastical enigmas but also share the divine pleasure of a pork loin recipe worthy of saintly acclaim. You'll be left pondering the lengths of medieval politics while savoring the richness of Vatican cuisine, as we intertwine tales of the past with the culinary adventures that await in your kitchen.
But our journey doesn't stop at the Vatican's walls. We venture further into the annals of cultural expression, shedding light on the Mayans' striking practice of cranial deformation and the quest for beauty that knows no bounds. Through vivid discussions and historical insights, we navigate the world of body modifications, revealing how civilizations across the globe have sculpted their bodies in the pursuit of aesthetic ideals. So grab your apron and your curiosity, as Phoenix and I guide you through an episode that serves up a feast for the mind and the taste buds, seeking the extraordinary in the folds of history and the flavors of tradition.
History. Alright, enough with the Echo and Fanfare. You're here for history, right, and not that boring crack you learned in high school. This stuff's actually interesting, like things you've never heard about the Civil War, cleopatra, automobiles, monopoly, the Black Plague and more Fascinating stories, interesting topics and some downright weird facts from the past. It's a new twist on some stories you may know and an interesting look at some things you may have never heard. So grab a beer, kick back and enjoy. Here's your host, smarticast.
Speaker 2:
Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Smarticast Tales History. I am your host, smarticast, and I am accompanied by my co-host, phoenix. Hello, today we'll be delving into a truly bizarre and macabre chapter of papal history. It's a story of power struggles, revenge and an event that can only be described as a medieval outcourtroom drama. Yes, my friends, today we're talking about the infamous trial of Pope Formosus by his successor, pope Stephen VI.
Speaker 3:
Let's talk about food first. Today we've got a marinated and grilled pork loin which actually comes from the authentic, delectable Vatican recipes cookbook. That's an actual thing folks.
Speaker 2:
Yep, it's on Amazon Kindle. If you haven't, it was free. If you have Kindle Unlimited, and then if not, I think it was like five or six bucks, something like that.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, and then you too can eat the Pope's favorite Fettuccine recipe. It's in there. Oh, and we also, because we're doing a rather special episode this week.
Speaker 2:
Just two little short stories this time, because they were super short, so we went ahead and just combined the two.
Speaker 3:
Yes, so we're going to be talking about the interesting practice of the Mayan people in Mesoamerica of binding their children's heads to make them look like they were the same shape as corn.
Speaker 2:
Yep, which is bizarre, but I have seen pictures of it previously. Oh yeah, I didn't look at it for this episode, but yeah, I have seen it. They do look bizarre. Well, I guess it's not pictures, because they didn't have pictures.
Speaker 3:
No, but they've got illustrations of what it would have looked like.
Speaker 2:
And well, that's not true. They do have pictures of the mummies and stuff that are left behind.
Speaker 3:
There's actually a couple of pictures of a part of my eat.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, this is really good. The pork is really juicy, my gosh. The pork is really good, by the way.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, but there are. There are actually black and white pictures of some people who were kind of like leftovers, like this guy's head was shaped like an ear of corn and it was an actual photograph from like the 1800s.
Speaker 2:
Wow.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
I guess some cultures still practice it some.
Speaker 3:
They used to. I don't think they do it anymore, though.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I mean, I would hope not. I mean, although I guess some indigenous tribes that are still around, I mean they might. Um, yeah, anyways, um, this pork loin man, this is so good. This is probably the best pork I've ever had. This is really good. Um, it use. What kind of wine did you use wine? Right, yeah, what kind did you use? I used a Merlot. I used a red Moscato.
Speaker 3:
Oh, I bet that's delicious. That's the only one I have is Merlot.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it was really good and it's. This recipe is super simple. I actually had most of the ingredients already.
Speaker 3:
Um yeah, it's mostly spices.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, the marinade. It called out a quarter cup of wine red wine a quarter cup of soy sauce, quarter cup of unsalted ketchup, a quarter cup of apple cider vinegar, or just cider vinegar is what said, but I think it's all apple cider vinegar.
Speaker 3:
No, there's regular vinegar. That's what I used.
Speaker 2:
It called out cider vinegar, though.
Speaker 3:
Oh sorry, I don't know. That's a really good question.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, um. And and then it was, the spices were regular pepper. Well, it said sweet paprika. I used regular paprika. Now, it was a tablespoon of that, yeah, one tablespoon of that. A teaspoon of smoked paprika, a teaspoon of ground garlic. Well, it said granulated mustard, granulated garlic, and then also said granulated mustard. I used ground garlic and ground mustard. After that's, that's probably the same thing. Yeah, um, and then it's called out onion flakes, which I used minced onion flakes. Um, what else was there?
Speaker 3:
I think that's it right.
Speaker 2:
I think that is it. Yeah, um, but I said you marinate it. I actually marinated mine overnight, um, it said you just marinate for a couple of hours, but I just I did it last night mainly because I also forgot to get the pork loin last night. Um, I forgot to get it Wednesday, um, when I did, when I did a little bit of shopping. So when I got home from my Thanksgiving trip, um, I had to go straight to Crest, which is like Dylan's or whatever. Um, only there there are 24 hours, Um, and I had to grab two pork loins, um, cause I made two of these Nice, uh, and then I totally forgot about the corn, like I told you earlier.
Speaker 3:
I think I can corn guys, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I have an area, I do have an ear of corn, um, but I had to go to Dollar General this morning and go grab, go grab one, cause I completely forgot about the corn. Oh, that's good. You, uh, you grilled the pork loin, it said, for about 35 to 45 minutes on medium heat on the grill.
Speaker 3:
I did mine the oven. I just stuck it in there at 400 for about 30, five minutes.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it took me about an hour on the grill, not quite 35 to 45 minutes. Yeah, it's saying. It said they'll only get it to 145 temperature roughly. So that's what I did. I have a, you know, I have a fancy thermometer that I put on there we do too. It was about 145 and, and I think the other one like said I made two of them. The other one was like 155 or something. I was like that's good enough. Yeah, oh, and that's it. I mean it was super simple and it is. This is really good.
Speaker 3:
Very delicious yeah uh-huh for sure. Well, now that we're done talking about food, let me set the stage for the first part of our episode. It's the ninth century and the papal office is a hot seat for political intrigue and ecclesiastical power struggles.
Speaker 2:
The church at this time wielded immense authority over Europe, and the papacy was a position of both spiritual and political significance. However, even with all of its boastful power, it still had political parties manipulating a great deal. And Then there's Pope Stephen the sixth, who ascended to the papal throne in 896 after Formosus's death. Stephen the sixth, under the great influence of the ruling Spoleto aristocratic family, had a bone to pick with his predecessor, and not just metaphorically.
Speaker 3:
The last figure influencing this story was the aristocratic family that Smarticus mentioned. Thanks largely to Pope Stephen the sixth. The reluctant Duke of Spoleto named Guy the third was crowned as the Holy Roman Emperor. No joke, this family was full of people named Lambert and Guy and all related by just a couple generations to the Charlemagne Guy the third son. You guessed it, lambert had a lot of influence on his distant cousin Stephen the sixth.
Speaker 2:
Now the story begins. Pope Formosus Made waves with his controversial endorsement for Emperor, among other things, during his five years on the papal throne. Not that it was that a character for him, as he had been getting in trouble with other factions in the church four years before he was made Pope. One thing he wanted to undo that his predecessor had put into action was the co-emperor ship held by Guy the second and his son, lambert From the ruling Spoleto family. He wanted to remove the power that the family had in Rome, so he asked King Arnolf of East Franks to invade Italy while crowning Arnolf as emperor. This, however, went nowhere, as Arnolf suffered from the war and the death of Arnolf paralysis and had to return home before his invasion could take place.
Speaker 3:
To make matters worse, in April of 896, pope Formosus died and the whole issue was left unresolved. The papal hat then went to Boniface VI, who had it for about two weeks before he either died of the gout or was murdered by Stephen VI. Stephen jumped into the hot seat fully intending to make a difference. Supporting his cousin Lambert and the spallettian faction adamantly made him easily susceptible to encouragement, but he did, after becoming Pope, set him apart in a way that not only horrified the church but the countries that followed the religion during the time, as well as those millennia after.
Speaker 2:
In a move that would make a modern day courtroom drama pale in comparison, pope Stephen VI decided to put the dead Pope Formosus on trial. Yes, you heard that correctly a trial of a deceased pope. But why, you might ask? The Catholic Encyclopedia says and this is a quote whether induced by evil passion or perhaps more probably compelled by the emperor Lambert and his mother, agil Truda. Whatever it was, stephen VI, backed by a group of influential clerics and his cousin, wanted to discredit Formosus and the actions he had taken during his papacy. They accused Formosus of a laundry list of offenses, including perjury, violating church laws and, most bizarrely, seeking the papacy illegally.
Speaker 3:
Ignoring entirely the fact that he was guilty of the little matter known as corpse desecration. But it doesn't stop there, folks. To make this trial even more, macabre, Pope Stephen VI ordered Formosus's body to not only be exhumed from its tomb but dressed in papal vestments. The corpse was then propped up in court and a deacon was appointed to serve as Formosus's legal counsel and mouthpiece, just to make things seem legitimate.
Speaker 2:
The trial itself was a spectacle of absurdity that disgusted and traumatized the unwitting clergy who were forced to be the jury for the trial. The deceased Formosus was found guilty on all charges, his papacy declared null and void and his papal vestments were torn from his lifeless body. To add insult to injury, two of his fingers those used for blessing were severed and his body were unceremoniously tossed into the Tiber River. Yeah, wow oh yeah, that's pretty brutal. I mean not that he cares, he's already dead.
Speaker 3:
Right well, empty house. Anyone wondering what the aftermath of this bizarre trial was Well, it didn't exactly go over well with the masses was eventually overthrown, imprisoned and given a sentence of strangulation. Isn't that lovely, wow, yeah. Some years later, during the 20-day tenure of Pope Theodore II, formosus was reinstated and had his body that was eventually recovered from the Tiber, reburied in St Peter's Basilica and the Vatican City. The Catholic Church, known for its long memory, eventually decided that trying dead popes wasn't a good look, and so have insisted that it never happen again.
Speaker 2:
There you have it, dear listeners the tale of Pope Stephen VI and the posthumous trial of Pope Formosus, a story that leaves us feeling kind of secondhand embarrassment and revulsion. But we are not done yet. As we said, we have.
Speaker 3:
You get a two for one.
Speaker 2:
You'd get a two for one. That's right. So the second story we were talking about today, like we mentioned, is an intriguing yet enigmatic practice of head shaping among the ancient Mayans. Specifically, we'll explore the notion that they sought to make their children's heads resemble ears of corn. Strap in, because this is going to be quite the journey A short journey, but a journey.
Speaker 3:
Right, but there's no crystal skulls, so sorry, Indy.
Speaker 2:
So 500 to 300 BCE is considered the pre-classic period of the Mesoamerican Empire, while 250 to 900 AD is the classic. This is important to know because in the latter it was only the nobility that performed cranial modification, whereas during the pre-classic period it was practiced by everyone. This has been confirmed by the archaeological digs.
Speaker 3:
Cranial deformation or head shaping, was started during infancy, typically five to seven days after birth. This practice was never comfortable. Regardless of the method there are two, by the way In fact it wasn't all that uncommon for children to die because of the process.
Speaker 2:
And that's kind of, you know, jacked up, yeah, like.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
Did these people just not feel anything for their children, I guess, or I mean they.
Speaker 3:
It makes you wonder, right.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, like I mean, or they just, they were just so that adamant about their religious gods, like we're, you know, that's partly why they did this, because of the Maze God they worshiped.
Speaker 3:
Well, I guess, if you look at it from the perspective, that well, we were trying to make him more like the Maze God. So technically, I guess he's going to be with the Maze God because he died in the process of making him look like him.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I guess.
Speaker 3:
But yeah, I still I'm not gonna sacrifice my kit for something like that, right, I'm a little bit too selfish for that nonsense.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, no, I agree. So it seems strange at first thought, considering how pliable a newborn's head is, but when you find out that the method, it becomes a little more clear. One way that you would do this was to bind and pad the infant's head, adjusting as one, please, to get the desired effect. The second one requires the child be bound to a restricting bed with a board at a 45 ish degree at the head. The child would have to remain there until the allotted amount of time. Many of them died from what we would call neglect. Now that's pretty brutal.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
I mean that's, that's tortures, what that is.
Speaker 3:
It is. It is because they couldn't move. They had to stay there the whole freaking time. So if they survived, they had a more oblong shaped head. But surely you're wondering if they were the only people throughout history who did this and the answer to that is they were not. In 2015, archaeologists discovered similar skeletons with elongated skulls in France. Other such sites have been discovered all over the world for decades, but for the purpose of this episode? Let's ask the question why were the Mayans doing it?
Speaker 2:
One of the most prevalent theories is that the Maya aimed the Mayans aimed to imitate the shape of an ear of corn. Corn or maize held immense cultural and agricultural significance for the Mayans. It was their primary crop and they believed that humans were created from maize by the gods.
Speaker 3:
If they survived the resulting cranial deformation. It created a distinctively elongated head shape that some believe resembles an ear of corn. This practice was believed to help bring the child closer to the divine rulers. It also indicated the noble members of society, as they resembled the life-giving god of maize. Compare that to needing to have the newest Jordans or the piercing of children's ears or a boob job.
Speaker 2:
Now is Yep boob job nowadays.
Speaker 3:
Alright, so.
Speaker 2:
Additionally, some scholars suggest that cranial deformation could have been a form of beautification, as the Mayans considered elongated skulls to be more aesthetically pleasing. Speaking of elongated skulls in this way, it may have been similar to other forms of body modification throughout history.
Speaker 3:
Yep. So, as we wrap things up, we'd like to restate that the practicing of cranial deformation, as well as other body modifications, was not limited to those living in Mesoamerica. Each had their own unique reasons for doing such things, but it's important to know that humans, since the beginning, have always had trends. Some lasted hundreds of years, whereas nowadays they don't last more than a blink of an eye.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and that reminds me of one of the other cultures that they well, a couple of them. Like some of them, they put the rings around their neck to make their leg longer. And the one. They put the little thing in their lip to drop the lip or whatever.
Speaker 3:
The big old disc thing yeah.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so anyways, thank you for joining us on this episode of Smartakastell's History. If you enjoyed this exploration of the past plus one, be sure to subscribe for more intriguing tales from the annals of history. Until next time, keep seeking knowledge and embracing the rich tapestry of human history. And remember if it's good enough for the god of maize, it's good enough for little Timmy.