Morbid Mondays - Episode 37 - The Pope on Trial - The Cadaver Synod

Have you ever wanted to hash out some old beef with someone who is no longer in your life? How about while committing acts of insanity? Well dig up those corpses, slap'em in a pope chair. It's time for some court room drama. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

I understand. Yeah. Jesus Christ. All right. You ready?

SPEAKER_02 0:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 0:05

Oh, we're already recording.

SPEAKER_02 0:07

Oh shit. Well, welcome back to the back visit. Welcome to the back end of the pre-show. The front end of the show show.

SPEAKER_04 0:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:13

The pre-show show.

SPEAKER_04 0:15

The show show MOBO. I don't I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 0:17

Mojo, Joe Joe.

SPEAKER_04 0:21

I don't get you. Oh. I just blew the mic out.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

I loved Powerpuff Girls. Are you kidding me?

SPEAKER_04 0:29

Excellent.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

It was so good.

SPEAKER_04 0:31

Excellent show. I love that one of my favorite things about this is one of my favorite things on the internet ever, is taking children's cartoons that are supposed to be kind of girl-coded, even though Powerpuff Girls was kind of both. And uh in like in the way that Sailor Moon is, you know, like, and so but taking those characters and being like theoretically Sailor Moon at her height, at like Queen Serena, rather, could Serenity. Serenity, yeah, could beat Goku. And they were like, yeah, she's a multidimensional being.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

She can like she's she's just about a god. Yeah. I'm sorry. Yes. But yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:12

It's in the way that Beerus could beat Goku. It was like, yeah, she's like a demigod. There's no. Yeah. And then they talked about the power power puff girls, and somebody did a TikTok run through. They were like, who's running the gauntlet? And it was like the Powerpuff Girls, and they kept throwing up superheroes, and they were like, not a chance.

unknown 1:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:27

Like, not a chance.

SPEAKER_02 1:29

Especially if you get all three of them together.

SPEAKER_04 1:31

Buttercup alone is clearing y'all.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

Oh, buttercup. Buttercup when she gets mad.

SPEAKER_04 1:36

Yeah. I was like, if you slap glasses on bubbles, she's gonna fucking irradiate.

SPEAKER_02 1:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:44

I loved that show, man. It was awesome.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

The villains on that show were like fantastic, too.

SPEAKER_04 1:51

Perfectly silly.

SPEAKER_02 1:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:53

And I just yeah. Like just the fucking guy with the meat gun.

SPEAKER_02 1:57

Oh yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:01

The gang green gang.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

The rowdy rough boys.

SPEAKER_04 2:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:05

Yeah. And then of course, we cannot, we cannot go into Powerpuff Girls Villains without mentioning him.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Yeah. We're the same fucking person.

SPEAKER_04 2:17

It was so good because it was like, damn, that's silly as fuck.

SPEAKER_05 2:19

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:20

It was like that's but like also Yeah. Yeah, it gave you a creep that like Tim Curry is Frankfurter. Yeah. I think that's what they were going for there. And I was like, y'all nailed it. You got it.

SPEAKER_02 2:31

It was it was so good. It was so well done.

SPEAKER_04 2:34

Frankenfurter. I said Frankfurter.

SPEAKER_02 2:37

Sausage.

SPEAKER_04 2:38

Frankfurter, yeah. One of them sausages.

SPEAKER_02 2:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 2:43

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

Lock in.

SPEAKER_04 2:45

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

Are we prepared?

SPEAKER_04 2:46

I think so.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

All right. Greetings.

SPEAKER_04 2:48

Hello.

SPEAKER_02 2:49

Welcome to, or welcome back to Morbid Monday, your unhinged source for what the fuck moments in history, uh, where we will take turns giving you a tour of the we wait, hang on. Wait a minute. I wrote this.

SPEAKER_04 3:01

I know. I wrote this in front of you, we still can't do it.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

My hand in front of me. I have a script where we will take turns. Jesus Christ, giving you a weekly tour through all the gross gory and downright odd moments in history. We're your hosts. I'm Katie.

SPEAKER_04 3:18

I'm Brian.

SPEAKER_02 3:19

And I'm tongue-tied.

SPEAKER_04 3:21

Jesus fuck. And I'm Mo Jojo.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

Please don't sue us, Cartoon Network.

SPEAKER_04 3:27

Oh no, they're like. Are they still around?

SPEAKER_02 3:30

I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 3:31

They've gotta be.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

I have no idea.

SPEAKER_04 3:33

They were gonna, years ago, they were gonna reboot Tsunami. And I was like, that's great.

SPEAKER_02 3:37

Dude, yes, Tsunami was phenomenal.

SPEAKER_04 3:41

But it's not.

SPEAKER_02 3:42

Oh.

SPEAKER_04 3:42

I mean, it it it's just a different generation. It was it's pure nostalgia.

SPEAKER_02 3:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:47

The only people who are gonna be really tuning into that are gonna be our age.

SPEAKER_02 3:51

Ain't nothing wrong with that. We're still people, right?

SPEAKER_04 3:53

But it's just like in the in the age of Crunchyroll, it does not have that's fair.

SPEAKER_02 3:58

As as someone that regularly cruises on Crunchyroll.

SPEAKER_04 4:01

Yeah. Or any of the myriad illegal sites, because we all have high-speed internet now.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

I will con neither confirm nor deny anything.

SPEAKER_04 4:11

It's just one of those things like kids. Kids! Uh, if if you don't know for people our age, way back in the day, if you liked anime, you had like three options.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 4:24

Like Anna Mondays on the action channel. If you had satellite like me and you lived in the middle of nowhere, you had Toonami in the middle of the channel.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

Which was cable for me.

SPEAKER_04 4:33

Yeah. Midnight Run was the fucking shit.

SPEAKER_02 4:37

It was so good, too.

SPEAKER_04 4:38

And then you had like a couple of other things, mostly satellite or dish or or Saturday mornings on WB. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Which occasionally, yeah, because that was like that was like like Pokemon and Food Wars and all Digimon and Yeah. All the card captor Sakura was on there.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

Oh, card captor Sakura.

SPEAKER_04 5:00

Yeah. Very good.

SPEAKER_02 5:02

Dude. Anything by Clamp was so good.

SPEAKER_04 5:05

Genre, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:07

Anyways, some creepy ones too. Anyway, so before we get sucked into that conversation, so you asked me before we got started on the pre-show today what the title of today's show was. And we had we had a Wonder Twin Powers activate moment, uh, because this is something that you kinda know about, and that I had no fucking idea about. No clue until literally, I okay, so I I I'm gonna pat myself on the back a little bit because I started my research last week. Like you got done with your shit, and then I was already on the ball looking for mine. Like I was like, all right, I need something. I'm gonna look at all of these. Like I have my usual, my usual places, my usual sources of of for history. And I I I was I was on Reddit of all places where I came across this one in a conversational thread about something completely different. Okay at which point I went, I'm sorry, the what? Because I know what those words mean. I speak two romantic languages. Give me a Latin base and I can figure anything out. What?

SPEAKER_04 6:29

The Reddit is the place to find like the most bizarre shit ever.

SPEAKER_02 6:34

I thank God for Reddit. Like I I hang out on some pretty wholesome sides of Reddit. I know there are some not so wholesome sides of Reddit.

SPEAKER_04 6:41

Oh man.

SPEAKER_02 6:42

Uh like I'm I'm on I'm on R slash crochet.

SPEAKER_04 6:45

I mean I've been to the like not Nevada, but like the county outside of Las Vegas of Reddit. The Reno of Reddit. Some seedy joints, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 7:00

Oh my god. So so today's topic comes to us courtesy of of my just perusing on Reddit, reading some other stuff, and it was presented to me as the cadaver synod, to which I went, I'm sorry, the what? Because I know what those words mean. Do you? Turns out yes. So welcome. Welcome, dear listeners, to the game of popes.

SPEAKER_03 7:32

The game of popes.

SPEAKER_02 7:35

It's a so it's it's so much more fun to say it that way.

SPEAKER_04 7:38

It is pretty good. Now, see, when you when you first when you first uh said this, the game of popes, I I thought you were gonna talk about like the conclave at one point.

SPEAKER_02 7:49

Oh no, the conclave's really fun too. That's actually how I got here.

SPEAKER_04 7:53

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

Sorry, the the mic stand is like and I'm positioned weird. I'm having an ADHD day where I can't sit still.

SPEAKER_04 7:59

And we also have no table.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

Yeah, there's no table. We're like across each other long ways from on his like fantastically Victorian writing desk.

SPEAKER_04 8:07

Yeah, it is. It's a Parsons, it's a real Parsons desk.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

Oh, it's real.

SPEAKER_04 8:11

Yeah, not the uh, because these are for uh mail slotting. Oh, which is what that's the open uh way back in the day there would be a bar here and you would have like a roll of paper for like or or stuff. Yeah. It's like one of the it's when you buy a Parsons table now, it's just like a table in the sense that like Parsons carry around a table and flop it down in the local beer hall and then do their tax work or whatever. But this is like a legitimate like mail sorter writing desk that it's a small one, it's uh it's a little accountant's desk.

SPEAKER_02 8:41

It's so fancy.

SPEAKER_04 8:43

You can find them at many, many, many real retail shops because your like grandparents' generation had them. People kept stamps. Like actual ink stamps. Anyways, cadaver shot.

SPEAKER_02 8:57

Yeah, so alright.

SPEAKER_04 8:58

People are like, what the fuck is he talking about?

SPEAKER_02 9:02

He's he's trying to give you like context for why the fuck I can't sit still. Yeah. Because we're not in our usual configuration. I guess I should say.

SPEAKER_04 9:11

There's no table, we're like caddy corner on my desk, and it looks very strange.

SPEAKER_02 9:15

And and our mic stand is is brilliantly constructed and currently wedged against a wall.

SPEAKER_05 9:21

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 9:21

So you're normally you wouldn't be able to hear me adjusting the mic, but today you're gonna hear it. Uh so the year is 897.

SPEAKER_04 9:30

Is it really that long ago?

SPEAKER_02 9:32

We are in the middle of the Middle Ages.

SPEAKER_04 9:35

That's right. Because this had to do. Well, I'll let you go through it. No, no, no. I invite you It has to do with a biblical argument, I believe. Like a a ruling that that was anyways, let's get into it.

SPEAKER_02 9:50

Well, this isn't the schism. No, no, this isn't the Western Schism.

SPEAKER_04 9:54

This is just a thing that one guy's got beef.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Continuing on my.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

Oh, it's so fucking funny. All right. So let me let me, I'm gonna I as far as trigger warnings for this episode, I there there's there's some weird shit with a dead body, but like not creepy weird shit.

SPEAKER_04 10:20

No, because it's like a preserved dead body. No, no, ooh, he's gooey. Oh, oh, nice. Um we love to see it.

SPEAKER_02 10:29

So, so I mean, there I and I'm certainly not gonna go into a detail about this, like uh beyond to mention that it is active decomp, but I that's that's about it. Like the rest of it's mostly just kind of just funny. Religious, I don't want to say nonsense because that's gonna come across as disrespectful, but this really is like religious and political nonsense.

SPEAKER_04 10:56

Yeah, because it it's as far as I understood the situation, it it's because in order to do this, you need to accuse someone. And the only way to accuse someone is when they're on trial. So, like live or dead, get them bones up here.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

All right, so the year is 897, and I'm not even kidding when I say this. One Pope digs up a dead dead one to put him on trial because he's got beef.

SPEAKER_04 11:26

Excellent. It's bonkers, it's ass crack in in in the early church, right after the fall of Rome.

SPEAKER_02 11:36

I I would have to look up when Rome fell, but we are 97 years post-Charlemagne.

SPEAKER_04 11:42

So, yes, after the fall of Rome. We're in Holy Roman Empire territory.

SPEAKER_02 11:45

You are correct.

SPEAKER_04 11:46

Yeah, I I forget when when it was sacked, it was like 700 something.

SPEAKER_02 11:51

So Rome was never really my like hyper focus. Rome existed within my hyperfocus, but like I can't I'm I'm not an encyclopedia romantica.

SPEAKER_04 11:59

Uh we're we are we are in the the days of like um Charlemagne's grandchildren trying to more or less like he was trying to claim he's the new Rome.

unknown 12:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:11

Thus the Holy Roman Empire thing and being ordained by the Pope and all that other shit. So he tried.

SPEAKER_02 12:19

So let me let me let me let me let me get let you guys in on my thought process on this. Because I am not Catholic. My father is Catholic, and my mother was raised like pseudo-Catholic, uh, but I was not. I got I kind of got left out of the loop here. And so I don't understand a whole lot of the Catholic lore. Like I came, I came into this cold. So to quote my notes here, why popedom?

SPEAKER_04 12:53

Why why poeddom?

SPEAKER_02 12:55

So speedrunning Catholic lore, Peter, the apostle rock of the church exactly, was was basically like if you uh there's an actual term for it. Uh the patron theory is essentially that Peter was left in charge of the religion when JC dipped.

SPEAKER_05 13:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:15

And so it was all up to him. He was in charge, and he was quintessentially the first pope, the first cornerstone of the church.

SPEAKER_04 13:22

Yeah, he is the he's the like anointed person.

SPEAKER_02 13:26

Yeah. And he like there was some shit that went down and he he got killed.

SPEAKER_05 13:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:33

And like, this is also the guy that like asked to be crucified upside down because he didn't feel like he was worthy to die in the same way that Jesus did.

SPEAKER_05 13:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 13:41

So, like, I I mean, points for theatrical, yeah, theatricality, I guess I should say.

SPEAKER_04 13:46

Still, to this day, people go upside down cross. Oh no. It's like, no, that's actually like a holy symbol for most of history.

SPEAKER_02 13:52

Yeah. My my best friend got married in a Catholic church that had the cross of Peter.

SPEAKER_04 13:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:58

And I was confused when we got there about it.

SPEAKER_04 14:01

Not a satanic church, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:02

Oh, I was unaware. Yeah. And then I did some further research and I was like, oh, okay, okay, cool, cool, cool. Cool.

unknown 14:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:11

Cool. Anyway. Uh, so yeah, that is that's that's your basis for it. And the reason that like the holy seat is in Rome is because that's that is allegedly where Peter is buried.

SPEAKER_04 14:24

Yeah. Which is uh why it's called St. Peter's Basilica.

SPEAKER_02 14:27

Bingo, thank you. I love it when you finish my sentences.

unknown 14:32

Yay!

SPEAKER_04 14:33

You're the only person that ever says that, and it's actually a good thing. Well, I mean it's straight sarcasm from everyone else. And maybe you sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 14:45

No, no, no. I I I honestly I don't mind it. Like, because it it lets me know that we're on the same page, and I don't necessarily have to go off on those like detailed explanations. I can just keep going. Oh, I see. Usually. So yeah. Um I literally wrote when after JC dipped.

SPEAKER_04 15:07

After JC dipped. The Backstreet Boys are never the same. Was it? No, that was uh uh NSYNC.

SPEAKER_02 15:15

No Jaze. Shantae you stay. Uh anyway.

SPEAKER_04 15:20

Sachet away.

SPEAKER_02 15:22

Moving on.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

So, oh my god, so so Peter, the apostle, Saint Peter, Pope Numero Uno, whatever you want to call him, cacted in about 30 CE.

SPEAKER_04 15:39

Yeah. Forcibly against his will.

SPEAKER_02 15:42

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:44

However you want to paint it. And so that's that that's that's where Rome, like basically, you know, laid down its we're in charge.

SPEAKER_05 15:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:55

We have the body of the first pope. Kind of.

SPEAKER_05 15:59

Kind of, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:00

Like it, I'm sure they were far more eloquent about it.

SPEAKER_04 16:04

Yeah, because it you don't have like you get that, then you later on you get Constantine the Great.

SPEAKER_02 16:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:11

And he canonizes the whole bit, but you don't even have like a Bible at this point.

SPEAKER_02 16:14

Nope. So this that that's way early. So we're gonna jump.

SPEAKER_04 16:19

You know what's weird is that like at this time there's still a fully functioning, a fully functioning Rome.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:26

It's really weird. It's like, here's the Holy Roman Empire. It's like, well, what about that Roman Empire? Well, they're the Byzantines, so fuck off.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

You are so absolutely correct.

SPEAKER_02 16:40

So, regardless of how it all went down, Rome eventually had all the power.

SPEAKER_05 16:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:49

I love it, like, and and while you're uh catching up in your notes, it's always so funny to me because when you when you look on like fantasy movies and stuff, and they're like the Rome Romans being sacked, and then like the vandals are coming in and they're breaking everything up and all that kind of shit. But then they like they act like no one was around after that. And I was like, no, they they sacked the city for like a long time because it was a massive city, and it's not like you can move that many rocks, right? Like, so there's still people there, and then also a lot of people stayed there, and a lot of people in the area, like Christianity was a big deal at the time, so like it it had already grown through most of the area, and so it's like well, who lives over there now? Just more Christians, yeah, you know, like it's like Christians all the way to Africa, you know what I mean? Like say, and then all the way, it's like a real popular religion.

SPEAKER_02 17:49

So what's crazy to me is to think that like in the beginning, the Archbishop of Rome was just another archbishop.

SPEAKER_05 17:58

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 17:59

He was equal to like, I don't know, Alexandria or uh what's the other big one? Oh, there's a starts with an A. And and it sounds like Antique. I can't think of it.

SPEAKER_04 18:11

Uh Antioch.

SPEAKER_02 18:12

Thank you. Yeah, and then I knew we one of us would get there.

SPEAKER_04 18:14

Yeah, there's Hippo.

SPEAKER_02 18:16

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 18:16

Uh, and then there's a couple of other well, all kinds of places, really.

SPEAKER_02 18:20

He was just another archbishop originally.

SPEAKER_04 18:22

Yeah, the the Pope is uh the first among equals, they say, right? He's like he's the first like of all the of all the the bishops, he's oh look, there's my note about the Great Schism.

SPEAKER_02 18:32

The great the Great Western Schism didn't get started until 1137.

SPEAKER_04 18:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:36

Because I thought that this was like multi-pope periods, and I was wrong.

SPEAKER_04 18:40

No, yeah, that doesn't that doesn't really happen until you get um well what is now the Orthodox Church.

SPEAKER_02 18:47

So let's jump forward. Way forward about let's let's jump forward into the 800s. So this is this is Charlemagne gang being king crowned as like the Holy Roman Emperor by I wrote that down and I can't find it currently.

SPEAKER_04 19:03

Oh shit. Yeah, I don't remember whoever that Pope was. Pious, I think. Probably like the first. Like I'll look it up while you're talking.

SPEAKER_02 19:10

Dude, I looked up a list of all of the popes. I looked that list up, by the way.

SPEAKER_04 19:17

It's a long list.

SPEAKER_02 19:18

It is so many, and so many of them. Like, I understand that by the time that we get to our lifetime, we have Pope John Paul the twenty third.

SPEAKER_04 19:29

Yeah. Well, I mean, it's that that's the thing about like, because you brought up Peter, right? You have an unbroken line of of leaders of the church for 2,000 years.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

It's fucking crazy.

SPEAKER_04 19:44

I mean, like, it's it's really wild. It was Pope Leo III. Hey on Christmas Day.

SPEAKER_02 19:57

Yes! I knew that! I knew that nice. So jumping forward into the 800s, Rome has the Pope and all of the power, and Catholicism, like Christianity, this is old Catholicism, the OG, I guess it was as it were.

SPEAKER_06 20:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:14

Has the world basically in a chokehold. And not a bad way, necessarily.

SPEAKER_04 20:20

Well not really in a I mean, cause considering what was around, it was either like I mean, there was a lot of there was a lot of various small religions. Um Zoroastrianism is around, of course, like Hellenistic beliefs are around from Greece and Rome. Um, but but they're very much waning.

SPEAKER_02 20:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:40

Because like when you look at the message of Christianity, without our modern baggage, right? If you're just hearing the message of the apostles, because remember, there's no Bible.

SPEAKER_02 20:54

Yeah, not yet.

SPEAKER_04 20:54

Right? Like not when the church is now. There is now. In the eight hundreds, there is now.

SPEAKER_02 20:59

Yeah, but like back in 30 CE.

SPEAKER_04 21:01

Yeah, when when the when the religion's trying to, when when Paul is writing Cor Corinth, right? Paul. Yeah, there Paul needed therapy. Well, that he's working with disparate books. There's no there's no canon outside of what we would call parts of the Old Testament, which is like the Torah or the greater like Tanakh as a whole.

SPEAKER_02 21:23

But like he's I love doing Morbid Monetiz on religion because you fill in where I leave gaps.

SPEAKER_04 21:28

I love it. But he's like so they're they're doing their thing, right? But when you when you compare the message of like old afterlifts, there's more equality for women. Vastly more equality for women in a lot of Christian systems versus other systems, unless you're in like a mystery cult. Right? Like if if you're in like the Elecinian mystery or like the cult of Artemis or something like that, you have a lot more agency as well. But you gotta remember that in early Christianity, one of Jesus' messages. Was a woman.

SPEAKER_06 22:01

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 22:01

One of the people that Paul is relying on is a woman. So like people will quote all the time as like women don't speak in church or whatever. Was like, well, there's the Pauline epistles and then there's the pastoral epistles, which is like fake Paul, but also he is writing in a very specific context. One of his messengers is a woman.

SPEAKER_02 22:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:21

Like one of the people he brings into the church is a woman. So like you've got a lot more to do with that. It integrates very, very well. Um, and there's more you may notice in a lot of Bibles that when they talk about like the rebirth of Jesus, he's like coming from Hades. So that's because a lot of texts are are are translated from Greek. Yep. And their context of like Sheol, the Jewish af the Jewish underworld, is they're taking it from the Greek, right? So it's Hades. And when you're talking to a Greek world, you're just like, the afterlife sucks and it's not great unless you're a big fucking hero. And then then you have the religion that comes through, and they're like, actually, the afterlife is pretty fucking dope if you're not a terrible person. So, like, you know, it's like, and it's really easy to get saved because that's the thing about like the religion. The the buy-in is not hard.

SPEAKER_02 23:16

No.

SPEAKER_04 23:17

And so it's it it comes through and it's just a better deal than a lot of religions of the time.

SPEAKER_02 23:23

It's not hard to see why Christianity like got as big as it did, as fast as it did.

SPEAKER_04 23:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:27

Because it's literally promising you eternal perfection. And it's like all you have to do is not be an asshole and follow these ten rules.

SPEAKER_04 23:37

Yeah, and and what are well, what does the the main prophet teach? Be a good person. Yep. There's no like like the old testament is filled with a lot of Zeus type stuff where God's like being very cruel and doing very cruel.

SPEAKER_02 23:49

Fire and brimstone.

SPEAKER_04 23:50

And then you get to the the new books, which is what people are reading.

unknown 23:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:53

That's the thing, is like people go, like, well, why did people buy into this? It's like, because they're not reading the Old Testament, they are receiving the gospel. So it's people literally going, Well, this is the gospel of Luke, and they're telling the story of Jesus, and they're going, like, well, this guy seems pretty fucking cool.

SPEAKER_02 24:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:09

He seems a lot cooler than the kings of our time.

SPEAKER_02 24:12

So he's a lot cooler than his dad.

SPEAKER_04 24:14

Yeah. So people, people have buy-ins. But on with this, that's enough of my uh evangelizing for whatever that might seem.

SPEAKER_02 24:26

Spiritually and politically speaking, the Pope is the it girl of the period.

SPEAKER_04 24:29

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 24:30

To throw it into modern context. Um and to to stay that way, the Pope also needs to be kind of politically savvy. Like, you gotta make the right alliances, you gotta say the right things, you gotta be real smooth. Because uh, as as I mentioned before, this is the game of popes.

SPEAKER_05 24:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:54

And the turnover rate for being Pope is pretty high.

SPEAKER_05 24:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:59

Like I I told you that I looked up the list of popes, and it's very, very long.

SPEAKER_04 25:05

Yeah, because we're in the age of like the conclave isn't really it is a thing, it is a thing, but it's not really a thing.

SPEAKER_02 25:12

But it's not the conclave that we understand.

SPEAKER_04 25:14

Yeah, it's like a king could maybe depose you and put his fucking cousin in there.

SPEAKER_02 25:18

Yeah, it's weird. Yeah like this is this is coming up on the period where the Pope thinks he's in charge, but the kings also think they're in charge.

SPEAKER_05 25:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:27

And it's we're coming up on that, but we're not quite there yet. Because right now, the Pope is in charge. If you are a king, you want the Pope's backing. Yeah. If you are a Pope, you need the king's protection.

SPEAKER_04 25:39

Right.

SPEAKER_02 25:39

Because uh, as as we will get into in a moment, Brian, let me and let me, in fact, you know what? I'm gonna jump forward in my notes just a little bit. In our lifetime, how many popes have you known? Oh not personally, just in general.

SPEAKER_04 25:53

Yeah, well, you know, that one guy. Now I started off with John Paul. So I think it was John Paul the yeah, so John Paul, Francis, Benedict, Benedict, and now Leo. Yeah, and now Leo.

SPEAKER_02 26:05

So four so that's four popes in our lifetime.

SPEAKER_04 26:08

So I'm almost 41.

SPEAKER_02 26:10

So that in in 40 years average, there have been four popes.

SPEAKER_04 26:14

Now I've every decade.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

I wrote down their ruling times. Like ruling time?

SPEAKER_04 26:19

John Paul was around for a while.

SPEAKER_02 26:21

27 years. This Pope was old. Like I remember him being old. Like me, me as a very young person was like, Emperor Palpatine, and my father was like, no!

SPEAKER_04 26:34

Emperor Palpatine. Oh man. He was his forefather. He like was weird is he's remembered very fondly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:42

And so like he was a good guy until like right at the end where he started to get a little harsh.

SPEAKER_04 26:48

Well, you got yeah, you got all in and he was harsh in the very beginning, too. Like he he had a he had a swing period right in the middle.

SPEAKER_02 26:55

And then we had Pope Benedict, yeah, who was chill.

SPEAKER_04 26:59

Yeah, who who lived through a lot. Yeah, that with Benick was like a Hitler youth guy, right?

SPEAKER_02 27:04

Yeah, and he he reigned as Pope. What is what is the term for being in charge as Pope? Papacy?

SPEAKER_05 27:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 27:10

Okay, so his papacy was from 2005 to 2013. So that is for me specifically, that is me graduating high school. Up and up into college for me. So that was that was eight years. And then right on the heels of that, we got Pope Francis, who I lovingly call superpope.

SPEAKER_04 27:30

Yeah, who did not stay around very long. No, no, but did like a lot of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 27:36

Well, okay, so Pope Francis, we had him for 12 years.

SPEAKER_04 27:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:39

So he was longer than Ben. He was from 2013 to 2025.

SPEAKER_04 27:43

Jeez, where did the time go?

SPEAKER_02 27:44

And we just got Chicago Pope.

SPEAKER_04 27:46

Yeah. Pretty good.

SPEAKER_02 27:49

I'm so far, I'm on board. Yeah, and and I'm saying, uh And this is this is coming from me a non-Catholic.

SPEAKER_04 27:55

Well, he's he's bringing a lot of people, also me a non-Catholic, but he's bringing a lot of people into the faith, which is not something that has really happened.

SPEAKER_02 28:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:04

But like he's kind of energizing.

SPEAKER_02 28:06

Well, to be perfectly honest, like speaking as someone that is that was raised Christian, that still professes to be a Christian, I still worship in Christian Christian ways, but I am not necessarily religious. Speaking as someone in that little like nebulous am Christian, am not religious area, Catholicism specifically seems very much like an exclusive closed door club.

SPEAKER_04 28:30

Yeah, there's a joke that like there's not a lot of converts, it's mostly born-ins.

SPEAKER_02 28:35

Yeah. And like that, that is that is kind of my experience of Catholic Catholicism. Now, granted, I've only experienced Catholic churches like maybe twice as a young person, going with various friends of mine, like from having stayed the night on Saturday and they go to church on Sundays and being utterly lost during mass. And then funerals.

SPEAKER_04 28:56

Yeah. And you know what though? Nobody's got I I'll say this for for Catholic masses and Orthodox too, of of both varieties, like Greek and Syrian and Armenian and all the different varieties. Because there's different like Orthodox, they have sects of uh Orthodox and they are gorgeous.

SPEAKER_02 29:19

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The ceremony itself is beautiful, yeah. Like, and the music, and not to mention, like, I I I would name the church that I have been in, but that would give our location away, and we are trying not to do that. But um I went to the local Catholic church before part of it burned down.

SPEAKER_05 29:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:41

And it I remember walking in for the very first time into like the main sanctuary, I guess is the correct word. And just kind of being in awe of just how pretty it was.

SPEAKER_04 29:53

Yeah, they do a good job typically of like allowing the light to speak for itself. Yeah. It kind of flows through and yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:01

So, yeah, like once again, Catholicism, 10 out of 10 on theatricality.

SPEAKER_04 30:06

Yeah, they got it. A hundred percent. They took the best notes of like all the religions that existed in their day. Like, there's there's elements of like histia slash vesta in there. There's uh which we've talked about before of like like Mary, the way that Mary is shown, of like having a burning heart and being the ultimate mother. And and I was like, you you guys got the best, the best image of like everything around you, and then went like I'm being slowly pushed out of my chair by smoke. By a cat. Well, while you're telling me about what you're telling me next, I'm gonna grab this cat. But not like that.

SPEAKER_02 30:48

No, I'm gonna sit here and giggle because that was funny.

SPEAKER_04 30:50

I was telling dirty jokes the entire time we were getting ready to film this.

SPEAKER_02 30:55

It was hilarious.

SPEAKER_04 30:56

All right.

SPEAKER_02 30:56

This this is right on the heels of DD. We're like, I'm pretty sure we're not gonna be allowed to sit beside each other anymore. So we were just cracking jokes the whole time. Emmy was so mad at me.

SPEAKER_04 31:05

Yeah. All right, so where are we at now?

SPEAKER_02 31:08

Uh we are the the Pope is the ape girl.

SPEAKER_04 31:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:12

And having to be like politically like real smooth the whole time, because like we're in it, we're in a time period where A, the turnover rate for the for the papacy is high. And B, we're this is the this is a time period where I don't like you. I'm gonna poison you about it is a thing. Is a common thing.

SPEAKER_04 31:32

Yeah. And they're like what weirdly, the the early Catholic Church ends up being kind of like uh dark age slash medieval UN.

SPEAKER_00 31:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:41

Where they're they really are that because they have the one the one centralized language and they can all write.

SPEAKER_02 31:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:47

So it's like you need to talk to a guy in Egypt. That's who you're talking to. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:53

Most of the world's communication is going through the Vatican or what will be the Vatican. I guess it is the Vatican at this point.

SPEAKER_04 31:58

Yeah, just not as grand.

SPEAKER_02 32:00

Yeah, it's it's not, it hasn't grown up yet.

SPEAKER_04 32:03

It's just like a it's a it's a spider web network of cardinals and and bishops and priests and all over the world.

SPEAKER_02 32:11

And so among these politically savvy things for being the Pope is also making sure that you crown the right Holy Roman Emperor. Now, I had to look this up because this is a term as a history geek that I have I have seen and been around for as long as I've been reading historical things. The Holy Roman Emperor is always there, always kind of looming in the background. He's usually someone's nephew or someone's uncle. He's a dude who's there who has a really impressive like title. The hell does that mean?

SPEAKER_05 32:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:44

It doesn't necessarily mean emperor in the terms of like end all be all political figure. He's kind of the religious referee. Like if if legit to put it into D D context, if the Pope is the DM.

SPEAKER_04 33:01

Yeah. Yeah, because they make all the rules.

SPEAKER_02 33:08

All of the rules. Like you have the conclave and you have all the cardinals and the bishops and the pope. And the pope says, I'm gonna do a thing. And then all of the cardinals and the bishops either go, yeah, okay, do the thing, or they go, Yeah, let's compromise. So the Holy Roman Emperor is essentially the referee. Like the word comes down from the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor Emperor, make sure everybody knows the rules.

SPEAKER_05 33:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:33

And that is that is the most simplified version of his title that I can give you.

SPEAKER_04 33:40

Because it's it clashes with whatever he wants to do as a king.

SPEAKER_02 33:45

Yeah, because this man is also a king of usually a very of various areas. And you know, if you are you if if you are the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, this kind of implies that you're in charge of the entire Christian Empire, the whole thing.

SPEAKER_04 34:03

Yeah, because it changed like so when Charlemagne did his thing, right?

SPEAKER_02 34:07

He was the first.

SPEAKER_04 34:08

Yeah, he was just a king. Yeah. Everything under what he called his his his you know, Francia, right, like the the Frankish Empire that he founded, that he called the Holy Roman Empire. He was the absolute end all be all of.

SPEAKER_02 34:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:22

But normally, Francs, the way that they do things is that they would break, and this is true of like Germans and everyone else. You split your land up against all your sons. So you die and they all get a portion. So inevitably, they all fucking try to kill each other.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 34:37

And try to gain all the land. He did a different thing, and he appointed his son as his heir.

SPEAKER_02 34:43

Oh, and the fun thing with the Holy Roman Emperor, you it's not it's not a hereditarily past thing.

SPEAKER_04 34:48

Right.

SPEAKER_02 34:48

You have to be voted to be the Holy Roman Emperor.

SPEAKER_04 34:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:53

I thought that was cool.

SPEAKER_04 34:54

And it it changes over time, right? Because like with the mate Merovingians, it was just like, well, it's my son. And then it changes to like a principality type system, and then it's like an elected king of a bunch of free states.

SPEAKER_02 35:07

So we'll get into that in just a second, because what you are mentioning plays a part in this. So I told you all of that to tell you this. So that brings us into the late 800s. So, like I said, our story happens in specifically 897. So we're we're let's say we're we're let's say we're about the like the mid to late 800s right now, because like we we have some key characters here that I that I need to introduce to you before we jump into like you know, the Lich Pope. Um, which by the way, there was a Pope that dabbled in necromancy. Oh, yeah. I found that out while I was researching all of this, and I was delighted.

SPEAKER_04 35:45

There is a uh necromancer in the Bible that the king of Jerusalem goes to consult in private.

SPEAKER_01 35:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:51

It's fucking crazy. It's so cool.

SPEAKER_04 35:54

Who he outlawed and then went and talked because he was like, I need to talk to Saul.

SPEAKER_02 35:58

No, wait, come here.

SPEAKER_04 35:59

No, he is Saul. Sorry. Got that backward.

SPEAKER_02 36:01

All right, so the lit mid to late eight eighteen, not eighteen hundreds, eight hundreds. I keep trying to put a one in front of it.

SPEAKER_04 36:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:09

Because it's I know, it's weird. Three digits in a year? No. So Italy is literally a busted up series of just Italy ain't Italy yet.

SPEAKER_04 36:22

Right. It won't be for quite some.

SPEAKER_02 36:25

Yeah, mo most of most of the countries as we know them are like kind of country states, as it were. Like, like, like most of them will have pieces of the name of the country that they will become at some point in them. So it is very, very fractured. With a whole mess of various families and like organizations all vying for power and influence and all of that. I'm really, really trying to summarize this.

SPEAKER_04 36:57

Well, here, I'm gonna pause it for a second. Yeah. That way I don't I don't have all right.

SPEAKER_02 37:01

Trying to read ahead of myself and go at the same time.

SPEAKER_04 37:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:04

So enter the Carolingians, which you know who that is.

SPEAKER_04 37:09

I always say that wrong. I always say Merovingians.

SPEAKER_02 37:12

So I don't know if they are the same thing because when I was reading into this, I was like, oh, okay, I know these players, and I thought the Merovingians too, and I was like, no, no, it's the Carolingians. The Carolingians, and specifically the Spolitos.

SPEAKER_04 37:27

The Spolitos.

SPEAKER_02 37:28

Spolitos.

SPEAKER_04 37:30

I like that name.

SPEAKER_02 37:31

It's a good name.

SPEAKER_04 37:32

It's like a guy. I know this is like, you know, early medieval Europe, but if your last name is Spolito, I'm like, hey.

SPEAKER_02 37:40

I don't know why.

SPEAKER_04 37:41

That's just how I hear it.

SPEAKER_02 37:42

Really? Because my brain, like, my my brain associates with Desposito.

SPEAKER_04 37:49

That's that's pretty good. No.

SPEAKER_02 37:51

I've had Despacito stuck in my head.

SPEAKER_04 37:53

Lord Fonsey. Alright.

SPEAKER_02 37:57

So fancy names and all, yeah, sure. But like the these guys, both of these families have seriously heavy legacies. The Carolingians, specifically, are the descendants of Charlemagne.

SPEAKER_04 38:09

I see. Yes, there is a there is a differentiation. Uh the Merovingians ruled until 751. They're an offshoot.

SPEAKER_02 38:16

Ah, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Okay, cool. And then uh, and then after that, we have the Duke the Dukes of Spoleto, which I understand that they have a long legacy. But the way that they were presented to me in the the various forms of of research media that I took in to do that kind of were presented to me as the as a little bit like the nouveau riche. Like, do you do you remember? Do you okay? I say remember like you were there, you're not that old, and neither am I. But in history.

SPEAKER_04 39:01

Oh, yeah, yeah. That's 100% why I referenced like, yeah, Vanderbilt and Astor and Rockefeller when they became so wealthy and and they started mixing with the rest of the world, and you had all these like, well, I'm the fucking Duke of Vienna or whatever, right? Like people who had been rich forever because they were lords or something, were mixing with people who had been rich for uh less than a hundred years.

SPEAKER_02 39:25

Yeah. Basically, yeah. That that was the vibe I was getting off of this. And I was trying to consolidate my research as much as I could because there was a lot of rabbit holing that happened. I told you that I started like writing down all of my notes this morning at 6 a.m., right?

SPEAKER_06 39:39

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:41

I will never not rat myself out. Okay. We've established that shame does nothing to curb my bad habits, but I will never not rat myself out. But I did start my research for this last week. So the the Dukes of Spoleto were these up-and-comers. Like they were gaining power, gaining popularity, like they were getting big. However, the the Carolingians were already a big deal. Because I mean, Charlemagne. Yeah, he was uh even if you don't history, you know who Charlemagne is.

SPEAKER_04 40:18

Yeah. Literally the reason why, like, if you're a noble and you can read.

SPEAKER_02 40:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 40:23

I mean, he like he his the changes that he instituted uh stopped in his region, anyways, stopped the various almost tribal conflict and drug them tooth and nail into an ordered system.

SPEAKER_02 40:39

And we're we're literally only 60 years past that because we're we're roughly in about 864 right now.

SPEAKER_04 40:45

Nice.

SPEAKER_02 40:46

So the Spoleto family are the up-and-comers, they're gaining power, they are the self-proclaimed protectors of Rome. Which I'm sure didn't ruffle any feathers.

SPEAKER_04 41:01

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, never, you know.

SPEAKER_02 41:04

We are the protectors of Rome. And both of these families.

SPEAKER_04 41:08

Oh shit. Oh, what did you just read? Uh so apparently they are named, the Carolingians are named, or at least of course to what I'm reading right now, because I'm trying to skim very quickly off the internet, are named after uh Charles Martell, who is one of my favorite people forever in history. The hammer Martell. Let me talk about him at some point.

SPEAKER_00 41:31

Please do.

SPEAKER_04 41:32

He's awesome. He's the uh, so there was a massive uh Islamic incursion into Europe, and his enemies and his allies all say essentially what he did is he convinced the Pope to give him a little amount of land. Because, like you said, the Pope's got like a lot of power.

SPEAKER_02 41:48

Yeah, the Pope is like end-all be all right now.

SPEAKER_04 41:50

No one had ever asked that from the church to give them land, and he used it to take a bunch of like farm boys and organize them into a professional army, one of the first ones since the fall of Rome. And then when the guys came through, a guy named Abdul Rahman uh came up through Spain and then into France, he says he stood like a stone wall, basically. Like he slammed into this motherfucker, and like what they did is they held very, very tightly. Um, and while they were all fighting, Martel's guys started looting his camp, which caused ru uh Vilrutman's line to break.

SPEAKER_01 42:29

Period.

SPEAKER_04 42:29

Yeah, like they because they went, oh fuck our loot, and they all started leaving the front line, and then they got overwhelmed.

SPEAKER_02 42:35

That's awesome. So, like I said, both of these families desperately, desperately, desperately want to be the Holy Roman Emperor. One of these families has a history of Holy Roman Emperors in the family. The other family is powerful enough that they may just be able to take it.

SPEAKER_04 42:56

Okay. We yeah, we have a uh we've got a Borgia situation. Thank you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:01

I was trying so hard not to reference the Borgia the entire time I was working on this.

SPEAKER_04 43:05

But they got money and influence. Yes. And they're just like, we could we could buy our way in if we wanted.

SPEAKER_02 43:09

And to quote my notes, both families wanted to be HBIC.

SPEAKER_04 43:13

Yeah. Because who the fuck doesn't?

SPEAKER_02 43:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:16

Yeah, it was like me.

SPEAKER_02 43:17

I don't want to be in charge ever.

SPEAKER_04 43:19

No. You don't want to be the Pope. No.

SPEAKER_02 43:23

Also, I couldn't be a Pope. They have a test for that now.

SPEAKER_04 43:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:26

Also they got one girl poping. Ooh.

SPEAKER_04 43:29

I know I referenced the uh the Borgis, but like I mean, in his own writing, the moment he became po Pope, he was like, Oh, fuck, I'm Pope.

SPEAKER_02 43:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:40

Like it just like the weight of it.

SPEAKER_02 43:42

Are we talking about Rodrigo?

SPEAKER_04 43:43

Yeah, like it just hit him all of a sudden, and he was like, Oh, this is Rodrigo's Pope name.

SPEAKER_02 43:48

Who was he?

SPEAKER_04 43:49

I don't remember.

SPEAKER_02 43:50

We'll look that up later. Anyway. So I told you I brought it up earlier that like how many popes have we had in our lifetime? Which we have had four popes in our lifetime. And we're on Pope number four, which go Pope Leo. Hi. Not that anyone of the Vatican listens to this.

SPEAKER_06 44:08

Thank God.

SPEAKER_02 44:10

But from okay, let me let me put this into perspective for you because I told you that the turnaround rate for Pope was high. So from 1922 to 2026, right now, there have been nine popes.

SPEAKER_04 44:24

What are we looking like in the 800s?

SPEAKER_02 44:27

From the year 800 to the year 900, there were 21 popes.

SPEAKER_04 44:33

She's the well, yeah. Disease. And oh man, and there's gonna at least be in the upcoming years, one of them's gonna die of plague and yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:42

Dude, when I tell you that, like, I I always thought that like when you were Pope, you were there till you died.

SPEAKER_04 44:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:49

Usually of natural cause I was wrong. I was so wrong. You have you have a number of popes that ruled for like a matter of days.

SPEAKER_04 44:59

Really?

SPEAKER_02 45:00

Yeah, and like I'm I'm gonna talk about a few of them when we get there. Because we're almost there, because we're going through this fast, which yes. Um, yay, super pope. So the turnover rate, super high. And like, I'm sure that most of them died of natural causes, but I'm sure there were more than a few that were helped to shuffle off the mortal plane because they were not doing what the pe the other people in power wanted them to do.

SPEAKER_04 45:28

Yeah, a guy who died of iron sickness, and by iron sickness I mean I ran him through the chest with a sword.

SPEAKER_02 45:34

Or the sheer number of popes that died from gout.

SPEAKER_04 45:38

Oh, oh, I imagine, yeah. Which just bad food. You know what I mean? Like I ate bad grain and I danced myself to death.

SPEAKER_02 45:48

Hey, ergot.

SPEAKER_04 45:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:50

Alright, so enter Formosus, whose actual name I could find nowhere. All I have is Pope name.

SPEAKER_04 46:00

I mean, that's uh his name after Formosus. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:05

That's it. That's all I got. Uh he hot.

SPEAKER_04 46:09

That's a great name, though. I like it.

SPEAKER_02 46:10

Formosis? Yeah. Yeah. There's some pretty great Pope names.

SPEAKER_04 46:13

I have some Formosus every once in a while. You know, in the summer, it's nice to cool off.

unknown 46:19

Jesus. All right.

SPEAKER_04 46:24

I'm gonna quit derailing you because it's now we're now 50 minutes in. What are we? 50? Yes. Jesus Christ. We have been we have been uh squirrel thawing all over the place.

SPEAKER_02 46:34

All right, so Formosis gets elected unanimously as Pope in October 891. So, and I wanna I want to pause for a moment on that unanimously, because I was like, that feels like a big deal to be unanimously elected Pope.

SPEAKER_04 46:50

Like never happens.

SPEAKER_02 46:52

50. In the in the history of ever, there have been 50.

SPEAKER_04 46:55

Jeez.

SPEAKER_02 46:55

And Formosis was one of them. Which makes what happens to this poor man's body.

SPEAKER_04 47:04

Oh, is this the guy? Wild.

SPEAKER_02 47:05

Yes, Formosis is is our lich pope.

SPEAKER_04 47:08

Excellent.

SPEAKER_02 47:08

And I I'm I'm using that term loosely because it made me giggle.

SPEAKER_04 47:12

He's a he was a guy who was exhumed to stand trial.

SPEAKER_02 47:17

So let me let me let me just read you my notes really quick. So enter Formosis, elected in October 891. Uh, this dude was a mixed bag as far as like reputation goes. He got a start as a bishop in Portis in 864. And then he would go on to literally like make one hell of a name for himself in in politics and stuff by being a delegate, or not delegate, um, wrong word.

SPEAKER_04 47:44

Ambassador.

SPEAKER_02 47:45

Diplomat is what I was trying to say, and just could not. Cause uh basically he gets sent, he he gets sent as a papal legate, like a representative of the Pope, to Bulgaria to go help with some stuff. And uh, I think it's Boris I of Bulgaria decided he liked this man so much that he sent a letter to the Pope and said, Hey, can we have him? We want him as our archbishop. Unfortunately, our boy Formosis, whoever he was before he was Formosis, uh already had his own bishopric.

SPEAKER_05 48:22

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:23

And you are not allowed to hold more than one, and you can't really leave your one.

SPEAKER_05 48:28

Right.

SPEAKER_02 48:29

Like, like it's it's very weirdly marriage-esque.

SPEAKER_04 48:34

Yeah, you're you because you everyone works everyone is married to the church. Everybody works for the church. It's not like you are until you more or less are Pope, like they are assigned to places.

SPEAKER_02 48:47

Yeah. You have some amount of say, but it's not like So this Bulgaria thing is gonna haunt him for a real long time. Like he did such a good job in Bulgaria that Bulgaria was like, we want him. And they don't stop asking for him. Like, they ask the initial one, and I think it was Pope Nicholas, I think. I wrote a bunch of names down, and like a whole bunch of Pope names are now stuck in my head. But I think it's Pope Nicholas I is like, no, stop, and continues to say no. And like Bulgaria Boris is like, but please, but what if yes? Anyway, that keeps going, and the answer continues to be no. And uh why did I call Pope Nicholas I Nikki the First? I was tired this morning. And so it just keeps going and until there's basically another Pope, and that's Pope Stephen V.

SPEAKER_04 49:52

I love when that happens.

SPEAKER_02 49:54

And then Stephen, they're like, hey, can we have him now? And Steven's like, no, what? But Formosis continues to do a good job as a diplomat, and he keeps getting sent places to like be diplomatic. So this poor guy who has his own like Archbishop Hood place, Portis, yeah, his hometown of Portis, he's like never there because he's always off doing church stuff for the Pope. So that and that that'll be relevant, I promise. Because I was like, why are you telling me this while I was doing all this research? He's never home. Okay, sure, he's busy, he's being sent on business trips, that's how it goes. Oh. So eight years later. Hmm. Hmm. Eight years later, Formosis gets tapped to be an envoy to basically go uh go talk to Charles the Bald.

SPEAKER_04 50:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 50:59

Who is the direct grandson of Charlemagne.

SPEAKER_04 51:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:02

Which his his nickname feels terribly disrespectful.

SPEAKER_04 51:07

It's because there's probably a bunch of other Charles's.

SPEAKER_02 51:10

I mean, yeah, but like, damn.

SPEAKER_04 51:13

Well, I mean, like, think about it though, in his day, right? Like, people didn't live that long all the time. True. So being like the elder, the bald, you're like, if somebody called you something the wise, it meant you were old.

SPEAKER_05 51:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 51:27

You know, like, and but that's like a blessing. Because not everybody gets to be old. You know, like true, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 51:33

And all the pictures I could find of Charles the Bald, he all had hair, so I don't know where that came from unless he just had like the friar tuck.

SPEAKER_03 51:40

Maybe.

SPEAKER_02 51:41

Or something. Maybe the crown was in the way. I don't know. But uh basically he gets sent to West Francia to to go talk to Charles the Bald and um basically be like, all right, you're tapped to be Holy Roman Emperor. It's you. Come come to Rome to be crowned. And Charles the Bald is like, I'll go as far as Pi Pivia. Thanks. You can crown me there.

SPEAKER_04 52:06

Oh. So we've got some drama brewing.

SPEAKER_02 52:12

There's so much drama. There's so much drama. So much. So Charles the Bald gets tapped, right? And he goes as far as Pivia. Pavia? Pavia? Pavia.

SPEAKER_04 52:25

Something.

unknown 52:25

I don't know. Some place.

SPEAKER_02 52:27

And um the the family in East Francia, which is either Louis the German or Louis the German, because I speak French and I can't see O U I without going wee.

SPEAKER_04 52:42

It's like basically old you know what I mean? Like it's it's the older dialect of the language, though, so it's probably like some crazy shit like Laos or something.

SPEAKER_02 52:52

Maybe. I don't know. We're we're gonna call him Lewis.

SPEAKER_04 52:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:55

No, I'm not. I'm gonna call him Louis because I can't.

SPEAKER_04 52:57

Yeah. So Louis.

SPEAKER_02 52:58

So Louis of Louis of of Germany, of East Francia goes, that's not fair. I don't like that. Why does he get to be Holy Roman Emperor? I'm saying this because this man is long dead and he can't come after me. Because apparently, when he threw this little tamper tantrum, the whole, like, what was the holy sea at the time stood up and went, uh-oh, and all bailed the fuck out.

SPEAKER_04 53:27

Yeah, because he's probably they were probably afraid he's gonna sack the damn city.

SPEAKER_02 53:31

That's exactly what they were afraid of.

SPEAKER_04 53:32

That's what happens when kings have tantrums.

SPEAKER_02 53:34

Everybody ski daddled the fuck out of there. Just whoop, away. Like, and our boy went as far as some place that looked like Taurus but wasn't. Like the word itself looked like Taurus, and I'm pretty sure it was just Taos or something.

SPEAKER_04 53:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 53:48

But he went away. And stayed away. Like, okay, so all of this happened.

SPEAKER_04 53:54

This is in France.

SPEAKER_02 53:55

Francia, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 53:56

Tours, maybe?

SPEAKER_02 53:58

Yes, I bet that's it.

SPEAKER_04 53:59

Yeah, because like that's still a city. So I was like, that's my notes.

SPEAKER_02 54:06

I'm sorry, my notes are so funny. Like, specifically, like, they're geared towards my sense of humor. I don't think they'd be funny for anybody else, but uh, a bunch of the Holy See, the ruling clergy, whatever you want to call them, bailed the fuck out and just left. So in April, John VIII, who was then the Pope at this point, because we've gone through several popes, is like, can y'all come the fuck back, please?

SPEAKER_04 54:34

We gotta crown this motherfucker.

SPEAKER_02 54:36

He's already been crowned.

SPEAKER_04 54:37

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:38

So Charles the Bald is Holy Roman Emperor.

SPEAKER_04 54:41

And Louis can fuck off.

SPEAKER_02 54:43

And basically, yeah. And like, like, it's to the point where he's having where he's having to like summon all of the clergy back. So he calls he calls a synod, right? Which is basically a great big official council meeting.

SPEAKER_05 54:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:00

To make all of them come back. And our boy won't. Fromosis is like, bitch, that's a trap. No. Well.

SPEAKER_04 55:10

So I'm assuming they are worried that maybe there's like a revenge plot or something, or what?

SPEAKER_02 55:16

Well, it turns out there wasn't. It was just John VIII being like, Y'all bitches, come back. And then Fromosis didn't come back, so he's like, I bet you're kicked out of the club. Excommunicated.

SPEAKER_04 55:26

Oh fuck. Which is everything.

SPEAKER_02 55:31

Yeah, that's a big deal.

SPEAKER_04 55:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:33

That's a big deal.

SPEAKER_04 55:34

That's a you can't enter several cities, big deal. You can't travel anywhere, but yeah. So eventually soul is in peril, big deal.

unknown 55:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:45

So that happened in April. April 19th, specifically. I found dates for this. It's so weird. I never find specific dates.

SPEAKER_04 55:56

Post Gregory, they have good calendars.

SPEAKER_02 55:58

So I need my phone for this because I left a note that says see the wiki for all the charges. Because he got slapped with so many fucking charges. It was crazy to me. Pope Formosis. Excommunication.

SPEAKER_04 56:13

While you're looking that up, are you aware of why like that is a thing?

SPEAKER_02 56:19

What, excommunicate?

SPEAKER_04 56:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:20

Uh yeah, it's like the highest of the of the worst thing that the church can do to you. Like basically your soul is condemned.

unknown 56:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:29

You can't you can't get into um limbo. What is this? Purgatory. Yeah. You can't get into purgatory. You certainly can't get into heaven. The only place you can go is hell, or you stay on earth as kind of a tumultuous spirit.

SPEAKER_04 56:44

Yeah. But I mean, do you are are you aware of like the logic of why the church is able to do so?

SPEAKER_02 56:52

No. So like educate me.

SPEAKER_04 56:56

There's several reasons, but one of the reasons is that like Peter being in the rock of the church, right? So there's a lineage of bishops from Jesus on on down, basically, and the Pope is like the head bishop, right? The archbishops are organizations of bishops, and then the head ones the Pope. So if there's no way to the Father but through the Son, and his authority is then passed down onto Peter, and then Peter's authority is passed down, and so on and so on and so forth. So essentially, to some degree, if Jesus is the church itself, the Pope is now the church itself. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The authority of the church, the authority of of God on earth, more or less. And so, like, that's the that's the thought process and other things as well.

SPEAKER_02 57:53

But like Oh my god, so that's I I get it and I understand, especially considering that this is a time period where religion is everything.

SPEAKER_06 58:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:03

Like these people don't have any other beliefs, belief systems available to them readily. Like most of them will have been raised deeply, deeply, deeply, deeply, deeply Christian and religious.

SPEAKER_05 58:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:16

And like your soul, your mortal soul, your your only sort of like lifeline after death is in peril of if you are excommunicated, you will either go to hell or cease to be.

SPEAKER_05 58:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:34

Excommunication is like the worst thing ever. For these people.

SPEAKER_04 58:40

Yeah. Yeah. So what do we get? What do we get charges-wise here for for Moses?

SPEAKER_02 58:47

They clocked him for being archbishop of two different places, even though he wasn't, and for being super ambitious, even though he wasn't, because he didn't ask to also be the archbishop of Bulgaria. The Boris the First did and was like, hey, can we have him? And the Pope at the both popes said, No. But yeah, they excommunicated him.

SPEAKER_04 59:10

He's got like a religious bigamy charge.

SPEAKER_02 59:13

A little, yeah, a little bit. Uh, on top of a couple of other things, like he's got like some slander shit that was thrown at him because you know, you're a person in power, it's gonna happen. Uh, but basically, he he gets excommunicated straight up, like booted out of the club. You can't sit with us, you're not allowed. Uh, to the point. And finally, he goes, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, I'm sorry. And he works it out with the Pope. He's no longer all the way excommunicated, like he's still kicked out of the club, like he's not allowed to come back to Rome, and he's not allowed to be a priest ever again. And then John VIII dies. And the next Pope is like, okay, that was all crazy. I'm sorry. Do you want to come back? And Formosis is like, bet. So, woo! He's an archbishop again.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:12

Jeez.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:13

This guy's life was crazy.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:15

That's yeah, that's a hell of a like up and down, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:18

So now we're so mad at myself for not writing down the charges.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:22

I literally, in my notes, it says, see the wiki for charges.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:25

Yeah, that never unless you keep the tab open the whole time. You lose it.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:31

Oh, I'm so mad. However, the next Pope, Mer uh. Marinus.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:40

Long way from Steven.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:42

Some of these names are a little difficult.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:44

Like I thought I was gonna have a problem with Formosis, not so much, but Marinus, apparently, is just gonna trip my brain out because I'm still in like and rice mode, so my brain wants to go Marius. Uh so Marinus is like, nah, bro, you're good. Come come back. Come back. Do you want to come back? And Formosis is like, yeah, bet, come, I'm, I'm, I'm going back. So Formosis is back. Guess who's back? Back again. Uh, and he gets super fucking popular, like fast.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:13

Because like he's all he's got some scandal on him, and everybody loves tea. Everybody loves tea. You cannot tell me.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:21

Uh he's got like friends, like he's got kings in other states.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:25

Yeah, this guy has all the political connections. Like, he's been a diplomat for so long. Like, once again, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:32

This is why they say head of state is like a jump to the presidency. Yeah, because it's like, yeah, because you know everyone.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:37

Yeah. So he gets crazy super popular because once again, he's got all of those political connections, including the Carolingians. Carolinians, no Carolingians. There we go. Including the Carolingians, who like that's a big deal.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:51

Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:52

And he like openly backs them. Well, super popular, the Carolingians, all the political backing, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that I've repeated like four times now because my notes keep tripping me up. Eventually, our boy Fromosis winds up as the Pope himself. Well, he obviously and openly backs the Carolingians, which of course pisses off the Spolitos. Because they're now the Spolitos, at some point, Charles the Bald died.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:25

Let me just point that out. And the split and the Dukes of Spoleto have now this weird split holy Roman Emperor thing. Like it's a father and son duo. It's Lambert and Guy.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:35

I love this time period because it's like the names are crazy. Yeah, it's just like Charles the Bald and Stephen.

unknown 1:02:45

What?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:46

Quickly, quickly followed by Marinus.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:55

Somebody, somebody's somebody had the best, the best name. It was like Adleberg Greg or something like that. I don't know. It was somebody's mom, and her name was fantastic. And I was just like, what did how did they arrive at your name, ma'am? That's crazy. Anyway, so this the Spolitos currently have the Holy Roman Emperor thing, right? Like it's it's Guy is the Holy Roman Emperor, and then later his son is also like crowned co-emperor. And then they go in for a great big fight, and Guy is incapacitated. Like he has like a stroke.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:34

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:34

Or something. And so he's kind of like not well enough to be said emperor, but his son is like, hello, I'm still here. And the other half of the Holy Roman Emperor Ness. Meanwhile, Formosis is like, mmm, I'm gonna crown this guy.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:55

I cannot remember the Carolingian guy's name.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:58

I mean, that's a more peaceful transition than like we have a boy king, let's kill him and replace them.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:03

Oh, yeah. But basically, there's a whole mess of stuff that goes down. Like, Formosus's rule is not peaceful. Like, there is one thing after another. And like at one point, the Rome gets like sieged, and he and all of the the Holy See are kind of taken captive, and the Carolingian guy, whose name I cannot remember, rescues them, and that's how he becomes the Holy Roman Emperor.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:33

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:35

Which I I I guess that tracks, that makes sense. But I still kind of feel bad for like, you know, the Spolito dudes who are like, hello, I'm still alive, I'm still here. I thought this was a until I die title. Half of this is still alive.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:50

You've been booted, corporate takeover.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:52

Literally. So part of the reason that our boy Fromosis decided to not let Lambert keep the crown for the Holy Roman Emperor is because they were getting way too powerful. And we all know that the church does not like being told what to do by people that are not the church.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:11

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:12

So that was part of his motivation for crowning the Carolingian.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:20

I really wish I'd written that guy's name down. I feel bad.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:23

It's the guy that that it's the guy that rescued him, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:25

Arnulf! His name is Arnulf.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:29

There we go.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:30

I found it. I did write it down. It's right there. Arnulf of Corinthia. So on February 22nd, 896, which take note of the date, 896, uh Arnulf, the Carolingian guy, is crowned Holy Roman Emperor. So bad. And then four months later, for Moses, clock. Out of the mortal realm. Whee! He dies.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:04

Alright.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:07

Literally, promptly on April 4th. This guy was 80 years old, by the way.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:11

Hey, which is a good fucking run.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:14

Yeah. He's had a hell of a run of being like H B I C. So the next guy, which is Pope Boniface VI, takes over for Fromosis in the middle of all of this insanity that's happening. Like the new Holy Roman Emperor has been crowned. The old, half a Holy Omen Roman Emperor is like, dude, what the fuck?

SPEAKER_05 1:06:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:36

And then there's several wars, a siege, and like some other stuff going on.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:41

Yeah, we talked about this briefly when we had paused to look up information. Yeah. But there are Vikings afoot.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:47

Yeah, they're Vikings.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:50

It's a mess. Like Formosis picked the wrong time to like be like, and that's my shift. Deuces. Bye, girls.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:58

Why am I like this?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:01

Oh shit. So after 15 days of this like papal conclave thing, Pope Boniface is elected Pope, right? Fifteen days after that, he's killed.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:15

Well shit. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:17

Well, okay. The official cause of death was gout.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:23

Okay. Sure. Swelling.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:27

Yeah. Typically in the joints.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:29

Yep. Not so much in the back of the head.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:32

Not such a bonny face now, are you?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:35

No.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:35

Anyway, super sus.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:37

Yeah. 15 days is a pretty short run. If the guy was sick, you would not elect, you wouldn't elect him. Yeah. So, like, that's alright. So then we switch to someone who is Stephen the Sixth.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:50

More maybe more favorable to Pope Stephen the Sixth is a mad lad with a plan. This bro hit office with a vengeance. Right? Now we're getting into the meat and potatoes of this story. Told you all this, so I can tell you that.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:07

The other guys had very Italian names at the start of this, and so I kept thinking of them as like Italian Americans. But now I can't help but think of this guy with like a Liverpool British accent. My name's Steven.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:24

Very round, like cursive.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:27

So our boy Stevie who was very, very, very clearly in the pocket of the uh Spolitos. Like he's all about that Spolito influence, money, whatever it was. He is team Spolito.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:46

This guy goes on a Thursday.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:48

This guy goes on this like political theater tear to the point where he is declaring anything and everything that Formosis did null and void.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:01

Oh shit. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:03

All of it. So this obviously includes uh our boy Arnouf's Arnulf, not Arnoof, wrong part of the world. Arnulf's uh crowning, coronation.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:16

Yeah, because they're trying to delegitimize them. Everything what this new guy does, what Steven does, is like, no, this guy should, these guys were supposed to be there the whole time.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:26

Yeah, and so he's basically he has declared this dead man an enemy of the state to the point where he is like undoing everything that he did, and then he decides that's not enough, and he has this former pope, this dead man, who's been dead for nine months at this point, dug up, dressed in papal robes, thrown on the great Pope chair to stand trial. Let me just let that sink in for a second. He dug this man up, dressed, redressed him, and then publicly put him on display in the St. Peter's Basilica to stand trial, a trial of which Stephen has named himself the judge.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:20

Excellent. Excellent. It's a kangaroo court with a dead guy.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:26

Literally, to the point where a a some some no-name poor little deacon was tapped, tagged, ordered, whatever you want to call it, was made to speak for Formosus.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:46

Please, please tell me, moving his mouth up and down, weaken it Bernie style.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:51

Alas, no, but standing, uh he was either like behind, crouched behind Formosis's chair, the throne.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:58

No shit. I was not thinking, I was just making a stupid joke. I know he was gonna be standing in front of him just answering questions.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:08

See, I thought so too. But the problem is that all of the records from all of this, well, we know it happened. We know it happened, we know it was a thing that outraged everybody. Like we know it was a thing, but all of the records have been destroyed. And you know how they you know how they were slash are about keeping records.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:26

Yeah, like the reason we know anything about that time in between empires in and states is because the church kept records.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:34

Like we don't we wouldn't know shit about England if it wasn't for Bede. You know, like that so many things were kept by by clergymen.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:43

So this trial goes on, right? Like they they do the damn thing. They do the damn thing to the point where like people are starting to side eyes Pope Stephen because this man is like screaming at a corpse, like spittle flying, vein like throbbing and hit, like it is in in what few accounts survive from either people that witnessed it or like people that had taken partial copies of the records that survived, it is alarming how Stephen is going off at this corpse. And this poor deacon standing behind the corpse's chair has scripted lines that he is supposed to respond to these accusations with that basically include or basically uh sum up to because I am wicked.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:40

Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:42

It's basically a full confessional.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:44

Yeah, this is this is a weird, like fucking embarrassment ritual for a person who's already dead.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:51

Shame fell in your face, but you're dead. So, of course, obviously, this corpse, Formosis, is found absolutely guilty of absolutely every charge ever. You jaywalked because I was wicked.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:09

Can you just imagine? This corpse has been decomposing for nine months. I hope through the cold winter, so at least it's not like I mean it's nine months, it's through the whole damn year, but like April when he died, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:13:22

At least partial the time you would think he would be kept a bit. Maybe wrapped to be kept dry.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:30

So, yeah, he died in April. April 4th.

unknown 1:13:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:34

So I don't know what the weather looks like there in April, but rainy.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:39

And then I just you know, so gross what are the outcome what's the like outcomes of this? Like is there a possibility that this is because we don't have the records of the time, that this is like someone else who didn't like Steven writing kind of a uh slam piece on him?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:01

Well, that's the thing. Let me let me finish this real quick, and then I'll I'll I will absolutely answer your questions here. So Formosus's corpse, decomposing corpse, is found guilty on all charges, including perjury, violation of canon law, and illegally becoming the Pope.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:22

Everything. Everything they could possibly think of to throw at this dead man they threw at him.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:27

You rigged the election. We know the numbers, the Bulgarians. They came in, voted illegally.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:39

Boris had no right.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:42

Anyway. So they found him guilty of all of the things, and they they they amputate, they cut off those the three fingers that you you know how you you always see priests make the gestures.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:57

Yeah, they have like meanings to them, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:59

Well, they cut off the three blessing fingers, right? And then strip him of his papal robes. And here's here's where the the accounts kind of start to split, because there's a very fantastic account that I read that was they did all of they stripped the corpse, cut the fingers off, and then drug him publicly through the streets of Rome, and then threw him into the Tiber River, which is like the worst fate for a criminal.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:32

Like, you know this.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:34

Yeah, you don't right. There's like an echelon of X of execution for the most part. Not quite now, but like later on, the best way to be executed is by sword that's reserved for noblemen. Like, not so much now, I don't think, but like Well, I mean, this guy was already dead.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:50

Also, I 1,000% forgot to mention this, and I don't know how, but in the middle of this kangaroo trial, there was an earthquake that shook the very foundations of the building that they were in.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:04

That's so funny.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:06

And our boy Steven just kept on trucking. If ever there was a sign from God to be like, can you fucking stop?

SPEAKER_04 1:16:17

I'm trying to tell you. The fucking buildings coming around for you for this weird shit. I was he crazy? What was like because that's my thing. It's either a slam piece or he's insane, but I do understand that like in a lot of the more esoteric beliefs of the time, like one of the things that they would do to safeguard people from like suffering in hell is that they would do things shit like like turn their head around backwards on the bot like as a punishment that and then some people like would cut people's heads off because it would maybe keep them from feeling the torture or something. Like there there was all this kind of ritual around burials and in different belief systems all over Europe uh that weren't quite like canonized. Yeah. Each area had its own like kind of superstition.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:04

Kind of like the coins on the eyes, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:06

For for the fairy man. Very, very like Greek and Irish.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:09

Like that's something that like I think makes it from Greek tradition into Catholicism and then travels up into like England and Ireland and stuff, but like, because that's a Koran thing, right? Like that's an old school Greek thing. So this is so fucking good.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:29

I it's fucking wild because like there there is so I told you that there's no records, right? And there's a reason for that, and I'll tell you that in just a minute because it's fantastic. Um but either either Formosis' body was thrown into a pauper's grave, and then at which point Steven decided, not enough, and then threw him into the Tiber.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:55

Like he's a devil or something. Yeah. Yeah, right, into moving one.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:59

He was either big mad or big sucking up. Or big crazy. But he makes a spectacle out of like shaming and like, is is it decanonizing? Like basically, he's kicking him out of the religion all over again. Yeah, he's he's being like he's fucking this guy up, like double excommunicated. There's a word for it that means to erase them from history, and I cannot remember what it is.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:26

Um yeah, but he's he's giving him the like old pharaoh treatment.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:31

Either way, Formosis' body winds up thrown in the Tiber, according to the accounts, right? And there's some folklore around it, which I'm not sure is true. I can't find any sort of written anything beyond like word of mouth, but essentially there is this great outcry. Like, this is this is a bit much for like even Rome. Even Rome, who has seen it all, right? Like, these people have been under siege, like they have they there once upon a time there was a whole Colosseum with gladiators and like you know, people were killed just for fun. Just collecting both cats on the desk now.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:19

Yep, I should have made a mistake here.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:22

No, it's fine. Butt pats and they go away. All right. Rome basically momentarily calmed down because, like, oh, we have a Pope again. All right, we have people in charge, cool. They're gonna, what the fuck are you doing? What did you just do? Oh no. So there's a great big huge riot and like public opinion of the papacy and Stephen specifically, just craters. And like, this is a time before the internet and before, like, you know, cancel culture as we would know it.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:53

So this is the OG cancel culture where like Yeah, where they where they where they invade and stab you to death.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:01

Yeah. And uh the people are not having this shit. Like, very shortly thereafter, Steven is arrested, jailed, and then mysteriously found dead in his cell three months later. Strangled.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:22

We don't know what happened. He was fine yesterday.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:25

He was a bunch of Romans were uh worried that they had a new Nero. That's what happened.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:31

Yeah, and so what happened to Formosus's body after that? Well, if you believe the folklore, because this is this is how crazy it got, right? People were saying that because his fingers had been thrown into the river, so did his body. But his body was eventually fished back out. They said because his fingers had been thrown in the water, that people were being healed from the waters of the Tiber.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:56

They also went so far as to say that his his corpse, his body, had risen from the dead and was performing miracles. The rumor mill was crazy, bro. On top of that, the the story of how his body was rescued from the river is nuts. Because this one priest said that he during a storm he had a dream that Formosis came to him and like told him some, some, and then he went down to the banks and found the body.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:31

He had the body.

unknown 1:21:32

He had the body.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:33

He had the body, he very clearly had the body, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:36

It's so which by the way, like I I know we mentioned that uh being thrown in the Tiber was like reserved for like the worst of the worst of criminals. We're talking about like Caligula. Yeah, sure it is Pontius Pilate.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:56

Shame!

SPEAKER_04 1:21:57

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it'd be washed away like filth.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:01

Like, because that's what you did with like stool is you threw it into the river and it carried it out of town.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:06

God, we're already at the end of my notes. Yes, we're trucking through this. So, there were two popes directly after Steven. Like, very, very, very short-lived popes whose names I'm trying to find. Ah. Uh, Popes Romanus and Pope Theodore.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:27

Both of them went absolutely the fuck not.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:32

No. Yeah, none of this weird shit. Let's get back to yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:36

And they had they they not only had the records from this corpse sign head destroyed, but they also had Formosis uh reinstated and then reinterred with all the rest of the dead popes.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:53

Like full, full respect, all of that. We're so sorry.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:57

Yeah, sorry about the crazy.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:58

Let's We don't know what happened to your fingers, please forgive us.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:01

That makes me think that this was not like a a uh hit piece, but that it actually happened and now that we're in political cleanup mode.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:09

Yeah, they undid all of it, which hilariously. I don't I this okay, so this is what leads me to believe that Steven was not well mentally, was because if he wanted to undo absolutely everything that Formosis did, he would have he would have had to step down from the papacy. Because Formosis is the reason he was an archbishop.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:32

Oh shit.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:33

Formosis promoted him. We're gonna undo absolutely everything except for me.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:46

So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:47

That's wild.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:48

Uh, so Pope Romanus was Pope for 92 days, and then Pope Theodore was Pope for 19 days.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:58

Fuck, dude. Damn, this is a dangerous job. Yes. This is like one of those things, it's like when we're The Game of Popes, bro. Yeah, I see why you call it this now. Alright, damn. Like, it it reminds me of when we talked about the Roman ops, we kind of talked about this, is like you don't really want to be the emperor. You want to be like the emperor's brother. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like you want to be like third in line and then just like be rich. You know what I mean? Like, it feels like you want to be an important archbishop and never made pope.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:28

Yeah. And like, it's so wild because this this still lives in like ecclesiastical uh infamy.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:46

We got there at the same time. Be as one of like the lowest and most corrupt and most ridiculous points in time. Like, you cannot call a corpse synad anymore because it's been ill it's it's been foreboden. You are not allowed.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:02

You cannot do that. It's very it feels it feels so strange because like we're only a couple of hundred years out of like like I think the the Council of Nike is like in the 300s. So it's like you're a couple that's a long time. You're you're a long way from, you know. The the church has always had a lot of like drama in it, right? Like when they were forming the Bible, there's this thing called the Aryan heresy, right? It's like uh it has nothing to do with Arians. I know it's a look on your face, nothing to do with Arians. This it was the guy's name.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:31

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:32

And so like he had a certain thought about like how God is. And then another guy also had a thought about how God is, and he's like, that's heresy, and then he punched him. And that was at the Council of Nicaea.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:47

Dude, I need okay, I need these, these, these clergymen, these clerics, these priests, to stop having these like crazy, ridiculous arguments and just to punch it out. I need boxing priests.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:02

You know, for a little while you had them. Because really, if you read about the formation of the like how they picked which books would be in the Bible, how that they would be arranged, because remember, there was no Bible.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:14

They had to arrange them in a certain way. The Old Testament is arranged in a certain way. Uh the Masoretic text, we call that.

unknown 1:26:22

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:23

And then there's a Messianic arrangement, which is the Christian arrangement. And then they were also picking what are called the Apocrypha, like what other books would also be considered like canon or pseudo-canon.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:38

Well, I know the book of Enoch didn't make it.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:40

No, that is what's called a pseudo-apographa that's considered to be kind of like later kind of nonsense. You know, like most people kind of look at it as like a weird thing that somebody wrote. But like they fought over this kind of stuff, but most of their stuff was like rational argument. Yeah. It was like philosophical debate. Um, you see this a lot in the Bible, right? Paul is writing letters to people and making arguments about things, about why things should be done a certain way. Um Augustus, uh, yeah, Saint Saint Augustine is doing this as well, right? All these like big early church fathers, as people say, right? They're they're making all these crazy ar they're making all these arguments about like, here's why this matters, here's why, like, here's the the the theology of Christianity. Um there's a big like saying about Christianity, it's like most religions spread by the sword. You know, you are this religion because the king that conquered you was this religion. Early Christianity spreads almost exclusively by the book. It's just people going places and talking. And it spreads like wildfire.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:56

And like all over the Greco Roman world. And and in some cases further. Like it goes into Africa, into like which is the Greco-Roman world. You know, like the the Romans are fucking everywhere. But like it goes all the way into Ethiopia, it goes all the way over Northern Africa, it becomes the state religion under Constantine, or at least a legalized religion under Constantine. And then in the wake of Rome, the schism between the Roman Empire, not between the church, but like you get this weird thing where like all the knowledge and resources end up in Byzantium and Constantinople, and the West just kind of gets forgotten for a little while, and things kind of get screwed up. And that's when you get like a weird period in Catholicism where there's a new and different, like there's all of this other stuff kind of creeping in, and you can kind of see how the great schism starts. Yeah. Because by the time that like everything links back up, you're just kind of like, well, you're very different from the traditional, like, you know, Greek or Syrian Orthodoxy.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:10

Kind of kind of one of those situations where you just squint and go, How did we get here?

SPEAKER_04 1:29:14

Yeah. The Pope becomes like one of the main thing between the the Orthodoxy and the and the Catholic Church, which is like super relevant to what you're talking about, is that the Pope is supposed to be the first among equals, as they say, right? It's a bunch of bishops. They get like they're the leadership.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:32

Pope is supposed to be the Archbishop of Rome.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:34

I mean, he is the Archbishop of Rome, but like Yeah, it's like you're the you're the speaker of the house, to put it in the political terms, right? You you're not supposed to be more, like, you're you're more powerful in that you can appoint.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:46

You're the party leader, not the DM. Calm down.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:48

Yeah, yeah. And that's what's that's what's going on, right? At least that's the argument that the old school the orthodoxy makes, is that like you're too powerful. Most people cannot name the Orthodox Catholic Pope.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:03

I didn't even know we had one.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:04

Yep. You have one. It's just that he's about level with the rest of the bishops. So it's not like, you know what I mean? Like he's very, very important in that faith system. It's just that he's not like the king of the Orthodox Catholic Church, like like you have in um in Roman Catholicism, as you might call it. Yeah. So like it's a super interesting thing to see like the drama that comes around as the Pope gets more and more powerful, it creates a race to hierarchy, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:30:38

When I tell you that, like, you know how you exist in historical spaces and you're very aware of how big religion is, and then you find historical media, like the Tudors, the Borges, both versions of the Borges, um, the Medici.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:57

Lots of Italian families. And you always kind of think, oh, they're exaggerating it a little bit. No. No, they're not.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:04

No, that should be.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:05

No, this this is legitimately wild. Fuck, this was crazy. Like, I had no idea that this is happen this had happened. I had no clue.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:13

The Borges got so damn wild.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:15

Oh, the Borges are my favorite.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:17

There there was a Spanish counterpope for a little while because they were just like, what the fuck is happening in Rome? Like it got so crazy that you have the Antepope movement and like a different Pope.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:30

Like the Pope openly has a has a family and favors them.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:35

It's crazy. Ah, I loved it. So yeah, that that was that was that was the corpse signad.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:41

That is so funny. I didn't know there was somebody behind him going, like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:46

I know, right? I had no clue. Oh, and we have no idea who that guy is.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:50

The weekend of Bernie's joke was just a joke. I was like, there's no way. I didn't realize that was gonna be a thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:55

Well, he wasn't like puppeting his mouth or something.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:57

Yeah, he didn't have like a pair of sunglasses on.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:01

No. No, he was just standing. So there's there's one account that I'm pretty sure is not true, but they they they said that there was one where he was crouched under the under the throne, yeah, speaking for him, and then there was another one that I'm more likely to believe that he was standing behind it.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:17

Either way, real weird.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:19

Either way, the smell.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:22

You yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:23

Well, probably everybody that is that is nine months of decomp.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:26

Jeez.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:28

No. So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:32

This many reasons why I would not survive being in the ancient times. Same. Because if I was the guy behind the chair, but I'd be like, geez, I wish somebody would open a window. Like that would be like coveting his mouth.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:47

Oh my god. So thank you for for for that mental image.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:53

Like the Crypt Keeper.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:54

Oh my god. So there's actual paintings and stuff of this, too.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:57

I've seen these.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:58

Yeah. It's crazy that this actually happened. Like, I was inclined to believe our corpse queen of Portugal because people do crazy things for love.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:13

I get that.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:14

Also, that shit was dope.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:15

That that was mentally.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:16

It was super cinematic. And it's just like it was more about revenge. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:21

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:21

And I guess this was too, but like.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:24

This went the other way?

SPEAKER_04 1:33:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:25

This swung the completely other way. Like, homie, are you are you okay?

SPEAKER_04 1:33:30

It was like you were you were trying to pull an Alfonso here, but you kind of womp, womp. Yeah, yeah. You gonzod. R yikes, man. Like.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:42

Yeah. Can you imagine being being a pope? Like coming into power. Like having. Okay, so you're you're you're in position to be pope, and this dude gets to be pope in front of you, and the people that are in your pocket, or that you're in their pocket, I guess you could say, are like, mm-mm, no. And they off that pope just to make you pope. And then your only claimed historical fame is shaming a corpse in a kangaroo trial for which you were later deposed and arrested for, and then strangled in your jail cell.

unknown 1:34:21

Jeez.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:23

Can you imagine?

SPEAKER_04 1:34:25

That shit is good God. Talking about some you're right, Game of Popes.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:29

Game of Popes, bro.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:30

It's a big ass dragon. We're good.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:32

Like and then the two popes after you rule for a matter of days. It's fucking crazy. It's nuts. So yeah, that was Game of Popes. I had a lot of fun with this one. Um, I got off topic so many times while I was researching this. Like, so much. Just reading about other stuff. Uh, I enjoyed every second of this because what the fuck? I find it ironic that I have a corpse in court both times that we've done this now.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:06

Yeah, that's right. Weird that it happened twice.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:11

Probably, probably a third time.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:12

I know it's happened more in history because like you I know.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:17

Yeah, it's gotta be. I wonder if somebody pulled some shit like this with uh Amun Amun in his Amun Ra system, where he was like, There's gonna be one god in Egypt now, and it's gonna be me, kind of. That guy.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:30

We're gonna we're gonna worship the Aten.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:32

Yeah, the sun.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:34

Okay. And my wife is the most beautiful, yes, she is. She is my equal. Okay. She is my sister. I'm not surprised.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:45

Um, no, I have I've I I I find Egyptian history fascinating.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:50

It's wild.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:51

Um, I was definitely one of the Egypt was my hyper focus. Uh so.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:57

Yeah, I I can't. It's what like so I can kind of see where this guy's going, right? So because in this time period and a little later in Catholicism, you can do things like harden someone in purgatory in hell as a priest. Yeah. So people people do that, right? And that and it's not exclusive to Catholicism. There are other religions that routinely pray for well, yeah. Like, and there's I think LDS does this where it's like I didn't know that. Yeah, they pray for like non-LDS people and all the time. There's several kinds of religions that do this, like religious offshoots of Christianity that do this.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:35

But like, you could just do that trying to condemn someone's soul after they're already like, you know, like how how do you how did you expect that to even work? Like, coming at it from a spiritual angle, you find this guy guilty in court, you cut off his blessing fingers, you rip off his papal robes, you throw his ass in the timer river. What are you expecting? The angels to just descend on him in heaven and be like, Alright, sorry, man, your membership's been revoked, you gotta get out.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:04

Do you think I'm just I what sends you straight to Inferno. You know what's really like crazy too is that like a lot of the um I just listened to a Dan McClellan thing about this, is that like at any given point in the Bible, there's like three versions of hell. There's like hell, which is like fiery, never dying worms and all kinds of like nasty looking stuff, and it's not really very explicit if you can like feel it or not. Uh, and then there's like annihilation, which is just like, and you die, and you are gone.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:40

Poof, nothing.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:41

And you are simply not returned to life. Yeah. Right? There's no resurrection. And then there's like torment. But they're all kind of prescriptive to very specific things. You know, it's like like fuck with kids.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:56

Well, yeah, and you're you're creeping into like Dante's Inferno areas too, because you know, the the so I did Dante's Inferno, and I promise I'll shut up after this. Um, I did Dante's Inferno for my senior English AP thing because uh I had to beg to do it, because my my teacher at the time, bless her, did not believe me when I told her I'd never read it. She was like, absolutely not, I don't believe you. And I was like, I can prove it, Miss Paris, I promise. Um so I did a whole report on it, and after reading it, and I read it, reread it, and then went out and bought the idiot's guide to Dante's Inferno.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:32

The cliff notes. Um, and like the whole thing that I came back down from after like after doing my entire report and reading it and the research, and you know, the the various people much smarter than me spins on it. You have to go, you have to go up through hell to get down to heaven. And then the various circles, and it's essentially the first published fan fiction.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:57

Yeah, 100%. Most most of what people talk about when they talk about like, here's what hell looks like, and here's demons, and all that kind of stuff. A lot of it, a lot of the angel stuff is from something you mentioned a little bit earlier, which is um an and another book, uh, but it's the book of Enoch.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:17

Which is which is not canon in anything but the like Ethiopian church. I think it's one of their apocrypha.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:25

My only exposure to the book of Enoch is uh one of those, one of those kind of like cliffnote things and a video game.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:34

Yeah. It basically just tries to fill in a couple of gaps.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:38

I always thought it was super cool. And whoever wrote it, like props to you, bro. Like, whether it was true or not. If it will, if it's not true, you got a hell of an imagination on you. And my I I salute you. If it is true, I salute you for surviving that.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:54

It was, I think it was probably something more akin to marrying um like Jewish mysticism along with the canon of early Christianity kind of mashed into one and trying to wrestle with well, if God is all good, how does evil exist? Yeah. To begin with. Right? Like, because it's either evil exists externally from God and is its own force in the world, or in a much less happy way.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:29

God has designed evil.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:30

God has designed evil, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:40:32

I that's always been my spin on it, specifically, because like you cannot appreciate light without shadow. You cannot recognize shadow without light.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:40

But it's like if if this being is pure good, then it is incapable of even creating that, right? So the uh the idea behind both like Jubilees and Enoch is that like here's let's explain the fall. Yeah. You know, like how how do we get here and and grand detail and all that kind of stuff. And it's it's neat. I personally am not a believer of most things, right? Like, so I'm I'm just kind of like I really dig the philosophy of Jesus because I'm like, yeah, you could like live by Don't be a dick.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:18

You could live by the lessons of Jesus for the rest of your life and be a very good person. Like pretty easily, you know. Um the other stuff, I'm just kind of like, well, I can't really prove any of that. So like and I've done enough looking in and reading people's books and and hearing lectures talk to where I kind of like understand where a lot of it comes from. So I'm like, you know, like the the the Moses bit is several things rolled into a trench coat, right? So I'm like uh so so at the but they're they're invaluable stories. Uh even if you were like an atheist, I think you could spend the rest of your life, in fact, many people do, um spend the rest of their life studying the Bible and studying the history of Catholicism and the history of Christianity because it forms like the entire Western world.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:13

Yeah. Like and like even if even if you're coming at it from a non-believer perspective, you could read it the same as as a believer would and like just take it as mythology.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:24

Like this is the lore of Yeah, of this of this organization.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:29

And I think that's super cool that we have like these kind of texts available.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:34

Yeah. Now let's go dig up some details. Put them on trial. I got a couple I'd like to ask some questions to.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:44

Because I was wicked.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:47

Thank you for tolerating my squirrel-brainedness today. Took me about an hour to lock in, but once we got it, we got it.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:55

Jesus. I love this kind of crap, though. It's like, it's it's great to uh do it's it's just it's a neat thing to hear somebody's like a dead guy on trial.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:06

Dead guy on trial, the actual like Pope screaming at the body, like, dude, you're you're gonna have an aneurysm. I need you to take a breath.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:17

It would be super fun if there was no guy behind the chair and what he was actually screaming, he was like, I told you to answer me, goddammit. He's just like, I'm the Pope. You know, like you're just having a full freak out, you know?

SPEAKER_02 1:43:31

Probably. Like they they said he was crazy after that. Like they were Dude. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:37

It's really wild. Like when you when when you think about some of the guys like back in time, like I wonder how many people just had like an infection.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:44

Mm-hmm. Syphilis.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:46

Yeah, or or or just like a brain fever, and they're just like freaking out, and then somebody's like, he's got he's got fucking demons in him or something.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:54

And it's like, no, he's well recall that the oracles of Delphi were high as fuck.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:59

Yeah. And even even if they weren't, you know, like meditative hallucinations are a thing, right? Like people can really wig themselves out on just being a believer of, you know, like being lost in the sauce. They can they can do it, right? And so like I I dude. I like the detail of cutting his fingers off. Of like, you can't even bless yourself out of this shit because he was a pope.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:32

They didn't esc as far as I understand it, they didn't excommunicate him.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:36

Oh, they did. They kicked his ass all the way out.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:38

All the way out.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:38

Oh, he wasn't even like ripped the vestments off, excommunicated his ass, cut his fingers off, throw him in the Trader River. Be done with ye.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:48

Damn.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:49

And then the people went, the fuck are you doing? Public opinion tanked. Alright, that's it. We're done.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:57

Oh god.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:58

Just we finished. Thank you for joining us. I appreciate it. I'm so sorry, editor Brian, for having to deal with my rambles and my getting lost in my own notes. Good luck.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:09

All good. All good.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:11

Actually, it might be Tony that edits this episode.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:14

Maybe. I don't know. I've got I still have to do our one for last. I still have to do the one that I haven't done.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:22

That's true. All right. Thank you for joining us, guys. We appreciate you. We'll catch you on the next one. Bye. Because I am wicked. Because I am wicked.