Posthumous execution
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Posthumous execution is the ritual or ceremonial mutilation of an already dead body as a punishment.
The posthumous hanging of Gilles van Ledenberg in 1619
Cadaver Synod
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The Cadaver Synod is the name commonly given to the ecclesiastical trial of Pope Formosus, who had been dead for about nine months, in the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome during January 897. The
Posthumous execution
…fall to pieces under the blows, Cambyses had it burned. In 897, Pope Stephen VI had the corpse of Pope Formosus disinterred and put on trial during the Cadaver Synod. Found guilty, the corpse had three of its fingers cut off and was later thrown into the Tiber. Harold I Harefoot, king of the Anglo-Saxons (1035–1040…
Le Pape Formose et Étienne VI ("Pope Formosus and Stephen VI") by Jean-Paul Laurens, 1870
The list of popes buried in Saint Peter's Basilica includes the recovered body of Pope Formosus.