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Back then, the Papacy was reserved for the hardasses, guys you wouldn't mess with--the gangsters, the demon-summoners, the corpse-digger-uppers. Here are the ones we consider the biggest badasses. And, no, we didn't make any of this up. Alexander VI (1492-1503)
Any story you've ever heard about crooked popes started with this guy. He bought the papacy with four mule loads of silver. He nailed Rome's most eligible bachelorettes. He made his 17-year-old bastard son an archbishop. He started wars, poisoned cardinals and took their money, and probably ate live frogs while feeding people to the Rancor.
His greatest accomplishment--as a host if not as a pope--was the Banquet of Chestnuts held in 1501. This sounds nice enough until you learn that the chestnuts were merely a pretext to have a pack of naked hookers crawling around the ground collecting them. But that wasn't the evening's only nut-related activity. Trained observers were present to keep track of the total number and quality of the party-goers' ejaculations. That's exactly the kind of information you need when a bishopric comes open. Alexander's death was followed by further hijinks. His ham-stuffed corpse couldn't fit in the coffin and began belching sulfur. His successor forbade anyone from saying prayers for his lardy soul. Finally, almost 400 years later, he was reborn as Aleister Crowley (at least that's what he said), who shocked the world by ... taking a lot of drugs and drawing naked pictures of himself. Pius II (1458-1464)
He seems like the kind of guy whose head you'd like to flush in a toilet, doesn't he? Well, it's a damn good thing you didn't try it, because Pius had a very powerful, very spooky man who was willing to do whatever the pope told him: fucking Dracula. Seriously.
You see, Pius had Turk problems. The Ottoman Empire was invading various European countries, taking Christian children from their families and subjecting them to strict training in order to create an army of super-soldiers (yes, really). Drastic action was called for. Pius wrote a letter to Vlad III Tepes, aka Vlad the Impaler, aka Vlad fucking Dracula, a guy so bloodthirsty his name became synonymous with "vampire."
Hey, did we mention Vlad impaled about 30,000 people on huge-ass spikes? When Pope Pius took "drastic" action, he didn't fuck around.
In spite of the overwhelming odds--thousands of fanatical super-soldiers versus whatever mustached Wallachian turnip-farmers Vlad hadn't gotten around to impaling yet-- Vlad took on the Turks and even sort of won. Whatever quality Pius had that caused Vlad the Impaler to put his own Transylvanian ass on the line to do his bidding, it makes him one of history's best-disguised badasses. The lesson: Resist the urge to assault the next tweedy little sissy you see reciting something in elegiac couplet, because it's quite possible that he has an undead bloodsucking fiend watching his back. Honorius III (1216-1227)
In this case, Honorius was so pious that the temptations of this world were too easy for him, so he routinely summoned demons just to challenge himself. He even wrote a book about it so that your local parish priest could test himself against the denizens of the netherworld by opening some kind of flaming portal to hell.
After a hard day of "reforming the clergy" (i.e., forcing them to be as unlike Alexander VI as possible), the meek and saintly old man retired to his chambers. His lackeys no doubt thought he was busily devising new ways to bore the hell out of them. Actually, he was drawing pentagrams on the floor and interrupting the slumber of various imps, cacodemons and even the final boss of his spiritual exercises, the terrifying spider mastermind.
What could be more frustrating for the demons? When one of these monstrosities is forcibly brought to the earthly realm, at least it usually gets to disembowel someone; depending on the skill of summoner, either the wizard's enemies or the wizard himself. How do you think they felt when they came face to face with a bossy and spiritually invincible pope? "God be with you, my cacodemon. Now, do my dishes. After you're done, you can help yourself to a hard candy from the dish and then go back to hell." Stephen VI (896-897)
Consumed with an unquenchable thirst for justice, he had Formosus dug up, dressed in his papal vestments, and seated on a throne, ready to face the music in a formal trial.
It was like one of those Law & Order scenes where Jack McCoy starts yelling at a defendant, his eyebrows flying around like pissed off weightless caterpillars while the guilty bastard sits on the witness stand stunned into silence. Being as he was without an attorney and dead, all Formosus could do was sit there in his finery, perhaps letting a chunk of himself fall to the floor in silent protest. Formosus was found guilty on all charges, of course, though the trial practically screamed for an appeal. The late pontiff's only defense was mounted by a cleric kneeling behind his throne, who answered Stephen's seemingly rhetorical questions ("Why did you usurp the papacy?!") for Formosus by explaining, "Because I was evil!" Historians do not relate whether the cleric set up a pulley device to make Formosus' jaw move up and down while he spoke for him, so we must assume that he did. The death penalty was ruled out, since applying it to a corpse might have made Formosus a brain-eating zombie. Stephen played it safe: he chopped off the three fingers Formosus used for blessing and tossed his cadaver in the river. The lesson was inescapable. If the Pope was going to come down this hard on a guy who had violated an obscure Vatican by-law and died a year before, you didn't even want to know what kind of crazy shit he'd do to someone who really fucked up. It's a testament to our lax and dissolute times that Stephen is now considered the bad guy in this story. Sergius III (897, 904-911)
Stephen was first elected in 897, but Rome clearly wasn't ready. Perhaps the nut-check chair's hole was too small. Whatever the reason, he was expelled by force and excommunicated by various factions of player-hater. While Sergius sat at home and stewed, the papacy was fought over by some guys who were actually pretty badass in their own right. Realizing that what was needed was stability through the accumulation of dead bodies, the gangstas running things in Rome invited Sergius back to his rightful throne. The new and former pope embarked on a program of governance that combined the best aspects of the first 100 days Franklin Roosevelt's presidency and the end of The Godfather. Sergius:
A warning to aspiring young mediums: do not invite Sergius III to a séance. There is no doubt that his spirit will snap your neck like a stalk of celery and then proceed to make time with your lady. Just don't do it. |
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Squiboda- Actually the ball chair does exist the Vatican publicly confirmed it's existence about 4 years ago.
hey theres one pope missing. i dont remember his name, but when attilla the hun and his freaking hordes were going to ransack rome, the pope came out and met with attilla. no one knows what was said between the two of them, but after a few hours of nothing but talking, attilla turned his armies around and mrached his 40,000 troops the hell out of there.
The story of Vlad Dracul is not fictional. We Romanians usually tend to give him a superhero aura (a psychotic superhero who impaled people, but still a superhero). Most of his internal and external enemies were so terrified of him that for a little while the region became a bit more peaceful (until the Targoviste assault that is). His bloodthirsty cousin, Stephen the Great (recently sanctified) also has a lot to account for. Finally, if you research beyond wikipedia you'll see that Vlad's obsession with impaling turks might have come with his complete disgust with the homosexuality practised at the Sultan's court. Vlad's brother, Radu The Handsome (not kiddinge here) was a part of the Turkish Sultan's hareem and was crowned voievod (ruler) over Wallachia after Vlad's banishment.
Wow, "PalinIsNotAMILF" it sounds like you saw the history channel's special on Dracula a few too many times. Do you work at Hot Topic, too?
this is taken from the article about the Cadaver synod on wikipedia: "Formosus was accused of transmigrating sees in violation of canon law, of perjury, and of serving as a bishop while actually a layman."
kvinnan86: From what I gathered in an Uncle John's Bathroom Reader, his body was found after being dumped in the water and reburied.
I'd like to know what Formosus did. I'd also like to know how the second Pope to try his corpse found him after the first Pope who tried him supposedly had his corpse thrown into a river.
Oh wow, poor Formosus... What the hell did he do to deserve that?
how did not one of these guys make it on the Pimpingest Historical Figures list?
also, Vlad's nickname Draculea means "Son of the Dragon" after his father Dracul, which means the "Dragon"
the Dragon also represents Satan
ergo, Pius II was friends with the son of the devil
his bloodthirstyness, bouts of cannibalism, and the fact that years after his death, his tomb was found to be empty, is what gave birth to the legend that he really was a vampire and why Bram Stoker named his iconic character Count Vlad Dracula (though the real Draculea was a Prince, and probably wouldn't appreciate being demoted, even as a fictional character)
Er--yeah, I'm just spit-balling here but I think that MAYBE that "ball-checking chair" part was meant to be one of those elusive things called a. . . JOKE. Just a thought.
Well if by "true", you mean completely false, then yes.
The Catholic Encyclopedia has no information about the ball checking chair. That's just made up as is "Pope Joan".
Your first clue should have been that you linked to a completely lame site commented on by dumbasses.
Way to be retarded Cracked!
Another fun bit about Alexander VI: Those "Rome's most eligible bachelorettes" you mention? Rumor had it that his own daughter, Lucrezia, was one of them. Lucrezia was also said to have a full-time chef and a full-time poisoner, both to take care of her guests, generally under the direction of her father and her brother, Cesare.
It wasn't a hat that Vlad had nailed to the guys head it was a yarmulke, he was a rabbi and refused to take it off, so Vlad decided that if he wouldn't take it off in front of a Christian then he wouldn't ever take it off again.
Apparently his corpse was rescued by a Monk and, I presume, buried again.
Ummm, how Sergius dig up Formosus body to re-try him if Stephen had tossed the corpse in the river?
Vlad spent his last years in a dark dank dungeon, where it is said that he spent his time impaling rodents and roaches. Upon his death, witnesses say his cell was littered with the impaled copses of vermin.Upon his death, witnesses say his cell was littered with the impaled copses of verman.
Elriuhilu: Vlad did also like to eat his meals while watching people getting impaled. And he also had a man's hat nailed to his head, simply because the guy didn't take it off when he met him, so he was kinda blood thirsty.
I can't find any evidence stating that Honorius III wrote the Grimoire of Honorius
steven must have had a big ego to try and punish someone who was already dead. lol
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@ jethro1863
he was Leo I the great