Guy has retreated in order to regroup at a fortified place on the Taro and dies there suddenly on December 12, leaving his son Lambert under the tutelage of his mother Agiltrude, an opponent of the Carolingians.

Both will contest the throne with Berengar and Arnulf.

Ageltrude travels with her fourteen-year-old son to Rome to receive papal confirmation of Arnulf's imperial succession, while her husband marches north with his troops, but Formosus, who still desires to crown Arnulf, is imprisoned in Castel Sant'Angelo.

Guy IV of Spoleto had been granted the Duchies of Spoleto and Camerino in either 888, when his father, Guy II, was crowned King of France, or 889, when his father was crowned King of Italy.

Though his father never secured the French kingdom, he did maintain his Italian crown and thus happily divested himself of his responsibilities in Spoleto itself, the hereditary possession of his family.

A capable warrior and leader, Guy conquers Benevento from the Greeks and makes himself prince here in 895.

He offers the regency of his conquered principality to Guaimar I of Salerno, the husband of his sister Itta, but …

The election of Pope Boniface VI, a native of Rome, had come about as a result of riots soon after the death of Pope Formosus.

Prior to his reign, he had twice incurred a sentence of deprivation of orders as a subdeacon and as a priest.

After a pontificate of fifteen days, he is said by some to have died of gout, by others to have been forcibly ejected to make way for Stephen VI, the candidate of the Spoletan party.

Pope Stephen VI had been made bishop of Anagni by Pope Formosus.

The circumstances of his election are unclear, but he had been sponsored by one of the powerful Roman families, the house of Spoleto, that contested the papacy at this time.

Stephen is chiefly remembered in connection with his conduct towards the remains of Pope Formosus, his last predecessor but one.

The rotting corpse of Formosus is exhumed and put on trial in the so-called Cadaver Synod (or Synodus Horrenda) in January 897.

Pressure from the Spoleto contingent and Stephen's fury with his predecessor probably precipitated this extraordinary event.

With the corpse propped up on a throne, a deacon is appointed to answer for the deceased pontiff.

During the trial, Formosus's corpse is condemned for performing the functions of a bishop when he had been deposed and for receiving the pontificate while he was the bishop of Porto, among other revived charges that had been leveled against him in the strife during the pontificate of John VIII.

The corpse is found guilty, stripped of its sacred vestments, deprived of three fingers of its right hand (the blessing fingers), clad in the garb of a layman, and quickly buried; it is then re-exhumed and thrown in the Tiber.

All ordinations performed by Formosus are annulled.

The trial of Formosus has excited a tumult.

Though the instigators of the deed may actually have been Formosus' enemies of the House of Spoleto (notably Guy IV of Spoleto), who had recovered their authority in Rome at the beginning of 897 by renouncing their broader claims in central Italy, the scandal ends in Stephen's imprisonment and his death by strangling in August.

Romanus, whose personal name is unknown, born in Gallese, Italy near Civita Castellana, is elected to succeed the murdered Stephen VI.

Romanus, like many popes of the era, annuls all the acts and decrees of his predecessor.

His short rule is regarded as a virtuous one by contemporary historian Flodoard, but fifteenth-century historian Bartolomeo Platina scorns him for continuing the practice of annulment.

An opposing faction deposes him in November of the same year and he will end his days as a monk.

His date of death is unknown.

Romanus’ successor, Pope Theodore II, had been ordained as a priest by Pope Stephen V; also his brother Theotius is a bishop.

He reinstates the clerics who had been forced from office by Pope Stephen VI, recognizing the validity of the ordinations of Pope Formosus.

He has the body of Formosus, which had been thrown in the Tiber and recovered near the ancient harbor of Porto, just south of Rome, reburied in St. Peter's Basilica.

He dies after ruling for twenty days in December 897.

Little is known about John IX before he became Pope.

Born in Tivoli in an unknown year, he had been ordained as a Benedictine priest by Pope Formosus.

With the support of the powerful House of Spoleto he is elected Pontiff in early 898 following the sudden death of Pope Theodore II.

Lambert in February 898 convenes a diet at Ravenna.

Seventy bishops meet and confirm the pact of 891, the invalidity of Arnulf's coronation, and the validity of Lambert's imperial title.

They legitimize the election of John IX.

They also solve the Formosan question and confirm his rehabilitation.

Most significantly for Lambert, however, they reaffirm the Constitutio Romana of Lothair I (824), which requires the imperial presence at papal elections.