Pope Joan  

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Pope Joan (also called La Papessa) is the name of a legendary female pope who supposedly reigned for less than three years in the 850s, between the papacies of Leo IV and Benedict III. She is known primarily from a legend that circulated in the Middle Ages. Pope Joan is regarded by most modern historians and religious scholars as fictitious, possibly originating as an anti-papal satire.

Overview

According to the legend, an English woman, educated in Mainz, dressed as a man and, due to the convincing nature of her disguise, became a monk under the name of Johannes Anglicus. She was elected after the death of Pope Leo IV at a time when the method of selecting popes was haphazard. She took the name Pope John VIII.

She was sexually promiscuous and became pregnant by one of her lovers. During an Easter Procession near the Basilica of San Clemente, over-enthusiastic crowds pushed around the horse which was carrying the Pontiff. The horse reacted, almost causing an accident. The trauma of the experience led "Pope John" to go into premature labour.

Pope Joan was dragged feet-first by a horse through the streets of Rome, and stoned to death by the outraged crowd. She was buried in the street where her identity had been revealed, between the St. John Lateran and St. Peter's Basilicas. This street was (supposedly) avoided by subsequent papal processions - though when this latter detail became part of the popular legend in the 14th century, the Papacy was at Avignon, and there were no papal processions in Rome.

Supposedly, since that time, any candidate for the pope undergoes an intimate examination to ensure he is not a woman (or eunuch) in disguise. This involved sitting on a chair which has a hole in the seat. The most junior deacon present then feels under the chair to ensure the new Pope is male: "And in order to demonstrate his worthiness, his testicles are felt by the junior present as testimony of his male sex. When this is found to be so, the person who feels them shouts out in a loud voice testiculos habet ("He has testicles") And all the clerics reply Deo Gratias ("Thanks be to God"). Then they proceed joyfully to the consecration of the pope-elect" - Felix Hamerlin, De nobilitate et Rusticate Dialogus (c. 1490), quoted in The Female Pope, by Rosemary & Darroll Pardoe (1988).

Legend

From the mid-13th century onwards the legend was widely disseminated and believed. Joan was used as an exemplum in Dominican preaching. Bartolomeo Platina, the scholar who was prefect of the Vatican Library, wrote his Vitæ Pontificum Platinæ historici liber de vita Christi ac omnium pontificum qui hactenus ducenti fuere et XX in 1479 at the behest of his patron, Pope Sixtus IV. The book contains the following account of the female Pope:

"Pope John VIII: John, of English extraction, was born at Mentz (Mainz) and is said to have arrived at Popedom by evil art; for disguising herself like a man, whereas she was a woman, she went when young with her paramour, Frumentius, a learned man, to Athens, and made such progress in learning under the professors there that, coming to Rome, she met with few that could equal, much less go beyond her, even in the knowledge of the scriptures; and by her learned and ingenious readings and disputations, she acquired so great respect and authority that upon the death of [Pope] Leo [IV] (as Martin says) by common consent she was chosen Pope in his room. As she was going to the Lateran Church between the Colossean Theatre (so called from Nero's Colossus) and St. Clement's her travail came upon her, and she died upon the place, having sat two years, one month, and four days, and was buried there without any pomp. This story is vulgarly told, but by very uncertain and obscure authors, and therefore I have related it barely and in short, lest I should seem obstinate and pertinacious if I had admitted what is so generally talked; I had better mistake with the rest of the world; though it be certain, that what I have related may be thought not altogether incredible." (Bartolomeo Platina, Vitæ Pontificum Platinæ historici liber de vita Christi ac omnium pontificum qui hactenus ducenti fuere et XX )




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