Despite being denied by the Church, many people still believe there may have been a Pope Joan.
Wikimedia CommonsLegend has it there was a woman pope in the middle ages.
Since the dawn of Catholicism, the highest office in the religion has been the Pope. Whoever holds it serves as the leader of the entire religion, and the closest thing mere humans have to a divine link.
Of course, since Peter the disciple was crowned the first pope by Jesus Christ, all 266 popes have been men.
However, legend has it that one woman slipped through the cracks, and worked her way up the religious ranks to become pope. For hundreds of years, many people, both devout Catholics and conspiracy theorists alike, believed that Pope John VIII, who served in the 9th century, was actually a woman named Joan.
The Legend Of Pope Joan
Wikimedia CommonsAn illustration of Pope Joan holding a baby.
Word of Pope Joan first appeared in the 13th century and spread widely throughout Europe.
The most widely accepted version of the legend is that an English girl dressed as a man to visit her lover at the Church. These visits ultimately sparked her interest in religious studies.
She continued to pursue this interest, attending a monastery dressed as a man. She was devoted to her studies, and quickly became very knowledgeable in religious studies.
As most thought of her as an accomplished man, she rose through the ranks of the Church hierarchy. When the Conclave came around to elect a new pope, she was elected.
Pope Joan assumed the name Pope John VIII. She was able to successfully conceal her true feminine identity for a while, however the ruse wouldn’t last much longer.
Wikimedia CommonsA woodcut illustration of Pope Joan giving birth.
According to legend, Joan’s true identity was finally revealed after she became pregnant. Despite pursuing her interest in the church, she never broke off her romantic relationship that sparked her journey to the highest position in the Catholic church.
The public discovered her secret when Pope Joan gave birth during a procession. The stories differ as to what happened to her next. Some say she died in childbirth, while others claim she was murdered.
It was said that God punished the people for letting a woman enter the papacy. Petrarch wrote of the horrors that occurred after her womanliness was revealed in his Chronica de le Vite de Pontefici et Imperadori Romani:
“… in Brescia, it rained blood for three days and nights. In France there appeared marvelous locusts, which had six wings and very powerful teeth. They flew miraculously through the air, and all drowned in the British Sea. The golden bodies were rejected by the waves of the sea and corrupted the air, so that a great many people died.”
Written Records Of Pope Joan
Wikimedia CommonsThroughout history there have been written accounts and illustrations of the supposed pope.
The legend of Pope Joan was recorded by more than just Petrarch. Many references have been made to the obscured woman pope.
It appears the legend first began in the thirteenth century, with the earliest written account coming from Jean de Mailly, a Dominican chronicler. Mailly placed Pope Joan as having succeeded Victor III in 1087.
However, later accounts of the story would place her tenure as pope to earlier in the 800s. Martin of Troppau, who wrote a chronology of popes in the Church, is likely the one responsible for this move.
Bartolomeo Platina, the prefect of the Vatican Library, wrote an excerpt in his book, allegedly at the request of Pope Sixtus IV, that detailed how Joan ascended to the office.
He claimed that there was no one more qualified than her and that upon the death of Pope Leo IV, Joan was chosen by “common consent” during the Conclave. He also corroborated the story of Joan’s death.
For two hundred years, mention of Pope Joan popped up in art and literature, most of which lined up with the original legend. Countless authors through the years set out to prove she existed, publishing articles and books on the subject, and even creating historical timelines that supported her existence.
There was even a ceramic bust of Joan, inscribed Johannes VIII, Femina ex Anglia, that was on display in the Duomo di Siena along with busts of the other popes. While Pope Joan became a not uncommon symbol of the church, did she really exist?
Is The Legend True?
Wikimedia CommonsPope Joan as depicted on a tarot card.
In 1601, Pope Clement VIII declared the legend to be untrue, ordering the bust removed and replaced by a definitively male pope, Pope Zachary.
The Church officially denies the existence of a female pope. Many historians have argued that the woman who gave birth during the procession in which Joan was supposed to have been revealed was most likely actual Pope Urban VIII’s niece.
They also argued that the timeline doesn’t fit, and had there actually been a female pope she would probably have existed between 1086 and 1108. During those years the Vatican was occupied by Henry IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, and the papacy was highly contested. Historians have pointed out that several men had staked their own individual claims to the throne, making it easy to believe that a woman could also have done so.
But the debunking of the Pope Joan legend began as early as the 1400s. According to Father Caleb La Rue, chancellor of the Catholic Diocese of Lincoln in Nebraska, scholars had already begun to declare the story to be false by this time.
Additionally, there is no archaeological evidence to suggest there was ever a pope between Pope Leo IV and Benedict III, which is when Pope Joan is most commonly placed in the timeline. While there was a Pope John VII around this time, it is unlikely he was actually a woman.
It is possible, however, that the rumor of a woman pope began as a way to ostracize Pope John VII. He was Greek, an ethnicity the Roman clergy at the time saw to be effeminate. It’s possible jokes about Pope John VII’s perceived femininity formed into the legend we know today.
Even though the Church says Pope Joan never existed, the legend still pops up now and again. Over time, the story of Pope Joan has been used to criticize the Church, primarily as commentary on the corruption of the papacy. The story of Pope Joan was also used by protestants during the Protestant Reformation to discredit the Church.
“Basically, whatever anti-Catholic narrative someone needs, they can find in Pope Joan a convenient narrative device,” Father La Rue wrote.
Despite the Church’s denunciation of Pope Joan, many people are still believers. It is widely believed that the statue in Rome, Joanna With A Papal Crown depicts Pope Joan.
Enjoy this article on Pope Joan? Next, read about the Phantom Time Hypothesis that claims that the Middle Ages didn’t exist. Then, read about the history of the Holy Roman Empire.
