Was there ever a Female Pope?

[Danustouch]

I was watching a documentary on the Legendary Figure of Pope Joan. Legend has it that around 1100 a.d, a female took dressed as a man, and rose through power from a monk, to become the only female pope in history. This legend became very popular with the people during the middle ages, as the Catholic Church was then in one of it's darkest ages of corruption, and search for power. Pope Joan became a powerful symbol to them, of rebelling against Papal Power, and doing Gods will, above the Churches' will. The Milan Tarot Deck, even depicts a female pope card (in place of the high priestess card), perhaps coming about as a result of this legend. There was at one time, a statue, and many fresco's of the Female Pope in Rome, but they have since been removed by the Catholic Church, and there are no eyewitness accounts of her existence, still remaining. However, several medeivil sources re-tell the legend...and you can find some abstracts of them here.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08407a.htm

The Catholic Church has denied her existence for quite some time now..so of course, this article goes to some length to discredit the legends.

[Theres]

i have heard this too, about the female Pope. i'm trying to remember the name she took for herself.
also, in the 'Visconti-Sforza' tarot, the third trump is 'The Popess', and is thought to be a depiction of Sister Manfreda, a family member.

[Earthcup]

I think it's possible. The date is interesting wouldn't that fall around the same time there were women writing spiritual books, ie. Julian of Norwich, and Eleanor of Aquitane divorced Louis of France for Henry of England? I'm not sure about the dates on these events.

I remember reading that in Eleanor's court in Aquitane the belief that women were superior to men was fashionable for awhile.

:lol: If the dates match up it would be the first wave of Feminism! Move over Susan B. Anthony! :D

[Azure]

Nope, our Pope Joan was way earlier than the women mystics. Her date of death would be about 855 A.D. at which time she'd possibly been Pope for a little under two years - those are the wonky ones in Vatican records.

For those who haven't hit the article yet, the legend is that she was elected Pope while posing as a man in order to study. She got discovered because she got pregnant and went into labor on a public processional, and the the shocked crowd - sometimes described as the people of Rome, others as priests and bishops in attendence, stoned her and her child to death right there on the street.

There's a very interesting speculative novel called Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross that is worth reading - it's fairly good research.

Those of you from theatre backgrounds like mine can also find her as a character in the surreal dinner party that is Caryl Churchill's play "Top Girls."

[kblackthorne]

She took the name Pope John, although I forget the number. And was refered to after her gender was known as "Pope Joan".

The Catholic Church still denies her existance.

However, I decided to check for myself. I had an official list of popes, with dates of their "reigns".

I checked the list carefully, looking for gaps, or for a "John" who only lasted 2-4years.

What I found was interesting. There were no date-gaps. But there was a "John" gap.

From the list of popes as given in the website above:


John XIV (983-84)

John XV (985-96)

Gregory V (996-99)

Sylvester II (999-1003)

John XVII (1003)

John XVIII (1003-09)



You will note: No "John XVI." There is also no "John XX".

Why not?

[Danustouch]

Very good point. One thing the documentary pointed out, is that the Pope who had the gold and black canopy thing built (the thing which goes over the altar, in the Vatican), had an odd desighn built into it (Pope Urban, i believe), on each of it's seven posts, it has a female face, wearing the Popes Crown. And each face depicts a differen't stage of labor. The final one, as you follow it around, the final face to be carved, was that of a baby boy. Also, there is a street in Rome, which is called "The Street of the Lady Pope" (i forgot how that translates in Italian), and that is where a statue to her stood for many years. A priest that they interviewed, insisted, that it was merely a representation of a Pagan Goddess...most likely Venus. However, the Madonna fresco's from the same time period, on the wall surrounding where the statue once stood, say otherwise.

Also..there are differen't versions of how she died. You said stoned to death, one says hanged, and one says tied to a horse, and dragged through the town.

Greenman.. Yes..that is the Visconti Deck. I remember hearing of this. It was given as a present to the Countess Visconti. Right around that time, playing cards were banned by the catholic church (the forerunner of tarot cards as we know them), because of the heretical depiction of the "Popess".

[Mnemosyne]

Pope Joan is such an interesting figure. Perhaps we saw the same documentary, Danustouch. I saw Pope Joan's documentary on the BBC a few years ago. What really impressed me was that she was able to attain so much power because of her intelligence. Supposedly, she was able to keep her identity quite secret, since the pope wore really long robes that would cover up her feminine features, such as her hands. That documentary also suggested that people found out that "John" was really Joan because she ended up giving birth. I clearly remember that one church had a picture done on the stained glass window that showed Pope Joan giving birth. The picture made the birth look so horrid and painful.

[Danustouch]

Yes..I do remember the part about the robes being able to hide her more feminine features, such as delicate ankles, wrists, and face.

It also said, that it was not uncommon, for women during that period to be less endowed in the chest, due to poor nutrition. Most of them were more slim. And even the more endowed women of the era, often would bind their chest, being that there were no bra's....So I imagine, it would be very easy for her to hide her sexuality.

I also found it interesting when they spoke of "The Beloved"...how that might have started off as a homosexual love....and at one point, the true nature of her sex would have had to be revealed. Imagine that mans surprise. Too bad there were no Jerry Springers in that day and age :):p

[Earthcup]

But would a Pope, male or female, shoot a bird while screaming "You don't me!" at the audience? :huh: :lol:

I read somewhere that it was encouraged for women to be like Joan along the lines of the verse from the Gospel of Thomas about "becoming male", by becoming male they would be closer to God (since women didn't have souls? ;) ). One theory has it that Pope Joan might have been a precendent and part inspiration for Joan of Arc, who also donned men's clothing and took a male role.

[kblackthorne]

But would a Pope, male or female, shoot a bird while screaming "You don't me!" at the audience?


Huh??? You've lost me, Earthcup.



Re: hiding sexuality

Anyone who's been in the SCA knows how easy it could be to change sex with your clothes. Particularly female-to-male.

And a quick glance around any gathering of 10 or more women will verify that not all of them have delicate features to hide. Some even have "masculine" features such as facial hair. (I've known at least one woman who has had to shave since puberty. I've known others with significant patches of "whiskers" on lip & chin that didn't require shaving but WERE noticable.)

And a gathering of 15 or more men will likely show several with more "delicate" features: slightly built, delicate bone structure, light beards, etc. Heck, Leonardo di Caprio would make a very pretty girl! Just grow his hair & throw a dress on him! :p

In addition, given the Church's abhorence of nudity, a monk or priest would never fully disrobe among his fellows. (There would have been no "locker room" to manouver, or anything even remotely close.)

So the "how" really doesn't seem that difficult to me.

But she must have had nerves of steel!

Wish I'd seen the documentary -- my info is so limited. I didn't know the tradtion about her going incognito in Rome for a lover. Although I did know about the pregnancy/childbirth. And could paint a number of differing scenario's to get there...

[Earthcup]

:lol: That should be "You don't know me!" I watch too much Whose Line, my grandma watches too much Jerry... :o

I've been mistaken for a man before. If I go out without makeup or really girlie clothes and jewelry I tend to get at least one "Sir". I've got what my sis lovingly refer to as "fullback shoulders" and combined with short hair I suppose I could look like a man in touch with his feminine side.

If I put on some makeup and wear something rather feminine I'm told I look like a "girlie girl". Haven't figured out how to balance it yet... Of course according to several online tests I've come up as a guy or androgynous....

So anyway I can definitely see a woman passing for a man, even in close quarters. There have been women pirates and women soldiers who passed for years without discovery. One man in the revolutionary war was shocked when he found out his bunkmate of several years was a woman. They had been sharing a bedroll and he still didn't have a clue.

What I'm surprised about is her pregnancy. You would think she would have attempted to abort it or have been secluded claiming sickness. Perhaps she lived so long among men she didn't recognise the signs?

[Danustouch]

Abort it???? She was the Pope! A catholic! The rule that women could not be Priests, is a man made law. However..thou shalt not kill, supposedly came straight from God. Add to that, the fact that from what this documentary said, she probably grew up in a church. That her parents were most likely missionaries, and that she most likely entered the priesthood at a very young age. She'd never been around other women, to learn of the methods of abortion, and it is quite possible, in fact, that she might not have even known she was pregnant. Whatever the case, i am fairly sure that the last thing that she would have chosen, was to abort her child. Unfortunately, she also apparently did not know how close she was to the due date, or else she might have found a more secretive place, to give birth to the child.

And..incidentally, Earthcup..I read a romance novel a few years back, that centered on the story of the Revelutionary War guy and his bunkmate :) Funny what they turn into those cheap romance novels ain't it? Heh :)

[Calixto]

The gap in Johns is because an anti-Pope (a rival claimant who is not considered official) took John XX and was such a pain no real Pope would take the title John XXth (the real Popes would coopt the numbers of anti-Popes in normal situations).

John XXth was so bad that centuries later when John was used again it was slightly scandalous...and they quickly moved to the new John Paul bit to sort of bury the name again.

Why there is no John XIth is beyond me. Could be another Anti-Pope scandal I'm not aware of.

There were two Callistus/Calixtus IIIrd. One was an anti-Pope and the other was the first Borgia Pope, and since then no one has taken the Callistus/Calixtus name. Bad luck I suppose.

As an aside, many Anti-Popes were selected by the Holy Roman Emperors to provide their own pet Pope who would be loyal to them while they were busy battling the Pope over who had more power and influence. (The Popes would crown the Emperors and claimed they could depose Popes...so you'd have Papal pet Anti-Emperors too...fun stuff).

[Azure]

Cal! So good to "see" you! I've missed you.

Ah, the anti-Popes and the Holy Roman Emperors. Fun history that, but I think my favorite story is the Pope sneaking up behind Charlemagne, to crown him Holy Roman Emperor so he couldn't take the title all by himself. Of course, that started a lot of the later problems with multiple Popes amd HREs.

My understanding is that the official Catholic anti-abortion stance didn't come about until the 1850s. Medieval to early modern Popes certainly turned a blind eye to it in Rome prior to that! One of the more interesting speculations on Pope joan's pregnancy that I've read is that she may not have realized that was the problem until it was way too late to do anything at all about it. She probably didn't have many women to confide in.

[HallsOfAvalon]

I think Pope Joan could be true, given the Catholic Churches problems with Popes at the time. You could become a Cardnial if you killed off one, or was the product of some clergy pregnancy.

I have heard though that around that time there was a Cardnial made Pope because his lover was a pretty high ranking Roman offical or something. And that she was like the Nancy Regan of the times. She rulled the Church through her lover. And that is suppose to be where the idea of Pope Joan came about. It was a name given to her as a joke.


The Catholic Church has long since discredited both stories. But they do aknowledge there rather shaky Pope/Cardnial/Bishop history. By saying that there wrong doings, don't make them un-spiritual people. That in it's own right is a joke.

[Danustouch]

Well...even if abortion wasn't made an official law until 1850, it doesn't mean that she, as a Roman Catholic Pope would have aborted her fetus.

However, I did also mention the same possibility as you Azure, that there is a good chance that she didn't even know she was pregnant until it was too late.

[Earthcup]

It just seemed to me that if she wanted to keep her identity secret that abortion would have been the most logical course of action. I've been watching a lot of Spock lately.... :elf:

I have heard though that around that time there was a Cardnial made Pope because his lover was a pretty high ranking Roman offical or something. And that she was like the Nancy Regan of the times. She rulled the Church through her lover. And that is suppose to be where the idea of Pope Joan came about. It was a name given to her as a joke.

ahhh like HM, Mrs. Brown? That makes sense....

I picked up a romance novel the other day called "The Irish Knight" about an English or Roman knight forced to marry an "Irish Witch". It looked so bad it might just be good......:D

[Azure]

I always wonder about that not knowing thing, Danustouch - it seems impossible somehow, yet it apparently still happens. I suppose denial is the same thing as ignorance. . .

The author I mentioned that wrote the interesting novel has a website.

www.popejoan.com

[Mnemosyne]

I saw that website too, Azure. So is it true that they are making a Pope Joan movie?

[Danustouch]

If they are, that would be really cool. I saw a few Joan of Arc movies, one.."The Messenger"..i thought was pretty good.

[Mnemosyne]

Oh my, Danustouch, I think that I made a terrible mistake. I went back to see where I read that a Pope Joan movie would be made. I couldn't find it. :( I did see that there have been independent films made on Pope Joan's time as pope.

Here is something else that I found. Yes, there is a Pope Joan card game.

http://www.trussel.com/maig/pope.htm

Perhaps it is too early in the morning right now, but I could not follow the directions. I'll just put the link here in case that someone finds it interesting.

[Azure]

Well, if they are making a movie, I need to find out who's doing it and start submitting resumes!!!

I actually have a Joan of Arc play script that was written for me, based on Mark Twain's Joan story. In it, Joan is a pick-pocket, theif and prostitute, but still manages to transcend it all when she's needed. I'm fond of Twain.
The playwright is very good, and I hope this thing gets produced - I want to play the role so bad. . .

[Earthcup]

Very cool! I've been looking through his stuff again and just ran across his Joan of Arc story. I'm planning to kickback tonight and read it and some others.

The best Joan of Arc movie I've seen so far is "The Messenger". The schizophrenia idea isn't the way I'd explain it but it's the only one that portrayed what she went through as a human. Other films seem to make her superhuman and wooden.

[kblackthorne]

Calixto, is that you? :cool:

Hmmm... my history's sucking -- would the years involved for John XVI be the ones where the anti-popes were running around?

(Last time I studied this stuff was in 8th grade. And I'm over 30. So I'm just a bit rusty!)

The dual papacy had occurred to me, but I had no way to check it, as my source-book is RC, and so doesn't admit it happened. ("What do you mean, the line of Popes was broken/unclear? Impossible!")

Still, if naught else, that "John Gap" could contribute to the myth. (I can't be the first curious person to look things up & come across it.)

[Calixto]

I think so.
I'll have to dig up my sources of the Popes...

The line gets confused before Constantine..and in the Dark Ages when the latin of the Church was so bad its hardly readable.

I mean beginning latin students today write better than that!
Of course the Pope at the time openly scoffed at grammar anyway, so its not surprising.

The anti-Popes do confuse things.

:)

And yes, c'est moi :)

[kblackthorne]

You know the frustrating thing?

I have a distinct memory of once having a complete list of Popes, Anti-Popes, Disputed Popes, the whole bit. Who, what, when, where. (I distinctly remember that when there were folks wearing the title in Avinion, it was to the left of the folks in Rome. I can see it on the page.)

I just have no idea when/where I had this. I get the impression it was after Sr. Therese (8th grade), but can't remember for sure! ~look of utter frustration~

I obviously need to start hitting the books again. I'm forgetting stuff I used to know.

[Mnemosyne]

Kblackthorne, are you referring to the Great Schism?

Calixto, so you mean that the poor Latin of the Church makes the lineage of popes confusing? I've always considered Latin to be the language of the Church. hhmmmm, I remember that Pope Joan gained prestige, since she was supposedly really bright at reading Latin and Greek. If the Latin was so bad, what language were the popes and his/her people using then? Of course, we, today, might consider their Latin to be poor, since we use classical Latin as a model.

[Calixto]

They used Latin, just a very debased form.

It got so bad that they began to study the vulgate being spoken in various places (early Italian mostly) to produce the Ecclesiatic Latin of the Middle Ages, as well as going back to study the Latin grammars they had available.

But for while there in the 7th and 8th centuries, even the Popes were practically illiterate in Latin, and their scribes weren't much better.

The Ecclesiastical Latin used to this day differs a lot from Classic latin, but its perfectly readable, even if its style is atrocious, esp. by the standards of the Humanists who resurrected Ciceronian Latin.

Ecclesiastic Latin is closer to the Latin of the Late Empire and Late Antiquity.

But the Dark Age Latin was very, very bad.

When I say its almost unreadable, its almost unreadable to those who know Ecclesiastic Latin. :/

[Mnemosyne]

Wow! I am still shocked to learn that the Latin in the Church during the 7th and 8th centuries was so bad. But then again, I can't be too shocked. After all, Charlemagne reigned during this time, and this man who was really into culture and learning was illiterate.

I completely agree with you when you wrote about the differences between Ecclestiastical Latin and Classical Latin. I've studied mainly classical latin; however, I did take a class reading some ecclestiastical latin- those writing made me look like this :eek: lol

Nevertheless, you would think that these people would keep decent documentation of their popes.