Was there ever a female pope? Many people used to believe
that there had been one, and no doubt there are still some today who prefer to
accept ancient legends to modern evidence – or the lack of it.
The story of Pope Joan
A monk called Martin wrote in 1265 about a pope called John
who was elected in the year 855 and died in 857. However, this apparently male
pope turned out to be female when she unexpectedly gave birth when riding
through the streets of Rome near the Colosseum. Thus was born the legend of
Pope Joan.
Martin may have got this idea from earlier writers, although
mentions in sources apparently written before Martin’s time have only survived
in manuscripts that were copied later, and are therefore suspect for that
reason. The legend is recounted in plenty of other mediaeval sources, but
nearly all of them are clearly glosses on Martin’s work and some of them add
extra details that are almost certainly inventions by those later writers.
There is one other source that recounts the legend somewhat
differently, this having been written by another 13th century monk,
namely Jean de Mailly. He talks about the supposed childbirth being followed
immediately by Joan’s stoning to death by the shocked populace. The main
difference in Jean’s account is that he places it in the early 12th
century, although this seems perverse given that the sequence of popes during
that period is well established in other sources and there is no gap into which
“Pope Joan” could fall.
How the legend could have arisen
What seems to have happened is that an “old wives’ tale”
started the rounds during a poorly documented period of Roman history, possibly
occasioned by there being a pope who acted in a somewhat effeminate manner. As
we all know, stories grow in the telling, especially when somebody writes it
down and it gains the status of being on paper “in black and white”.
To add to the confusion, two customs evolved that seemed to
confirm the truth of the legend. One was that popes refused to travel along the
road in which Joan was supposed to have given birth. This was on the direct
route that newly elected popes used to gain access to the church of St John
Lateran which is the cathedral church of the city of Rome and where popes are
traditionally enthroned as “Bishop of Rome”. A statue of Joan (also called
Agnes in some sources) and her son stood at the spot until the late 15th
century.
The other custom, which is even stranger, was that newly
elected popes had to be physically examined to ensure that they were actually men!
This was done during the ceremony in the Lateran when the pope would sit or
recline on a special seat that had a hole underneath through which a cardinal
would insert a hand to feel the pope’s testicles, afterwards declaring (in
Latin) “He has testicles” to which all present would respond “God be praised!”
This idea seems so extraordinary, not to mention revolting,
that it is hard to believe. However, two “poping chairs”, made of marble, are
known to have existed and one may indeed still do so, although kept well away
from public view in the depths of the Vatican. It certainly seems probable that
these chairs were used for papal examination for about 400 years, and belief in
the legend of Pope Joan seems to be a likely explanation for that use.
However, modern scholarship does seem to have scotched the
idea that Pope Joan ever existed. This is partly because of the unlikelihood of
the events having taken place as described – could a woman in such a prominent
public office really have concealed her sex for a matter of years, not to
mention a pregnancy carried to full term? However, the most convincing evidence
comes from the fact that the original dating for Joan’s “reign” was impossible,
given that coins from the period make it clear that there was no gap between
the preceding and succeeding popes into which Pope Joan would fit.
Much as one might like to believe the legend, a legend it
must remain!
© John Welford
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