# Pope Joan
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-joan/249185
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [June 7, 2004, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-joan/249185 "2004-06-07T22:34:28Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@liirogue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/liirogue)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2004, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-joan/249185/1 "2004-06-07T22:34:28Z")
I counted myself among the nay-sayers until I read _Pope Joan_ by Donna Woolfolk Cross. While it is historical fiction, in her author’s notes at the end, she claims numerous historical documents verify that Pope Joan did indeed exist. Here are various quotes from the paperback edition:
> [@](#):
>
> Yet for hundreds of years - up to the middle of the seventeenth century - Joan’s papacy was universally known and accepted as truth. In the seventeenth century, the Catholic Church, under increasing attack from rising Protestantism, began a concerted effort to destroy the embarrassing historical records on Joan. Hundreds of manuscripts and books were seized by the Vatican. Joan’s virtual disappearance from modern consciousness attests to the effectiveness of these measures. (pg 412)
> [@](#):
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> It is scarcely surprising that Joan does not appear in contemporary records, given the time and energy the Church has, by its own admission, devoted to expunging her from them. The fact that she lived in the ninth century, the darkest of the dark ages, would have made the job of obliterating her papacy easy. (pg 412-3)
> [@](#):
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> Except for one questionable history, the _Liber pontificalis_ (which scholars have called a “propagandist document”), there is no continuous record of the ninth-century Popes - who they were, when they reigned, what they did.
Cross then goes on to call for a scientific examination of one ancient copy of the _Liber pontificalis_ that contains a record of Joan’s papacy which is obviously a later interpolation. She also points to the recent examples of Nicaragua and El Salvador that a determined state effort can make embarrassing evidence disappear.
> [@](#):
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> Frederick Spanheim, the learned German historian who conducted an extensive study of the matter, cites no fewer than _five hundred_ ancient manuscripts containing accounts of Joan’s papacy, including those of such acclaimed authors as Petrarch and Boccaccio.
>
> Today, the church position on Joan is that she was an invention of Protestant reformers eager to expose papist corruption. Yet Joan’s story first appeared hundreds of years before Martin Luther was born. Most of her chroniclers were Catholics, often highly placed in the church hierarchy. Joan’s story was accepted even in official histories dedicated to Popes. Her statue stood undisputed alongside those of the other Popes in the Cathedral of Siena until 1601, when, by command of Pope Clement VIII, it suddenly “metamorphosed” into a bust of Pope Zacharias. In 1276, after ordering a thorough search of the papal records, Pope John XX changed his title to John XXI in official recognition of Joan’s reign as Pope John VIII.(pg. 414)
> [@](#):
>
> Another striking pice of historical evidence is found in the well-documented 1413 trial of Jan Hus for heresy… Only one of Hus’s statements went unchallenged: “Many times have the Popes fallen into sin and error, for instance when Joan was elected Pope, who was a woman.” Not one of the twenty-eight cardinals, four patriarchs, thirty metropolitans, two hundred and six bishops, and four hundred and forty theologians present charged Hus with lying or blaspheming in this statement. (pg 414)
> [@](#):
>
> As for the Church’s second argument against Joan, that there was not sufficient time between the papcies of Leo IV and Benedict III for her to have reigned - this too is questionable. The _Liber pontificalis_ is notoriously innacurate with regard to the times of papal accessions and deaths; many of the dates cited are known to be wholly invented. Given the strong motivation of a contemporary chronicler to conceal Joan’s papacy, it would be no great surprise if the date of Leo’s death was moved forward from 853 to 855 - through the time of Joan’s reported two-year reign - in order to make it appear that Pope Leo was immediately succeeded by Pope Benedict III. (pg 415)
> [@](#):
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> One example [of circumstantial evidence] is the so-called chair exam, part of the medieval papal consecration ceremony for almost six hundred years. Each newly elected Pope after Joan sat on the _sella stercoraria_ (literally, “dung sear”), pierced in the middle like a toilet, where his genitals were examined to give proof of his manhood… This ceremony continued until the sixteenth century. (pg 415)
Cross then mentions that there were innumerable jests and songs referring to the chair, and they were widespread among the Roman populace for centuries. In 1404, the Welshman Adam of Usk detailed Pope Innocent VII’s coronation, including the chair exam.
Cross then says that the Via Sacra (now the Via S. Giovanni) is the shortest and most direct route between the Pope’s residence and St. Peter’s Basilica, and was used for centuries. This is the street Joan reportedly gave birth to her stillborn child. “Soon afterward, papal processions deliberately began to turn aside from the Via Sacra, ‘in abhorrence of that event.’” pg 417. She claims the width of the street (an excuse commonly cited) was not a factor.
> [@](#):
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> In 1486, John Burcardt, Bishop of Horta and papal master of ceremonies under five Popes - a position which gave him intimate knowledge of the papal court - described in his journal what transpired when a papal procession broke from custom and traversed the Via Sacra: “On going as in returning, [the Pope] came by way of the Coliseum and that straight road where… John Anglicus gave birth to a child… For that reason… the Popes, in their cavalcades, never pass through that street…” A hundred years _before_ the street was widened, this papal procession passed down the Via Sacra with no difficulty. Burcardt’s account also makes it plain that Joan’s papacy was accepted at the time by the highest officials of the papal court. (pg 417-8)
Is there any evidence to refute what Cross claims as evidence? She lists no bibliography, footnotes, etc.
And what evidence is there that Pope Joan did not exist, other than the claim that she was invented by Protestants? If she is mentioned before the Protestant movement, doesn’t that make it impossible for her to have been invented by them?
(wow, my fingers hurt now)
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### Author:  [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2004, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-joan/249185/2 "2004-06-07T23:09:01Z")
Here is [Cecil’s Column](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_139.html) on the subject.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2004, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-joan/249185/3 "2004-06-07T23:23:55Z")
> [@liirogue](#):
>
> And what evidence is there that Pope Joan did not exist, other than the claim that she was invented by Protestants? If she is mentioned before the Protestant movement, doesn’t that make it impossible for her to have been invented by them?
What evidence is there that the Easter Bunny does not exist, other than naysayers?
In other words, you have asked the absolutely wrong question. If the assertion is that Pope Joan exists, then whoever asserts it has to provide positive proof of the assertion.
Not a single one of the assertions made here proves anything, BTW.
Consider:
> [@](#):
>
> Yet for hundreds of years - up to the middle of the seventeenth century - Joan’s papacy was universally known and accepted as truth.
Yet for hundreds of years, people believed the Earth was the center of the universe and the sun revolved around it! The belief proves nothing.
> [@](#):
>
> The fact that she lived in the ninth century, the darkest of the dark ages, would have made the job of obliterating her papacy easy.
Speculation, not proof. It may have made it easy – if they had done it. But it’s not proof they did it.
> [@](#):
>
> Except for one questionable history, the Liber pontificalis (which scholars have called a “propagandist document”), there is no continuous record of the ninth-century Popes - who they were, when they reigned, what they did.
So? It only means that there may be gaps; it does not mean that Joan was pope in one of those gaps.
> [@](#):
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> Frederick Spanheim, the learned German historian who conducted an extensive study of the matter, cites no fewer than five hundred ancient manuscripts containing accounts of Joan’s papacy, including those of such acclaimed authors as Petrarch and Boccaccio.
And there are how many manuscripts talking about the Greek and Roman Gods? Some accounts are quite detailed. This also means nothing.
> [@](#):
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> Not one of the twenty-eight cardinals, four patriarchs, thirty metropolitans, two hundred and six bishops, and four hundred and forty theologians present charged Hus with lying or blaspheming in this statement.
Proves nothing. They may have not bothered adding this to the charges because they had enough, or they may have erroneously believed the legend. If Hus had mentioned the Easter bunny, and they believed in the Easter Bunny, does this prove there _was_ and Easter bunny?
> [@](#):
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> The Liber pontificalis is notoriously innacurate with regard to the times of papal accessions and deaths; many of the dates cited are known to be wholly invented.
Only asserts there _could_ be something in the gaps. Does not prove that the life of Joan was actually in one of them.
> [@](#):
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> Given the strong motivation of a contemporary chronicler to conceal Joan’s papacy, it would be no great surprise if the date of Leo’s death was moved forward from 853 to 855 - through the time of Joan’s reported two-year reign - in order to make it appear that Pope Leo was immediately succeeded by Pope Benedict III.
]i]Post hoc ergo propter hoc\*. The statement assumes that Joan existed and thus uses the – hypothetical – gap to prove what is being assumed.
> [@](#):
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> One example [of circumstantial evidence] is the so-called chair exam
How does that prove the existance of Joan? It only proves (if it can actually be attested) that they checked to see if the pope was male. That does not mean there ever was a female pope.
So the reasoning is sloppy in the extreme. There’s not a single shred of actual evidence to back up the claim.
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### Author:  [@liirogue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/liirogue)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2004, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-joan/249185/4 "2004-06-07T23:25:09Z")
I did look at the column, and it did not really address any of the facts either way. Cecil claims Joan “supposedly served from 855 to 858.” Cross states she served from 853-855.
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### Author:  [@liirogue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/liirogue)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2004, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-joan/249185/5 "2004-06-07T23:27:44Z")
**RealityChuck** , thank you for your reply. Do you happen to know of books or decent websites that cite some evidence for either way?
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2004, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-joan/249185/6 "2004-06-07T23:47:47Z")
[This](http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/popeJoan.html) is relatively balanced. I’d say the key bit of evidence is the fact that there is no mention of the legend until 350 years after is supposedly happened. If the story were true, then how was the knowledge passed on? To prove the existance, someone would have to produce a document written around the time she reigned.
In addition, [this site](http://library.saint-mike.org/essays-johnpaul/pope_joan.html) indicates that the female pope had had names other than Joan. It also mentions that Ignatius von Dollinger showed the story was based on a Roman folktale.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2004, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-joan/249185/7 "2004-06-08T01:18:11Z")
As RealityChuck points out the true test is to assume the story’s true; that there was a female pope whose gender was revealed when she gave birth on a public street in 855. Let’s face facts, if this had happened, there would be written records of it starting in 855 and running for several years. It’s not like it was something people wouldn’t have been talking about right away. So the fact that there was no anecdotes about Pope Joan for several decades after her supposed death indicates she is just a legend. The fact that there was so much subsequent stories about her just indicates she was a popular legend.
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### Author:  [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2004, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-joan/249185/8 "2004-06-08T10:32:09Z")
> [@liirogue quoting Donna Woolfolk Cross](#):
>
> Today, the church position on Joan is that she was an invention of Protestant reformers eager to expose papist corruption. Yet Joan’s story first appeared hundreds of years before Martin Luther was born. Most of her chroniclers were Catholics, often highly placed in the church hierarchy…
This is a shameless use of a strawman argument as the Roman Catholic Church has never denied that the story first appeared in Catholic sources. See, for example, the entry on the subject in the good old [_Catholic Encyclopedia_](http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08407a.htm). What it is that Catholics have often been quick to argue is that Catholic writers became more sceptical about the story at an earlier date than their Protestant counterparts. Which is, for the most part, a fair comment.
> [@liirogue](#):
>
> Do you happen to know of books or decent websites that cite some evidence for either way?
Try Alain Boureau’s [_The Myth of Pope Joan_](http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/14176.ctl) (University of Chicago Press, 2001) for the case that it was all just the product of medieval clerical misogyny. And we wouldn’t want to perpetuate that, would we?
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### Author:  [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2004, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-joan/249185/9 "2004-06-08T14:51:31Z")
Note also that even the “chair exam” shows at most only that the Church establishment of the time believed in the Pope Joan story, not that it was historical fact.
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### Author:  [@liirogue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/liirogue)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2004, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-joan/249185/10 "2004-06-08T16:08:20Z")
Thanks everyone for your responses. This is why I love coming to this place - you can get an answer to anything!
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### Author:  [@Kizarvexius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kizarvexius)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2004, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-joan/249185/11 "2004-06-08T19:42:19Z")
In one of the museums in Rome…I can’t remember which off hand…there is an artifact on display that is called (with some irony) the Throne of Pope Joan. It is a large, upright chair, the seat of which is hollowed out like a toilet. Beneath is an open area large enough to accomodate a person – yet the craftsmanship and general condition make it unlikely that this is meant to serve as a latrine. According to legend, this was the chair upon which papal aspirants were required to sit, while some medical authority lurking in the cavity underneath examined each candidate’s genitals to verify them as masculine.
It is entirely possible that the myth of Pope Joan was invented to explain the existance of this and other similar artifacts, which the impressionable people of the Middle Ages did not recognize as nothing more than Roman birthing chairs.
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### Author:  [@mrrealtime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrrealtime)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2005, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-joan/249185/12 "2005-07-09T22:21:40Z")
Just to add, I have a book titled “A Present for a Papist: or the Life and Death of Pope Joan, Plainly Proving out of the Printed Copies, and Manuscripts of Popish Writers and others , that a Woman called Joan, was really Pope of Rome; and was there Deliver’d of a Bastard Son in the open Street, as She went in Solumn Procession.” printed 1675, and also point out that in Paul Rycaut’s 1685 translation of Platina’s classic edition of the “Lives of the Popes” he describes one Pope John VIII: “John of English extraction…by evil arts for disguising herself like a man, whereas she was a woman…”.
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### Author:  [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2005, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-joan/249185/13 "2005-07-09T23:14:08Z")
Think about this for a second.
[http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/popeJoan.html](http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/popeJoan.html)
"John Anglicus was a ninth century Englishman. He travelled to Athens where he gained a reputation for his knowledge of the sciences. Eventually he came to lecture at the Trivium in Rome where his fame grew even larger. He became a Cardinal, and when Pope Leo IV died in 853 A.D., he was unanimously elected pope.
“As Pope John VIII he ruled for two years, until 855 A.D. However, while riding one day from St. Peter’s to the Lateran, he had to stop by the side of the road and, to the astonishment of everyone, gave birth to a child. It turned out that Pope John VIII was really a woman. In other words, Pope John was really Pope Joan.”
Thus we have to assume Joan:
#1) Was so ambitious that she dressed consistently as a man, and spent presumably decades to become educated in the sciences, and then became a cleric in the RCC, eventually making it to the papacy.
#2) Was sufficiently clever to make sure during this period of many years that nobody ever suspects that she was really a he.
#3) After all this clever ambitiousnesses, she manages to get herself knocked up. Why if she wanted any sexual encounters with a man find one who could give good head, or a good butt fuck?
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### Author:  [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2005, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-joan/249185/14 "2005-07-09T23:28:57Z")
ADDED (My browser prematurely submitted my last post.)
#4) Joan made no effort to get an abortion.
> **[History of abortion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_abortion#Middle_Ages_.28477-1517.29)**
>
> The practice of abortion—the termination of a pregnancy—has been known since ancient times. Various methods have been used to perform or attempt an abortion, including the administration of abortifacient herbs, the use of sharpened implements, the application of abdominal pressure, and other techniques.
> Abortion laws and their enforcement have fluctuated through various eras. In many western countries during the 20th century abortion-rights movements were successful in having abortion bans repea...
“1140 - The monk John Gratian completed the Concordia discordantium canonum (Harmony of Contradictory Laws) which became the first authoritative collection of canon law accepted by the church. In accordance with ancient scholars, it concluded early abortion was not homicide.”
Abortion clearly existed way back then. And must have been common enough that monk John Gratian saw a need to write about whether or not it was homicide.
#5) According to this account, nobody caught on Pope Joan was a she until she “had to stop by the side of the road and, to the astonishment of everyone, gave birth to a child.” Assuming Pope Joan was philosophically opposed to abortion, why the hell when she was great with child was going down a public road accompanied by a lot of other people? Why not instead wouldn’t Pope Joan say to a Cardinal “Hey dude, I’m really feeling burned out. I gotta go away to a remote rural retreat to recover. In my absence, I appoint you acting pope.” And just give birth to her kid somewhere in the boondocks surrounded by people she could absolutely trust to keep silent about it.
Based on the above, I have to conclude it is far more likely that Pope Joan never existed.
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### Author:  [@Mehitabel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mehitabel)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2005, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-joan/249185/15 "2005-07-10T01:45:42Z")
…and the putative lover kept his mouth shut forever too. How convenient.
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### Author:  [@mrrealtime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrrealtime)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2005, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-joan/249185/16 "2005-07-10T02:32:12Z")
Whether she existed or not, her story is important to people denied of certain station in life because of their sex. The message to the Catholic Church might be…just because a person is male doesnt make them more holy or worthy of a leadership position, and anyone who thinks that “thing between your legs” makes you a better person somehow, is probably the most ignorant and unworthy of all.
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### Author:  [@Mehitabel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mehitabel)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2005, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-joan/249185/17 "2005-07-10T02:42:19Z")
…well, sure…but…you do know that priests have this little thing called a vow of celibacy?
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### Author:  [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2005, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-joan/249185/18 "2005-07-10T02:47:07Z")
> [@mrrealtime](#):
>
> Whether she existed or not, her story is important to people denied of certain station in life because of their sex. The message to the Catholic Church might be…just because a person is male doesnt make them more holy or worthy of a leadership position, and anyone who thinks that “thing between your legs” makes you a better person somehow, is probably the most ignorant and unworthy of all.
This presumes there is any truth to this tale. “Her story” is irrelevanrt if it never happened. If I claim to be the Anti-Christ, the RCC can just ignore this unless there is evidence of such.
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### Author:  [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2005, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-joan/249185/19 "2005-07-10T05:35:03Z")
> [@rfgdxm](#):
>
> Think about this for a second.
>
> Thus we have to assume Joan:
>
> #1) Was so ambitious that she dressed consistently as a man, and spent presumably decades to become educated in the sciences, and then became a cleric in the RCC, eventually making it to the papacy.
>
> #2) Was sufficiently clever to make sure during this period of many years that nobody ever suspects that she was really a he.
>
> #3) After all this clever ambitiousnesses, she manages to get herself knocked up. Why if she wanted any sexual encounters with a man find one who could give good head, or a good butt fuck?
Self education was not impossible, all it would take is a doting father or brother to teach the little girly her letters…look, she can read, isnt she cute? and _in general_ all she would have to know to pass as clergy is the bible and a smattering of vulgate latin, she could then get access to monastic libraries and education at a monastary later.
We have only started breeding for good looks fairly recently, previously marriages were arranged for political, monetary or other reasons [good hips so will bear children easily, comes from fertile family so lots of kids, basic reproductive reasons] or even leveraging land ownership. Looks were totally incedental, heck - love wasn’t even considered an option. Look at protraiture sometime, many women were butt ugly, and this could be seen in early photographs from the 1800…
And she could have gotten knocked up NOT from her own lusts, but because a man that she came in contact with either forced her to have sex or was bribed with sex to keep her secret. Not to mention a certain kinky frisson to knowing that you are screwing the papess and you are the only one that knows she is a woman…and if you are keeping it a secret, abortion would be pretty tricky to arrange…
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### Author:  [@blackhobyah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blackhobyah)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2005, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-joan/249185/20 "2005-07-10T12:17:23Z")
> [@Kizarvexius](#):
>
> According to legend, this was the chair upon which papal aspirants were required to sit, while some medical authority lurking in the cavity underneath examined each candidate’s genitals to verify them as masculine.
>
> It is entirely possible that the myth of Pope Joan was invented to explain the existance of this and other similar artifacts, which the impressionable people of the Middle Ages did not recognize as nothing more than Roman birthing chairs.
There is a very good site which discusses the legend of Pope Joan, and examines the little evidence for her existence [here](http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pardos/PopeJoan3.html), coming to the conclusion that there is no evidence to support such a person. [The entire text of the book](http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pardos/PopeJoanHome.html) discusses the spread of the legend and its use in both medieval and contemporary times.
The chapter I’ve cited above discusses the Papal thrones.
I would think that the fact there are no extant, contemporary documents which mention Pope Joan is probably evidence enough that she didn’t exist. By and large, those documents which we have from the Dark Ages tend to be religious or official in nature.
If there were any such documents about a Pope Joan originating from official sources, it’s unlikely that none at all survived. The Medieval Church was no less effective in generating paper work than any contemporary bureaucracy and tended to be good at holding onto it.
I think those who are questioning why the “need” for such a legend are asking the more interesting question!
It’s a bit like the legends of Robin Hood … what iI find most intriguing is not whether or not there is any historical evidence for such a person, but rather, what cultural, social or political need did such a legend fulfil.
I’m not sure if **liirogue** has come across Lawrence Durrell’s “Pope Joan”, but just in case, I recommend it as an entertaining read.
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-joan/249185.md?page=2)