Catholic Encyclopedia: Joan, Popess
The fable about a female pope, who afterwards bore the name of Johanna (Joan), is first
noticed in the middle of the thirteenth century. The first who appears to have had
cognizance of it was the Dominican chronicler Jean de Mailly (Archiv der Gesellschaft
fur altere deutsche Geschichte, xii, 17 sq., 469 sq.) from whom another Dominican,
Etienne de Bourbon (d. 1261), adopted the tale into his work on the "Seven Gifts of the
Holy Ghost" (Quetit-Echard, "Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum", I, Paris, 1719). In this
account the alleged popess is placed about the year 1100, and no name is yet assigned
her. The story runs that a very talented woman, dressed as a man, became notary to
the Curia, then cardinal and finally pope; that one day this person went out on
horseback, and on this occasion gave birth to a son; that she was then bound to the tail
of a horse, dragged round the city, stoned to death by the mob, and was buried at the
place where she died; and that an inscription was put up there as follows: "<Petre
pater patrum papissae prodito partum>". In her reign, the story adds, the Ember days
were introduced, called therefore the "fasts of the popess". A different version appears
in the third recension of the chronicle of Martin of Troppau (Martinus Polonus)
possibly inserted by the author himself and not by a subsequent transcriber. Through
this very popular work the tale became best known in the following form: After Leo IV
(847-55) the Englishman John of Mainz (Johannes Anglicus, natione Moguntinus)
occupied the papal chair two years, seven months and four days. He was, it is alleged,
a woman. When a girl, she was taken to Athens in male clothes by her lover, and there
made such progress in learning that no one was her equal. She came to Rome, where
she taught science, and thereby attracted the attention of learned men. She enjoyed the
greatest respect on account of her conduct and erudition, and was finally chosen as
pope, but, becoming pregnant by one of her trusted attendants, she gave birth to a child
during a procession from St. Peter's to the Lateran, somewhere between the Colosseum
and St. Clement's. There she died almost immediately, and it is said she was buried at
the same place. In their processions the popes always avoid this road; many believe
that they do this out of abhorrence of that calamity (Mon. Germ. Hist. Ser., xxii, 379,
475).
Here occurs for the first time the name of Johanna (Joan) as that of the alleged popess.
Martin of Troppau had lived at the Curia as papal chaplain and penitentiary (he died
1278), for which reason his papal history was widely read, and through him the tale
obtained general acceptance. One MS. of his chronicle relates in a different way the fate
of the alleged popess. (Mon. Germ., loc.cit., 428), i.e., after her confinement Joan was
immediately deposed, and did penance for many years. Her son, it is added, became
Bishop of Ostia, and had her interred there after her death. Later chroniclers even give
the name which she bore as a girl; some call her Agnes, some Gilberta. Still further
variations are found in the works of different chroniclers, e.g. in the "Universal
Chronicle of Metz", written about 1250 (Mon. Germ. Hist.: Scr., xxiv, 514), and in
subsequent editions of the twelfth (?) century "Mirabilia Urbis Romae". According to
the latter, the popess was given the choice in a vision, of temporal disgrace or eternal
punishment; she chose the former, and died at her confinement in the open street
("Mirabilia Romae", ed. Parthey, Berlin, 1869). In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
this popess was already counted as an historical personage, whose existence no one
doubted. She had her place among the carved busts which stood in Siena Cathedral.
Under Clement VIII, and at his request, she was transformed into Pope Zacharias. The
heretic Hus, in the defense of his false doctrine before the Council of Constance,
referred to the popess, and no one offered to question the fact of her existence. She is
not found in the "Liber Pontificalis" nor among the papal portraits in St. Paul's Outside
the Walls, at Rome.
This alleged popess is a pure figment of the imagination. In the fifteenth century, after
the awakening of historical criticism, a few scholars like Aeneas Silvius (Epist., I,30)
and Platina (Vitae Pontificum, No. 106) saw the untenableness of the story.Since the
sixteenth century Catholic historians began to deny the existence of the popess, e.g.,
Onofrio Panvinio (Vitae Pontificum, Venice, 1557), Aventinus (Annales Boiorum, lib.
IV), Baronius (Annales ad a. 879, n. 5), and others. A few Protestants also, e.g., Blondel
(Joanna Papissa, 1657) and Leibniz ("Flores sparsae in tumulum papissae" in
"Bibliotheca Historica", Gottingen, 1758, 267 sq.), admitted that the popess never
existed. Numerous Protestants, however, made use of the fable in their attacks on the
papacy. Even in the nineteenth century, when the untenableness of the legend was
recognized by all serious historians, a few Protestants (e.g. Kist, 1843; Suden, 1831; and
Andrea, 1866) attempted, in an anti-Roman spirit, to prove the historical existence of
the popess. Even Hase ("Kirchengesch.", II, 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1895, 81) could not refrain
from a spiteful and absolutely unhistorical note on this subject.
The principal proofs of the entirely mythical character of the popess are:
Not one contemporaneous historical source among the papal histories knows anything
about her; also, no mention is made of her until the middle of the thirteenth century.
Now it is incredible that the appearance of a "popess", if it was an historical fact, would
be noticed by none of the numerous historians from the tenth to the thirteenth century.
In the history of the popes, there is no place where this legendary figure will fit in.
Between Leo IV and Benedict III, where Martinus Polonus places her, she cannot be
inserted, because Leo IV died 17 July, 855, and immediately after his death Benedict III
was elected by the clergy and people of Rome; but owing to the setting up of an anti-
pope, in the person of the deposed Cardinal Anastasius, he was not consecrated until 29
September. Coins exist which bear both the image of Benedict III and of Emperor
Lothair, who died 28 September, 855; therefore Benedict must have been recognized as
pope before the last-mentioned date. On 7 October, 855, Benedict III issued a charter
for the Abbey of Corvey. Hinemar, Archbishop of Reims, informed Nicholas I that a
messenger whom he had sent to Leo IV learned on his way of the death of this pope,
and therefore handed his petition to Benedict III, who decided it (Hinemar, ep. xl in
P.L., CXXXVI, 85). All these witnesses prove the correctness of the dates given in the
lives of Leo IV and Benedict III, and there was no interregnum between these two
popes, so that at this place there is no room for the alleged popess. Further, is is even
less probable that a popess could be inserted in the list of popes about 1100, between
Victor III (1087) and Unban II (1088-99) or Paschal II (1099-1110), as is suggested by the
chronicle of Jean de Mailly.
This fable of a Roman popess seems to have had an earlier counterpart at
Constantinople. Indeed, in his letter to Michael Caerularius (1053), Leo IX says that he
would not believe what he had heard, namely that the Church of Constantinople had
already seen eunuchs, indeed even a woman, in its episcopal chair (Mansi "Concil.",
XIX, 635 sq.). Concerning the origin of the whole legend of Popess Joan, different
hypotheses have been advanced. Bellarmine (De Romano Pontifice, III, 24) believes that
the tale was brought from Constantinople to Rome. Baronius (Annales ad a., 879, n.5)
conjectures that the much censured effeminate weaknesses of Pope John VII (872-82) in
dealing with the Greeks may have given rise to the story. Mai has shown (Nova
Collectio Patr., I, Proleg., xlvii) that Photius of Constantinople (De Spir. Sanct. Myst.,
lxxxix) refers emphatically three times to this pope as "the Manly", as though he would
remove from him the stigma of effeminacy. Other historians point to the degradation of
the papacy in the tenth century, when so many popes bore the name John; it seemed
therefore a fitting name for the legendary popess. Thus Aventinus sees in the story a
satire on John IX; Blondel, a satire on John XI; Panvinio (notae ad Platinam, De vitis
Rom. Pont.) applies it to John XII, while Neander (Kirkengesch., II, 200) understands it
as applicable generally to the baneful female influence on the papacy during the tenth
century.
Other investigators endeavour to find in various occurrences and reports a more
definite basis for the origin of this legend. Leo Allatius (Diss. Fab. de Joanna Papissa)
connects it with the false prophetess Theota, condemned at the Synod of Mainz (847);
Leibniz recalls the story that an alleged bishop Johannes Anglicus came to Rome and
was there recognized as a woman. The legend has also been connected with the
pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, e.g. by Karl Blascus ("Diatribe de Joanna Papissa", Naples,
1779), and Gfrorer (Kirchengesch., iii, 978).
Doinger's explanation has met with more general approval ("Papstfabeln", Munich,
1863, 7-45). He recognizes the fable of Popess Joan as a survival of some local Roman
folk-tale originally connected with certain ancient monuments and peculiar customs.
An ancient statue discovered in the reign of Sixtus V, in a street near the Colosseum,
which showed a figure with a child, was popularly considered to represent the popess.
In the same street a monument was discovered with an inscription at the end of which
occurred the well-known formula P.P.P. (<proprie pecunia posuit>) together with a
prefixed name which read: <Pap. (?Papirius) pater patrum>. This could easily have
given origin to the inscription mentioned by Jean de Mailly (see above). It was also
observed that the pope did not pass along this street in solemn procession (perhaps on
account of its narrowness). Further it was noticed that, on the occasion of his formal
inauguration in front of the Lateran Basilica, the newly-elected pope always seated
himself on a marble chair. This seat was an ancient bath-stool, of which there were
many in Rome; it was merely made use of by the pope to rest himself. But the
imagination of the vulgar took this to signify that the sex of the pope was thereby
tested, in order to prevent any further instance of a woman attaining to the Chair of St.
Peter. Erroneous explanations - such as were often excogitated in the Middle Ages in
connexion with ancient monuments - and popular imagination are originally
responsible for the fable of "Popess Joan" that uncritical chroniclers, since the middle of
the thirteenth century, dignified by consigning it to their pages.
J.P. KIRSCH
Transcribed by Marie Jutras
Taken from the New Advent Web Page (www.knight.org/advent).
This article is part of the Catholic Encyclopedia Project, an effort aimed at placing the
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