GIOVANNA, PAPESSA. – A typical example of how a legend arises, develops, and fades away.
SUMMARY:
I. Sources and content
II. Spread and development of the legend
III. Origin of the legend
IV. Decline of the legend.I. SOURCES AND CONTENT
Until the middle of the 13th century, the legend of the papess G. was unknown. The various notices found in chroniclers or writers prior to that period were interpolated subsequently. In the manuscript of the Liber pontificalis, Vat. lat. 3762, from the 12th century, for example, the notice concerning papess G., fol. 124ʳ, is an addition from the 14th century (cf. Lib. Pont., II, p. xxvi; phototype reproduction after p. xxiv).The sources concerning the papess G. begin in the middle of the 13th century and can be divided into two groups. At the head of the first group is the Chronica universalis Mettensis, composed around 1250 and attributed to Giovanni de Mailly, O.P. (ed. G. Waitz, in MGH, Scriptores, XXIV, p. 514). Here, after Urban II (d. in 1099), a woman is introduced, without indication of her name, who, pretending to be a man, becomes a curial notary, cardinal, and pope. One day, while mounting a horse, she gave birth and was stoned to death. With a few variations, the tale was taken up by Stefano di Bourbon, O.P. (d. ca. 1262), in his De diversis materiis praedicabilibus (Quétif-Echard, I, p. 367), and in the Chronica minor of a Minorite friar from Erfurt (ca. 1265), edited by O. Holder-Egger (MGH, Scriptores, XXIV, p. 184); here, however, the papess is placed after Sergius III (d. in 914). At the head of the second group of sources is the Chronicon pontificum et imperatorum of Martino Polono, O.P. (d. in 1279; ed. L. Weiland, ibid., XXII, p. 428). It is debated whether the text concerning the papess is by Martino or was added by others; in the latter case, the addition is not much later, since in 1312 Ptolomeo di Lucca (Hist. eccl., 16, 8) says that all the manuscripts of Martino that he had read contained II. In the Chronicon of Martino Polono, the legend becomes more precise: after Leo IV (d. in 855), Giovanni Anglico, from Mainz, ascends the papal throne and remains there for more than two and a half years; «hie, ut asseritur, femina fuit». As a young man, dressed as a man, she was taken to Athens by a lover, became exceptionally learned, moved to Rome and taught, and was finally elevated to the papacy; her sex betrayed her, and one day, while going from St. Peter’s to the Lateran, between the Colosseum and the church of San Clemente, she gave birth, and, having died, was buried there. For this reason, Polono adds, from then on the popes, as is believed, no longer passed along that road. Martino Polono is the source, with some variations, for Martino Minorita, in his work Flores temporum, written around 1292 (ed. O. Holder-Egger, in MGH, Scriptores, XXIV, p. 243), and for many others.
II. DIFFUSION AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE LEGEND
Mainly through the extremely widely circulated chronicle of Martino Polono, the legend spread rapidly and became universally accepted from the fourteenth century until the middle of the sixteenth. In Siena Cathedral, busts of the popes were installed around 1400, and that of the female pope G. was also included. During the Council of Constance itself, Giovanni Hus appealed to the female pope without anyone contradicting him. Worse still: the legend was augmented by another, even stranger legend, that of the probatio sexus, whose first indications are already found at the end of the thirteenth century. The brazenness of the humanists and the Protestants’ hatred of the papacy made extensive use of this vulgar and foolish product of the popular imagination.III. ORIGIN OF THE LEGEND
Various explanations have been attempted. The most probable is based on the following elements: a) In the 10th century several Popes remained under the influence of three powerful women: Teodora, the wife of Teofilatto, and her daughters Teodora and Marozia. In that century there were four popes named Giovanni: X, XI, XII, and XIII. Of Giovanni XI (931–35), his contemporary Benedetto of S. Andrea del Soratte writes in his Chronicon: «subiugatus est Roman potestative in manu feminae» (MGH, Scriptores, III, p. 714). From this, the transition to the idea of a woman who had ascended the papal throne was not difficult. b) Another particularly important element is found in the existence of a statue of a woman with a child near the church of S. Clemente, together with an inscription. The statue is also mentioned in the 14th-century Mirabilia: «Item iuxta Coliseum in platea iacet ymago que dicitur papafemina, cum puero» (ed. G. Parthey [Berlin 1869], Latin text, translation, and commentary by I. F. Corti, Albano 1930, p. 58). According to Tomassetti, the statue, discovered in the time of Sisto V near the church of S. Clemente, might perhaps be identified with Juno nursing Hercules, now in the Museo Chiaramonti (cf. G. Tomassetti, La statua della papessa G., in Bull. della Commiss. arch. comun. di Roma, 35 [1907], p. 90 ff.). As for the inscription, it should be noted that already in the first account of the papess, that of the Chronica univ. Mettensis, the inscription supposedly placed on her tomb is reported: Parce pater patrum papissae prodito partum. In Stefano of Bourbon, however, one reads: Parce pater patrum papissae prodere partum. Two other versions are known: Papa pater patrum papissae pandito partum, and: Papa pater patrum peperit papissa papellum. An analysis of the four versions reveals the following common elements: P... pater patrum P P P. The title pater patrum was characteristic of the priests of Mithras, and directly beneath the church of S. Clemente a grand Mithraic shrine has been discovered. The abbreviation PPP is frequent in funerary and dedicatory epigraphy, where it often means propria pecunia posuit. Thus, the most obvious explanation is that this was a dedicatory inscription by a certain P[spirius?], a priest of Mithras, who had it made at his own expense. c) Finally, a third element that may have helped to confirm the legend was the fact that, when going from S. Pietro to the Laterano, the popes avoided passing along that street, which was due solely to the fact that the street was too narrow for the papal procession.
As for the second legend, that of the probatio sexus, the explanation is easier. In the 13th century it became customary for the newly elected Pope, when taking possession of the Laterano, to sit on a perforated porphyry chair, probably originating from some ancient bath building, while the verse of the psalm was sung: et de stercore erigen pauperem. Once the fable of the papess had arisen, popular imagination generated the other legend of the examination of her sex, and many humanist writers continued to disseminate the foolish report contrary to the facts, as is proved, for example, by Agnolo di Scarperia, who, describing the election of Gregorio XII (1406) as an eyewitness, alludes to the rumor that he defines as «insanam vulgi fabulam» (cited by Döllinger, op. cit. in the bibliography, Italian version, p. 36).
IV. DECLINE OF THE LEGEND
Doubts had not been lacking since the thirteenth century, but genuine studies capable of demonstrating the unfounded nature of the legend of the female pope G. appeared only from the mid-sixteenth century onward. Among the earliest, the following deserve mention: Onofrio Panvinio (d. 1568), in the notes to Platina’s Vite dei papi (I, Venice 1663, pp. 208–11); Cardinal Bellarmine, De Romano Pontifice (Ingolstadt 1586), vol. I, bk. III, chap. 24; Florimondo di Rémond, Erreur populaire de la papesse Jeanne (Paris 1588); and the Protestant D. Blondel, Familier esclaircissement de la question, si une femme a esté assise au siège papal de Rome entre Léon IV et Benoît III (Amsterdam 1647). Among the more recent works, particular mention should be made of Döllinger’s study.A refutation of the legend is superfluous today. It is enough to note that, until the thirteenth century, no source mentions so extraordinary an event. Moreover, the series of popes as it is known today allows no interval between Leo IV and Benedict III, where the female pope is most commonly inserted, nor at any other date in the eleventh century.
