Joan, Popess

JOAN, POPESS. - A typical example of how a legend is born, develops and declines.

I. SOURCES AND CONTENT

Until the middle of the 13th century the legend of Pope Joan is unknown. The various notices found in chroniclers or writers earlier than that period were interpolated later. In the manuscript of the Liber pontificalis, Vat. lat. 3762, of the 12th century, for example, the notice of Pope Joan, fol. 124ʳ, is an addition of the 14th century (cf. Lib. Pont., II, p. xxvi; phototypic reproduction after p. xxiv).

The sources of Pope Joan begin with 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. 1099), a woman is introduced, without indication of her name, who, pretending to be a man, becomes a curial notary, cardinal, pope. One day, mounting a horse, she gave birth: and she is stoned. With few variants the fable is taken up by Stephen of Bourbon, O.P. (d. ca. 1262) in his De diversis materiis praedicabilibus (Quétif-Echard, I, p. 367) and in the Chronica minor of a Friar Minor of Erfurt (ca. 1265) edited by O. Holder-Egger (MGH, Scriptores, XXIV, p. 184); here, however, the popess is placed after Sergius III (d. 914). At the head of the second group of sources is the Chronicon pontificum et imperatorum of Martin of Opava, O.P. (d. 1279; ed. L. Weiland, ibid., XXII, p. 428). It is debated whether the text on the popess is by Martin or added by others; in this case the addition is not much later, since in 1312 Ptolemy of Lucca (Hist. eccl., 16, 8) says that all the manuscripts of Martin that he read contain it. In the Chronicon of Martin of Opava the legend becomes precise: after Leo IV (d. 855) John Anglicus, of Mainz, ascends the papal throne and sits there for more than two and a half years; «hie, ut asseritur, femina fuit». As a young woman, dressed as a man, she was brought to Athens by a lover, became most learned, moved to Rome and taught, and finally was raised to the papacy; her sex betrayed her and one day, going from St. Peter's to the Lateran, between the Colosseum and the church of St. Clement, she gave birth, and having died was buried there. For this reason, Martin of Opava adds, from then on the popes, as is believed, no longer pass along that road. On Martin of Opava depend, with some variants, Martin the Minorite, in his work Flores temporum, written around 1292 (ed. O. Holder-Egger, in MGH, Scriptores, XXIV, p. 243) and many others.

II. DIFFUSION AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE LEGEND

Chiefly through the very widely circulated chronicle of Martin of Opava, the legend spread rapidly and established itself universally, from the 14th century until the middle of the 16th century. In the cathedral of Siena, around 1400, the busts of the popes were introduced, and that of the female pope G. was also admitted there. In the midst of the Council of Constance, Jan 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, of which the first traces are found already at the end of the 13th century. The shamelessness of the humanists and the hatred of the Protestants toward the papacy largely exploited this vulgar and foolish creation of popular fantasy.

III. ORIGIN OF THE LEGEND

Various explanations have been attempted. The most probable is based on these elements: a) In the 10th century various popes remained under the influence of three powerful women: Theodora, wife of Theophylact, and her daughters Theodora and Marozia. In that century there were four popes named John: X, XI, XII, XIII. Of John XI (931-35) the contemporary Benedict of St. Andrew of Soratte writes in his Chronicon: «subiugatus est Roman potestative in manu feminae» (MGH, Scriptores, III, p. 714). From this the passage to the idea of a woman having ascended the pontifical throne was not difficult. b) Another element of particular importance is found in the existence of a statue of a woman with a child near the church of St. Clement, and of an inscription. The statue is also mentioned in the Mirabilia of the 14th century: «Item iuxta Coliseum in platea iacet ymago que dicitur papa femina, 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, found in the time of Sixtus V near the church of St. Clement, would perhaps be identifiable with Juno suckling Hercules, which exists today in the Chiaramonti Museum (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 notice about the popess, that of the Chronica univ. Mettensis, the inscription is reported that would have been placed on her tomb: Parce pater patrum papissae prodito partum. In Stephen of Bourbon, on the other hand, 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. Analyzing the four versions, these common elements are found: P... pater patrum P P P. The title pater patrum was characteristic of the priests of Mithras, and precisely beneath the church of St. Clement a grandiose Mithraic [sanctuary] has been found. The abbreviation PPP is frequent in funerary and dedicatory epigraphy, where it often means propria pecunia posuit. So the most obvious explanation is that it was a dedicatory inscription of a certain P[spirius?], a priest of Mithras, made at his own expense. c) Finally, a third element that may have contributed to confirming the legend was the fact that the popes, going from St. Peter's to the Lateran, avoided passing along that street, which depended only on 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 the custom became established that the newly elected pope, taking possession of the Lateran, would sit on a perforated porphyry chair, probably coming from some ancient bath building, while the verse of the psalm was sung: et de stercore erigen pauperem. Once the fable of the popess had arisen, popular fantasy gave rise to the other legend of the test of sex, and many humanist writers continued to spread the insipid report against the reality of the facts, as is proved, for example, by Agnolo di Scarperia, who, describing as an eyewitness the election of Gregory XII (1406), alludes to the rumor that he defines as «insanam vulgi fabulam» (cited by Döllinger, op. cit. in bibl., Ital. trans., p. 36).

IV. DECLINE OF THE LEGEND

Doubts had not been lacking since the 13th century, but true studies capable of demonstrating the groundlessness of the legend of Pope Joan only appeared from the middle of the 16th century onward. Among the first, the following deserve to be remembered: Onofrio Panvinio (d. 1568), in the notes to Platina's Lives of the Popes (I, Venice 1663, pp. 208-11); Cardinal Bellarmine, De Romano Pontifice (Ingolstadt 1586), vol. I, bk. III, ch. 24; Florimond de 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, the work of Döllinger deserves particular mention.

A refutation of the legend is superfluous today. Suffice it to note that until the 13th century no source alludes to so extraordinary a fact. Moreover, the series of the popes as it is known today admits no interval between Leo IV and Benedict III, where the popess is most commonly inserted, nor at other dates of the 11th century.

Ferdinando Antonelli