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Pope Joan (Ioannes Anglicus, 855–857) was, according to legend, a woman who reigned as pope for two years [1] during the Middle Ages. Her story first appeared in chronicles in the 13th century and subsequently spread throughout Europe.
- Jean de Mailly
- Martin Strebsky
- Boccaccio
- Reformation
- Debunking The Myth
- Tarot
- Enduring Interest
The earliest surviving account of Joan’s papacy is in the Universal Metz Chroniclewritten in 1255 by Jean de Mailly. Jean was a Dominican in Metz, Lorraine. Although Jean does not give us the name of the pope in question, the text points us to an inscription on a tombor a monument somewhere in the vicinity of Rome. Perhaps he had a friend of a frie...
The version of the story that was most widely accepted as historical was given in Chronicle of the Roman Popes and Emperors, written by Martin Strebsky of Troppau. The entry on Joan first appears in the 1277 edition. Strebsky was a Dominican in Prague and a papal chaplin: Strebsky gives us a second basis for the story, an allegedly shunned street b...
Florentine writer Boccaccio produced the version of Joan’s story that people of the Middle Ages were most likely to be familiar with. In Concerning Famous Women (1362, De Mulieribus Claris), he placed her alongside goddesses and other mythical figures, so there is no attempt to hide that the story was fiction, or at least fictionalized. “Joan, an E...
When Protestants questioned the authority of the pope during the Reformation, Catholics responded by appealing to the doctrine of apostolic succession. This is the idea that the pope’s authority is confirmed by an unbroken line that goes back to Peter. Rome is one of three apostolic sees, along with the churches of Antioch, also founded by Peter, a...
Bordeaux magistrate and writer Florimond de Raemond debunked the story of Joan, at least as far as Catholics were concerned, in Erreur Populaire. The first edition published in 1587 was forty pages long. Enlarged editions were published in 1588 and 1594, suggesting enormous public interest in this subject. Florimond showed that a 1082 chronicle by ...
The popess card in the tarot deck naturally brings Pope Joan to mind. The original card was part of a deck produced for the Visconti-Sforzas, the ruling family of Milan, in the mid-15th century. The cards in this deck are unlabeled, but the woman resembles images of Mother Church that were common at the time. (“"Papesse" as an allegory”) The name p...
For over 700 years, Joan has been a popular subject with one generation of writers after another. Protestant writers used Joan to undermine the authority of the papacy. In the Enlightenment, she represented medieval backwardness and superstition. In the romantic 19th century, she represented joyous liberation from traditional roles, according to No...
Pope Joan, legendary female pontiff who supposedly reigned for more than 25 months, from 855 to 858, under the title of John VIII. It has subsequently been proved that a gap of only a few weeks fell between Pope Leo IV and Pope Benedict III and that the story is entirely apocryphal.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Almost one thousand years ago, a woman who, disguised as a man, allegedly rose to the highest ranks of the Catholic Church. However, the accounts of this event have been the focus of intense study, with the authenticity of this story the subject of heated debate among historians.
A dramatic ending to the tale ensured its endurance: As the woman, masquerading as Pope Johannes Anglicus, led a religious procession through Rome during the mid-ninth century, she allegedly went into labor, exposing the fact that “Johannes” was actually “Joan.”
Oct 25, 2017 · Pope Joan was as ubiquitous a presence in Elizabethan and Jacobean controversial literature as she was in polemical literature under the later Stuarts. The myth of Pope Joan is also a feature of one of the most important forces in early modern English political and religious life: anti-Catholicism.
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According to a centuries-old legend, an Englishwoman named Joan disguised herself as a man, went to Rome, and reigned as pope before suffering a dramatic downfall. Is there any truth to this, or is it just a medieval myth? The tale’s history kicks off in the 11th century with Germany-based Irish chronicler Marianus Scotus.
