dragged by horse | Lions and Lilies

Ioannes Anglicus, (Joan Angelicus or sometimes referred to as Agnes or Gilberta) was a legendary woman who supposedly dressed as a man to become pontiff in 855. There are multiple versions of Joan’s story, some demonising and rubbishing her existence and others, raising her up to the status of martyr. So, who was Joan, and did she exist?

Joan’s story was widely spread during the later 13th century, mostly by friars and primarily by means of interpolations made in many manuscripts of the Chronicon pontificum et imperatorum (Chronicle of the Popes and Emperors) by the 13th-century Polish Dominican, Martin of Troppau.

Reportedly an Englishwoman, her birthplace is recorded as the city of Mainz, an apparent inconsistency that some sources quantify by stating that her parents had migrated to Germany.

Whilst still quite young (some suggest perhaps before her eleventh birthday) she met and fell in love with an English monk, with whom she travelled to Athens. Not wanting to attract undue attention, she dressed as a boy.

It is perhaps through her relationship with the unnamed monk, that she gained her education, learning to both read and write. The two then moved on to Rome, where Joan (now called John) became a scribe, then cardinal and eventually, Pope Joan (John VIII).

*Statue (supposedly) of Pope Joan (John VIII). Some scholars argue that it is the Virgin Mary, even though ‘she’ is wearing a mitre, the traditional headdress of a Bishop, Cardinal or Pope.*

And herein begins the numerous and bloody variations, or her demise.

The most infamous of the four versions I have located involve her attendance at a very untimely procession. Secretly heavily pregnant with her first child (to her lover/monk) she gave birth whilst on horseback. With her ruse revealed, Joan was pulled from her mount, dragged around the streets, and then stoned to death by the crowd.

Jean de Mailly, Chronica Universalis Mettensis wrote –

One day, while mounting a horse, she gave birth to a child. Immediately, by Roman justice she was bound by the feet to a horse’s tail and dragged and stoned by the people for half a league, and, where she died, there she was buried, and at the place is written: “Petre, Pater Patrum, Papisse Prodito Partum” [Oh Peter, Father of Fathers, Betray the childbearing of the woman Pope]. At the same time, the four-day fast called the “fast of the female Pope” was first established.

A variation of the above included the same description of the procession, but with the child surviving, and yet another states that both Joan and the child survived.

Through ignorance of the exact time when the birth was expected, she was delivered of a child while in procession from St. Peter’s to the Lateran, in a lane once named Via Sacra (the sacred way) but now known as the “shunned street” between the Colosseum and St Clement’s church. After her death, it is said she was buried in that same place. The Lord Pope always turns aside from the street, and it is believed by many that this is done because of abhorrence of the event. Nor is she placed on the list of the Holy Pontiffs, both because of her female sex and on account of the foulness of the matter.

— Martin of Opava, Chronicon Pontificum et Imperatoru

The final account gives a far more palatable outcome –

Joan did not die immediately after her exposure, but instead was confined and deposed, after which she did many years of penance before reuniting with her lover. Her son from the affair eventually became Bishop of Ostia, and ordered her entombment in his cathedral when she died.

But what evidence do we have of such events? Could there be any truth to the story of a female Pope?

It certainly is recorded that medieval popes, from the 13th century onward, did indeed avoid the direct route between the Lateran and St Peter’s, as Martin of Opava claimed. However, there is no evidence that this practice dated back any earlier. The origin of the practice is uncertain, but it is quite likely that it was maintained because of widespread belief in the Joan legend, and it was thought genuinely to date back to that period.

And then there is the supposed sedia stercoraria or ‘dung chair’ containing a large, central hole where future popes were subjected to an examination to establish that they were, in fact male (the Catholic Church did not want to make that mistake again!)

Certainly, there are many images of such a chair and depictions of the examination, which was also featured in the series “The Borgias” (season 1, episode 1).

In 2018, Michael E. Habicht, an archaeologist at Flinders University, published new evidence in support of an historical Pope Joan. Habicht and grapho-analyst Marguerite Spycher analysed papal monograms on medieval coins and found that there were two significantly different monograms attributed to Pope John VIII. Habicht argues that the earlier monogram, which he dates from 856 to 858, belongs to Pope Joan, while the latter monogram, which he dates to after 875, belongs to Pope John VII.

(NOTE – The numbering of “popes John” does not occur in strict numerical order. Although there have been twenty-one legitimate popes named John, the numbering became confused and multiple errors occurred during the Middle Ages).

In the 16th century, Siena Cathedral featured a bust of Joan among other pontiffs, however it was later removed.

The 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia elaborated on the historical timeline problem:

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 Antipope, 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. Hincmar, 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 (Hincmar, 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.

Most modern scholars dismiss the story of Joan, claiming it is absolute fantasy. In fact, one commentator, Thomas Noble, has described Pope Joan as ‘a woman who never lived but who nevertheless refuses to die’.

There are multiple works on the subject, notably ‘Pope Joan’ by Donna Woolfolk Cross, ‘The Legend of Pope Joan – In search of the Truth’ by Peter Stanford and ‘Pope Joan – the Indestructible Legend of the Catholic Churches First and Only Female Pope’ Charles River Editors.

Incidentally, Peter Stanford was the former editor of The Catholic Herald, and concluded that in ‘Weighing all the evidence, I am convinced that Pope Joan was an historical figure, though perhaps not all the details about her that have been passed on down the centuries are true.’

There are also two notable movie versions.

Pope Joan (2009) staring Johanna Wokalek, David Wenham, John Goodman, Iain Glen

Pope Joan (1972) staring Liv Ullmann, Olivia de Havilland, Lesley-Anne Down, Franco Nero and Maximilian Schell.

I particularly found the story intriguing and given the length the Catholic Church has gone to in the past, to expunge, dilute and generally cover-up matters they find unsavoury, I would not be at all surprised if this was the case for Pope Joan, the martyr.

Catherine A Wilson co-writes with Catherine T Wilson (no relation). Their first book, The Lily and the Lion, was based upon their true-life accidental meeting and resulting friendship. All four books in their ‘Lions and Lilies’ series have won first place prizes in the Chatelaine/Chaucer Awards in the US and in 2019, The Traitor’s Noose won the Grand Prize Chaucer Award.