La Papista

Last year I read a story that caught hold of my imaginative side.

It was of a girl named Joan who lived in the dark ages. The dark ages were not a fortunate time for women and girls who had an interest in learning, or for that matter, an interest in anything other than hard labor and bearing children. But Joan had a curious mind and loved to learn. Although education was forbidden to girls, she would overhear her brother John's lessons. While John hated school, Joan soaked up all the knowlege she could, and was soon fluent in Latin, knowlegable in science, and could read and write in her own language. All of this was unknown to anyone but John, who had such a difficult time with learning that he was terrified at the prospect of furthering his education at a monestary.

When it came time for John to become a monk and spend the rest of his life as a scholar, he is suddenly killed in a Viking attack. Taking up his cloak along with his identity, Joan travelled on to the monestary disguised as her brother. The billowing clerical robes, combined with the hygenic practices (or lack thereof) of the period, allowed Joan to hide her true identity and live as a monk and a scholar. She was happy to live the life of a man, as it allowed her freedoms that she had never known as a girl, including unlimited access to all the writings and texts she could imagine.

But Joan's wisdom and intellect far surpassed that of the ordinary monk. It wasn't long before she was elected to leadership positions within her own community of the clergy; soon, she found herself called to larger towns and cities. She accepted these positions, eager to gain access to the writings and scholars that the larger urban communities offered. Eventually, her knowlege of the sciences brought her to continue her education in Athens, where she learned Greek and taught many students who were known to be learned men. All of these things she did under the name of Brother John Anglicus.

From Athens she moved to Rome, where she was elected cardinal. Throughout her experiences abroad, Joan's goal was to learn more and more about the world around her, and her appetite for knowlege was voracious. Rome, however, brought a new subject to her interest--that of love. It was in Rome that her secret became known by another, and to the man who held her secret, she also gave her heart. Her governing proved to be as just as her knowlege was vast, and she was much loved by the people who came in contact with her. Then, a surprising turn of events changed Joan's life forever.

Joan had served under the pope as an advisor for several years when his sudden death left the Vatican's throne empty. Joan was then unanimously voted Pope John VIII and thrust into the role of the Holy Father and leader of the Christian world.

A woman succeeding in a man's world, and now presiding over all Christendom, to boot.

All went well for Joan for over two years. But then her story took a turn for the worse. Joan discovered that she was pregnant. While a lot could be hidden under those priestly robes, a pregnancy was a long shot. Before she could quite figure out what to do about it all, disaster struck.

As she rode in a procession from St. Peter's, she suddenly was gripped with contractions and gave birth to a son. The crowd, aghast at the notion of a woman masquerading as pope, tied her to the tail of a horse, had her dragged through the streets, and stoned her to death.

The novel, entitled Pope Joan, was written by Donna Cross. After reading it, and then Googling is, I was surprised to discover that the story of a female pope actually exists as a sort of dark ages urban legend. The Catholic church passionately denies that any evidence of such an occurance exists, and historians are divided on the issue. Much of what I found out was shadowy, and the story slipped to the recesses of my mind.

Tonight on Primetime, Diane Sawyer picked up the story and shed some more light on it. Although even her sleuthing brought about no concrete answers, the show brought up some more evidence for the case. It turns out that several ancient documents point toward the existence of a female pope. The earliest writings are from about 250 years after her supposed 2 years, 7 months reign. Few written accounts, and no eye-witness ones, exist of a Pope John Anglicus' rule. A primary piece of evidence is a famous statue in St. Peter's that portrays a distinctly female face in several stages of childbirth, along with other symbols, including the papal crown. A story claims that in a collection of papal busts in the Cathedral of Siena, Pope Joan's face and name were altered and replaced by Pope Zachary's in 1601. It's anyone's guess as to whether Zachary's likeness is indeed more feminine than the surrounding popes' faces. For hundreds of years after the rumored reign of Pope Joan, the papal processions from St. Peter's took a round-about way through Rome, avoiding the street that is to this day called "The Street of the Woman Pope," on which Joan allegedly met her demise. Perhaps the most compelling indicator of the truth of Joan's story is an intriguing papal throne. The purple marble seat is still housed in a Vatican research room, and is shaped something like a toilet. The throne was used for the coronation of popes for several hundred years, beginning around the time of Joan's supposed death. Legend has it that the throne's unique shape was so that a deacon could ceremoniously ascertain the papal candidate's gender, ensuring that a woman never again held the role of pope. The Vatican holds that the throne was actually an obstetric birthing chair, used to symbolize the new pope's position in the "mother church." It is not surprising that the church would attempt to cover up such a blunder as a female pope, and I do not doubt that it had the power to wipe Joan's name and face from history if it had a mind to.

Interestingly enough, it was soon after Joan's time that the status of women sunk to an all-time low in Christian history. Women were considered unclean for several days before, during, and after their periods. Women had almost no rights under any laws or in the church--they could not own anything of their own, they could be sold as slaves, and they were seen as the property of their husband. It was during this time that the clergy began their tradition of celibacy; priests who refused to send their wives away to convents risked their bishops' selling the women as slaves. Furthermore, women were not allowed in church for 30 days after the birth of a child--60 days if that child were female. It was held that a child was born female because the mother had sinned or been caught up in an ill wind during her pregnancy, so that the child was not developed to full term and thus was not born male.

Even legend doesn't appease my curiosity about a woman who would live her life as a man and ultimately attain the highest level of power known to the world at that time. If such a woman did exist, what were her motives? Knowlege? Power? Escape from a terrible life that was likely her only plot as a woman? Did she aspire to the papacy, or did it come to her without her bidding? Did she, as it seems, risk all for something that meant the world to her? What was it that was worth risking and ultimately giving her life for? What makes a person willing to take that kind of risk?

What do you think, dear reader? Could Joan's story be true? And where are the Joan's of our day--brave souls willing to risk all for whatever it is that stirs their souls? What belief holds your soul so powerfully in its grip that you would leave your comfort zone and risk all for it's having?