Just found out the Catholic Church once literally checked the pope’s balls to make sure he wasn’t a woman… and somehow that’s not the weirdest part of the Pope Joan story.
Turns out, misogyny wears a funny hat
Unreal
https://sacrilegiousdiscourse.com/blog/pope-joan-and-the-papal-ball-check-how-the-church-pants-checked-history
#PopeJoan #ChurchHistory #MisogynyInRobes

Just found out the Catholic Church once literally checked the pope’s balls to make sure he wasn’t a woman… and somehow that’s not the weirdest part of the Pope Joan story.
Turns out, misogyny wears a funny hat.
Unreal.
https://sacrilegiousdiscourse.com/blog/pope-joan-and-the-papal-ball-check-how-the-church-pants-checked-history
#PopeJoan #ChurchHistory #MisogynyInRobes #AtheistBlog #SacrilegiousDiscourse

~ The legendary Pope Joan, part VI ~

Bordeaux magistrate and writer Florimond de Raemond debunked the story of Joan, at least as far as Catholics were concerned, in Erreur Populaire, published in 1587. Florimond showed that a 1082 chronicle by Marianus Scotus had been altered to include a reference to Joan. This meant that the earliest authentic reference was four centuries after the purported event. As for the story of the perforated chair, it was “so gross” that the only appropriate response was to laugh, Florimond wrote. He campaigned against the statue in Siena, which was removed in 1601 and replaced by one of Pope Zachary.

Among Protestants, Florimond’s efforts only backfired. It gave the Siena statue attention it might not otherwise have received. The statue’s removal led to the suspicion that Catholics were destroying evidence. With her own legitimacy as a female ruler questioned, the reign of Elizabeth I (r. 1558-1603) was perhaps not the right time to bring this issue up. John Jewel, the bishop of Salisbury (1560-1571) wrote pamphlets that made Joan part of official anti-papal propaganda.

Pope Leo IV reigned from 847 to 855 while Benedict III reigned from 855 to 858, leaving no gap for Joan, according to Noble. There is a coin with Benedict on one side and Frankish Emperor Lothar I on the other. This means that it was issued when both men were reigning.

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.

Illustration : Whore of Babylon wearing the papal tiara from a woodcut in Luther Bible, by Lucas Cranach the Elder

#history #middleages #art #arthistory #painting #woodcut #illustration #popejoan #womenfromhistory

~ The legendary Pope Joan, part V ~

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, and Alexandria, founded by Saint Mark.

A woman pope would seem to run afoul of several biblical injunctions. “And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man,” Paul wrote to Timothy (I Timothy 2:12, NKJV). Yet Timothy himself was taught by his mother Eunice and by his grandmother Lois. Deborah was a prophetess and a judge of Israel, and she defeated the Canaanites guided by God rather than by her husband. If there had been a female pope, there could not be an unbroken line of succession, according to both Luther and Calvin.

Joan inspired the church to add a ritual to the papal crowning ceremony to prevent another female candidate from escaping detection. The popes were crowned on an enormous purple marble chair called the Estercoraria Chair. This chair had an opening like a toilet that allowed a cardinal to verify that a new pope was really male.

#history #middleages #art #arthistory #painting #woodcut #illustration #popejoan #womenfromhistory

~ The legendary Pope Joan, part IV ~

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 Englishwoman and pope,” is how Boccaccio described her. She was, “Spurred by the devil who had led her into this wickedness and made her persist in it.”

All the same, Boccaccio was not unsympathetic to Joan. She “had a good mind and was attracted to the charms of learning” and she was “very virtuous and saintly.” She was “deemed to have excelled all others” and she “lectured on the trivium,” the medieval version of being a high school teacher. This pattern of lavish praise alternating with passages that reveal a subject’s humiliation is typical of how Boccaccio dealt with female subjects. Around 1400, Boccaccio’s story was popular enough to get Joan recognized as an official pope with her own statue at Siena Cathedral.

Illustration : Joan as the Whore of Babylon illustration from Martin Luther's 1534 translation of the Bible

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~ The legendary Pope Joan, part III ~

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 chaplain.

Strebsky gives us a second basis for the story, an allegedly shunned street between the Colosseum and the St. Clement’s Church. This church is built on a mithraeum, a cave once used for the worship of Mithras. This street was blocked for a time in the Middle Ages, which may explain the papal detour.

That both Jean de Mailly and Strebsky were Dominicans may be significant. The order refused to turn over a priory in Genoa to the family of Pope Innocent IV (r. 1243-1254). In 1254, the pope retaliated with a decree restricting the rights of Dominicans to preach and hear confessions. The Dominicans recited litanies and the pope suffered a stroke and died a few weeks later. This led to the expression, “Beware the litanies of the Dominicans.”

Strebsky tells us that Joan studied in Athens. In the 9th century, the city was overrun by barbarians and had no schools. The author may have been thinking of Agnodike, a legendary Greek woman who dressed as a man to study medicine in Athens in the 4th century BCE.

Illustration : The Popess, card from the so-called Visconti-Sforza tarot deck drawn by Bonifacio Bembo, ca. 1450

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~ The legendary Pope Joan, part II ~

The earliest surviving account of Joan’s papacy is in the Universal Metz Chronicle written 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 tomb or a monument somewhere in the vicinity of Rome. Perhaps he had a friend of a friend who took a pilgrimage and noticed this inscription. Latin inscriptions used initials, so this one would be PPPPPP. The original meaning may have been something unrelated to popesses. A wit spun it as a reference to a female pope giving birth, thereby inspiring the legend of the great popess who never was.

The phrase "father of fathers" is associated with Mithras, whose cult was prominent under Emperor Diocletian. If the original monument was a plinth for a statue of Mithras, the inscription could have been, “Have mercy, father of fathers, paid for with his own money.” (Parce, pater patrum, pecunia propria posuit).

Illustration : Pope Joan giving birth, used as the frontispiece of A Present for a Papist: Or, The History of the Life of Pope Joan, From her Birth to her Death

#history #middleages #art #arthistory #painting #woodcut #illustration #popejoan #womenfromhistory

~ The legendary Pope Joan, part I ~

Pope Joan was a legendary female pope of the Middle Ages said to have reigned from 855 to 858. After her story was popularized by Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), a statue of her was placed alongside those of other popes at Siena Cathedral. During the Reformation, her status was a focus of controversy.

When Czech reformer Jan Hus (1372 – 1415) discussed the story at his trial before the Council of Constance, none of the assembled elite of the church questioned it. Martin Luther (1483 – 1546) claimed to have seen a statue of Joan when he visited Rome in 1510. Luther and John Calvin (1509—1564) both used Joan to dispute Catholic doctrine. Her statue was removed from the cathedral after the story was questioned by French writer Florimond de Raemond (1540– 1601).

According to the legend, Joan was born of English parents in the German city of Mainz. She traveled to Athens with her lover and disguised herself as a man to receive a religious education. She distinguished herself as a scholar and rose up the ranks of the church. In 855, she was unanimously elected pope by the College of Cardinals. She was exposed as a woman and an adulteress when she unexpectedly gave birth during a procession.

Illustration : Woodcut illustration of Pope Joan, from an incunable German translation by Heinrich Steinhöwel of Giovanni Boccaccio's De mulieribus claris

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"Well behaved" women seldom make history #thewomen
#AnneBoleyn #EleanorOfAquitaine #PopeJoan #JeanOfArc #GeorgianaCavendish #NellGwyn #MarieCurie #CatherineTheGreat #CatherineBooth #SusannaWesley #Pankhursts #AimToMisbehave