JOAN

JOAN, POPE, a person, supposed to have been of the female sex, who was for many centuries believed to have occupied the Papal throne between the years 855 and 857. The fable of Pope Joan long held its ground in the annals of the Romish Church as a piece of authentic history. It is only within recent times that it has been finally condemned to take its rank with many other once popular myths in the chronique scandaleuse. The common version of the story is as follows:—A young Englishwoman of extraordinary beauty went to reside with her parents at Fulda in Saxony. She was loved by a monk belonging to a convent of that city. To enjoy each other's society undisturbed, it was planned between them that she should assume male attire, and apply for admission into the convent as a neophyte. As she possessed a very extraordinary share both of learning and talent, she easily imposed upon the unsuspecting abbot, and was admitted. Time wore on, and the lovers, tired of their convent life, concerted a plan of flight. They escaped in lay costumes to England, where they remained for a time. From England they passed into France, from France into Italy, and from Italy to Greece. In the course of these wanderings they visited the chief seats of learning in Europe, and became profoundly versed in all the sciences of their age. Having mastered the Greek tongue in Athens, they were preparing to turn their faces northwards when the lover monk was suddenly taken ill and died. Joan, still in male attire, set out for Italy, and, fixing her abode at Rome, opened a school of philosophy there. Her repute for eloquence, learning, and piety, attracted crowds of students, and even the most celebrated professors were seen on the benches. Meanwhile the pope, Leo IV., died, and Joan, unanimously chosen in his room, ascended the throne with the title of John VIII. She lived dis-

cretely for a time, and was held in high esteem for her Joan, Pope, piety and the purity of her life. But at length she fell as she had fallen before; and one day, while walking in solemn procession from the Vatican to the Lateran, she was seized in labour, and, to the horror and scandal of the multitude, gave birth to a child. The circumstances of such an accouchment soon proved fatal both to the mother and her offspring.

The first writer who mentions this piece of ecclesiastical scandal was Marianus Scotus, a Scottish monk, who settled at Fulda in 1058, wrote a Universal Chronicle, which comes down to 1083, and died at Mayence in 1086. In his chronicle he states the simple facts, "Leo the pope died on the 1st of August. To him succeeded John, who, as is asserted, was a woman, and sat for two years, five months, and four days." The MS. of this work fell, in 1559, into the hands of John Herold a Calvinist, who, in consigning it to press, omitted, either through carelessness or dishonesty, the words ut asseritur, and thus changed his author's hearsay into a direct and positive assertion. As time wore on, the simple phrase of Marianus began to grow into a perfect romance. An anonymous chronicle in the library of St Paul at Leipzig, which comes down to 1261, mentions the fact of a female pope of learning and beauty, who during her papacy gave birth to a child; and states that the name and date of this pope are both unknown. A few years later Martinus Polaccus, archbishop of Cosenza, and author of a Chronicle of Popes and Emperors, coming down to the year 1277, gave an enlarged version of the story, which, however, it was reserved for our countryman, John Bayley of Suffolk, in his Scriptores Majoris Britannie, to adorn with all those minute details which were long received as the proofs of its authenticity. All these chroniclers, and a great many more whom we have not named, who borrowed the story from them, were quite without motive in telling the story according to their respective versions of it. These versions differ from each other solely in so far as one chronicler is more credulous or more conscientious than another, more literal or fanciful and inventive in his turn of mind. But the outburst of the Reformation introduced a new element. The Protestants brought forward the tale to prove the fallibility of the self-styled infallible church. Consequently it was their interest to uphold its authenticity. The Catholics were now, for the first time, alive to the necessity of disproving it. Many a fierce controversy now took place between the champions of the respective churches, and every big tome on the one side called forth a still bigger one on the other. The truth was beginning gradually to clear itself from the mass of error in which it was involved, and the coup-de-grace was at length given to the whole dispute by a French protestant minister, David Blondel. With a clearness of logic, and a just appreciation of the real nature of historical evidence, which seem to have been greatly wanting to his predecessors, he demonstrates the absence of all good foundation for the story, the utter weakness of its early years, the suspicions which stand around its cradle; and, instead of discussing how far Pope Joan was believed, or generally recognized in this or that century, shows that by her own contemporaries she was never heard of at all. Blondel's book called forth a host of answers from eminent men of his own church, and he was himself persecuted and abused in many ways for preferring truth to the interests of party. Bayle soon after appeared, and strengthened the position of Blondel with impregnable defences. Leibnitz and Eckhardt followed on the same side. With them the controversy may be said to have come to a close, and Pope Joan to be finally convicted of being an impostor, or rather a nonentity. The grounds on which this conclusion is arrived at may be briefly stated. In the first place, 200 years elapsed between the era of the supposed pope and the

Joan
Job.

date at which her name is first mentioned by any historian. In the next place there were at Rome, during the time assigned to her Papacy four persons, who each in succession sat on the papal throne, and left behind them many and various writings. Had they ever heard of the story, it is impossible to believe that they should each and all have passed it over in silence as they have done. In the third place, all the contemporary writers, without a single exception, attest that, immediately on the death of Leo IV., the papal chair was offered and accepted by Benedict III. At the same time, though the story of Pope Joan is given up by all historians alike as a fable, it is impossible that it should have found believers and upholders for so many centuries had there been nothing in the annals of the church to give a sort of colour to it. Many conjectures have been advanced upon the subject, of which by far the most plausible is that of Bianchi-Giovini, who proves clearly enough that the papal chair was often virtually occupied by a woman. Pope John X., elected in 914, owed his elevation entirely to his mistress Theodora, whose beauty, talents, and intrigues had made her mistress of Rome about the beginning of the tenth century. At a late period Theodora's daughter, Marozia, wielded a similar influence over Sergius III., and finally raised her son by that pope to the pontifical throne, with the title of John XI. At a still later period, John XII. was so completely governed by one of his concubines, Raineria by name, that he entrusted to her much of the administration of the holy see. These, and other instances of the same kind that might be adduced, account satisfactorily enough for the origin of the fable of Pope Joan. (See Panvinio's edition of Platina; Bianchi-Giovini's Esame Critico degli atti e Documenti relativi alla favola della Papessa Giovanna, Milano, 1845; North British Review, vol. xii.)