Episode 96: Pope Joan

Summary

Starting in the middle ages, a rumor spread of a female pope, elected because of her incredible learning, who went undiscovered until she gave birth to a child. At which point, everyone lost their minds. Join Em and Dr. Jesse to learn about the veracity of this tale and the wacky test it (allegedly) engendered. (Ha.)

Notes

Our sources:

Thomas F.X. Noble, “Why Pope Joan?” Catholic Historical Review 99.2 (April 2013) 219–238.

Eamon Duffy, Saints and Sinners: A History of Popes. Yale University Press, 2002.

1/ Jean de Mailly, 13th century Dominican chronicler in Metz, makes the first extant mention of Pope Joan in his Chronicle “Diocese of Metz” (Chronica universalis Mettensis) in 1255.

Etienne de Bourbon (also Dominican) adds to Mailly’s account a few years later in On the Seven Gifts of the Spirit.

Dominican Martinus Polonus (Martin Strebsky) writes down the version we all know between 1265–1277 in Chronicle of the Roman Popes and Emperors

2/ “A means of adding verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.” From The Mikado by Gilbert and Sullivan.

3/ The description of this (definitely fake) ritual is in Duffy, Saints and Sinners, 156–7.

4/ Ember Days