Pope Joan, the medieval legend of the only woman to occupy the throne of St. Peter in Rome

The legend of the Papess Joanne (Pope Joan) is one of the most fascinating medieval stories. According to the story, Joan was a woman who, disguised as a man, managed to rise in the ecclesiastical hierarchy to become pope. Although the veracity of the story has been discounted, the anecdote has endured over the centuries and has been the subject of much debate and speculation.

The first documented mention of Joan is by Jean de Mailly, a Dominican who tells her story in a chronicle written in 1255. According to this account, Joan was reportedly born in Ingelheim, Germany, around 822. From a young age, she showed great intelligence and a fervent desire to learn, something unusual for women of her time, since education was reserved for men. In order to receive training, she disguised herself as a man and adopted the name John Anglicus. She traveled to Athens with her lover, where she studied philosophy and theology, and then to Rome, where her growing prestige led her to occupy important positions within the Church, always disguised as a man, during the papacy of Leo IV.

Giving birth at the worst time

According to legend, after the death of Pope Leo IV, Joan was unanimously elected pope under the name John VIII, and ruled for two years, seven months and four days. During her presumed papacy, Joan was said to have been highly respected for her wisdom and ability to resolve conflicts. However, her true gender was dramatically discovered when she gave birth in public during a procession. She was immediately lynched by an angry mob and her name was erased from official records.

The veracity of the story is ruled out for many reasons. The first is that such a scandalous event would have caused rivers of ink at the time. No matter how hard they tried to erase any record of the event, it would have been impossible for no written mention of it to have reached us. The first document in which Joan appears is the account of Jean de Mailly, written 400 years after the alleged events described.

The second reason is that there is no gap to place Joan’s alleged papacy. The most repeated date in the legends about her places her pontificate between 855 and 857, but there is extensive documentation confirming that during that period the pope was Benedict III, whose pontificate ran from September 29, 855 to April 17, 858. Jean de Mailly also speaks of another possible date around 1100, but there again there is no gap in which to place Joan.

Sedia Stercoraria

The story of the Papal Juana has had such a long history because during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries it was taken for true in some ecclesiastical circles. It was even said that after Joan’s scandal the Church began to verify the sex of the Popes after their election. And that even a chair was made, known as ‘Sedia Stercoraria’, with a hole in the seat so that the person in charge could feel the papal attributes and confirm that they were male. The chair exists and is exhibited in the Vatican Museums, but the purpose of the hole was never exploratory.

For most historians, the Papisa Juana simply starred in a satirical tale created to criticize the corruption and power of the Church, which was transmitted orally and grew in detail according to the imagination of the person who told it at each moment. There are many discrepancies about the original character towards whom the mockery was directed.

In the XVI century the Protestants came to affirm that the Papisa Juana broke the papal succession and the line of San Pedro, reason why the ordination of all the Catholic priests after her is not valid. It was from that moment that the Church decided to make a refutation of the story, which was accepted by the Lutherans. Since then, the myth of the Papisa has survived in popular culture to become the protagonist of novels, plays, movies and even video game characters.

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