JOAN, POPE, a supposed individual of the female sex, who is placed by several chroniclers in the aeries of popes between Leo IV. and Benedict about 853-55. The first who mentions the story is Marianus Scotus, a monk of the abbey of Fulda, who died at Mainz in 1086, and says in his chronicle, under the year 853, the thir teenth year of the reign of the Emperor Lotharius, that Leo IV. died on the let of August, and that to him succeeded Joan, a woman, whose pontificate lasted two years, five months, and four days, after which Benedict Ill. was made pope. But Anastasius, who lived at the time of the supposed Pope Joan, and who wrote the lives of the popes down to Nicholas I., who succeeded Benedict III., says, that fifteen days after Leo IV.'s death Benedict III. succeeded him. It is true that some manuscript copies of Anastasius, among others one in the king's library at Paris, contain the story of Joan ; but this has been ascertained to be an interpolation of later copyists, who have inserted the tale in the very words of Martinus Polonus, a Cistercian monk and confessor to Gregory X., who wrote the lives of the popes, in which, after Leo IV., he places "John an Englishman," and then adds, "Hie, asseritur, foramina fuit." He then goes on to say that this Joan, when a young woman, left her home in man's disguise, with her lover, a very learned man, and went to Athens, where she made great progress in profane law; afterwards she went to Rome, where she became equally proficient in sacred learning, for which her reputation became so great that at the death of Leo she was unani mously elected as his successor, under the general belief of her male sex. She however became pregnant; and ono day as she was pro ceeding to the Lateran Basilica, she was seized in child-labour on the road between the Colosseum and the church of St. Clement, and there she died and was buried without any honours, after a pontificate of two years, five months, and four days. The story was generally
copied from Martians by subsequent writers, and Platina himself, in his Lives of the Popes,' repeats it on the authority of Martinus, adding various other reports, and concluding with these words: "The things I have above stated are current in vulgar reports, but are taken from uncertain and obscure authorities, and I have inserted them briefly and simply, not to be taxed with obstinacy." Pauvinius, Platina's continuator, subjoins a very critical note, in which ho shows the absurdity of the tale, and proves it to have been an invention.
But the beat dissertation on the subject is that of David Blondel, a Protestant, who completely refutes the story in his 'Familier Eclair ciasement de la question si une Femme a dt6 assist) au Siege Papal entre Leon IV. et Benoit III.,' Amsterdam, 1649. There are critics who contend that it is only the later manuscripts of the Lives of the Popes' by Martinus Polonus which contain the tale of Pope Joan, and that those manuscripts which were written during the life or soon after the death of Martinus do not contain it. It is evident however that the story was in circulation already in the 12th century, long before tho time of Martinus, as Etienne do Bourbon do Belleville, a companion of St. Dominic, In his treatise 'De Septette Donis Spirites Sancti,' under the head of ' Prudent's.' relates from 'the Chronicles' the story of Pope Joan, but places it about theyear 1100, and says that on tho discovery of her sex she was stoned to death by the people. These as.thoritles prove at all events that the Protestants did not invent the tale of Pope Joan, as they have been accused of haying done.