If there is no foundation for this tale, how comes it that it has been so long accepted as authentic by writers whose attachment to the Roman church is perfectly sincere?
Such are the questions that we here propose to ourselves, and which have been recently treated by two Dutch literati, Mr. N. C. Kist, professor at the university of Leyden, in a work published in 1845; and Mr. J. H. Wensing, professor at the seminary of Warmond, who has written a refutation of Mr. Kist’s work in a thick volume of more than 600 pages, printed at the Hague.
I will proceed to give a brief sketch of the circumstances as presented to us by reliable authors.
After the death of Leo IV., in the year 855, the Roman people proceeded, according to the custom of that period, to the nomination of a sovereign pontiff. The choice fell upon a foreigner who had for some years been resident in the eternal city. He was held in high repute, as well for his virtues as for his talents. This stranger was a woman of English origin, born in Germany, who had studied in France and Greece, and who in the disguise of a man had baffled all detection. Raised to the pontifical throne, she assumed the name of John VIII., and governed with exemplary wisdom, but in private life was guilty of irregularities which resulted in pregnancy. She endeavoured to conceal her situation, but on the occasion of a great religious festival she was seized with sudden pains in the midst of a procession, and, to the astonishment and consternation of the crowd, gave birth to a child who instantly expired. The mother herself died upon the spot, succumbing to the effects of pain, terror, and shame.
This is the most widely spread version; it has however been asserted that the female pope, “la papesse,” survived her mischance, and ended her days in a dungeon.
Anastatius, deacon and librarian of the Roman church, was living at this period, and collected numerous materials for a history of the sovereign pontiffs. He composed a series of their biographies under the title of “Liber Pontificalis,” and affirms that he was present at the election of the Popes from Sergius III. to John VIII., that is to say from 844 to 882. He must then have been a witness to the catastrophe of Joan. Now he makes no mention of it, but, in his work, Pope Benedictus III. follows immediately after Leo IV. An occurrence of so extraordinary a nature must necessarily have struck him. It has indeed been pretended that he did make mention of it, but that his account was suppressed by defenders of the church, and that in some manuscripts it is still to be found. Nevertheless these manuscripts, very scarce and incorrect, only contain one phrase to the purpose, which is met with for the first time in the writings of the 14th century. It is moreover accompanied by an expression of doubt (ut dicitur) and there is at the present time scarcely any enlightened critic but would regard it as an interpolation of the copyist.
The silence of Anastatius admits therefore of but one interpretation.
It is not until two hundred years after the alleged date of the event that the first mention of it is found in the Chronicon of Marianus Scotus, who was born in Scotland in 1028, and died at Mayence in 1086. He says: “Joan, a female, succeeded Pope Leo IV. during two years, five months, and four days.” A contemporary of Marianus Scotus, Godfrey of Viterbo, made a list of the sovereign pontiffs, in which we read between Leo IV. and Benedict III., “Papissa Joanna non numeratur” (the female Pope does not count).
We must come to the 13th century to find in the Chronicon of Martinus Polonus, Bishop of Cosenza in Calabria, some particulars respecting the female Pope Joan.[18] At this period a belief in the truth of her existence is spread abroad, and the evidences become more numerous, but they are little else but repetitions and hear-says; no details of any weight are given.
David Blondel,[19] although a Protestant clergyman, treated the story of Pope Joan as a fable. The English bishop John Burnet is of the same opinion, as well as Cave, a celebrated English scholar. Several other learned men have amply refuted this ancient tradition. Many have thought to sustain the romance of Marianus against the doubt excited by a silence of more than 200 years, by asserting that the authors who lived from the year 855 to 1050, refrained from making any mention of the story on account of the shame it occasioned them; and that they preferred to change the order of succession of the Popes by a constrained silence, rather than contribute, by the enunciation of an odious truth, to the preservation of the execrable memory of the woman who had dishonoured the papal chair. But how is it possible to reconcile this with the other part of the same story, that the Roman court was so indignant at the scandal, that, to prevent a repetition of it, they perpetuated its remembrance by the erection of a statue, and the prohibition of all processions from passing through the street where the event had happened. What shadow of truth can exist in things so totally contradictory?