The various versions that copy one another must necessarily bear a strong family likeness. Their number can add nothing to their value as proof, and is no more conclusive than the endeavor to establish the doubted existence of a man by a great variety of portraits of him, all—as Whately so well remarks in his Historic Doubts—"all striking likenesses—of each other."
In this case the most ancient testimony is posterior to the claimed occurrence some four hundred years, and is utterly inconsistent with the indisputable facts related by contemporary authors. The erudite Launoy, in his treatise De Auctoritate Negantis Argumenti, lays down the rule that a fact of a public nature not mentioned by any writer within two hundred years of its supposed occurrence is not to be believed. This is the same Launoy who waged war on the legends of the saints, claiming that much fabulous matter had crept into them. On this account he was called "Dénicheur des Saints"—the Saint-hunter or router—and the Abbé of St. Roch used to say, "I am always profoundly polite to Launoy, for fear he will deprive me of St. Roch." The general rule (Launoy's) so important in historical criticism is in perfect harmony with a great and leading principle of jurisprudence. In the Pope Joan incident the silence of all the writers of that age as to so remarkable a circumstance is to be fairly received as a prerogative argument (Baconian philosophy) when set up against the numerous modern repetitions of the story. It may be taken as a general rule that the silence of contemporaries is the strongest argument against the truth of any given historical assertion, particularly when the fact asserted is strange and interesting, and this for the reason that man is ever prone to believe and recount the marvellous; and in the absence of early evidence, the testimony of later times is, for the same reason, only weaker. Now this is in strict accordance with the principle of English common law, which demands the highest and rejects hearsay and secondary evidence; for scores of witnesses may depose in vain that they have heard of such a fact; the eye-witness is the prerogative instance. This is the logic of evidence.
And now we find that what happened to Marianus Scotus also befell Polonus. He was entirely innocent of any mention of Joan! The passage exists in none of the oldest copies, and is wanting in all that follow the author's close and methodical plan of giving one line to each year of a pope's reign, so that, with fifty lines to the page as he wrote, each page covered precisely half a century. This method is entirely broken up in those MSS. which contain the passage concerning Joan, and the rage to get the passage in was such that in one copy (the Heidelberg MS.) Benedict III. is left out entirely and Joan put in his place. Dr. Döllinger and the learned Bayle concur in the opinion that the passage never had any existence in the original work of Polonus.
And just at this juncture the testimony of Tolomeo di Lucca (1312) is important. He wrote an ecclesiastical history, and names the popess with the remark that in all the histories and chronicles known to him Benedict III. succeeded Leo IV. The author was noted for learning and industry, and must necessarily have consulted every available authority, and yet nowhere did he find mention of Joan but in Polonus. In 1283, a versified chronicle of Maerlandt (a Hollander) mentions Joan: "I am neither clear nor certain whether it is a truth or a fable; mention of it in chronicles of the popes is uncommon."
And now, as we advance into the fourteenth century, as manuscripts multiply and one chronicler copies another, mention of Joan increases; and successively and in due order, as the malt, the rat, the cat, the dog, and all the rest appear in turn to make perfect the nursery ditty, so the statue, the street, the ceremony, and all the remaining features of the story come gradually out, until we have it in full and detailed description, and our popular papal "House that Jack built" is complete.
Then we have Geoffrey of Courlon, a Benedictine, (1295,) Bernard Guidonis and Leo von Orvieto, both Dominicans, (1311,) John of Paris, Dominican, (first half of fourteenth century,) and several others, all of whom take the story from Polonus.
In 1306, we get the statue from Siegfried, who thus contributes his quota: "At Rome, in a certain spot of the city, is still shown her statue in pontifical dress, together with the image of her child cut in marble in a wall." Bayle says that Thierry di Niem (fifteenth century) "adds out of his own head" the statue. But it appears that it was referred to twenty-three years earlier than Siegfried by Maerlandt, the Hollander, who says that the story as we read it is cut in stone and can be seen any day:
"En daer leget soe, als wyt lesen
Noch aleo up ten Steen ghebouween,
Dat men ano daer mag scouwen."
Amalric di Angier wrote in 1362, and adds to the story her "teaching three years at Rome." Petrarch repeats the version of Polonus. Boccacio also relates it, and was the first who at that period asserted her name was not known.
Jacopo de Acqui (1370) says that she reigned nineteen years.