Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/472

 JOAN

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JOAN

ppiiitentiiiry (he died 127S), for which reason his papal liistory was widely read, and through him the talc olitained general acceptance. One MS. of his chron- icle relates in a different way the fate of the alleged popess (Mon. Germ., loc.cit., 428), i.e., after her con- finement Joan was immediately deposed, and did penance for many years. Her son, it is added, be- came Bishop of Ostia, and had her interred there after her death. Later chroniclers even give the name which she bore as a girl; some caU her Agnes, some Gilberta. Still further variations are found in the works of different chroniclers, e. g. in the "Universal Chronicle of Metz", written about 1250 (Mon. Germ. Hist.: Scr., xxiv, 514), and in subsequent editions of the twelfth (?) century "Mirabilia Urbis Roma^". According to the latter, the popess was given the choice, in a vision, of temporal disgrace or eternal punishment; she chose the former, and died at her confinement in the open street ("Mirabilia Romse", ed. Parthey, Berlin, 1S69). In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries this popess was already counted as an historical personage, whose existence no one doubted. She had her place among the carved busts which stood in Siena cathedral. Under Clement VIII, and at his request, she was transformed into Pope Zacharias. The heretic Hus, in the defence of his false doctrine before the Council of Constance, referi'ed to the popess, and no one offered to question the fact of her existence. She is not found in the "Liber Pontificalis" nor among the papal portraits in St. Paul's Outside the Walls, at Rome.

This alleged popess is a pure figment of the imag- ination. In the fifteenth century, after the awaken- ing of historical criticism, a few scholars like yEneas Silvius (Epist., I, 30) and Platina (Vita; Pontificum, No. 106) saw the untenableness of the story. Since the sixteenth century Catholic historians began to deny the existence of the popess, e. g., Onofrio Pan- vinio (Vitse Pontificum, Venice, 1557), Aventinus (Annales Boiorum, lib. IV), Baronius (Annales ad a. 879, n. 5), and others. A few Protestants also, e. g., Blondel (Joanna papissa, 1657) and Leibniz (" Flores sparsa; in tumulum Papissse " in " Biblio- theca Historica", Gbttingen, 1758, 267 sq.), admitted that the popess never existed. Numerous Protest- ants, however, made use of the fable in their at- tacks on the papacy. Even in the nineteenth century, when the untenableness of the legend was recognized by all serious historians, a few Protestants (e. g. Kist, 1843; Suden, 1831; and Andrea, 1866) attempted, in an anti-Roman spirit, to prove the historical exist- ence of the popess. Even Hase ("Kirchengesch.", II, 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1895, 81) could not refrain from a spiteful and absolutely unhistorical note on this subject.

The principal proofs of the entirely mythical char- acter of the popess are: (1) Not one contempo- raneous historical source among the papal histories knows anything aliout her; also, no mention is made of her until tlie middle of the thirteenth century. Now it is iiiciedible that the appearance of a "pop- ess", if it was an historical fact, would be noticed by none of the numerous historians from the tenth to the thirtcentli century. (2) In the history of the popes, there is no place where this legendary figure will fit in. Between Leo IV and Benedict III, where Mar- tinus Polonus places her, she cannot be inserted, because Leo IV died 17 .July, 855, ami immediately after his death Benedict III was elceled by the clergy and [leople of Rome; but owing to the selling up of an antijjope, in the person of the deposed Canlin.d Anastasius, he was not consecrated until 29 Sept. Coins exist which bear both the image of Benediel III and of the Emperor Lothair, who died 2S Sept., S55 (Garampi, "I)e nummo argenteo Benedicti III", Rome, 1749); therefore BeneiHct must have been recoenized as pope before tlm last-mentioned date.

On 7 Oct., 855, Benedict III issued a charter for the Abbey of Corvey (Jaff6, "Regesta Pont. Rom.", 2nd ed., n. 2663). Hincmar, Archbishop of Reims, in- formed Nicholas I that a messenger whom he had sent to Leo IV learned on his way of the death of this pope, and therefore handed his petition to Benedict III, who decided it (Hincmar, ep. xl in P. L., CXXVI, 85). All these witnesses prove the correctness of the dates given in the lives of Leo IV and Benedict III, and that there was no interregnum between these two popes, so that at this place there is no room for the alleged popess. Further, it is even less probable that a popess could be inserted in the list of popes about 1100, between Victor III (1087) and Urban II (loss 11!)) or Paschal II (1099 1110), as is suggested by the chronicle of Jean de Mailly.

This fable of a Roman popess seems to have had an earlier counterpart at Constantinople. Indeed, in his letter to Michael Cjerularius (1053), Leo IX says that he would not believe what he heard, namely that the Church of Constantinople had already seen eunuchs, indeed even a woman, in its episcopal chair (Mansi "Concil.", XIX, 635 sq.). Concerning the origin of the whole legend of Popess Joan, different hypotheses have been advanced. BcUarmine (De Romano Pontifice, III, 24) believes that the tale was brought from Constantinople to Rome. Baronius (Annales ad a., 879, n. 5) conjectures that the much cen- sured effeminate weaknesses of Pope John VII (872- 82) in dealing with the Greeks may have given rise to the story. Mai has shown (Nova CoUectio Patr., I, Proleg., xlvii) that Photius of Constantinople (De Spir. Sanct. Myst., Ixxxix) refers emphatically three times to this pope as " the Manly ", as though he would remove from him the stigma of effeminacy. Other historians point to the degradation of the pap- acy in the tenth century, when so many popes bore the name John ; it seemed therefore a fitting name for the legendary popess. Thus Aventinus sees in the story a satire on John IX; Blondel, a satire on John XI; Panvinio (notit ad Platinam, De vitis Rom. Pont.) applies it to John XH, while Neander (Kirch- engesch., II, 200) understands it as applicable gener- ally to the baneful female influence on the papacy during the tenth century. Other investigators en- deavour to find in various occurrences and reports a more definite basis for the origin of this legend. Leo Allatius (Diss. Fab. de Joanna Papissa) connects it with the false prophetess Theota, condemned at the Synod of Mainz (847); Leibniz recalls the story that an alleged bishop Johannes Anglicus came to Rome and was there recognized as a woman. The legend has also been connected with the pseudo- Isidorian Decretals, e. g. by Karl Blascus ('' Diatribe de Joanna Papissa", Naples, 1779), and Gfrorer (Kirch- engesch., Ill, iii, 978).

Bollinger's explanation has met with more general approval (" Papstfabeln ", Munich, 1863, 7-45). He recognizes the fable of Popess Joan as a survival of some local Roman folk-tale originally connected with certain ancient monuments and peculiar customs. An ancient statue discovered in the reign of Sixtus V, in a street near the Colosseum, which showed a figure with a child, was po))ularly considered to repre- sent the popess. In the same street a monument was discovered with an inscription at the end of which occurred the well-known formula P. P. P. (pruprin pcnitri<) piixiiU) together with a jn-efixed name which rr:ii\: I'c/i. ( '.'/'ii/i/r/i/.s) piitrr put rum. This could easily ha\(' given (iiigin to the inscription mentioned by Jean di' .Mailly (see above). It was also observed tliat the ))cipe (lid not pass along this street in solemn proces- sion (|)erhaps on account of its narrowness). I" urther it was noticed that, on the occasion of his formal inauguration in front of the Lateral! Basilica, the newly-elected pope always seated himself on a marble chair. This .seat was an ancient bath-stool, of which