Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/475

 JOANNA

409

JOAN

there were many in Rome; it was merely made use of by the pope to rest himself. But the imagination of the vulgar took this to signify that the sex of the pope was thereby tested, in order to prevent any further instance of a woman attaining to the Chair of St. Peter. Erroneous explanations — such as were often excogitated in the Middle Ages in connexion with ancient monuments — and popular imagination are originally responsible for the fable of " Popess Joan" that uncritical chroniclers, since the middle of the thirteenth century, dignified by consigning it to their pages.

O.NOFRio P.^xviNio. Vtt(B Pontificutti (\'enice. 1557): Idem, XotcE ad Platinam, De vitis Romanorum Pontificum (Louvain, 1571): Baronius, Annates, ad. an. 879; Leo .\LL.\Tnjs. Dis- serialio de Joanna Papissa (Rome, 16.30): Blondel, Joanna Papissa (1657): Leibniz, Flores sparaa in tumulum Papiss(e in Bibliotheca historica {Gottinz^n, 1758), 267 sqq.; Heum.\nn, Dissertatio de origine tradit. falsir dc Joanna Papissa (Gottingen, 1733): DoLLiNGER. Papslfabeln (Munich, 1863), 7-45: Herg- ESROTHER, KirchengeschicMe, 4th ed. by Kirsch, II, 109-111, note.

J. P. KiBSCH.

Joanna of Portugal, Ble.ssed, b. at Lisbon, 16 February, 14.52; d. at .Vveiro, 12May, 1490; the daugh- ter of Alfonso V, King of Portugal, and his wife Eliza- beth. She is chiefly remarkable for the courage and persistency with which she opposed all attempts on the part of her father and brother to make her marry. She had resolved from childhood to be the spouse of Christ and, when possible, to enter the religious state; but, being the next heir to the throne in default of male issue, her wish was particularly obnoxious to her family and to the country. Joanna was very beau- tiful, and her hand was sought by several princes. Once, in her father's absence, she had to act as regent of the kingdom, and in that office is said to have shown great capacity.

After many struggles, she entered the Dominican house called the Convent of Jesus, at Aveiro, where the rule was severe and very strictly kept. For a time she was compelled, for political reasons, to leave it and go back to Court. Finally, however, she was pro- fessed; and her life in the convent was so penitential, holy, and heroically humble, that she died in the odour of sanctity, and miracles followed her decease.

HlLGENREiNER in Kirchl. Handlexikon, s. v.: Annee Domini- caine for 12 Mav.

F. M. Capes.

Joannes Anglicus. See Bacon, John.

Joannes Cantacuzenus. See Hesych.^.m.

Joannes de Sacrobosco (John Holywood), a monk of English origin, lived in the first half of the thirteenth century as professor of astronomy at Paris; d. in that city, 1256. He owed his reputation as an astronomer chiefly to his astronomical textbook "De Sphiera", which was used at many universities for severaj centuries. There is much difference of opinion as to the place and time of his l)irth. As the Latinized name de Sacrobosco (de Sacrobusto or Sacrobuschus) seems to be a tran.slation of the English name Holy- wood or Holy bush, many say that Hoh-wood (now HaUfax), in Yorkshire, was his birthplace. Others give it as Holywood near Dublin; others again claim that he came from Xithsdale in Scotland. John made his studies at O.xford, but soon came to France, where, as a contemporary of St. Thomas Aquinas, he proved himself an efficient teacher of mathematics and astron- omy. As many were deterred from undertaking the study of astronomy by such ponderous and to a great extent obscure works as those of Ptolemy, Alfraganus, and Albategnius, HoIjT\ood wisely resolved to write a compendium of spherical astronomy, which pro- fessors of this branch of knowledge could use as a text- book in their course of instruction. How well-timed his liook was is shown by the numerous editions (amounting to almost one hundred) published before the middle of the seventeenth century, that is to say,

before the new Copernican theory was generally adopted. The first printed copy dates from 1472, when it appeared at Ferrara, Italy, under the title: "Johannis de Sacrobusto seu Bosco anglici Sphsera mundi". Brevity and precision were the chief charac- teristics of the compendium. The lecturer was thus compelled to expound and amplify a great deal. Com- mentaries by various scholars were also published^ e. g., by Ratdolt (14S2), Cirvelli (1494), Cicchi, Capu- ani, Fabri (1495); Georgi, Boneti (1500), etc. Among the best known is the commentarj' of Father Christo- pher Claviu-s, S. J., which also saw many editions. In spite of the numerous revisions which Sacrobosco's book went through, indeed perhaps even owing to these corrections, it remains to this day a useful aid to the proper historical appreciation of the different questions which exercised men's minds from the thir- teenth century onwards to the time of the reform of astronomy under Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton. Sacrobosco also wTote a treatise on the computation of feast days (Computus), a tract on arithmetic (Algorithmus), and a small work in the field of practi- cal geometry (De Compositione quadrantis simplicis et compositi et utilitatibus utriusque). In the latter there is one of the oldest examples of the figures then found almost invariably on the reverse of the so-called astrolabe, a graduated quadrant with the help of which one could obtain the different hours of the day from the observation of the sun's height.

Delambre. Hist, de VAstronomie du Moyen Age (Paris, 1819); Biog. Univ. (Paris, 1825). s. v. Jean de Holywood: Wolf. Gesch. iler Astronomic (Munich. 1877); HonzEAU, Vade-mecum de r.t.«(ro7!om!e (Brussels, 1882); Cahtor, Gesch. der Mathematik, II (Leipzig, 1900).

Adolf Miller.

Joannes de Turrecremata. See Torquemada, Juan de.

Joan of Arc (Jeanne d'Arc), Blessed, by her con- temporaries commonly known as la Pucelle (the Maid); b. at Domremv in Champagne, probably on 6 Jan- uary, 1412; d. at Rouen,:iO May, UM. The village of Domremv lay upon the confines of territory which recognized the suzerainty of the Duke of Burgundy, but in the protracted conflict between the Armagnacs (the party of Charles VII, King of France), on the one hand, and the Burgundians in alliance with the English, on the other, Domremy had always remained loyal to Charles. Jacques d'Arc, Joan's father, was a small peasant farmer, poor but not needy. Joan seems to have been the youngest of a family of five. She never learned to read or write but she was skilled in sewing and spinning, and the popular idea that she spent the days of her childhood in the pastures, alone with the sheep and cattle, is quite unfounded. .\11 the witnesses in the process of rehabilitation spoke of her as a singularly pious child, grave beyond her years, who often knelt in the church absorbed in prayer, and loved the poor tenderly. Great attempts were made at Joan's trial to connect her with some superstitious practices supposed to ha^•e been per- formed round a certain tree, popularly known as the "Fairy Tree" (I'.irbre des Dames), but the sincerity of her answers baffled her judges. She had sung and danced there with the other children, and had woven wreaths for Our Lady's statue, but since she was twelve years old she had held aloof from such diver- sions.

It was at the age of thirteeen and a half, in the sum- mer of 1425, that Joan first became conscious of that manifestation, whose supernatund character it would now be rash to question, which she afterwards came to call her "voices" or her "counsel". It was at first simply a voice, as if someone had spoken quite close to her, but it seems also clear that a blaze of light ac- companied it, and that later on she clearly discerned in some «:i>- the appearance of those who spoke to her, recognizing them individually as St. Michael (who