This is a legend that goes back to the 13th century (Universal Chronicle of Metz), and that attempts to place this character in various centuries, without much agreement about the dates (9th, 10th and 11th centuries) or about the name (Agnes, Gilberta, Ute…).
This medieval legend recounts that a woman, in order to escape poverty, put on the habit of a monk who had died of the plague and devoted herself to preaching through the villages. Her fame grew so much that later she had her own church… then she was appointed bishop…, cardinal…, and pope. Joan was publicly discovered because she became pregnant and gave birth during a procession.
It seems that the core of the story may have been a popular Roman tale that led to a series of circumstances considered very suspicious: such as the popes’ avoiding certain narrow streets, or the supposed discovery of the statue of a young woman nursing a baby, or an inscription, or a theory that each elected pope had to undergo tests confirming his virility… It became a very unpleasant pretext for attacking the papacy during the 19th century.
The one who demolished the foundations of this legend was in fact a Protestant, David Blondel (1590-1655), who published his findings in Amsterdam in 1647 and 1657. Today this episode does not deserve even the slightest credibility, since there is no documented evidence contemporary with the myth for any of the dates suggested. Moreover, the facts connected with those periods end up making the whole story impossible. It is also probable that the lives of unscrupulous women, such as the two Theodoras and Marozia during the 10th century, negatively influenced all this.
The following works may be consulted:
– C. D’Onofrio, Mille anni di leggenda (Rome 1978).
– La papessa Giovanna (Rome 1979).
– M. Praz, La leggenda della papessa Giovanna.
– A. Boureau, La papessa Giovanna, storia d’una leggenda medioevale (Turin 1991).
Source: Catholic.net
