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POPE JOAN
A famous legend about a woman who supposedly was elected
pope, reigning as Pope John VIII from around 855 to 858,
between the pontificates of Leo IV (847-855) and Benedict
III (855-858); another version has her winning election in
1100. The story of Pope Joan is almost universally
discounted by scholars, but the legend was extremely popular
during the Middle Ages, was mentioned by Petrarch and
Boccaccio, and was used by leaders of the Protestant cause
in the sixteenth century to stir up antipapal sentiment.
While disproved in the seventeenth century by a Protestant
scholar, Maurice Blondel (1590-1655), it was still repeated
by anti- Catholic bigots and propagandists as late as the
nineteenth century. Joan was supposedly a very talented
scribe in Rome who disguised herself as a man and took a
position in the service of the papacy. She was advanced
steadily through the Curia and finally received election as
pope in large part because of the brilliance of her
lectures. Her reign proved brief, however, for she gave
birth to a child in a narrow street near the Colosseum,
during a procession to the Lateran. (Popes supposedly
avoided the street ever after.) Once discovered, she was
stoned to death.
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