Pope Joan

Summary

In Our Time: Pope Joan
BBC Radio 4 | Release Date: February 27, 2025
Host: Melvyn Bragg

---

Introduction to the Legend of Pope Joan

In this episode of In Our Time, host Melvyn Bragg delves into the enduring legend of Pope Joan, a purported female pope who, according to medieval accounts, disguised herself as a man to ascend to the papacy in the 9th century. The story, rich with themes of gender, power, and deception, has been a subject of fascination and debate for centuries.

Catherine Lewis opens the discussion by summarizing the legend:

"In medieval Europe, a story began circulating about a highly learned woman who lived in the 9th century, dressed as a man, traveled to Rome, and became, for about two years, the Pope. Her papacy came to a dramatic end when it was revealed that she was a woman, a discovery that's said to have occurred when she gave birth in the street..."
(00:41)

The Birth and Spread of the Legend

Anthony Bale, Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English at the University of Cambridge, outlines the key elements of Pope Joan's story:

"Joan was born in Mainz to English parents, disguised herself as a man to gain an academic education in Athens, and eventually rose through the ranks of the Church to become Pope John."
(02:04)

Bale emphasizes that the earliest written accounts of Pope Joan emerged in the mid-13th century, specifically by Jean de Meilly around the 1250s. These accounts were later expanded upon by others, notably Martin of Poland in the 1270s, whose chronicle significantly popularized the story.

Catherine Lewis questions the rapid spread of the legend:

"Why would historians include it in their chronicles if it wasn't true?"
(07:37)

Anthony Bale responds by suggesting that chroniclers may have reported popular tales, whether true or not, to reflect societal beliefs:

"It's reporting an interesting, unusual story that they had heard... to give a sense of what the wider populace believes."
(07:39)

Variants and Evolution of the Tale

Laura Callas, Senior Lecturer in Medieval English Literature, notes the variations in the story's retellings:

"The first account by Jean de Meilly does not name Joan, merely describing an unnamed female pope who gives birth in the street and is brutally executed."
(09:21)

Over time, the narrative incorporated elements of diabolical influence and expanded the moral lessons associated with Joan’s downfall. By the late 13th century, the story had become widespread, featured in approximately 400 manuscripts and translated into multiple languages.

Iconography and Rituals Stemming from the Legend

Melvin Bragg introduces the folklore surrounding verification rituals to prevent future imposters:

"In 1291, Robert de Uzes describes porphyry marble stools at the Lateran Palace used to verify the Pope’s sex. A cleric would check for testicles, and upon confirmation, the Pope would be officially recognized."
(27:33)

Although the existence of such rituals is debated, the tale reflects societal attempts to address and dispel the myth of a female pope.

Interpretations and Moral Lessons

The legend of Pope Joan serves as a cautionary tale illustrating the perceived natural order of male dominance within the Church and society at large. Catherine Lewis and Anthony Bale discuss how the story has been used over time:

• Medieval Catholic Writers: Employed the tale to argue against women’s roles in the Church, emphasizing moral lessons about deceit and the inherent limitations of women.

• Protestant Reformers: Utilized the legend as propaganda to undermine the Catholic Church, asserting that a female pope indicated broader institutional corruption and doctrinal flaws.

Melvin Bragg further explores the philosophical implications:

"The story can be seen as a parable about truth. Joan could pass as a man and perform effectively, but the truth of her female identity ultimately exposed her deception."
(22:13)

Cultural Impact and Modern Adaptations

Laura Callas highlights the legend's persistence in modern media:

"From 19th-century novels to 20th-century films and plays like Carol Churchill's Top Girls, Pope Joan continues to inspire reinterpretations that often cast her in a more sympathetic and empowered light."
(35:23)

Modern adaptations tend to emphasize Joan's intelligence and the tragic consequences of her deception, diverging from the original misogynistic undertones.

Historical Validity and Scholarly Debate

Throughout the episode, the panel examines the lack of concrete historical evidence supporting Pope Joan's existence. Anthony Bale and Catherine Lewis discuss how the story's ubiquity in medieval chronicles contributed to its perceived authenticity, despite the absence of corroborating records.

Catherine Lewis inquires about periods when belief in Pope Joan fluctuated:

"Were there times when the idea of Pope Joan was more or less accepted?"
(24:17)

Anthony Bale explains that belief in the legend waned with the advent of the Reformation, as Protestant critiques began to leverage the story against the Catholic Church, prompting Catholic scholars to attempt to debunk it using emerging historical methodologies.

Gender and Power in Medieval Society

The legend of Pope Joan is emblematic of medieval society's rigid gender norms and the anxieties surrounding women who transgressed these boundaries. Melvin Bragg reflects on how the story underscores the constructed nature of gender roles:

"Joan’s ability to pass as a man challenges the essentialist views of gender prevalent in the Middle Ages, highlighting longstanding discourses on gender, power, and societal exclusion."
(37:26)

Laura Callas adds that Joan's story complicates our understanding of medieval gender dynamics, presenting a figure who defies conventional classifications and evokes societal unease.

Conclusion: The Legacy of Pope Joan

The episode concludes by acknowledging Pope Joan’s lasting influence as a symbol of both the limitations placed on women historically and the enduring fascination with stories that challenge societal norms. Melvin Bragg summarizes:

"The legend of Pope Joan, while likely fictional, offers profound insights into medieval attitudes towards gender, authority, and the intersection of truth and myth."
(39:34)

The multifaceted discussions illuminate how a single legend can traverse centuries, adapting to the cultural and ideological landscapes of each era while continuing to provoke critical reflections on power, gender, and historical narrative.

---

Notable Quotes:

• Catherine Lewis at [00:41]:
  "In medieval Europe, a story began circulating about a highly learned woman who lived in the 9th century, dressed as a man, traveled to Rome and became, for about two years, the Pope."

• Anthony Bale at [02:04]:
  "Joan was born in Mainz to English parents, disguised herself as a man to gain an academic education in Athens, and eventually rose through the ranks of the Church to become Pope John."

• Melvin Bragg at [22:13]:
  "The story can be seen as a parable about truth. Joan could pass as a man and perform effectively, but the truth of her female identity ultimately exposed her deception."

• Laura Callas at [35:23]:
  "From 19th-century novels to 20th-century films and plays like Carol Churchill's Top Girls, Pope Joan continues to inspire reinterpretations that often cast her in a more sympathetic and empowered light."

---

Upcoming Episode Preview:

Next week, the podcast will explore John Soane, the son of a bricklayer who became a renowned architect, best known for designing his house in London, A Grand Tour of Europe in Microcosm.

---

Produced by Elianne Glaser
BBC Studios audio production for Radio 4

Transcript

[Melvin Bragg]

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.

[Natalia Melman Petruzella]

Stay warm and save every day. All in the Fred Meyer app. Get Select Post cereal or Kroger peanut butter for $1.49 each with a digital coupon. And we've lowered prices. Save 15% or more on hundreds of items like Thomas Mini Bagels, Campbell's Spaghettios and more. Shop these deals at your local Kroger Today or click the screen now to download the Fred Meyer app to save big today. Fred Meyer Fresh for everyone. Prices and product availability subject to change restrictions. App site for details.

[Laura Callas]

BBC Sounds Music.

[Catherine Lewis]

Radio Podcasts this is in our time from BBC Radio 4 and this is one of more than a thousand episodes you can find on BBC Sounds and on our website. If you scroll down the page for this edition, you find a reading list to go with it. I hope you enjoy the program. Hello. In medieval Europe, a story began circulating about a highly learned woman who lived in the 9th century, dressed as a man, traveled to Rome and became, for about two years, the Pope. Her papacy came to a dramatic end when it was revealed that she was a woman, a discovery that's said to have occurred when she gave birth in the street. This legend of Pope Joan became a popular warning directed at women who tried to step beyond their traditional roles. And it also shows how the boundary between truth and fiction was often blocked, blurred in historical chronicles. After the Reformation, the story was used by Protestants to attack the Catholic Church, and it continues to be retold today in novels and on stage and screen. With me to discuss the legend of Pope Joan are Anthony Bale, professor of Medieval and Renaissance English at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Girton College, Laura Callas, Senior Lecturer in Medieval English Literature at Swansea University, and Catherine Lewis, Honorary professor of Medieval History at the University of Lincoln and Research Associate at the University of York. Catherine Lewis. What's the basic story about Pope Joan?

[Anthony Bale]

Well, according to the story, Joan was born in the German city of Mainz to English parents, and while she was still relatively young, she left home disguised as a man. She traveled with her. Well, we, we don't know anything really about her parents.

[Catherine Lewis]

What do we know? A little bit.

[Anthony Bale]

Well, what we can speculate about them. The idea of them being English and living in Mainz is that they may have something to do with the English mission to Mainz or to that part of Germany that was led by Saint Bonif the century before. But with that speculation, we don't actually know anything specific about her parents.

[Catherine Lewis]

Okay, you were going on when I.

[Anthony Bale]

Interrupted you, so we got to her being still at a relatively young age. And she. She leaves home, she goes with her lover to Athens, and she's disguised as a man. The reason that they both go to Athens is because they want to get a university education. And apparently Joan excelled in this setting. She was an excellent scholar and she had no equal. Then she travels on to Rome, she's still dressed as a man, and she' calling herself John. And she becomes a teacher herself. So she actually teaches the trivium, the academic syllabus. And she gains a reputation not only for her academic brilliance, but also for her moral integrity to such an extent that she actually manages to rise through the ranks of the Church. She becomes a cardinal, and then she's unanimously elected Pope as the Successor to Leo IV, who died in 855. We might come to where I've got the information that from within a minute. But what I'm essentially giving you here is a composite of the key elements of her legend, thought to be. Thought to be. Yes. So she. But she is elected Pope, allegedly at the. On the death of Pope Leo iv, and she is Pope for two years, seven months and four days. And she. She apparently exercises the office of Pope very well indeed, with one exception, which is that she does not follow the celibate lifestyle required of a pope. And she becomes pregnant and gives birth very publicly in the street as part of a procession.

[Catherine Lewis]

You've told the whole story in one answer, but we can go back to the beginning of it. She was attracted, rather than to get a better education.

[Anthony Bale]

That's what we're told. Yes, that. That's the reason for traveling there, because she wants to gain an education. And the reason that she dresses as a man is that this is a form of education that would not be allowed to her as a woman, because women did not receive that kind of specific university education.

[Catherine Lewis]

But she had no trouble in disguising herself. That's. That's one of the key things, isn't it? Do we know how she disguised herself?

[Anthony Bale]

No, not in the. What. I suppose what I'm giving you is just the outline at this point. There are. In later iterations of the story, we do start to get more detail, but really all that we're told is that she dresses as a man. And we assume that her impersonation was very convincing because it's only at the point where she gives birth that people realize that in fact, she was a woman all along.

[Catherine Lewis]

Just to speculate a touch, how would she disguise herself as a man by.

[Anthony Bale]

Well, I suppose by wearing clerical Dress, and I suppose one might argue that clerical dress in that period. I mean, I suppose the word dress, we think of it, it's more of a robe, I suppose, and it would be conceivably quite easy to disguise a woman's body under a robe. And I assume, although the legend isn't specific about that, I assume that that is the implication of it.

[Catherine Lewis]

When did the legend. How was it instigated and when?

[Anthony Bale]

Well, she's supposed to have lived in the 9th century, as I've said, but it's actually not until the mid 13th century that the legend is first written down.

[Catherine Lewis]

That's a long gap.

[Anthony Bale]

It is a long gap, and it's possible that the story was circulating in oral form before that, but obviously we can't tell for sure. What we do know is that the first written version was produced by a man called Jean de meilly in the 1250s. And he includes it in a chronicle that he's written, and interestingly, he prefaces it with the words to be verified. So it's something that he's going to include in his chronicle, but he's not necessarily sure that it's definitely true. It might be true, but it might not be, but he still includes it. So his is the earliest written account. And then fairly soon after, we have another account written by somebody called Stephen of Bourbon. And he is not writing a chronicle, he's actually writing a handbook for preachers. And he basically tells the same story as Jean de Mais, but he adds in a novel element, which is that Joan's ascendancy to the papacy was achieved with the help of the devil. And that becomes important in later versions. But the most important version of all, the most influential version, is the one that appears in a chronicle written by Martin of Poland he's writing in the 1270s. There is a little bit of debate about whether he wrote the story of Joan or whether somebody else included it in the chronicle, but that doesn't really matter for our purposes. The point is it becomes part of Martin's chronicle. And Martin's chronicle was hugely popular. It survives in about 400 manuscripts. It's translated into many different languages. And that is essentially the medium by which Joan's story becomes known. And the composite story that you gave at the beginning and that I elaborated on essentially comes from Martin. So he is the basis for all of these later iterations of the story. And it really does appear in hundreds of chronicles. And that's one of the reasons why people started to think that it must be true, because otherwise why would all of these historians included it in their chronicles?

[Catherine Lewis]

Why would they have if it wasn't true?

[Anthony Bale]

Well, perhaps because they weren't sure that it might be true, or perhaps because they were reporting an interesting, a funny, an unusual story that they had heard. And that's one of the purposes of chronicles as well. It's. It's not just to report things that they believe are factually true, but to give a sense of what the wider populace believes. Sometimes those beliefs might be.

[Catherine Lewis]

You mean they can make things up if it. If it helps their case along the way?

[Anthony Bale]

Well, I mean, possibly, yes. Although sometimes it's. I mean, how could we. How could we tell if they're making something up? But they do think that it's important.

[Catherine Lewis]

We ought to be, if we're here, historians, so.

[Anthony Bale]

Well, yes, but. Well, sadly, it's not always as easy as that. But it's this. It's this sense that it's important to know what everyone is thinking. Even if you are reporting things that you, as a chronicler, believe to be untrue or ridiculous, it's still useful to know that that's what other people believe.

[Catherine Lewis]

Laura, did this story come with many variations from the beginning?

[Laura Callas]

Yes, it does come with several variations, some of which Catherine's just touched on. The tale sort of develops, if you like, and as Catherine said, it's Martin of Poland, Martinus Polonus, who expands on the tale. But some of the key differences between these chronicle iterations include whether or not Joan is specifically named. So the first chronicle account that we have by Jean de May does not name Joan as the pope. It's an unnamed female pope who is described to have somehow made her way to the papacy and is in procession, gives birth on the street, and because of the. The sort of intense horror of this act, undergoes a very brutal execution.

[Catherine Lewis]

Can you tell us, Anthony? Anthony, can you tell us how the legend circulated more widely in the 13th century? That's quite a long time afterwards. This. This story goes in leaps. We happen then, and a few centuries later, something else happened then a few centuries later. So where are we with the 13th century dimension to it?

[Melvin Bragg]

Absolutely. So, as Catherine said, we have these three key early versions by Jean de Mailly, Stephen or Etienne of Bourbon, and then by Martinus Polonius, Martin of Poland. All three of those are broadly similar versions with some elaborations, and all three come from Dominican writers, and the story seems to be circulating amongst Dominican preachers. The Dominicans are a relatively young order at this point and are famous for their preaching and One of the purposes of this story seems to be to be used by preachers in their sermons, maybe to illustrate an anti feminist moral or a misogynistic moral, or maybe to illustrate something to do with truth and deceit. And all three of those early versions are from the kind of 1250s to 1270s. So it's taken off within 15, 20 years of it. First appearing in writing in the early 1290s, Jacobus de Varogene, very famous for the golden legend. He also includes a version of the story in his chronicle of the history of Genoa. And there he draws out a very strong anti feminist moral to it, a very explicit anti feminist moral. In fact, I can quote it. He says, woman begins with presumption, continues with silliness and ends with ignominy. And this is the kind of very strident take he has on where the stories come from and that it's useful as an anti feminist story. By this point, the story seems to be very widely known, widely read, and all the texts that we've talked about are spreading both as chronicles and in this genre of medieval writing called exemplar. And exemplar are small, pithy, quasi historical stories to be used by preachers. And they appear midway or towards the end of a sermon. And so the story has. It has, in modern terms, we might call it a meme. It kind of takes on its own energy and is transmitted very widely. But it is appearing in a particular form of writing which are chronicles and in preaching texts. By around 1400, the story is certainly known in England, and it's included in one of the preeminent chronicles of the time, which is Ranulf Higdon's Polikronikon. Higdon was a monk in Chester who wrote a world history starting at creation up to the present day. And he includes this story, really taken from Martin of Poland, as an important historical narrative. I've got the text here, if I can read it. I think it gives a nice sense of what the story meant. Too long. I will try and hurry it up, but. But I'll read it. In the Middle English version, he says John Anglicus was born in Magonsia, Mainz, and he succeeded Leo the Pope, two jira and fief, two years and five months. But it is said, and we find this in all versions of the story early on, it is said, or it is reputed, that or I have heard that it is said that this pope was a woman and brought in young age from her country to Athens in the habit of a man by her Special by her lover, by her sweetheart, where she profite so greatly in conning in knowledge, insomuch that she coming to Rome had noble auditors and disciples to whom she read the art triviale, the trivium of grammar, logic and rhetoric. After that she elect into pope by the favour of Alamen was get with child by her special, which not being in certainty of the time of her childing, of her childbirth, and going from The Church of St Peter, from the Vatican to the Church Lateranense, the Church of St John Lateran, was delivered between the Colosse, the Colosseum and St. Clement, the Basilica of St. Clement, and buried afterwards, as hit is said, this is twice in this little story. It says, as it is said, and then he finishes just by saying, and because of this, the pope avoids. Leaveth that way should seema that he should do that for detestation of that chaunce. He avoids this place, the pope now, because he detests this event. And this pope is not put in the number of other bishops of Rome. This pope is not counted amongst the bishops. And this speaks, I think, to that question you asked of Laura and Catherine about the historicity of it. They say that the Pope isn't counted in the number of popes. And so we can't actually verify whether she fits in.

[Catherine Lewis]

Okay, Catherine, why was it important that she dressed as a man?

[Anthony Bale]

Well, it's important that she dressed as a man because otherwise she would not have been able to, well, get an academic education and she wouldn't have been able to take on a clerical role within the Church because, of course, women were forbidden from taking on priestly orders.

[Catherine Lewis]

But there had been educated women before. I mean, we're talking about hundreds of years before Stilda and so on and so forth. Absolutely.

[Anthony Bale]

There had been educated women.

[Catherine Lewis]

This isn't an entire. This isn't a shock to the system.

[Anthony Bale]

No, it's not. But the. But the idea that Joe, Joan actually specifically goes to a university and gains an academic education, that's what sets her aside. I mean, yes, you're quite right. There have been plenty of other examples of educated women, but they had tended to be women who were in conventional roles within the Church. So these are women who are nuns and abbesses. And the whole point about Joan's story is that she. She doesn't take on that role. Instead, she disguises herself as a man, gets an academic education and becomes a priest and then a pope. And all of these were things that were completely forbidden to women. And I think the importance is that she manages to achieve these things partly because of her ability. So she is said to be a brilliant scholar. And a number of commentators later do say that actually she was rather a good pope up until the point at which she. She got pregnant and gave birth. But it's not just about her abilities, of course. It's because everybody thinks that she was a man. And this is a really interesting point, because we often think of medieval ideas about gender as being very essentialist and being about biology, and if you are a man, you are automatically superior to a woman. But the whole point about Joan's story, fascinatingly, is that it gives us a different idea that gender isn't just a matter of biology, because in the story, masculinity is something that Joan adopts, it's something that she performs. And the implication is that the reason that she does this is precisely in order to gain this education and this position, which otherwise would have been completely unattainable to her.

[Catherine Lewis]

So this was the cause of the shock when it was discovered.

[Anthony Bale]

Exactly. Yes. And this is. I mean, this is what's really interesting about it, because the implication of the legend is that there was absolutely no reason to think that Joan was anything other than a man up to the point. And it fits in with the misogyny that Anthony was talking about, really, you know, that in the end she can't, as it were, escape her female body, and that's what lets her down. But that up to that moment, everybody just assumed that she was a man and she was being pope. And she was doing rather a good job of it, apparently.

[Catherine Lewis]

Thank you very much, Laura. Her story took off, didn't it? Hundreds of repetitions, elaborations, embellishment, exaggerations. Can you give the listeners some idea of the storm and the fury that followed this?

[Laura Callas]

Yes, it does sort of escalate over the. The centuries. And the story gets appropriated and used in different ways as it moves and progresses. Some. Some of those ways maintain the sort of status quo from those earlier 13th century accounts that we've been hearing about. There's a text by Bartholomeus Plotinus in 1479, which describes the story of Joan, leaving it more or less as it is in the previous iterations, but adding, just as Stephen de Bourbon did earlier in the 13th century, the addition of a sort of a diabolical or an evil influence over Joan. And there is a hint towards the end of that account that Bartholomeus is sort of slightly beginning to question the veracity of this story by saying, you know, this has previously been told by many chroniclers and accounts that in a very vulgar way and in an obscene way. And he sort of finishes by saying that he thinks that this is not an altogether impossible story, nevertheless. So there is still a sense that this is being sort of believed at the end of the 15th century.

[Catherine Lewis]

These stories taken up by later writers include later greater writers. Boccaccio, Petrarch, it even appears on tarot cards. So what's going on there? Why is it clutched at so fiercely and advertised and used so intensively?

[Laura Callas]

Yes, well, this is really interesting. Boccaccio sort of really goes to town on Joan, actually, in his. In his account. In his. In his 14th century work called De Mulieris Claris on Famous Women, which is a series of biographies about historical and mythological women. And he includes Joan in this account in a complementary way to begin with. So the story is quite positive for the first half. She's, as we've heard, a very illustrious woman. She's very brilliant, intelligent woman. She's very learned and. And everything goes very wrong from that point. So he starts to use incredibly misogynistic language there, describing her as a sort of an aberration.

[Catherine Lewis]

Why do you think it doesn't.

[Laura Callas]

I think that was the sort of a lot of the sentiment at the time. You know, he's a writer who's kind of picking up on perhaps more of the salacious details of the story in order to, you know, entertain his readership in a little bit more detail. He refers to her as a sort of wicked woman. He refers to her lustfulness, that she's got this sort of voracious sexual appetite, which was quite a common trope about women in the Middle Ages. You know, Catherine gestured towards the way and which in medieval culture, women are often seen in these very sort of polarized ways as sort of chaste Virgin Mary typology versus the sort of whore like Eve typology. And so Boccaccio seems to be placing Joan in the later category there and seeing her as this wicked woman who's brought great, great shame on the church. And then Petrarch takes things even further, actually, and sort of create this quite dramatic story about the ramifications of Joan being revealed as a woman at the moment of her childbirth. And Petrarch describes how when Joan's gender is revealed on the street, that in Italy it rains blood for three days and three nights. And in France there miraculously appear many giant locusts, locusts with six wings and powerful teeth. And the locusts fly around and then they drown in the sea, but they're sort of golden bodies, as it's described. The vapours of their bodies fly up and corrupt the air, and many, many people die, apparently. So Petrarch writes about the way in which Joan's actions disrupt nature.

[Catherine Lewis]

Anjali, what does this story tell us about the relationship then, between truth and fiction?

[Melvin Bragg]

Well, this really is the kind of kernel of the story, isn't it? A Did Joan exist? But then also within the story, what is the truth of her as a pope?

[Catherine Lewis]

That's what we're asking.

[Melvin Bragg]

The body, kind of Joan's body then asserts its truth in this parade when she gives birth. So I think there's two ways of looking at this. One is about the importance of fiction within medieval historical writing. That this is a medieval historical writing is not necessarily supposed to be true in the historical sense that we think of it today. It's supposed to be morally true. Or what's the distinction? That it's something which can be useful for telling us about contemporary morality, using the past to tell a story about that. And that seems to be how this is. This is used. And historians will often include prefaces which say, you can use history to see kind of virtues or morals rather than to see facts as we think of them now. But then I think the story itself.

[Catherine Lewis]

The moral, the exemplary thing, had authority, didn't it?

[Melvin Bragg]

Absolutely. And I think that word authority is very important here, because medieval definitions of authority or auctoritas are about things worthy of repetition. So anything which, whether it's true or, you know, kind of provably true or morally true, that's what's worthy of repetition, not whether there's some kind of archaeological evidence for it. And then the story itself, I think, is you can read it as a parable about truth. The story suggests that Joan is able to pass as a man, to be educated as a man, to teach as a man, to be a good pope. But the truth of her body as a biological woman will assert itself. And the clothes can make the man, but the truth will out. And that seems to be one of the things that the story is articulating. And I think it's important that from those early versions of the story from the 13th century, there's a lot of evidence given about where this happened. And this happens on the ceremonial axis in the center of Rome. This doesn't happen in private. It's something which happens in a very public, humiliating, and kind of shameful way. And this is the birth on the road. Yes. And it's happening between the Vatican and the Latter and the two main sites of papal power and by the Colosseum, the kind of icon of ancient Rome. And the idea is that her body is then publicly displayed as a lie and the truth appears. And I think this connects to. It connects to a very much a 13th century debate which is raging about truth, truth in philosophy, something that Thomas Aquinas, who's writing at this time, writes about a lot about the proper nature of something as preconceived by God to make it true. And the proper nature of a pope cannot be female, this story suggests. But also this idea of how do you prove the devil from God, that they are also what is a true statement when the devil is everywhere intervening in everyone's plan?

[Catherine Lewis]

Catherine. Catherine Lewis, were the times when the idea of Pope Joan was more powerfully accepted and less powerfully accepted? And if so, when was that? And why?

[Anthony Bale]

Well, it does seem that for most of the Middle Ages, people believed the story. And Laura's already alluded to this, that the Vatican librarian, Platina, even though he expresses some reservations with it, he still says he thinks it probably was true. And it does seem the whole the.

[Catherine Lewis]

Vatican goes along with.

[Anthony Bale]

Well, I mean, it's difficult to know. I can't help thinking that perhaps some people in the Church felt that this was such a ridiculous story, that they didn't even need to give it the time of day, and that it wasn't something that they needed to rebut because the very notion of a woman Pope would be utterly ridiculous. But generally, it does seem that nobody really brings up any strident objections to the story. This doesn't really happen until we get to the 16th century and to the Reformation. That's the first time at which people really start questioning the story story. And what's really interesting is that Joan plays a part in wider doctrinal arguments between Catholics and Protestants. And what happens is that Joan is now a threat, essentially because in the 16th century, Western Christendom has fragmented whole regions and kingdoms have broken away from the Church and are denying the authority of the Pope. So suddenly the idea of there having been a woman pope and the, the propagandist use that the Protestants are putting her to is a real threat. And because this is what's happening, all of a sudden, the Protestants are arguing very strongly that Joan did exist, and they are basically saying that this invalidates the, the papacy, the fact that there was a woman Pope. They can't claim that they are linked in, in unbroken succession. Back to Peter, exactly the fact that she ordained priests invalidates the sacraments and so on and so forth. And so you have these, ironically, these Protestants, who ordinarily would never believe the word of medieval chroniclers, are drawing on medieval chroniclers and saying, look, all these medieval chroniclers say that Joan existed, so she must have done. And in fact, one of them you asked earlier about dressing and passing as a man, and one of these, Alexander Cook, one of these Protestant writers, he adds a little xenophobia to this because he says that Italian men were so effeminate that it would have been very easy for Joan to pass herself off as a man among them. So the Protestants are saying absolutely that Joan existed. And so all of a sudden the Catholics realize that they actually do now have to counter this. And so we start to have the emergence of works produced in a humanist, historical, methodological tradition. And they are really the first ones that start to comprehensively dismantle the legend because they realize that they, they can't just leave it anymore. They, they have to show that it is categorically not true.

[Catherine Lewis]

Anthony, the Church, the Catholic Church, wanted to sort this out. So it introduced a rather bizarre ritual to make sure that future popes who said there were men, were men. Can you discuss that in the most tasteful manner?

[Melvin Bragg]

I will try my best. So in 1291, another Dominican, Robert de Uzes, has a vision of the Lateran palace where he describes two porphyry marble stools which are used, as it is said, to verify the sex of the Pope. And this is repeating a rumour which seems to have developed in the wake of the Pope Joan story, that when a pope, a new pope, was installed, they reached Lateran palace. And then they sat on these two chairs which had holes cut in them. And a junior deacon or a low ranking cleric would feel under the chair and shout, he has testicles. And then everyone would shout, deo gracias. Thank God for that. And then the Pope would be verified as a man. Now, this story is really a myth placed on top of a myth. It's a rumour placed on top of a rumour. But it was current clearly from least the 1290s, well into the 15th century, and was being told around Rome as fact. And to add a kind of detail to this, these two chairs did exist. They were ancient Roman chairs with a kind of key shaped hole in the bottom, probably bathing chairs or obstetric chairs, but one is now in the Vatican and one's now in the Louvre in Paris, and they were there in Rome. And so this is kind of making sense of a Real object by adding a story on top of it. There is no evidence that this rite ever really happened, though one or two people say they were. They believe it did, but really it's always prefaced with a clause, like the vulgar people say or the common people say, or rumor has it that this is not an established ritual, this is more of a rumour.

[Catherine Lewis]

I see, but it was a cautionary tale sent out quite a lot of things that have happened in this discussion as a cautionary tale, and this is what people thought at the time. Laura, what's your view of that?

[Laura Callas]

Is it a cautionary tale or is it not a cautionary tale? I think it very much depends on who's using the tale at the time. In the Middle Ages, especially for the Catholic writers, the tale is harnessed as a way of justifying why women should not be ordained, why women's power should be severely limited or completely limited in the Church, and why perhaps women should be limited in various other different ways as well, not least in terms of their sexuality and so on. And then Protestant writers then obviously use the tale as a way of criticizing Catholicism and sort of using it as an exemplary tale in that respect, that, you know, we can't possibly trust the Catholic Church. If they've allowed a female pope on the papal throne, then obviously this is a corrupt and a distrustworthy institution, and it's used in that way as sort of an exemplary text. So it varies in terms of its application. Actually, interestingly enough, there's another use of the tale by Walter Brut in his trial for heresy of 1391. And Brut is one of the early reformers of the Church, along with John Wycliffe, arguing that the Catholic Church are sort of, you know, incorrect in some of the dealings that they're doing, that women should perhaps be allowed to preach, even to potentially be able to consecrate the Eucharist and so on. And during his trial, Walter Br harnesses the story of Joan, perhaps in an exemplary way, perhaps not. But he's arguing in his refutation of the heresy accusation that Joan is an example of a woman who was ordained allegedly to the papal throne, and that therefore, if her ordination is not valid, then that calls into question the ordination of all the subsequent popes who are supposedly from this direct line from St. Peter. And so Walter Brut is arguing that this is a justification for women having a greater role in the church and for women to be accorded more power in that sense.

[Catherine Lewis]

You want to come in, Anthony?

[Melvin Bragg]

Yeah. Just to add to that, a Very similar moral of the story is taken up by Jan Hus, also an early reformer, who in the early 15th century uses a story, he calls her Agnes. But he uses the story to say if a woman can become pope, then an unlearned man or a heretic or even the devil could become pope. So it's kind of being used to question the very basis of papal, the line of the lineage of the papacy and also the authority of the papacy.

[Anthony Bale]

The only thing I would add to that, I think, is that. So here we have two examples of people who, on the face of it, we could say, are perhaps championing women and saying women could be priests. But as Anthony just said, in fact, it's not really necessarily an argument that women could be priests, but that even a woman could be priest, you know, that anybody could be a priest. So that's quite different to some much more recent feminist appropriations of Joan in relation to issues of women's ordination, which have claimed Joan as some kind of precursor or model in a more positive way, I would say, as a kind of icon, really, of what women might be able to achieve within the Church.

[Catherine Lewis]

Did a lot of other women try to go down the same path?

[Anthony Bale]

Well, no, not. I mean, this is the thing. Not as far as we know. It's because it was just simply shut off from women, essentially. It wasn't even a matter for discussion except in these arenas, except people who were far outside the orthodox boundaries of the church. You know, within the Orthodox Church, there was never any question that women could be ordained, although there are certain examples, if we think about abbesses. So the women who are in charge of convents, there are certainly examples of abbess who took on part of the role of priests. So. And they would often get into trouble. So I'm talking here about women who would preach to their community and they would hear the confessions of their community, and that seems to be as far as they would go. But even that was regarded as a step too far by the church authorities. You know, women were not supposed to take on any of the roles of a priest.

[Catherine Lewis]

But did she in any way inspire other people to be bold in what they took over in the practices of the Church?

[Anthony Bale]

Not in a medieval setting. No. And it's really not until, again, not until the present day or the 20th century. I would say that we start to have people seeing her as a potential model in those terms. And I suppose a good example here is Joan Morris, who wrote a book about Pope Joan in 1985. And Morris was herself a feminist. She was a Catholic, and she was a real campaigner for women's ordination. And. And interestingly, in her book, she really set out to prove that Pope Joan had existed, and it was because of this agenda that she had. She saw that Joan was a valuable precursor as a woman priest. And indeed, Maurice had earlier written a book about the possibility of female bishops in the early Church as well. So her work on Pope Joan is that the two of them go together, essentially. So she clearly did see Joan in that way as saying what might be possible for women. But that's very much a modern development. It's not something that we see happening in the Middle Ages. It's. It's always much more. You know, women should absolutely not be allowed to be priests. That's the import of the medieval versions of the story.

[Catherine Lewis]

Her presence has been. It does endure, doesn't it, Laura? How has Purpose Joan lived on in novels and stage and screenplays and so on? Let's take it up to date.

[Laura Callas]

Yeah, well, remarkably right up to the present day, in fact, there have been myriad recreations of Joan's legend, if you like. There are novels from the 19th century, quite a few productions in the 20th century. There is a play by Carol Churchill called Top Girls, in which Joan features. It's set around a sort of dinner party format, and Joan is one of the dinner party guests. And it has a feminist sort of undercurrent in the sense that this is a play about women trying to progress in a patriarchal world, and Joan is given a seat at the table in that play. There have been some other novels in the 20th century. There's a famous one by Joanna Cross, which also inspired one of the films that came out. There are. There are a couple of films. There was a film in 1972 and then a subsequent one in 2009, which was based on Cross's novel. And that's quite an interesting interpretation of Joan's legend and life. Quite anti Catholic in sentiment, I think. But actually, the ending of the film has a very positive representation of Joan. Her. Her childbirth on the street is kind of represented in the 2009 film, but not in the shameful. It's public, but it's not presented in the shameful way that the early 13th century chroniclers would have it represented. This is in a much more sympathetic way to her as somebody who's sort of fallen foul of this supposed dishonesty, but she's still seen as a very sympathetic figure. There have been musicals. There's even a sort of an allusion to Pope Joan in The film that's currently on in the cinema called Conclave. So her tale has resonance currently still.

[Catherine Lewis]

Anthony, we're coming to the end now, but what, what does it say about the Middle Ages?

[Melvin Bragg]

For me, this story is an invention of the 13th and 14th centuries, not of the 9th century. It doesn't tell us much about the early Middle Ages, but it tells us a lot about the later Middle Ages. It tells us a lot about the discussions around women's role in the androcracy, the kind of rule of men that the medieval church was, and how far a woman can go. And it does that at a time in the 13th, 14th century where women's roles were being increasingly limited in the Church. We think about things like mysticism, beguines and the invention of the witch. These are all happening around the same time. And one of the crucial details in the story that Joan is such a great teacher is about her transgression of this rule that a woman cannot kind of teach like that. So it tells us quite a lot about the construction of the exclusion of women from men's society. I think it also shows us that the questions that we have today about gender and embodiment are very long, discursive historical questions. They are things which people have been thinking about for a long time in creating and quite self contradictory ways at times, because Joan can pass, but she cannot succeed as a female pope. So I think it tells us a lot about those kinds of how medieval society worked out some of these tricky issues and thought through some of these tricky issues around gender, power, exclusion. And then it actually speaks to these quite timeless issues around shame versus guilt, where Joan's guilt doesn't stop her, shame does. Truth and deceit, truth does conquer her. And about the embrace of the fictional past. There is still a little chapel in the centre of Rome which is kind of informally dedicated to Joan. For a long time there was said to be a stone in the street which kind of warned people against the story of Joan. And then we have these, these porphyry chairs in the Vatican. So the story kind of has a material resonance over time. It shows us how the, the Middle Ages has long shadows.

[Anthony Bale]

All I was, I was really going to add in terms of thinking about what the story tells us is actually partly to pick on something that Laura said, which is that you mentioned that the, the novel and the film are quite anti Catholic. And I was just going to add that I think it has always been given sustenance. I think the story from the Reformation onwards by a certain anti Catholic Sentiment. And that's one of the reasons why the story persists, I think, because perhaps not so much anti Catholic, but I, I suppose perhaps suspicion and hostility aimed at the institution of the Church and this sense that people keep coming back to this, this question of her existence and, you know, there is no evidence for her, as we've said. But of course what people say is that there is no evidence for her because the Church destroy evidence. I can understand why some people would believe that, because we know that there are all sorts of things that the Church genuinely has covered up, you know, criminal activities of various sorts. And it has this reputation of being a body that has suppressed, for example, the role that women played in the early Church. And so I think that gives it another kind of veracity for some people that even though there isn't the evidence, it feels real because they suspect that if Joan had existed, she would have to have been erased.

[Laura Callas]

I think the other thing that it tells us is the way in which medieval culture is so much more complex and nuanced than we might like to think. We've talked already about the way in which medieval culture very much liked binaries, particularly in relation to gender, and the Church especially wanted to enforce these very strict binary categories of gender. But course, Joan transgresses all of that and she goes beyond. She can't be so easily fit into those particular taxonomies. And that's, I think, what unsettles a lot of the people in the Middle Ages is that she transgresses those boundaries. She's between certain points and that's what provides so much anxiety for so many of those readers.

[Melvin Bragg]

Catherine mentioned them briefly, but these saints that are kind of cross dressing and living in different embodiments and, and Saint Wilgafortis who sprouts a beard to protect her chastity, that gender is very, very remarkable in medieval texts and occupies all kinds of fabulous, literally, positions for people in medieval culture.

[Catherine Lewis]

Well, thank you very much and thanks to Anthony Bale, Laura Callis and Catherine Lewis. Next week, John Soane, the son of a bricklayer who became a renowned architect and is now perhaps best known for designing his house in London as a Grand tour of Europe, Europe in Microcosm. Thank you for listening.

[Anthony Bale]

And the In Our Time podcast gets some extra time now with a few minutes of bonus material from Melvin and his guests.

[Catherine Lewis]

Catherine, what would you like to have said that you didn't get time or opportunity to say?

[Anthony Bale]

There's this well established type of saint who is a woman who, similarly to Joan, for A variety of reasons, disguises herself as a man and enters a monastery and lives much like Joan, lives completely undetected as a man until death, essentially. Although in the case of these saints, it's not a shameful, humiliating reveal. It only happens after death. And it's generally the idea is that when their bodies are being prepared for burial, the monks are astonished to discover that in fact this was not a man, but underneath they have the body of a biological female. We're looking at the people who were writing just story, possibly taking this as one of the influences. It would have been a story that a lot of people would have been very familiar with and it would have helped to make sense of Joan's story. There were precedents.

[Catherine Lewis]

Would you like to add anything, Laura?

[Laura Callas]

Yeah, I think it would be worth picking up on the idea about women's medical, biological, perhaps ontological presentation in the Middle Ages. Anthony touched earlier on the Chronicle by Jacobus de Voragy, where he talks about Joan as going against the nature of a woman. And this is something that really does resonate throughout the whole of the Middle Ages in the sense that women are set up by their very physiology to be both inferior to men, but also to be susceptible to particular ideas because their bodies were understood to be more susceptible of fluid and more sort of cold and receptive to immoral ideas and so on and so forth. And so those sorts of ideas about what is natural start to get used to justify moral codes of behavior and sort of. To justify sort of ecclesiastical structures and so on. And so you get this very interesting conflation of sort, sort of, you know, physiological ideas about women, if you like, which, which then actually get followed through into the theology and so on, which, which, you know, is what really Joan is. Is up against in terms of the situation she. That she's in. And perhaps one of the reasons why she decides that she needs to dress as a man to overcome those. Those prejudices about women in their bodies and their. And their sort of, you know, their. Their. The ontological situation in the world, if you like.

[Melvin Bragg]

Finally, Anthony, I think we should have perhaps mentioned Julie Elmer, who is a late 13th century real world example. Julie Elmer was a Northern Italian ascetic who was a member of the Humiliati who whipped themselves and strayed into heresy through preaching and teaching. And when she died, one of her followers called Manfreda a woman, declared herself pope of this group and said that when Julielma was resurrected, she would lead a church of women. That's very condensed version of the story, but that's it's an amazing story which is happening just around the same time as this story is starting to flourish. And so there is a sense in which this is with female religious communities, with enthusiastic, mystical communities, with independent women's authority. People like Marguerite Poret. The church is worried about this very specific notion of women's power. And Julie Elmer does seem to instantiate that around this time.

[Catherine Lewis]

Well, thank you all very much. Thanks very much indeed. I enjoyed that. I'm sure many other people will thank you. Would you like a cup of tea or coffee? I think I'll have some more water.

[Laura Callas]

Water, Anthony?

[Melvin Bragg]

Just some water will be fine.

[Anthony Bale]

Can I have a cup of tea, please?

[Laura Callas]

I could murder a cup of tea as well, if that's right.

[Melvin Bragg]

Go on. I'll have a cup of tea as well.

[Laura Callas]

Thank you.

[Melvin Bragg]

In Our Time with Melvin Bragg was produced by Elianne Glaser and It is a BBC Studios audio production for Radio 4.

[Natalia Melman Petruzella]

I'm Natalia Melman Petruzella and from the.

[Anthony Bale]

BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger, the.

[Laura Callas]

Most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you.

[Catherine Lewis]

Stay on the mountain.

[Anthony Bale]

This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of.

[Natalia Melman Petruzella]

The world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of.

[Anthony Bale]

The risks we'll take to feel truly alive.

[Catherine Lewis]

If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore.

[Anthony Bale]

Extreme Peak Danger. Listen first on BBC Sounds.