The Historians' History of the World 08

In the midst of these events, the victorious Saracens were pursuing their conquests over the most fertile provinces of Europe, Asia, and Africa. While Calabria was overrun by one division of the Saracens, Rome itself was threatened by another. In vain did the terrified Romans look to the descendants of Charlemagne for help; in vain did they proffer again their broken allegiance to the emperor of the East. Neither the one nor the other was in a condition to render the required assistance, and the city appeared doomed to destruction. The venerable churches of St. Peter and St. Paul, which inspired a feeling of devotion by their antiquity, and of wonder by the magnificence of their shrines, were situated a short distance from the walls; and the unfortunate citizens witnessed from the ramparts the spoliation of these, the most sacred of their temples, without the means of making a single effort for their defence. But the rage produced by this spectacle, combined with the terror with which the entrance of the enemy into the city was contemplated, roused them to attempt some measure of resistance. The death of Sergius just at this juncture greatly contributed to promote their success. In electing Leo IV to the vacant office, they provided themselves with a skilful counsellor and an energetic leader. The invader, after various assaults, was obliged to retreat, in order to make the conquest of places less skilfully defended.

The death of Leo was succeeded by much confusion, and in this period of excitement and difficulty, the vacant chair was said to have been ascended by a woman, the celebrated papess Joan.c

THE MYTH OF THE WOMAN POPE

[847-855 A.D.]

Joan was the name given to a female pope, now regarded as a fictitious personage, who under the title of John VII or VIII was said, according to the most general accounts, to have occupied the papal chair between the pontificate of Leo IV and Benedict III, although various other dates are given. Tradition represents her as of English descent, but born in Ingelheim or Mainz. By some her original name is given as Gilberta, by others as Agnes. She was credited with having fallen in love with a young Benedictine monk, and with having on that account assumed the male monastic habit and lived for some time in the monastery of Fulda. Her lover, it is affirmed, died while they were pursuing their studies together at Athens, and after his death she went to Rome, where, according to the most approved version of the story, she became a very successful professor. So high indeed became her reputation for piety and learning that the cardinals with one consent elected the supposed young monk the successor of Pope Leo IV. In this position she comported herself so as to entirely justify their choice, until the catastrophe of giving birth to a male child during a procession to the Lateran palace suddenly and irrevocably blasted her reputation. She is said to have died in childbirth or to have been stoned to death.

The story of the pontificate of Joan was received as fact from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, but it has been discredited by later researches. The circumstantial evidence around which it clung, and which may have aided in suggesting it, was the observance of a circuit by the papal processions so as to avoid passing through a certain street (a statue at one time standing in that street, said to represent a woman and child, with a monumental stone near it having a peculiar inscription), and the use of a pierced seat at the enthronement of the popes. Of these facts other and more credible explanations have, however, been given, although there is no sufficient evidence to demonstrate beyond dispute the manner in which the story originated. According to Dr. Döllinger,e the tradition finds no support in the original text either of Marianus Scotus,n Sigebert of Gemblours,o or Otto of Freysing.p She is first mentioned by Stephen de Bourbon,q who died in 1261, and who took his information probably from the chronicle of the Dominican Jean de Mailly, no copy of which is now known to be in existence. The story is not found in any of the original manuscripts of Martinus Polus,r and according to Döllinger was interpolated in that chronicle some time between 1278 and 1312. He attributes the propagation of the myth chiefly to its insertion in Martinus Polus, from which it was copied into the Flores Temporum, a chronicle founded on Martinus, and its real originators he supposes to have been the Dominicans and Minorites, who had a grudge against the papacy on account of the persecutions they were experiencing at the hands of Benedict VIII. So rapidly did the tradition spread that in 1400 a bust of the papess was placed in the cathedral of Siena along with other popes, having the inscription, “John VIII, a woman from England.” The statue occupied this position till the beginning of the seventeenth century.f

[847-867 A.D.]