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From: moxie@char.vnet.net (drunk in the snow with a gun)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: F!, Rumor!, Pope!
Date: 15 Aug 1993 12:31:44 -0400

In article <1993Aug14.142244.14881@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu>, Alan J Rosenthal <flaps@dgp.toronto.edu> wrote: >
>I'm still wondering about some things, though. Can anyone provide a citation
>for something written by someone who BELIEVES the Pope Joan UL, who says
>something more than some vague allusion to a female pope? Is that an accurate

actually, i have right here in my lap a book called "Pope Joan", subtitled "A Romantic Biography by Emmanual Royidis." it has been translated from the original Greek by Lawrence Durrell. the original edition was published in 1886, and although i have not yet read the book, the introduction states that it is a novel, but is based on the author's understanding of what he believed to be a true story.

it says, in the preface by the translator:

"But what of the historical Pope upon whom our author has based his narrative? The latest writers who have been bold enough to enter the arena have given us to understand that she is a fiction. This view, needless to say, is not shared by Royidis who has devoted several pamphlets to the subject. Did Pope Joan exist in truth? The whole position is admirably summed up by Platina, and by the fact that he felt bound to include her in his Lives of the Popes. Nobody can claim that the evidence of her existence is more than circumstantial; yet if so serious an historian as Platina -- himself a secretary to a reigning Pope, and a librarian to the Vatican -- felt bound to include Pope Joan in the canon of the Popes, we must conclude that the force of tradition, from many sources and many years, must have dictated this distasteful choice. Here is her biography, as given in Platina:

'Pope John VIII: John, of English extraction, was born at Mentz and is said to have arrived at Popedom by evil art; for disguising herself like a man, whereas she was a woman, she went when young with her paramour, a learned man, to Athens, and made such progress in learning under the professors there that, coming to Rome, she met with few that could equal, much less go beyond her, even in the knowledge of the scriptures; and by her learned and ingenious readings and disputations, she acquired so great respect and authority that upon the death of Leo (as Martin says) by common consent she was chosen Pope in his room. As she was going to the Lateran Church between the Colossean Theatre (so called from Nero's Colossus) and St. Clement's her travail came upon her, and she died upon the place, having sat two years, one month, and four days, and was buried there without any pomp. This story is vulgarly told, but by very uncertain and obscure authors, and therefore I have related it barely and in short, lest I should seem obstinate and pertinacious if I had admitted what is so generally talked; I had better mistake with the rest of the world; though it be certain, that what I have related may be thought not altogether incredible.'"

***

as i said, i have not read the book yet; i picked it up in an antique store (although it's actually a 1960 edition) along with the entire six volume set of the Memoirs of Casanova, and haven't had time to read either.