The Legend of Pope Joan: In Search of the Truth by Peter Stanford

Henry Holt, 207 pages, $25.

Move over, Monica! If you want to talk about sex, power, politics, coverups, and institutional shakeups, the recent contretemps in Washington looks like a grade-school pageant next to the phenomenon of Pope Joan. According to legend -- in this case, legend supported by plenty of verifiable historical documentation -- an English woman, disguised as a monk, was elected pope in the year 853. Apparently no one noticed anything odd -- unisex vestments, while not particularly flattering, can hide a lot -- until two years later, when Pope "John" gave birth during a papal procession through the streets of Rome. No special prosecutor needed here: Joan and her child were stoned to death by outraged citizens. Afterward, the church, in a decisive and drastic attempt at spin control, tried to obliterate all mention of Joan and her papacy. It was only in the early 13th century that historians and church scholars began to uncover myriad clues and document her tenure as the Vicar of Christ on earth.

The Vatican still denies that a woman ever sat in the Chair of Peter and chalks up the popularity of the Pope Joan "myth" to the rabid anti-Catholicism of the Reformation and the intrinsic appeal of a terrific urban legend. But, for all the denials, there is still enough historical fact to persuade anyone with a half-open mind that Pope Joan was an early ecclesiastical feminist and riot grrrl. Peter Stanford's The Legend of Pope Joan, which looks at these facts, is an oddity. Part personal journal, part historical and theological meditation, and part detective story, Stanford's book charts his own journey in researching the possibility that, at least this one time, the term mother church was more accurate than not. Stanford uncovers a multitude of "proofs" -- none conclusive, but all interesting. There is the infamous sedia stercoraria, a marble throne with an opening in the seat, installed by the College of Cardinals immediately after Joan's fall from grace -- with a newly elected pope sitting exposed on the throne, a cardinal could peer up through the opening to verify that he had, well, the balls for the job. Stanford also discovers several statues and portraits of Joan in Italian churches, as well as a shrine on the street where Joan was stoned to death. Above the central altar in St. Peter's Basilica, he uncovers a series of Bernini carvings that seem to show a pope giving birth to a child.

Although Stanford's arguments are, at best, conjecture and good guesses, The Legend of Pope Joan affords many pleasures. Stanford pauses during the course of his investigation to lead the reader into various fascinating related topics, from the complex history of Roman Catholic female transvestite saints to the prominence of powerful women in the early and medieval church to the career of Bernard Guy, a 14th-century Inquisitor who was the model for the hero of Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. He even makes sound, telling connections between Pope Joan and such other historical and literary figures as Joan of Arc, Yentl, and the ever-popular composer Hildegard of Bingen. Finally, he documents Joan's presence in the modern world: she has figured prominently in Stendhal's Voyages en Italie, feminist theology, several popular novels, a dreadful 1972 film with Liv Ullmann, a British board game called Pope Joan, and the arcana of Tarot cards. Stanford persuades us that even if Pope Joan did not exist, her invention was inevitable.

-- Michael Bronski