Theres a great used book store here in Vegas that I like to stop in at whenever I go pay my union dues. Checking out the religion section I found a 1933 copy of Clement Wood's "
The Woman Who Was Pope"
Its about Pope Joan. She was Pope for about three years, between Leo IV and Benedict III. She apparently was a highly intelligent woman who posed as a man to travel in academic circles. Martin of Troppau wrote:
After the aforesaid Leo, John, an Englishman by descent, who came from Mainz, held the see two years, five months, and four days. And the pontificate was vacant one month. He died at Rome. He, it is asserted, was a woman. And having been in youth taken by her lover to Athens in man's clothes, she made such progress in various sciences that there was nobody equal to her. So that afterwards lecturing on the Trivium, at Rome, she had great masters for her disciples and hearers. And for as much as she was in great esteem in the city, both for her life and her learning, she was unanimously elected Pope.
But while Pope she became pregnant by the person with whom she was intimate. But not knowing the time of her delivery, while going from St. Peter's to the Lateran, being taken in labour, she brought forth a child between the Coliseum and St. Clement's church. And afterwards dying she was, it was said, buried in that place. And because the Lord Pope always turns aside from that way, there are some who are fully persuaded that it is done in detestation of the fact. Nor is she put in the catalogue of the Popes, as well on account of her female sex, as on account of the foul nature of the transaction.
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Chronicon pontificum et imperatorum - A.D.1278
I'm on chapter three at the moment. The early chapters mainly concern themselves with establishing her real existance from records kept in that time period and other facts. Lots of fun stuff such as the horrific stories that surrounded some of the early popes activities.
Pope Joan giving birth during a procession; the female pope surrounded by cardinals at right, the newborn child on the ground; at left the procession and a fool standing behind a column mocking the scene; illustration to an unidentified publication. Strasbourg, 1539
A remake of a 1473 woodcut
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. - Plato