3 – Pope Joan
This myth suggests that a woman managed to hide her gender and rule as pope. The ‘reign’ of Pope Joan was said to have began in 855 and her secret only became known because she gave birth to a child on the side of a road. Even if the last preposterous piece of the legend wasn’t included, there is no evidence that such a person ever existed.
Those who believe in the myth of Pope Joan claim she was probably born in England and concealed her gender from an early age as a means of pursuing scholarly ambitions; at that time, women were not permitted this opportunity. She called herself John Anglicus and gained a reputation for her knowledge of the sciences while studying in Athens.
Her fame grew as she lectured at Rome’s Trivium and then she became a cardinal. Finally, she became pope when Leo IV died. She ruled until her gender became known and as punishment, her feet were tied together and she was dragged across the ground by a horse. Finally, a crowd stoned her to death and the Catholic Church did all they could to completely bury evidence of her existence.
As well as being a generally unbelievable tale, the veracity of the account isn’t helped by the fact there was no mention of Pope Joan until the 13th century. An account of Joan was written by Jean de Mailly but the events were initially set in 1099. Another 13th century text went further and said she was known as John Anglicus or John of Mainz. Furthermore, the pope’s reign was changed to the 9th century where she ruled between Leo IV and Benedict III in the 850s.
A quick look at the history of the papacy suggests the alleged timing of Pope Joan’s reign is all wrong since there is evidence to suggest the dates of Leo IV’s death and Benedict III’s first day as Pope are accurate. There isn’t enough time between these dates to ‘fit in’ another pope let alone a female one that was executed. The papacy had plenty of enemies in the 9th century yet there isn’t a single account of a female people from any of them. Photios I of Constantinople hated the papacy and especially Pope Nicholas I who deposed him as Patriarch in 863. If there was any evidence of such a scandal, Photios would certainly have seized upon it.