Summary
Starting in the middle ages, a rumor spread of a female pope, elected because of her incredible learning, who went undiscovered until she gave birth to a child. At which point, everyone lost their minds. Join Em and Dr. Jesse to learn about the veracity of this tale and the wacky test it (allegedly) engendered. (Ha.)
Notes
Our sources:
Thomas F.X. Noble, “Why Pope Joan?” Catholic Historical Review 99.2 (April 2013) 219–238.
Eamon Duffy, Saints and Sinners: A History of Popes. Yale University Press, 2002.
1/ Jean de Mailly, 13th century Dominican chronicler in Metz, makes the first extant mention of Pope Joan in his Chronicle “Diocese of Metz” (Chronica universalis Mettensis) in 1255.
Etienne de Bourbon (also Dominican) adds to Mailly’s account a few years later in On the Seven Gifts of the Spirit.
Dominican Martinus Polonus (Martin Strebsky) writes down the version we all know between 1265–1277 in Chronicle of the Roman Popes and Emperors
2/ “A means of adding verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.” From The Mikado by Gilbert and Sullivan.
3/ The description of this (definitely fake) ritual is in Duffy, Saints and Sinners, 156–7.
4/ Ember Days
5/ The Straight Dope was an alternative weekly column (in Madison it ran in the Isthmus, I think; also in the Chicago Reader) where readers could ask questions of a guy (gender nondenominational) who was essentially a reference librarian. The nom de plume was Cecil Adams. The column ran 1973–2018. The Pope Joan column is archived here: https://www.straightdope.com/21341608/was-there-once-a-female-pope
6/ Since we recorded this, The Onion has had a renaissance. If you subscribe, you can even get a print version! https://theonion.com/