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/

Summary
Avignon! A city where there is a bridge, and a song about the bridge. And, once, the pope lived there. Why? Let’s talk about this weird century.
Notes
1/ Avignon: it has a bridge! And a song about the bridge: “Sur le pont d’Avignon.” The bridge is medieval; the song dates from the fifteenth century: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sur_le_Pont_d%27Avignon
2/ Boniface VIII (Pope 24 December 1294–11 October 1303). He was…something. Definitely check out Dante’s thoughts!
3/ Dr. Jesse: we can all recognize that in the past there have been different times when a third party has interfered in an election…
Em: …
Em: oh my god, we recorded this in April 2024. She was talking about the 2000 election. [A lot has happened in a year. Now it could also be the NYC mayoral race!–Jesse]
4/ The episode on Catherine of Siena is number 6.
Jesse and I went to Siena at one point! I don’t remember if we saw her head. I’m guessing we did? We also saw a horse race, which means we were there on August 16, 2003? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palio_di_Siena [That was a great Palio! There were many, many false starts, and then someone fell (or was pushed/tripped) off their horse during the race, and the neighborhood whose rider fell (or was sabotaged) definitely thought he was sabotaged, and they all stormed the track toward the neighborhood they thought pushed him, and we were standing in between the two groups. –Jesse]
5/ Episode Summary!
Avignon Papacy:
Seven popes resided at Avignon instead of Rome

* Pope Clement V: 1305–1314 (curia moved to Avignon, 9 March 1309)
* Pope John XXII: 1316–1334
* Pope Benedict XII: 1334–1342
* Pope Clement VI: 1342–1352
* Pope Innocent VI: 1352–1362
* Pope Urban V: 1362–1370 (in Rome 1367–1370; returned to Avignon 1370)
* Pope Gregory XI: 1370–1378 (left Avignon to return to Rome on 13 September 1376, returned in January 1377)

WESTERN SCHISM:



ROME
AVIGNON
PISA


Urban VI (1378–1389)
Antipope Clement VII (1378–1394)



Boniface IX (1389–1404)
Antipope Benedict XIII (1394–1423)



Pope Innocent VII (1404–1406)




Pope Gregory XII* (1406–1415)
*Voluntarily resigns to end schism

Antipope Alexander V (1409–1410)
Antipope John XXIII* (1410–1415)
*Submitted to Martin V in Florence in 1418 and died shortly thereafter. The Medici built him a huge tomb.


Pope Martin V (1417–1431)

Synopsis
Let’s talk about a few good antipopes. What’s that about, anyway? If they meet, do they both annihilate? How do they sometimes switch places? Join Em and Dr. Jesse as they go over some of the more interesting antipopes of the 11th and 12th centuries.
Notes
1/ The board game is Kremlin.
2/ Gregory VII (born c1015, namesake of the reform movement, pope 1073–1085). Gregorian reform!
3/ Investiture Controversy. The big one is roughly 1076–1122, but there are a bunch of investiture struggles.
4/ Henry IV (1050–1106; king of Germany from 1054, of Italy and Burgundy from 1056, and Holy Roman Emperor from 1084)
5/ Antipope Clement III (born c1029, Antipope 1080–1100)
6/ Antipope Theodoric (or Sylvester III, but there was an earlier Sylvester III, who was considered an antipope by Theodoric but is not currently listed as one by the Vatican).
7/ Concordat of London 1107 between Henry I of England and Pope Paschal II
8/ Holy Emperor Henry V (born early 1080s-1125; Holy Roman Emperor 1111–1125)
9/ Henry V appoints Antipope Gregory VIII (Antipope 1118–1121, dies 1137)
10/ Concordat of Worms 1122
11/ Pope Innocent II (Pope 1130–1143) is elected by a minority
Antipope Alacletus II (1130–1138) is elected by a majority
12/ Lateran II convened in 1139 by Innocent II
Antipope Victor IV (not to be confused with a later Antipope Victor IV) submits to Innocent II
13/ St Bernard dogs get their name from their original breeding place in Switzerland, which is named for St Bernard of Menthon, not Bernard of Clairvaux!
14/ Lateran III 1179
15/ Ubi Periculum 1274, issued by Pope Gregory X during the Second Council of Lyon, establishes the papal conclave
16/ Actually, Francis was chosen pretty quickly! It just seemed long in our crazy media climate.
17/ Pope Clement V (born c. 1264; Pope 1305–1314) and the Avignon Papacy (1309–1376/7)
18/ Pope Celestine V: the previous pope who resigned! He was pope for a few months in 1294.
19/ Pope Boniface VIII (born c.1230; Pope 1294–1303), famously hated by Dante.

Synopsis
When did the conclave system get started and why? Following on the heels (uh, vaguely) of our emergency popecast, Em and Dr. Jesse discuss history of papal elections and how the Church got to where it is.
Notes
Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes, by Eamon Duffy. 4th ed. Yale University Press, 2015.
1/ We recorded this in February 2024; Benedict died on the 31st of December, 2022. He was 95. JPII lived to 84 (d. 2005) and Francis was 88. [Benedict XVI was the former head of the Dicastery or Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the formerly known as the Congregation of the Inquisition. –Jesse]
Celestine V (c.1210/15–1296; pope July 5–December 13 1294)
Gregory XII (c1327–1417; pope 1406–1415, resigns to end schism)
Pope John XXIII (1881–1963, pope 1958–1963) called the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965).
Pisan Antipope John XXIII (d.1419; pope 1410–1415)
2/ I’m sure some of this background on the various popes and especially Francis is a repeat from last episode. If you took good notes and don’t need a reminder, I’m sorry.
3/ “Eventually they get found liable for their sayings.” I have no idea what politician that was a dig at. I’m pretty sure that the “mayors of major cities who get more say than the governor” is probably a reference to the mayor of NYC vs the NY governor?
4/ For more on the Ottonian Dynasty!
5/ You can actually still become a married male priest in the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church by: first becoming a pastor in another denomination, getting married there (and a certain amount of time elapsing), and then converting to Catholicism and applying to become a priest. (This requires your wife’s consent, apparently. In case you were wondering if women ever got asked to consent to anything in Christianity. There is one thing.)
You can also become a priest if you’re a widower.
6/ Gregory VII (c1015–1085; pope 1073–1085)
Peter Damian (c1007–1072)
Lateran Council of 769
7/ Pope Paul I (pope 757–767)
Antipope Constantine II (pope 767–769)
Antipope Philip (pope only one day, July 31, 768)
Pope Stephen III (c720–772; pope 768–772)
Pope Adrian I (pope 772–795)
8/ Stephen IX (c1020–1058; pope 1057–1058)
Antipope Benedict X (pope 1058–1059)
Pope Nicholas II (c. 990/95–1061; pope 1058/9–1061)

Synopsis
Pope Francis, beloved of medievalists, died on April 21, 2025, so we’re here with all you might care to know about the forthcoming conclave (now a film starring Ralph Finnes), the history of conclaves, and why medievalists loved Francis so much, anyway.
Notes
1/ Benedict went to Mater Ecclesiae Monastery, I think. It’s in the neighborhood.
2/ Jesse and I decided to try and do any extra notes attached to NEXT episode, so y’all are stuck with only my ramblings down here this time.
3/ Sorry about the sound quality. I messed something up during the recording process. Also I’ve never sat still in my life, apparently. What a way to find out.
4/ Books and films in this episode:
Conclave (2024)
The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco (1980)
The Key to the Name of the Rose: including translations of all non-English passages, by Adele J. Haft, Jane G. White, and Robert H. White (1987)
The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968)
5/ I asked Jesse for clarification about what is meant by someone getting to be pope with a minority of votes. Basically the minority vote-getter (Innocent II) went off and set up as pope anyway, and eventually everyone came around to his way of thinking and made the majority vote-getter (Anacletus II) an antipope. We’ll have a whole episode on antipopes in a couple of weeks when we discuss this in more detail, so keep an eye out.
6/ Hey, Chuck! Sorry. Be less of a fuddy-duddy.
7/ The official job description as posted to LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/vaticano_after-receiving-several-messages-of-interest-activity-7322589152439418880-dmNA

Summary
Em and Jesse are back with more medieval meme review. Join us as we discuss martyrdom, marginalia, The Seventh Seal, and the Bayeux Tapestry.
Notes
1/ martyrdom of Isaiah:
Martyrdom sword through throat:
2/ St. Sebastian. Artists love him!
Just to be clear, “It’s difficult to assert that there were any gay men before Walt Whitman” is a joke about how historians tend to act. Generally, if you look at the comments on Wikipedia, it can be difficult to assert that people are gay after Whitman too—there was one actor who lived with his partner very openly for thirty years, and on the talk page people were still debating if he should be categorized as gay. This about someone who died in 1993.
The Last Judgement: https://www.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/en/collezioni/musei/cappella-sistina/giudizio-universale.html
Rubens’s St. Sebastian: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Sebastian_(Rubens)
3/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seventh_Seal
Death was played by a guy named Bengt Ekerot. No one seems to know how tall he was, but Max Von Sydow was apparently about 6’4″.
4/ “Give a shoutout to Sandman…” We recorded this in 2022, long before the allegations against Neil Gaiman became public. 🙁 We condemn his behavior in the strongest possible terms. [Terrible people can make amazing art that contradicts their own actions in their personal lives. It’s really unsatisfying, but an important (and unfortunate) fact about human nature.–Jesse]
5/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albertus_Pictor
6/ David Jenkins was the creator of Our Flag Means Death.
Meredith Brooks, “Bitch.” https://genius.com/Meredith-brooks-bitch-lyrics
7/ The Rothschild Canticles: https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/2002755 [scroll down to page 148r]. The book takes its name from Edmond de Rothschild, rather than whoever commissioned it. E. de R. (aka Baron Abraham Edmond Benjamin James de Rothschild, 1845–1935) was indeed a member of the powerful banking family and subject of many anti-Semitic conspiracy theories you are thinking of. Where it came from before that is unclear, at least according to the provenance information provided by Yale.
Citation: MS 404, folio 148 recto.
John Boswell was a Yale scholar who wrote a book called Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe where he argued that the early Church had a ritual called “adelphopoiesis” (brother-making) that was essentially a marriage ceremony for same-sex couples. (This being the thing back before the Church felt like it cared much about who married whom, which is a rather newer thing than they would like to admit.) The rite still happens today—here (https://www.npr.org/2024/04/09/1243606135/a-look-at-the-ancient-practice-that-turned-friends-into-family) is an NPR article about two women who underwent the ritual in 1985. (And history will say they were roommates.

Synopsis
Memes. Love or hate them, they’re hard to escape. Let’s do a medieval meme review.
Notes
1/ Sorry for the weird sound at the beginning. File errors.
2/ There are whole Bsky accounts like “weird medieval guys“.
3/ Cave Canum
Know thyself
4/ The Book of Dog Names:

Superdog’s name is Krypto 🙂
Livre du Chasse (see Episode 29 note 5 for more!)
Here is the Christie’s description for this specific manuscript.
Edward, Duke of York (1373-1415–he died at Agincourt!!!)
“Gentlemen of England now abed”: An (incredibly famous) line from Henry V
“Gallant, springing, brave Plantagenet”: From the scene in Richard III where the two murderers go to kill Clarence, Duke of Gloucester (on RIII’s orders, of course).
Interpolated: to insert between two parts.

RIP Wrigley, bestest girl (2009-2024). Now we have Addison, the best boy.
5/ Here’s a name–age calculator: https://randalolson.com/name-age-calculator/
Interestingly, Jessica has almost the same arc as Tiffany, but Tiffany is definitely a very 1980s neon name and Jessica is not. Is it because of the prominence of a Jessica in Shakespeare’s A Merchant of Venice that makes it clear to us that the name is not a modern invention?
The Tiffany video
6/ If you’re wondering why we mention Carl Gustav and not Charles III, it’s because we recorded this in 2022 when Elizabeth II was still alive. Also, if you’re wondering why Em says “Carl VI Gustav” rather than “Carl XVI Gustav,” the answer is…I have no idea. Sorry.
7/
I don’t know, Jesse. NYT has gone downhill lo these last two years. [ARGH, yes. –Jesse]
8/ Melvil Dui. For some reason we (the world) kept the spelling of his first name but not his last. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melvil_Dewey I’m not a Dewey Decimal superfan, but I’ll admit it’s very useful.
9/ I have heard the “don’t use first person pronouns in your essay” rule explained as: it’s your essay, we know it’s your opinion. So just say what it is. [Yes, but you might be quoting other people’s opinions, some of which you like and some of which you don’t! And you have to be able to say “THAT person says X, but I think Y.”–Jesse]
10/ The Oxford Dictionary of African American English: https://www.oed.com/discover/odaae
The Dictionary of American Regional English: https://www.daredictionary.com/
Passing Slang of the Victorian Era: https:/...

Synopsis
Trade goods weren’t the only things that moved along the Silk Road. Join Em and Jesse as they trace the history of an interesting artistic motif that made it from China all the way to England!
Notes
0/ Credit to Hither, Page, by Cat Sebastian, for bringing this topic to my attention.
1/ Previous episodes on trade routes were ep 83 (Old Silk Road, Take Me Home) and 84 (Trans-Saharan Trade).
2/ The Three Hares: this blog (http://www.vikkiyeatesillustration.co.uk/blog/a-brief-explanation-of-the-three-hares-symbol) has many example illustrations!
3/ “Wheel of Dharma, turn turn turn! Tell me the lesson that I must learn!” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharmachakra
4/ According to Wikipedia, among vertebrates, natural parthenogenesis is only reported in lizards, snakes, birds, and sharks. (And maybe amphibians and snakes? Whoever wrote this didn’t do a great job.) It has been artificially induced in pigs and mice. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis) I can’t believe I’m writing a note about this.
5/ Taylor Mac’s piece is A 24-Decade History of Popular Music. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_24-Decade_History_of_Popular_Music Trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwnddB4dFYk I wish I lived in New York and could just be weird for a living.
6/ Jesse explains why rabbits are not kosher a little oddly—in order to be kosher, a land animal must have cloven hooves and it must chew its cud. Even if rabbits chewed their cud (they don’t), they don’t have hooves. (The weird part of all this is “ergo, they’re rodents and not suitable for consumption.” That part I can’t explain.)
7/ Rabbit starvation? It looks like the general idea is that because rabbit meat is very low fat and high protein, if you eat only that without other fats in your diet, you can intake so much protein you overwhelm your kidneys and they dump bad stuff into your bloodstream. Also called mal de caribou. Charles Darwin mentions this in The Voyage of the Beagle:
We were here able to buy some biscuit. I had now been several days without tasting anything besides meat: I did not at all dislike this new regimen; but I felt as if it would only have agreed with me with hard exercise. I have heard that patients in England, when desired to confine themselves exclusively to an animal diet, even with the hope of life before their eyes, have hardly been able to endure it. Yet the Gaucho in the Pampas, for months together, touches nothing but beef. But they eat, I observe, a very large proportion of fat, which is of a less animalized nature; and they particularly dislike dry meat, such as that of the Agouti. Dr. Richardson also, has remarked, “that when people have fed for a long time solely upon lean animal food, the desire for fat becomes so insatiable, that they can consume a large quantity of unmixed and even oily fat without nausea:” this appears to me a curious physiological fact. It is, perhaps, from their meat regimen that the Gauchos, like other carnivorous animals, can abstain long from food. I was told that at Tandeel, some troops voluntarily pursued a party of Indians for three days, without eating or drinking. (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/944/pg944-images.html)

Synopsis
In a first for Ask a Medievalist, Em sits down with Sebastian Nothwell to discuss his approach to writing historical/historical fantasy novels. In the process, they get into everything from Victorian steam power to the effects of the peasants revolt of 1381 on the chartists in the 1830s–50s. You can find Sebastian’s website at https://sebastiannothwell.com/.
Notes
1/ British Newspaper Archive: https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/
The Dictionary of Victorian London is also a great place for info. It’s composed largely of clippings from newspapers and books of the time, arranged by topic: https://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm
2/ Victorian Steam Power: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_power_during_the_Industrial_Revolution
3/ The UK shut down the coal plants in September 2024: https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/coal-phaseout-UK/index.html
4/ Buggery Act of 1533 was repealed by the Offenses Against the Person Act of 1837, which nevertheless maintained legal penalties against gay relationships; the last execution for the same was in 1835. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buggery_Act_1533
5/ “Blorbo” means favorite character.
6/ We’ve previously talked about the effects of the plague in episode 2. And we talked a little about the peasant’s revolt in episode 87.
7/ The Chartists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartism
8/ A few relevant novels: A Dream of John Ball: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/357
Wat Tyler, or the Rebellion of 1381: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.31951p007357378&seq=9
Ivanhoe: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/82
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14568 (but there are many, many translations if you look around; we also discussed this in episode 60.)
9/ The Eglinton Tournament: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eglinton_Tournament

Synopsis
“Times are tough, but they could be worse” is the eternal message of our show. This time, we’re talking about persecution and rebellion–how certain groups were oppressed for political purposes in medieval (and early modern, and modern) Europe, and some people and groups who rebelled, in both a personal and more broadly political way. From Boudica to Hrotsvit to Jack Cade, join us to talk about how people in the middle ages took power back from the elites.
Notes
1/ Link to Plague episode!
2/ You can tell I’m not a real historian because they would not be allowed to describe the French Revolution as “a messy breakup.”
3/ R. I. Moore, The Formation of a Persecuting Society: Authority and Deviance in Western Europe 950–1250, Wiley-Blackwell, 2007.
4/ Jean-Paul Sartre, Anti-Semite and Jew, originally published in 1946, translated by George J. Becker and published in English in 1948. The most famous quote from this essay is “If the Jew did not exist, the anti-Semite would invent him.” It’s a little eerie to go to the Goodreads page in search of quotes and see how many people’s reviews (from the 2017–2020 period) say something like “Wow, this feels eerily relevant for what’s going on right now.” [Unfortunately, I think it’s always relevant!–JN]
5/ Bhabha, Homi K., “Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse.” In The Location of Culture. (London: Routledge, 1994), 85–92.
6/ Geraldine Heng, The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages (Cambridge University Press, 2018).
7/ Boudica! (dies 60 CE) See Episode 58, note 11.
8/ Hrotsvit of Gandersheim (973–no later than 1002). Episode 22 is about her!
9/ Margery Kempe (1373–after 1438) was awesome. See Episode 36 note 17 and Episode 70.
10/ St Francis of Assisi (c.1181–1226). We’ve talked about him a lot! There’s more on his stigmata way back in Episode 4! Also, check him out in Episode 23 (on his Christmas pageant).
11/ Peasants’ Revolt (so called) in 1381.
Justice, Steven. Writing and Rebellion: England in 1381. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.
Shakespeare’s version of the Adam/gentleman joke comes from the famous Gravedigger scene in Hamlet V.i:
GRAVEDIGGER: There is no ancient gentlemen but gard’ners, ditchers, and grave-makers. They hold up Adam’s profession.
[Second Gravedigger]: Was he a gentleman?
GRAVEDIGGER: He was the first that ever bore arms.
[Second Gravedigger]: Why, he had none.
GRAVEDIGGER: What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the scripture? The scripture says Adam digged. Could he dig without arms?
12/ Jack Cade’s Rebellion (1450).
Shakespeare again! 2 Henry VI IV.ii:
Dick: The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.
13/ Florence’s Ciompi Revolt (1378–1382).
14/ Show more...