That of the Papessa Giovanna is a fake historian: In the two thousand years of the history of the Church, a female Pope has never existed. The legend that wants it pontiff From the year 855 to 857with the name of John VIIIemerged during the Middle Ages, gained popularity after the Protestant reform, because it is used as proof of the corruption of the Church and Catholics: today we know with certainty that legend has no historical foundation. Canonical law, moreover,, does not provide that a woman can become popebut over the centuries there have been women capable of exerting strong influence on the popes.
The legend of the Papessa
According to a legend, Giovanna was an English woman who, disguising herself as a man, had managed to enter the convent and take the monastic votes with the name of Johannes Anglicus Without interrupting the sexual relationships that entertained. In July of the year 855, after the death of Lion IV, Continuing to pretend to be for manwas elected to the papal throne and assumed the name of John VIII. Even as Pope, he continued to have sexual intercourse with one of his lover e He remained pregnant; So in the year 857, after almost two years pontificate, the deception came to light: Giovanna was returning from the Easter procession, on the road between the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano and the Vatican, when the procession came near the Basilica of San Clemente, near the Aquiline, the horse on which the papassa was mounted, stimulating childbirth. Giovanna then gave birth on the street and the crowd, angry by the fact that the woman had deceived her assuming the pontificate, Lapido immediately.
In his place, a few days later he was elected Pope Benedict IIIwho made Giovanna’s name erase from the ranks of the popes, for this reason the name of John VIII was taken up by another pope, in office From 872 to 882. Other versions of the story want Giovanna to die of childbirth or that it has been locked up in a convent.
How was the legend of Papessa Giovanna born: there is something true?
The legend was mentioned for the first time in Texts of the thirteenth century But he spread especially after the Protestant reform (which started, as we know, in 1517). Protestants, in fact, used it as proof of corruption and immorality of the papacy.
Another myth is associated with the legend: the one according to which, after the story of Giovanna, a cardinal would have been in charge of feel the genitals of the Pope on the occasion of each new election, for Make sure it was male. The pontiff, according to this legend, sat on one Chair with the session open to allow the cardinal to carry out his verification. The myth is unfounded but, probably, it is from it that the legend of the Papessa derives: since the Roman era, in fact, they really existed Chairs with opening on the sessionused for corporal needs. It seems that three in Rome existed, but the cognition of their “hygienic” function were lost in the Middle Ages and were exchanged for used tools To check the Pope’s sex. What is certain is that also the myth of the chair has no historical basis.
The popularity of legend
The legend of the Papessa spread after the reform, but Since the sixteenth century it has been refuted by some Catholic authors. Moreover, the story contains numerous inconsistencies, starting from the fact that in the years in which Giovanna would have been Pope, in reality on the throne of Pietro Sette Benedetto III, in office since 855 on the death of in 858. Today scholars agree in arguing that the history of the papess is a unfounded myth. However, not only various books have been dedicated to the legend, but also Two movies: The Papessa Giovanna of 1972, directed by Michael Anderson, e The Papessa of 2009, directed by Sönke Wortmann, in which the role of Giovanna is played by Johanna Wokalek.
Can a woman become pope?
Canon law does not explicitly prohibit that the Pope is a woman, but it prohibits indirectly. The Pope, in fact, is the bishop of Rome (if a pope was not already bishop at the time of the election, he would be immediately consecrated such), and Only men can be elevated to bishop’s dignity. Consequentially, A woman cannot be pope.
This, however, does not mean that in the past there have been women capable of exerting great influence on the popes. The years from 904 to 960, part of the more general Saeculum Obscurum (dark century) of the Church from 888 to 1046, are known as the period of pornocracy (power of prostitutes) due to the influence that some courtesans, in particular Theodora and her daughter Maroziabelonging to the family of the counts of Tuscolo, exercised on the popes. Some popes of the period, moreover, were lovers of one of the two women. It is also well known the influence that some centuries later had Giulia Farnese on Alexander VIPope from 1492 to 1503 and father of the talked about Lucrezia Borgia.
