Pope Joan is, according to popular legend, a woman who reigned as pope for a few years during the Middle Ages. Her story first appeared in chronicles in the 13th century and subsequently spread throughout Europe. The story was widely believed for centuries, but most modern scholars regard it as fictional.
Most versions of her story describe her as a talented and learned woman who disguised herself as a man, often at the behest of a lover. In the most common accounts, due to her abilities, she rose through the church hierarchy and was eventually elected pope. Her sex was revealed when she gave birth during a procession, and she died shortly after, either through murder or natural causes. The accounts state that later church processions avoided this spot, and that the Vatican removed the female pope from its official lists and crafted a ritual to ensure that future popes were male. In the 16th century, Siena Cathedral featured a bust of Joan among other pontiffs; this was removed after protests in 1600.
Pope Joan is a 1996 novel by American writer Donna Woolfolk Cross. It is based on the medieval legend of Pope Joan. For the most part this novel is the story of a young woman, whose desire to gain more knowledge compels her to dress up as a man, who (due to events beyond her control) eventually rises to become the pope. The novel has been adapted into a film, Pope Joan, released in 2009.
Joan, the daughter of a priest and his Saxon wife, is born in 814. Ironically, when he discovers that Joan is able to read her father calls her “child of the devil” and blames Matthew's death on her, as a punishment.
At Fulda she becomes a skilled physician is ordained as a priest. Her father visits her in Fulda, believing her to be her brother. When he discovers who she is, he wishes to expose her, but dies of a stroke. When the plague comes to Fulda Joan sickens. Afraid that they will discover that she’s a woman, she fleesand finds refuge with a family she once helped.
After her convalescence she goes to Rome, where she becomes the personal physician to the Pope, Sergius, a weak man easily led by his venal brother Benedict. Joan attempts to guide Sergius so that the papacy becomes a force for good. Benedict resents her influence and attempts to frame her for breaking her vow of chastity. When the Frankish Emperor Lothar marches Rome, Benedict flees with funds intended to try and placate him, and Joan is restored to her former place of authority. Benedict is apprehended by Gerold, now serving Lothar, and executed on Sergius' orders.
Pope Joan is a 1972 British, mediaeval costume drama film based on the story of Pope Joan. Even though modern consensus generally disputes Pope Joan as legendary, in this film she is treated as fact.
It was directed by Michael Anderson and has a cast which includes Liv Ullmann (in the lead role), Olivia de Havilland, Lesley-Anne Down, Franco Nero and Maximilian Schell. The soundtrack was composed by Maurice Jarre with additional choral music provided by The Sistine Chapel Choir, directed by Domenico Bartolucci.
The film was released on DVD in 2003 on Region 1 format disc. It was also re-titled in some areas as The Devil's Imposter, with much material cut.
The version of the film released in 1972 differed significantly from the version that had originally been filmed. Anderson's original was made with flashbacks and flash-forward sequences about a modern-day evangelical preacher who believes her life parallels that of Pope Joan. In this version psychiatrists try to send her back through her past lives to establish if she is the reincarnation of Pope Joan. However, the distributor decided to have all of the contemporary sequences removed and released the film as a straightforward historical drama. In 2009 the film was re-edited and the previously unreleased footage was re-inserted. It was re-released under the title She… Who Would Be Pope.
Pope Joan is the subject of a medieval legend about a woman who reigned as pope.
Pope Joan is also the name of:
Pope Joan, a once popular Victorian family game, is an 18th-century English round game of cards for three to eight players derived from the French game of Matrimony and Comete, and ancestor to its less elaborate relative Newmarket and Spinado.
Although its first published rules have appeared in Hoyle's Games edition of 1814, the earlier reference to the game Pope Joan, originally called Pope Julius, comes from The Oxford English Dictionary in 1732.
The game was presumably named after Pope Julius II, the Warrior Pope, or it probably derives from the legend that Pope John VIII was actually a woman. As the Catholic Church denies a female pope, the legend was used as Protestant propaganda in the Victorian-Era, which also explains the popularity of the game in Scotland. The 9♦ is sometimes called the Curse of Scotland.
A staking board is required, with eight compartments labelled Ace, King, Queen, Jack, Game, Pope (9♦), Matrimony (K Q of trumps) and Intrigue (Q J of trumps). Each player receives a number of counters, or chips, whose value is determined by the players involved in the game. The 8♦ is then removed from the pack to form a stop sequence, which classifies the game as a sub-group of the stop family of games. The aim of the game is to run out of cards before anyone does.
Pope Joan (German: Die Päpstin) is an international epic film produced by Bernd Eichinger, based on American novelist Donna Woolfolk Cross' novel of the same name about the legendary Pope Joan. Directed by Sönke Wortmann, it stars Johanna Wokalek as Joan, David Wenham as Gerold, her lover, and John Goodman as Pope Sergius II. The film's world premiere occurred in Berlin on 19 October 2009, with its general release in Germany on 22 October 2009.
Shortly after the death of Charlemagne, a woman called Joan is born in Ingelheim am Rhein. She is the daughter of a village priest (Iain Glen). He also rules his wife (Jördis Triebel) and family with a rod of iron, though his Saxon wife still secretly worships the pagan god Wotan. Even so, Joan grows up to be an articulate girl, who intensively studies the Bible, unbeknownst to her father. After her eldest brother's sudden death, their father wants to send his second son John to the cathedral school in Dorestad, but when the teacher Aesculapius (Edward Petherbridge) visits them in Ingelheim, Joan proves to be far more capable of dealing with the Scriptures than John. Against her father's wishes, Joan is taught by Aesculapius, who introduces her to literary works such as Homer's Odyssey.