While studying the work of Barlaam of Seminara, a 14th-century Greek monk, I realized that he was the only Eastern polemicist who had mentioned the story of Pope Joan. Intrigued, I sought to explore this topic further, and what I found is presented in this article. The first mention of the popess appeared in the Chronica universalis of 1250 by the Dominican Jean de Mailly: "It would be a pope or rather a popess, because she was a woman. Disguised as a man, by virtue of the integrity of her intellect, she first became a notary of the curia, then a cardinal, and finally pope. One day, while riding a horse, she gave birth to a child, and immediately the Roman justice had her tied by the feet and attached to the tail of a horse; she was dragged, stoned by the people for half a league, and buried in the place where she died. Here an inscription was placed: Peter, Father of Fathers, make public the birth of the Popess. Under his pontificate, the fasting of the Quattro tempora was instituted, which was called the fasting of the popess." (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, XXIV, Hannover, 1879, p. 514.) Another Dominican, Martin the Pole, or rather, a revised version of his Chronica de romanis pontificibus et imperatoribus (shortly after 1260), gave the story its definitive form, naming the popess “John the Englishman” and dating her pontificate to 854-856. This legend spread widely and was believed to be true by everyone before the 16th century. In Italian literature, it appears in Boccaccio's De claris mulieribus, chapter 101. Today, it is believed that the invention of Pope Joan took place in Rome, in a carnival context that parodied a particular aspect of the papal coronation that was incomprehensible to the people, in force from 1099 to 1513: the newly elected pope had to sit on two orange marble seats, called curule seats. On the right seat, the pontiff received the staff and keys, and on the left, a red belt from which twelve gems hung. Both had a central opening in the seat. The people probably picked up on this detail and came up with a burlesque explanation: the opening was used to touch the pope to verify that he was indeed a man and to prevent women, such as Joan, from ascending to the papacy forever.
See A. Boureau, La papessa Giovanna. Storia di una leggenda medievale (Pope Joan: The Story of a Medieval Legend), Turin, 1991.