Popess Johanna

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Depiction of the birth of Popess Johanna (woodcut by Jacob Kallenberg , from an edition of Boccaccios De Claris Mulieribus )
Tarot card: “La Papessa”, 15th or 16th century.
Depiction of Popess Johanna in Schedel's world chronicle (1493)

When Pope Joan (also John Anglicus and Giovanni Femina , Jutta , woman jutte , Gilberta , Anna , Agnes or Glancia called) is a legend substance that tells of a is issuing as a man learned woman as pope is said to have held office - in the cultural and cultural-historical perspective mostly identified with John VIII in the 9th century.

However, today's historiography assumes that there was no real historical model for Johanna.

Origin of the legend and sources

The legend about Popess Johanna has been handed down since the 13th century and gained great popularity and wide distribution in the late Middle Ages . The original forms of the saga tell of an unnamed popess who is said to have officiated towards the end of the 11th century; so report the Chronica universalis Mettensis of Jean de Mailly and the Tractatus de diversis materiis predicabilibus of Stephan of Bourbon around the middle of the 13th century.

The Dominican Martin von Troppau then moved this legend in his chronicle published in 1277 to the 9th century and added the pregnancy and the birth of the Popess during a procession. All later depend on Martin's story. Two versions of Martin's version describe either the death of the Popess and her child at this birth or her exile in a monastery. Later traditions of the legend usually decorate the first version further, and the Popess is given other names. Martin's version of the legend also forms the basis of the version in Schedel's World Chronicle , which was also widely used. Bartolomeo Platina also mentions it in 1479.

Sources for the legend that can be dated before the 13th century are not known.

The first serious doubts about the historicity of the legend, which for a long time was even considered credible by some popes, can already be found in the reformed church historian David Blondel (1590–1655). Despite the impression that some popular scientific publications may give, modern research is practically unanimous on the assumption that history is a free invention.

A Popess Joan is mentioned in various historical, but unreliable and not contemporary sources, up to the 17th century also in church texts.

One of the most frequently cited sources is the Liber Pontificalis of the former antipope Anastasius Bibliothecarius , who would have been a contemporary of the Pope. However, the relevant information can only be found in the manuscript that is in the Vatican library and not in those in other places. The comment on the Popess was added to the manuscript as a gloss by a later scribe . This addendum is dated to the late 13th or 14th century through the analysis of the manuscript style, is likely to have been made under the influence of the Chronicle of Martin von Troppau and is therefore not considered contemporary evidence. The same applies to the manuscripts of the Chronicon by Marianus Scotus . While the work itself was written in the 11th century, all manuscripts that contain a reference to a Popess are dated to a later date than Martin's Chronicle. Earlier copies of Scotus' work do not contain these references.

Legends

The text of the version from the late medieval Schedel Chronicle (1493) is reproduced here as a typical version:

“Johannes aus Engelland attains the babstthumb with evil arts. then how do you want a womanly person what so wanders in the form of perde one male. And so I am still dating my lover, a trained man in Athenas. Already then it was pointed out in the scriptures that it came from Rome little like anything in the holy scriptures. With reading and sharp disputes in scheyn one mans vnder the concealment of femininity in Rome she attains such goodwill and credibility that after Leonis died at his place (as martinus speaks) with all the will to babble. But she was subsequently impregnated by an irer servant. and when she wore her body so long and one day in sant Johanßen lateranian churches. then she was caught between the wonder castle and sent Clementen with ween confused and paired and died instead of it. Quite a lot of writing when a baby wants to go to the well-known sant Johanßen kirchengeen. and at the same end do the proceedings be come. so the babst avoids the same way in disgraceful copying of such stories: on the other hand, when an adult babst first in sans Peters. The last dyacon is used to set the perforated stul to avoid the same future mistake to the babst his manual checked through the same perforated stul. "

- from Schedel's world chronicle

Another version is the text by Leopold Stainreuter from the Austrian Chronicle of the 95 rulers from the late 14th century (around 1384/85):

“Ain woman was pabst after Christ pounded eight hundred siben and forty jare and besazz the stul drew jar and five mened and het called Johannes. Si cham in mans chlaid to Athens and learn great arts. After that, Rom and Lazz champion some great art. Other masters, schuler and phaffes hoard ir leczen, and what ze Röm read because dhain maister, who was alz maisterleich. That is why she was elected to ainem pabst and then became swanger. Do si in ainer processes gen solt, do vieng si weibleich chranchait and perte ain chind. "

- from the Austrian chronicle of the 95 dominions

Hypotheses

Even if popular scientific publications sometimes claim differently - for example in a ZDF documentary from 2012 with Petra Gerster  - there is no doubt from the point of view of today's history that there never was a Popess Johanna. There are, however, numerous competing hypotheses that try to explain the origin of the legend about a popess.

One hypothesis sees the story of Popess Johanna as a legend, which has its true core in the power of the theophylacts , especially in the two female figures Marozia , the mother of Pope John XI. , and her mother Theodora , who were believed by anti-Roman authors like Liutprand of Cremona to hold the true power behind the papal throne.

The church historian Cesare Baronio , however, explained the myth as a satire on Pope John VIII (Pope 872-882) because of his alleged softness in dealing with the patriarch of Constantinople Photios I.

The historian Michael Hesemann attributes the origin of the legend about Popess Johanna to two factors. On the one hand, the narrow street that led from the Lateran to the Vatican was actually called “vicus Papessa”, but it was named after a noble family, the “Papes”, who resided there until the 10th century. This alley was actually avoided by the popes during processions because of its narrowness. There was also a former sanctuary of the Mithras cult (under the church of San Clemente ) . An inscription once located there with the Latin letters PPPPPP is always mentioned by the earliest sources as evidence of the story of the Popess and as "Petre, Pater Patrum, Papisse Prodito Partum" ("Peter, father of the fathers, reveal the birth of the female." Pope ”) interpreted. The inscription in question, lost today, is likely to have been ancient: in fact, PPP (“proprie pecunia posuit”: “provided the necessary funds”) was a common ancient dedicatory inscription, while “Pater Patrum” was a high priest title of the Mithras cult was, and "Peter" was a common name in pre-Christian times. The inscription should only have recorded that a Mithras priest (named Peter) had made a consecration. A picture of the Madonna placed in the alley is still often misinterpreted as a representation of the Popess.

There is also a widespread opinion that, according to Johanna, newly elected popes should have sat on a special chair with a hole in the seat through which the presence of testicles was supposed to have been checked. This chair is referred to as sella stercorata or sedes stercorata ( dt. Kotstuhl or Kotsitz ). The porphyry chair does exist, but there are several contradicting representations about the supposedly associated ritual, each of which only reproduces rumors that were circulating at the time. Contrary to what is sometimes claimed, there are no eyewitness accounts of such a practice. It may be a popular misunderstanding of an ascension ritual at the papal coronation , in which the newly elected Pope took a seat on various chairs that symbolized his ascent to the papal throne, beginning with the toilet seat.

In a scientific research paper published in 2018, all hypotheses including medical and psychological aspects are presented and checked for their validity for or against the possibility of a female pontificate.

Hypothesis Pope succession to Benedict III.

The official successor to Pope Leo IV was Benedict III. but there is little substantiated information about it. Some therefore suspected that Benedict III. was invented by the Roman Catholic Church when Popess Joan was erased from history in the 17th century. However, there are certainly datable coins that Benedict III. together with Emperor Lothar , who died on September 28, 855 . On October 7th, 855 Benedict III. a charter for Corvey Abbey , and his correspondence with the Archbishop of Reims and his circular to the bishops in the empire of Charles the Bald have been preserved.

Another hypothesis assumes that Popess Joan was between Leo IV and Benedict III. held the Holy See . This hypothesis cannot be confirmed by historical evidence. The Byzantine patriarch Photios I (9th century), who was an opponent of the Roman papacy, mentions Leo and Benedict as successive popes in his writings. Even there, despite all the criticism of the Roman papacy, there is no reference to a Popess.

Edits

Literary adaptations

The legend about the woman on the papal throne has not only occupied historians and theologians, but has also been treated in a variety of literary ways:

Movies

musical

literature

Older literature:

  • Georg Scherer : Whether it is true that at one time a pope in Rome was pregnant and gave birth to a child? Thorough report. Ingolstadt 1584 ( digitized version ) - historical source writing by a Jesuit
  • Leone Allacci : Confutatio fabulae de Joanna Papissa. Colonia Agrippina (= Cologne) 1645
  • [FS] Spanheim: Histoire de la Papesse Jeanne. Fidelment tirée de la Dissertation Latine… 2 parts. 2nd edition with 3 coppers. Scheurleer, La Haye (The Hague) 1720
  • Florimond de Raemond : L'Anti-Papesse ou Erreur populaire de la Papesse-Jeanne. Riviere, 1613

Scientific literature after 1800:

Newer representatives of authenticity (popular science):

  • Ingeborg Kruse: Johanna von Ingelheim. The real life of Popess Joan. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-7466-8074-3
  • Peter Stanford: The True Story of Popess Joan. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-7466-8057-3

Web links

Commons : Popess Johanna  - collection of images
Wikisource: Popess Johanna  - sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Folio CLXIX verso, quoted by the digital output at Wikisource
  2. ^ German chronicles and other history books of the Middle Ages 6: Austrian chronicle of the 95 dominions. Edited by Joseph Seemüller . Hanover 1906, p. 82 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version )
  3. ↑ A scandal and its history ( Memento from December 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) on zdf.de
  4. ↑ Michael E. Habicht: Popess Johanna. A covered up pontificate of a woman or a fictional legend? Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-7467-5736-0