Pope Joan is a medieval legend about a woman who disguised herself as a man, rose to become pope in the ninth century and was exposed when she gave birth during a procession in Rome. Historians agree she never existed: there is no gap in the list of popes where she could fit. Yet for some three hundred years most Europeans — including churchmen — believed the story, and Siena Cathedral even displayed her bust among the popes until about 1600.
This article is part of our guide to women in religion: the story of Pope Joan says less about the ninth century than about how firmly religious power was reserved for men.
Who was Pope Joan?
According to the best-known version of the legend, Joan was born in Mainz to English parents, studied in Athens dressed as a man, came to Rome under the name John Anglicus (“John the Englishman”), impressed everyone with her learning and was elected pope. She reigned for a little over two years, between Pope Leo IV (died 855) and Pope Benedict III. During a procession from St Peter’s to the Lateran she went into labour on a narrow street between the Colosseum and the church of San Clemente, gave birth and died — killed by the crowd in some versions, of the birth itself in others.
Later popes, the story continued, avoided that street in their processions.
Was Pope Joan real?
No. Historians, Catholic and Protestant alike, consider her a legend (Noble, 1999). The reasons are simple:
- No contemporary source mentions her. The first known reference, in the chronicle of the Dominican Jean de Mailly around 1250, appears almost four hundred years after her supposed reign — and Jean de Mailly places his unnamed female pope around 1099, not in the ninth century.
- There is no gap in the list of popes. Leo IV died on 17 July 855 and Benedict III was elected soon after. Coins of Benedict III bear the name of Emperor Lothair I, who died on 28 September 855 — so Benedict was already pope within weeks of Leo’s death.
- The details grew over time. The name “John Anglicus of Mainz”, the date in the 850s and the love story were added by the version inserted into the chronicle of Martin of Opava later in the thirteenth century; the name “Agnes” appears in Adam of Usk’s chronicle in 1404; the name “Joan” came later still.
The legend was taken apart by the Protestant historian David Blondel in 1647, and later by the Catholic historian Ignaz von Döllinger. The Oxford Dictionary of Popes says it “scarcely needs painstaking refutation today”. Blondel suggested the tale may have begun as a satire on Pope John XI, who died in his early twenties.
Was there ever a female pope?
No woman has ever been pope. Under Catholic Church law a woman cannot be: the pope is the Bishop of Rome, and canon law allows only a baptised man to be ordained. In 1601 Pope Clement VIII officially declared the legend of the female pope untrue. → Can women be priests? The answer of each church
Specialists who work in English from the Reincarnatiopedia directory, today
Can a woman be pope?
Not under the rules of the Catholic Church today. The pope must be a bishop, and the Church teaches it has “no authority whatsoever” to ordain women priests (Ordinatio sacerdotalis, 1994). In other churches the highest office is open to women: in 2026 Sarah Mullally became the first woman Archbishop of Canterbury, the senior bishop of the Church of England.
Why did people believe in Pope Joan?
From the thirteenth to the sixteenth century the story was treated as fact. Dominican preachers used it as a moral example; Boccaccio included Joan in his book On Famous Women (1353); in 1391 it was cited at the heresy trial of the Welshman Walter Brut. At his own trial at the Council of Constance in 1415, Jan Hus argued that the Church had managed well enough without a true pope during the reign of “Pope Agnes”, as he called her — and his accusers disputed his conclusion, not the existence of the female pope. Around 1400 a series of papal busts was carved for Siena Cathedral, and one of them, labelled “Johannes VIII, Femina de Anglia”, stood between Leo IV and Benedict III. Around 1600 it was recarved or replaced, and the figure was relabelled as Pope Zachary.
Doubts grew in the sixteenth century, when Catholic and Protestant writers argued over the story; in 1587 the French magistrate Florimond de Raemond published a careful refutation. Ironically, it was a Protestant, Blondel, who finally showed the legend could not be true, even though Protestant polemicists had used it against Rome.
The female pope chair: what is the sedia stercoraria?
The legend claims that, after Joan, every new pope had to sit on a chair with a hole in the seat so that a cleric could check he was a man, then announce “Duos habet et bene pendentes” — “He has two, and they hang well.”
The chairs are real; the examination is not. Pierced marble chairs were used in papal enthronements at the Lateran — they are recorded at the consecration of Pope Paschal II in 1099 — and examples survive in the Vatican Museums and the Louvre. They were probably ancient Roman seats, perhaps bathing or birthing chairs, reused for their imperial prestige. In the 1290s the Dominican Robert of Uzès described a vision of the seat “where, it is said, the pope is proved to be a man”, and in 1406 a visitor to Rome wrote that “the vulgar” told this “insane fable” about the chairs. The rumour, in other words, was street gossip attached to genuine objects.
Pope Joan in books and films
Joan has never left popular culture:
- Novels: Emmanuel Rhoides’ Pope Joan (Greek, 1866), admired by Mark Twain and freely translated by Lawrence Durrell (1954); Donna Woolfolk Cross’s Pope Joan (1996), a bestseller that became a German musical; Emily Maguire’s Rapture (2024).
- Films: Pope Joan (1972), directed by Michael Anderson, with Liv Ullmann; Pope Joan (Die Päpstin, 2009), directed by Sönke Wortmann and based on Cross’s novel.
- Tarot: the card called “La Papesse” (the Popess) in the Tarot of Marseille, known in English decks as the High Priestess, is often linked with the legend.
What Pope Joan tells us about women and religious power
The legend lived for centuries because it touched a real nerve: a woman could only reach the top of the Church by pretending to be a man, and the story ends with her exposure and death. Real women found other routes to spiritual authority — as prophetesses, abbesses, mystics and, later, priests and bishops in churches that opened the door. → Female prophets in the Bible
Other faiths faced the same question in their own way. In Tibet, a woman — Samding Dorje Phagmo — has been recognised by rebirth as a high lama since the fifteenth century, a line with no counterpart among the popes. → Women in Buddhism: bhikkhunis, female lamas and Tara. And some women did found religions of their own. → Women who founded religions
In faiths that teach rebirth, a soul is not bound to one sex: it may return as a man in one life and as a woman in the next. How different religions describe that return is set out in our guide to reincarnation beliefs across world religions and cultures.
Frequently asked questions
Is Pope Joan a true story?
No. There is no contemporary evidence, and the known dates of the popes leave no room for her reign. Historians regard the story as a medieval legend.
When was Pope Joan supposed to be pope?
The most popular version places her between Leo IV and Benedict III, in about 855–857. The earliest version, by Jean de Mailly, placed an unnamed female pope around 1099.
Was Pope John VIII a woman?
No. The real John VIII reigned from 872 to 882. Some medieval lists numbered the legendary Joan as “John VIII”, which caused the confusion.
What is the Pope Joan movie?
There are two: Pope Joan (1972) with Liv Ullmann, and the German-produced Pope Joan (2009), directed by Sönke Wortmann, based on Donna Woolfolk Cross’s novel.
Has there ever been a female pope in any church?
No church called “papal” has had a woman at its head. The nearest modern parallel is the Church of England, whose senior bishop since 2026 is Archbishop Sarah Mullally.
Sources
- Alain Boureau. The Myth of Pope Joan. University of Chicago Press, 2000 (French original La Papesse Jeanne, 1988).
- J. N. D. Kelly. The Oxford Dictionary of Popes. Oxford University Press, 1986; appendix “Pope Joan”.
- David Blondel. Familier esclaircissement de la question si une femme a esté assise au siège papal de Rome. Amsterdam, 1647.
- Ignaz von Döllinger. Die Papstfabeln des Mittelalters. Munich, 1863.
- “Popess Joan”. Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 8. New York: Robert Appleton, 1910.
- Donna Woolfolk Cross. Pope Joan: A Novel. Crown, 1996.
- Thomas F. X. Noble. “Review of Peter Stanford, The Legend of Pope Joan: In Search of the Truth”. The Catholic Historical Review 85(4), 1999, 603–604. doi:10.1353/cat.1999.0202
- John C. Moore. “Review of Peter Stanford, The Legend of Pope Joan: In Search of the Truth”. Speculum 75(3), 2000, 726–727. doi:10.2307/2903435