Joan

Joan, a lady of doubtful historical authenticity who, according to mediaeval legends, filled the Papal chair as John VII. or VIII., between the pontificates of Leo IV. and Benedict III. She is said to have been of English race, though born in Germany, her Christian name being either Agnes or Gilberta] Love for a Benedictine monk led her to adopt male attire, and join him in the monastery of Fulda. On his death she kept up the disguise, went to Rome, and by her piety and learning so influenced the Cardinals as to secure the tiara by their unanimous vote. Her secret, however, was not so strictly kept but that she gave birth to a child in a street near the Lateran Palace, which is to this day avoided by Papal processions. The story first crops up in the Chronicle of Stephen de Bourbon, early in the 13th century. Then it was interpolated into the text of Martinus Polus fifty years later, and so became current, until in 1400 a bust of this chimerical personage was placed among those of the other popes in Siena Cathedral. The fiction probably originated in the spite of the Dominicans and Minorites against the Benedictines.