Editing Pope Joan (section)

==Later development==
[[Image:La Papessa.jpg|thumb|upright|An untitled [[The High Priestess|popess]] on the ''Rosenwald Sheet'' of uncut [[Tarot]] woodcuts. Early 16th-century. Now in [[National Gallery]] in [[Washington, D.C.]] ]]
From the mid-13th century onward the story of the female pope was widely disseminated and believed. Joan was used as an ''[[exemplum]]'' in [[Dominican Order|Dominican]] preaching. [[Bartolomeo Platina]], the scholar who was prefect of the Vatican Library, wrote his ''Vitæ Pontificum Platinæ historici liber de vita Christi ac omnium pontificum qui hactenus ducenti fuere et XX'' in 1479 at the behest of his patron, [[Pope Sixtus IV]]. The book contains the following account of the female Pope:

<blockquote>
Pope John VIII: John, of English extraction, was born at Mentz ([[Mainz]]) and is said to have arrived at popedom by evil art; for disguising herself like a man, whereas she was a woman, she went when young with her paramour, a learned man, to Athens, and made such progress in learning under the professors there that, coming to Rome, she met with few that could equal, much less go beyond her, even in the knowledge of the scriptures; and by her learned and ingenious readings and disputations, she acquired so great respect and authority that upon the death of [[Pope Leo IV]] (as Martin says) by common consent she was chosen pope in his room. As she was going to the Lateran Church between the [[Colosseum|Colossean Theatre]] (so called from [[Colossus of Nero|Nero's Colossus]]) and St. Clement's her travail came upon her, and she died upon the place, having sat two years, one month, and four days, and was buried there without any pomp. This story is vulgarly told, but by very uncertain and obscure authors, and therefore I have related it barely and in short, lest I should seem obstinate and pertinacious if I had admitted what is so generally talked. I had better mistake with the rest of the world, though it be certain, that what I have related may be thought not altogether incredible.
</blockquote>
[[File:Woodcut illustration of Pope Joan - Penn Provenance Project.jpg|thumbnail|left|Pope Joan giving birth. Woodcut from a German translation by [[Heinrich Steinhöwel]] of Giovanni Boccaccio's ''[[De mulieribus claris]]'', printed by Johannes Zainer at Ulm ca. 1474 ([[British Museum]])]]
References to the female Pope abound in the later [[Middle Ages]] and [[Renaissance]]. [[Jans der Enikel]] (1270s) was the first to tell the story in German. [[Giovanni Boccaccio]] wrote about her in ''[[De mulieribus claris|De Mulieribus Claris]]'' (1353).<ref>Ch. 99: "De Ioannae Anglica Papa", begins succinctly: "''Ioannes esto Vir nomine videbature, sexu tamen fœmina fuit.''"</ref> The ''Chronicon'' of [[Adam of Usk]] (1404) gives her a name, Agnes, and furthermore mentions a statue in Rome that is said to be of her. This statue had never been mentioned by any earlier writer anywhere; presumably it was an actual statue that came to be taken to be of the female pope. A late-14th-century edition of the ''Mirabilia Urbis Romae'', a guidebook for pilgrims to Rome, tells readers that the female Pope's remains are buried at St. Peter's. It was around this time that a long series of busts of past Popes was made for the [[Siena Cathedral|Duomo of Siena]], which included one of the female pope, named as "Johannes VIII, Foemina de Anglia" and included between Leo IV and Benedict III.

At his trial in 1415 [[Jan Hus]] argued that the Church did not necessarily need a pope because, during the pontificate of "Pope Agnes" (as he also called her), it got on quite well. Hus's opponents at the trial insisted that his argument proved no such thing about the independence of the Church but they did not dispute that there had been a female pope at all.