Editing Pope Joan (section)

==During the Reformation==
In 1587 [[Florimond de Raemond]], a magistrate in the [[parlement]] de Bordeaux and an [[Antiquarian|antiquary]], published his first attempt to deconstruct the legend, ''Erreur Populaire de la Papesse Jeanne'' (also subsequently published under the title ''L'Anti-Papesse''). The tract applied humanist techniques of textual criticism to the Pope Joan legend, with the broader intent of supplying sound historical principles to ecclesiastical history, and the legend began to come apart, detail by detail. Raemond's ''Erreur Populaire'' went through successive editions, reaching a fifteenth as late as 1691.<ref>{{cite journal | last = Tinsley | first = Barbara Sher |date=Autumn 1987 | title = Pope Joan Polemic in Early Modern France: The Use and Disabuse of Myth | journal = Sixteenth Century Journal | volume = 18 | issue = 3 | pages = 381–398 | issn = 0361-0160 | doi=10.2307/2540724| jstor = 2540724 | s2cid = 165483898 }}</ref>

In 1601, [[Pope Clement VIII]] declared the legend of the female pope to be untrue. The famous bust of her, inscribed ''Johannes VIII, Femina ex Anglia,'' which had been carved for the series of papal figures in the [[Siena Cathedral|Duomo di Siena]] about 1400 and was noted by travelers, was either destroyed or recarved and relabeled, replaced by a male figure, that of [[Pope Zachary]].<ref name="ShePope">{{cite book |last=Stanford |first=Peter |author-link=Peter Stanford |title=The She-Pope: a quest for the truth behind the mystery of Pope Joan |year=1999 |publisher=Arrow |isbn=978-0-7493-2067-6}}</ref>

The legend of Pope Joan was "effectively demolished" by [[David Blondel]], a mid-17th-century [[Protestantism|Protestant]] historian, who suggested that Pope Joan's tale may have originated in a satire against [[Pope John XI]], who died in his early 20s.<ref name="ODP"/> Blondel, through detailed analysis of the claims and suggested timings, argued that no such events could have happened.<ref name="ODP"/>

The 16th-century Italian historian [[Onofrio Panvinio]], commenting on one of [[Bartolomeo Platina]]'s works that refer to Pope Joan, theorized that the story of Pope Joan may have originated from tales of [[Pope John XII]]; John reportedly had many mistresses, including one called Joan, who was very influential in Rome during his pontificate.<ref>{{cite book |title= Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, Volume 4|last= McClintock |first= John |author2=James Strong |year= 1882 |publisher= Harper|page=980|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=lX4XAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA980 |access-date=23 March 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Biography: or, Third division of "The English encyclopedia" |last=Knight |first=Charles |year=1867 |publisher=Bradbury, Evans & Co. |page=633 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0MNPAAAAMAAJ&q=pope+Joan&pg=RA1-PT218 |access-date=17 July 2016}}</ref>

[[File:Pope Joan.png|thumb|Engraving of Pope Joan giving birth, from ''A Present for a Papist'' (1675)]]
At the time of the [[Reformation]], various [[Protestantism|Protestant]] writers took up the Pope Joan legend in their anti-Catholic writings, and the Catholics responded with their own polemic.  According to [[Pierre Gustave Brunet]],<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/stream/lapapessejeanne01brungoog|title=La Papesse Jeanne: Étude Historique et Littéraire|first=Pierre Gustave |last=Brunet|editor=Gay|editor2=Doucé|location=Brussels|year=1880|pages=8}}</ref> <blockquote>Various authors, in the 16th and 17th centuries, occupied themselves with Pope Joan, but it was from the point of view of the polemic engaged in between the partisans of Lutheran or Calvinist reform and the apologists of Catholicism.</blockquote>
An English writer, Alexander Cooke, wrote a book entitled ''Pope Joane: A Dialogue between a Protestant and a Papist'', which purported to prove the existence of Pope Joan by reference to Catholic traditions.<ref name=Rustici>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZuuJCOq0mSMC&pg=PA43 |title=The Afterlife of Pope Joan: Deploying the Popess Legend in Early Modern England |last1=Rustici |first1=Craig M. |publisher=University of Michigan Press |date=2006 |page=43 |isbn=0472115448 |access-date=24 January 2015}}</ref> It was republished in 1675 as ''A Present for a Papist: Or the Life and Death of Pope Joan, Plainly Proving Out of the Printed Copies, and Manscriptes of Popish Writers and Others, That a Woman called Joan, Was Really Pope of Rome, and Was There Deliver'd of a Bastard Son in the Open Street as She Went in Solemn Procession''.<ref name=Rustici/><ref>{{cite book |title=A present for a papist: or, The history of the life of pope Joan |date=1740 |publisher=Olive Payne |location=Cornhill, London |pages=1–88 |edition=2nd |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WJgHAAAAQAAJ |access-date=24 January 2015}}</ref> The book gives an account of Pope Joan giving birth to a son in plain view of all those around, accompanied by a detailed engraving showing a rather surprised looking baby peeking out from under the Pope's robes. Even in the 19th century, authors such as Ewaldus Kist and [[Karl Hase]] discussed the story as a real occurrence. However, other Protestant writers, such as [[David Blondel]] and [[Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz|Gottfried Leibniz]], rejected the story.