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Pope Joan
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Pope Joan (1996) (edit title/settings)

by Donna Woolfolk Cross (Author) (edit contributors)

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Description edit see section history

"Engaging . . . Pope Joan has all the elements: love, sex, violence, duplicity, and long-buried secrets." --Los Angeles Times Book Review For a thousand years men have denied her existence--Pope Joan, the woman who disguised herself as a man and rose to rule Christianity for two years. Now... read more

Summary edit see section history

Pope Joan is a well-researched story set in mid-800s Europe. Donna Cross nails life in medieval times, showing the women at home working their subsistence garden while Joan's father, a canon in the Roman Catholic church proselytizes in Frankland. His English heritage and his decision to take a... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)

Pope Joan is a well-researched story set in mid-800s Europe. Donna Cross nails life in medieval times, showing the women at home working their subsistence garden while Joan's father, a canon in the Roman Catholic church proselytizes in Frankland. His English heritage and his decision to take a Saxon bride when he decides to save the savage heathens' souls in Ingelheim from their Norse gods and eternal damnation all work to increase Joan's access to education.

Joan is blessed with a keen intellect, an aptitude for languages and an older brother, Matthew, who shares his own lessons with her. When he dies, a travellling scholar continues her education despite her tyrannical father's objections. Joan's other brother, John, always slow, must learn beside her, but he shares his father's beliefs that women are hysterical, inferior temptresses, and he deeply resents his sister.

The teacher leaves, but when he later summons Joan to a schola, knowing her aptitude and not burdened by provincial misogyny the canon is outraged and sends John instead. Joan follows him, effectively running away. Much learning for Joan in the schola, and she lives with a family in the village, encouraged by the enlightened householder, Gerold. Joan and Gerold are intellectual equals, and he leaves when he discovers he's falling for her. Gerold's wife tries to manipulate Joan into a marriage with a village boy while Gerold is gone, but Norsemen attack and everyone is killed except Gisla, Gerold's oldest daughter, and Joan, who has hidden in the reredos behind the altar.

Joan steals John's clothing, snips her blond locks and enters Fulda monastery as a male. She continues her studies and is apprenticed to the physician, developing great skill as a healer.

Joan escapes from Fulda when her father, the canon, appears and her disguise is threatened. Why she doesn't look for Gerold here is not clear. She loves being the master of her own destiny, and perhaps is not ready to relinquish her new independence. Being a wife required a woman to live a private life. Intellectual pursuits, let alone healing, could lead to accusations of witchcraft. Her subsequent journey to Rome leads her to diagnose Pope Sergius's gout. She becomes his trusted physician.

Characters/People edit see section history

  • Joan: Joan fights the mysogynistic attitude of medieval times to learn Latin, Greek, math and to study the classic works of literature along with the Bible. She is brave and takes on a different identity to try to fulfill her yearning for knowledge and avoid a life of housebound servitude. Women were not educated, treated as no more than brood mares, cooks and slaves. The bible was used to enforce this involuntary indenture.
  • Gerold: Householder, head of Villaris estate, with wife Richild and three young daughters. He takes in Joan when she comes to the schola to study with her brother. After his family and estate are destroyed by a Norse raid, he throws his lot in with Lothar, who is fighting his brothers to be Emperor of Frankland. He runs into Joan again in Rome.
  • Pope Sergius: The pope indulges in food and alcohol to the point of illness. When Joan, as John Anglicus, treats his gout, she becomes his personal physician. He brokers a treaty with Lothar of Frankland, but disregards a warning, leading to a deadly attack by the Saracens. The strain on his heart, weakened by illness is too much for him. He is succeeded by Pope Leo.
  • John Anglicus: Joan's boy name, the one she takes as a monk, then a priest.
  • Lothar: Emperor of Frankland who supports Anastasius
  • Gudrun: Joan's beloved mother taught her daughter her native language and about the pagan gods of the Saxons. She endured a tyrannical husband after the canon took her to wife and lived with his abuse and religious persecution all her life. She advised Joan "never to give herself to a man."
  • Matthew: The oldest son was given the most education, and all this father's hopes and ambitions were pinned on him. He got a fever and died, but not before teaching his sister as much of his lessons as they could sneak in under the father's nose.
  • Raban: A stolid abbot at Fulda abbey who would certainly have had Joan killed if her disguise as John Angelicus had been exposed.
  • Anastasius: A Roman cleric who aspired to the papacy, Anastasius made a political deal with Lothar. When he became pope, Anastasius would return the papal allegiance to the Frankish emperor.
  • Leo: Pope after Sergius
  • Gottschalk: A fellow monk at the monastery, forced into service against his will
  • Benedict: Brother to Sergius; the real power behind the papacy
  • Daniel: Add a description of this character.
  • Richild: Gerold's wife
  • Gregory
  • Hrotrud: At the beginning of the story, Hrotrud acts as a midwife to the canon's wife. Her journey through the snow, nearly freezing to death, and her treatment by the canon illustrate male attitudes toward women in the middle ages. Hrotrud lives on the margins, barely eating, depending on her skills as a midwife for a meal, and at the end, when she is too old to work, she is accused as a witch and dropped into the lake. She didn't float, so she was innocent of witchcraft. However, she was still dead.
  • Marioza: A whore in Rome
  • Dhuoda: Gerard's youngest daughter
  • Theodorus: Anastasius's uncle
  • Arighis
  • Brother Benjamin: Learned in medicine, he sets Joan on the path to becoming a great healer.
  • Madalgis
  • Arsenius: A Roman citizen of high birth, he believes his son should be Pope and is not above killing to achieve it.
  • Ludwig: King killed in battle by Gerold
  • Bertha
  • Samuel
  • Thomas
  • Gisla: Gerold's oldest daughter
  • Pope John
  • Desiderius
  • Luke
  • Judith
  • Waldipert: A close aid to the Pope
  • Dominic
  • Brother John
  • Fulgentius
  • Adam
  • Peter
  • Victor
  • Hugo
  • Eustathius
  • Arn
Show all 42 characters
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Quotes edit see section history

  • “Surely you know, Holiness, that the size of a woman's brain and her uterus are inversely propotionate; therefore, the more a girl learns, the less likely she will ever bear children.”
    Jordanes
  • “Greatness does not attend upon opportunity; it seizes it.”
    Joan
  • “As for will, woman should be considered superior to man for Eve ate of the apple for love of knowledge and learning, but Adam ate of it merely because she asked him.”

First Sentence edit see section history

Thunder sounded, very near, and the child woke.

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

  • Religion: Many times Joan pitts reason against church doctrine. She is told that some ideas are "dangerous"

Series & Lists edit see section history

This book is in Book Lover's Cook Book, The. (authoritative list)
This book is in KCPL Discussion Kit (Aug2010). (community list)

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Donna Woolfolk Cross (Author)

Other Contributors:

  1. Teresa Martinho Toldy (Translator)
  2. Ana Espadinha (Cover Artist)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Crown
Country: United States
Publication Date: 1996
ISBN: 0517593653
Page Count: 844

Classification edit see section history

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