The She-Pope: A Quest For The Truth Behind The Mystery Of Pope Joan, by Peter Stanford William Heineman, 205pp, £16.99 in the UK
The question of women's ordination continues to divide the Catholic Church, with the Vatican's position on this great taboo sustained not by scripture but by tradition. It seems Dr Johnson's dismissal remains pertinent: "A woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all." What a surprise then it would be to find a woman not only at the altar but sitting on St Peter's throne in the middle of the ninth century. This is the premise behind Peter Stanford's new book The She-Pope, an attempt to unravel the mystery of Pope Joan; the English woman disguised as a man who, legend has it, was elected as Pope John VIII only to be defrocked when she gave birth during a papal procession through the streets of Rome.
The legend of Pope Joan has long been a subject of historical and fictional speculation, from its principal source in the chronicle of Martin Polonus in 1265 to Caryl Churchill's 1982 play Top Girls. "A dancer to different tunes down the ages, Joan has fitted the mood of many periods, be they anti-clerical, anti-Catholic, feminist, romantic or erotic. She has even, I was told by one who should know, become something of an icon for religiously minded transvestites."
The standard response of the Catholic Church has been to damn Joan's story as a Protestant forgery which saw fictitious references inserted into ancient manuscripts to belittle its claim to universal, God-given authority. But such conspiracy theories seem to collapse when one considers nearly 500 chroniclers have recorded her tale.
Playing the part of ecclesiastical detective, Peter Stanford (author also of the best-seller The Devil: A Biography) compiles impressive evidence to support Pope Joan's claims. The trail begins at a little shrine - or edicola - in the backstreets of Rome, a faded fresco of the Madonna and Child. Still decorated with the occasional floral tribute by Italian women, it supposedly marks the spot where Joan gave birth. "Could this be another woman with her infant, a woman by repute the antithesis of Christ's mother, a con-woman with her bastard child at her breast minutes before she was murdered for her treachery?"
Stanford sets about this three-pipe problem with gusto, travelling from the heart of the Vatican Library across Europe in search of documented evidence of her cult if not her existence, while bringing the reader through engaging vignettes of the papacy and its various female protagonists - from transvestite saints to the infamous "pornocracy" of the House of Theophylact.
Among the clues he unearths are: the existence of the Vicus Papissa, or "the street of the woman pope", avoided in the Middle Ages by papal processions; the sedia stercoraria, or pierced chair, used to touch the testicles to test the sex of newly-instituted popes up until the 16th century; references to the lost bust of Joan in Sienna; and Bernini's baldacchino, which is still over the main altar in Saint Peter's depicting what Stanford believes to be a woman pope giving birth. "Weighing all this evidence, I am convinced that Pope Joan was an historical figure, though perhaps not all the details about her that have been passed on down the centuries are true."
While the gender debate will undoubtedly continue to divide the Catholic Church, the historical seriousness of The She-Pope has added to it by uncovering what was hitherto "swept under an already lumpy carpet". Devotees of St Augustine may cling to the axiom that when "Rome has spoken; the case is concluded", but this new evidence merits a full reappraisal, if not a total retrial.
Dara Gantly is a journalist in the medical press