Pope Joan
by Donna Woolfolk Cross
List Price: $15.00
Pages: 432
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9780307452368
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Donna Woolfolk Cross graduated cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Pennsylvania in 1969
with a B.A. in English. She moved to London, England, after graduation
and worked as an editorial assistant for a small publishing house on Fleet
Street, W.H. Allen and Company. Upon her return to the United States,
Cross worked at Young and Rubicam, a Madison Avenue advertising firm,
before going on to graduate school at UCLA where she earned a master's
degree in Literature and Writing in 1972.
In 1973, Cross moved to Syracuse, New York, with her husband and began teaching in the English department
at an upstate New York college. She is the author of two books on language,
Word Abuse and Mediaspeak, and coauthor of Speaking of
Words. The product of seven years of research and writing, Pope
Joan is her first novel. Cross is at work on a new novel set in 17th
century France.
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A Note from the Author:
For many years, I’ve been joining the conversation with reading groups by speakerphone.* Some questions come up very frequently. To these FAQs, I provide answers below. [I also include] a list of questions to which even I don’t know the answer, but which lead to lively and productive book group discussion --- the “best of the best” based on my years of experience chatting with reading groups. Click here to see these new questions.
Q: Why did you write this novel?
A: Having written four nonfiction books, I wanted to switch to historical fiction --- my favorite form of leisure reading. When I stumbled across Joan’s story in a piece of chance reading, I knew I had found my subject. What an extraordinary lost mysterylegend of history, documented even better than King Arthur’s! How was it possible that I had never even heard of her?
The more I learned about Joan, the more I liked her. To me, she’s an inspiring example of female empowerment through learning --- an issue deeply relevant in today’s world, where women in many countries are still discouraged, or even prevented, from going to school. I had my own daughter very much in mind as I wrote this novel. I hope that Joan’s story inspires young women to pursue their education so they can have full exercise of mind, heart, and spirit.
Q: Are you Catholic?
A: No. Oddly, this turned out to have an unexpected advantage. Were I Catholic, raised in the traditions, rituals, and theology of today’s Church, I would have approached ninth-century Christian faith with a lot of very wrong preconceptions. In my novel I have tried to show the many ways in which the worship of a thousand years ago differed from our own. If there’s one thing that the study of history teaches us, it is that yesterday’s heresies are often today’s truths --- and vice versa.
Q: What response has the book had from the Vatican?
A: None. And that’s only to be expected. In today’s world, controversy sells things. If the Vatican denounced my novel, the very next day it would probably be on the New York Times bestseller list.
The best way to bury any story is to ignore it --- as Joan’s millennium-old story proves.
Q: Why did you choose that ending for Pope Joan?
A: I didn’t. The historical records on Joan are nearly unanimous in saying that she died in childbirth while in papal procession on the Via Sacra. This ending is also supported by the centuries-old tradition of the “shunned street” (described in the author’s note).
If Joan had died behind the walls of the papal palace, no one would ever have known that she was a female. For that to become known, her death had to be public.
Q: Why is there such brutality in the novel --- for example, the rape of Gisla during the Viking attack on Dorstadt?
A: The question implies that I intensified the savagery of life in the ninth century in the interest of sensational storytelling. The truth is that I took it easy on readers; life in the ninth century was far more brutal and unjust than anything depicted in my novel. Recent and continuing world events reveal that crimes against humanity are not relegated only to history. Upsetting as reading about such things can be, my feeling is this: if people, past and present, can endure such terrible things, then the least we can do is bear witness. I see no advantage whatsoever to “cleaning up” history. As George Santayana said, “Those who do not study history are condemned to repeat it.”
*Reading groups interested in setting up a “Chat with the Author” should go to popejoan.com for information or to make a request.
A Conversation with Donna Woolfolk Cross
Q: Most people have never
heard of Pope Joan. How did you first learn of her existence?
A: I learned about Joan
quite by accident. I was reading a book in French and came across a reference
to a pope named "Jeanne." At first I thought this was simply an amusing
typographical error--"Jeanne" (Joan) for "Jean" (John). But the reference
piqued my curiosity, and the next day I went to the library and checked
the Catholic Encyclopedia. Sure enough, there was an entry on Joan--the
woman who lived disguised as a man and rose to become Pope of the Church
in the ninth century.
Q: Does the Catholic Church
officially recognize Joan's papacy?
A: Far from it. The
Church position is that Joan's papacy is nothing more than unsubstantiated
legend. But there are more than five hundred ancient manuscripts containing
accounts of Joan's papacy, including those of such acclaimed authors as
Platina, Petrarch, and Boccaccio.
Q: So you're convinced
that Joan really existed?
A: Given the obscurity
and confusion of the times, it is impossible to determine with certainty
whether Joan existed or not. The truth of what happened in a.d. 855 may
never be fully known. That is why I chose to write a novel and not a historical
study.
Q: How important is it
to the reader of your novel to know whether Joan existed or not?
A: Whether you believe
the Pope Joan story to be myth or reality really doesn't matter.
Her story was the best known of the middle ages, dwarfing even the legend
of King Arthur. In fact, there's a lot less evidence for the existence
of Arthur than there is for the existence of Joan, yet King Arthur's story
is known to every school child. It has much to tell us about medieval
society, the role of men and women in that era, the responsibilities of
knights, the history of Celtic Britain, and much more. Joan's story is
equally rich, and has as much to tell us about medieval life, the role
of women in the ninth century, the Church, and so on. Like the story of
King Arthur, it should be the heritage of every school child. I wrote
this book to restore that lost heritage.
Q: If Joan's papacy is
so well documented, why is the subject so controversial?
A: The Church position
on Joan is that she was a late invention of Protestant reformers eager
to expose papist corruption. Yet Joan's story is first documented hundreds
of years before Martin Luther was born--and most of her chroniclers were
Catholics, often highly placed in the church hierarchy. In 1276, after
ordering a thorough search of the papal records, Pope John XX changed
his title to John XXI in official recognition of Joan's reign as Pope
John VIII. Joan's statue stood undisputed alongside those of the other
Popes in the Cathedral of Sienna until 1601, when, by command of Pope
Clement VIII, it suddenly "metamorphosed" into a bust of Pope Zacharias.
Joan's story was included in the official church guidebook to Rome used
by pilgrims for more than three hundred years.
Q: But isn't it true there
is no record of Joan in any contemporary chronicles?
A: Yes, that's true.
But that's scarcely surprising, given the time and energy that the Church
has, by its own admission, devoted to expunging her from them. The fact
that Joan lived in the ninth century, the darkest of the dark ages, would
have made the job obliterating her papacy easy. The ninth century was
a time of widespread illiteracy, marked by an extraordinary dearth of
record keeping. One need only look to the recent examples of Nicaragua
and El Salvador to see how a determined and well-coordinated state effort
can make embarrassing evidence "disappear." It is only after the distancing
effect of time that the truth, kept alive by unquenchable popular report,
gradually begins to emerge.
Q: Are you saying there
was a deliberate attempt to conceal Joan's papacy?
A: Certainly the Roman
clergymen of the day, appalled by the great deception visited upon them,
would have gone to great lengths to bury all written report of the embarrassing
episode. Indeed, they would have felt it their duty to do so. Hincmar,
Joan's contemporary, frequently suppressed information damaging to the
Church in his letters. Even the great theologian Alcuin was not above
tampering with the truth; in one of his letters he openly admits destroying
a report on Pope Leo III's adultery and simony. The absence of contemporary
documentation is not proof that Joan did not exist. After all, there is
no contemporary record of Jesus Christ (the first of the Gospels, that
of St. Mark, was written more than forty years after Jesus' death), yet
he is considered by most people to be a real historical figure.
Q: How would it have been
possible for a woman to pass herself off as a man for so long and under
such circumstances?
A: Actually, given the
extreme modesty and spare hygiene of the times (most people slept in their
clothes and rarely, if ever, bathed) as well as the protection provided
by body-disguising clerical robes, it would not have been difficult. There
are many examples of women who successfully managed such an imposture.
In the twelfth century, St. Hildegund, using the name Joseph, became a
brother of Schšnau Abbey; Mary Reade lived as a pirate in the early eighteenth
century; Loreta Janeta Velasquez fought for the Confederacy at the Battle
of Bull Run under the name Harry Buford. Most recently, Teresinha Gomez
of Lisbon spent eighteen years pretending to be a man; a highly decorated
soldier, she rose to the rank of general in the Portuguese army and was
discovered only in 1994, when she was arrested on charges of financial
fraud and forced by the police to under a physical exam.
Q: As your novel makes
clear, there was considerable hazard in such an imposture. What would
drive a woman to take such a risk?
A: Life in the ninth
century was especially difficult for women. It was a very misogynistic
age. Menstrual blood was believed to turn wine sour, make crops barren,
take the edge off steel, make iron rust, and infect dog bites with an
incurable poison. With few exceptions, women were treated as perpetual
minors, with no legal or property rights. By law, they could be beaten
by their husbands. Rape was treated as a form of minor theft. The education
of women was discouraged, for a learned woman was considered not only
unnatural, but dangerous. The size of a woman's brain and her uterus were
believed to be inversely proportionate; the more a woman learned, the
less likely she would ever bear children. Small wonder, then, if a woman
chose to disguise herself as a man in order to escape so restricted an
existence. The light of hope kindled by women such as Joan shone only
flickeringly in a great darkness, but it was never entirely to go out.
Opportunities were available for women strong enough to dream. Pope
Joan is the story of one of those dreamers.
Q: What's the greatest
challenge of writing historical fiction?
A: Striking a balance
that allows you to add interesting detail without weighing down the story.
I researched this book for many years and ended up with a ton of information.
A lot of it was interesting, but it was also a digression and I had to
cut it down tremendously. Writers of historical fiction walk a delicate
tight-rope. You need enough information to provide a sense of reality,
time, and place, but not so much as to bring your narrative to a crashing
halt. Writing good historical fiction takes a lot of discipline.
Q: What do you consider
the most important element of good historical fiction?
A: Many people think
the most important things are plot, theme, and character. But I found
point of view even more important. The tone for the scene is determined
by the point of the view of the person describing that scene. If you look
at the structure of this book, you'll see that the story is told from
the point of view of three main characters: Joan, Gerold, and Anastasius.
This allowed me to paint a broader canvas than I could have if limited
to only one point of view. Narrating a scene through Gerold's eyes helped
me to show what it was like to be a knight in the ninth century; Anastasius
showed what it was like to be a Roman citizen, familiar with the papal
politics of that era; and of course Joan provided her own unique woman's
perspective.
Q: What do you think will
most surprise readers of this book?
A: The big surprise
is that this story has so solid a base of historical record behind it.
Despite the book's unexpected success, I still run into people who say,
"What do you mean there was a female Pope?" That's what's amazing to me.
Here's a story that was universally known for hundreds of years and yet
it has been all but extinguished. When people get to the end of the book
and read the author's note--where I lay out, in detail, the evidence suggesting
Joan was real--they realize this story might actually be fact, not fiction.
Q: Some authors say they
find writing very easy. Is writing easy for you?
A: It's hard as hell.
I want to hit people who say they've never had writer's block. Of course
there are times when it all comes together, but I've also written from
despair--thinking it's hopeless and will never come together. The trick
is to keep on writing through the despair and trust that things will improve.
Someone once said, "A professional writer is an amateur that didn't give
up." I don't give up. I believe that writing is ninety-nine percent perspiration
and one percent inspiration, but for inspiration to hit you have to be
at your desk writing, whether or not you're in the mood.
Q: What do you want readers
to get out of this book?
A: I want readers--particularly
women--to understand one basic truth: to empower yourself in this world
you must learn. Joan armed herself with the power of knowledge. This knowledge
allowed her to rise to the very highest rank of the most powerful institution
of her day. Even today, in countries such as Iran, Afghanistan, Algeria,
the first priviledge that is taken away from a subservient group such
as women is the right to education. The story of Joan speaks to this situation.
Joan represents the empowerment of women, the realization of their full
potential, by using all their talents--especially the mind.
© Copyright 2009 by Donna Woolfolk Cross. Reprinted with permission by Three Rivers Press. All rights reserved.
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