The Afterlife of Pope Joan: Deploying the Popess Legend in Early Modern England

by Craig Rustici

Amid the religious tumult of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, English scholars, preachers, and dramatists examined, debated, and refashioned tales concerning Pope Joan, a ninth-century woman who, as legend has it, cross-dressed her way to the papacy only to have her imposture exposed when she gave birth during a solemn procession.

The legend concerning a popess had first taken written form in the thirteenth century and for several hundred...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0472115448
• ISBN13: 9780472115440
• Release Date: June 2006
• Publisher: University of Michigan Press
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 1.09 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.3"