Description
Title: Legend of Pope Joan (AMERICAN)
Author: Peter Stanford
ISBN: 9780805039108
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Published: 1999
Binding: Hardcover
Language: English
Edition: First Edition
Condition Note: Excellent, unmarked copy with little wear and tight binding. We ship in recyclable American-made mailers. 100% money-back guarantee on all orders.
Publisher : The story of Pope Joan, an Englishwoman who disguised herself as a man and became pope in the middle of the ninth century, has seized people’s imagination for over a thousand years. Despite dismissals of the tale as improbable – indeed, impossible – historical fantasy, the legend persists. Is the tale nothing more than folklore fed by Protestant propagandists determined to undermine the authority of the papacy? Or did Joan really exist, deceiving the authorities and becoming pope? As the controversy over women in the Catholic priesthood continues and the Church – which, until the Reformation, took the story of Pope Joan as gospel – plays down rumors that will not be quashed, it is time to look beyond the fantasy for facts. In this wide-ranging investigative account, reaching from secret histories to conspiracy theories, medieval carvings to tarot cards, transvestite saints to the tale of a pope giving birth in the street, Peter Stanford delivers a major piece of historical detective work that may convince even the staunchest of skeptics.
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