There is a common belief that in the Middle Ages a woman passed herself off as a man and became Pope Joan. This did not happen, there was never a Pope Joan.
(Great Courses – Popes and the Papacy: A History)
There is a common belief that in the Middle Ages a woman passed herself off as a man and became Pope Joan. This did not happen, there was never a Pope Joan.
(Great Courses – Popes and the Papacy: A History)
Subsequent popes were subjected to an examination whereby, having sat on a dung chair containing a hole called sedia stercoraria, a cardinal had to reach up and establish that the new pope had testicles, before announcing “Duos habet et bene pendentes” (“He has two, and they dangle nicely”).