The Afterlife of Pope Joan

The Afterlife of Pope Joan PDF Author: Craig Rustici
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472024698
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
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 years was more or less accepted. The Reformation, however, polarized discussions of the legend, pitting Catholics, who denied the story’s veracity, against Protestants, who suspected a cover-up and instantly cited Joan as evidence of papal depravity. In this heated environment, writers reimagined Joan variously as a sorceress, a hermaphrodite, and even a noteworthy author. The Afterlife of Pope Joan examines sixteenth- and seventeenth-century debates concerning the popess’s existence, uncovering the disputants’ historiographic methods, rules of evidence, rhetorical devices, and assumptions concerning what is probable and possible for women and transvestites. Author Craig Rustici then investigates the cultural significance of a series of notions advanced in those debates: the claim that Queen Elizabeth I was a popess in her own right, the charge that Joan penned a book of sorcery, and the curious hypothesis that the popess was not a disguised woman at all but rather a man who experienced a sort of spontaneous sex change. The Afterlife of Pope Joan draws upon the discourses of religion, politics, natural philosophy, and imaginative literature, demonstrating how the popess functioned as a powerful rhetorical instrument and revealing anxieties and ambivalences about gender roles that persist even today. Craig M. Rustici is Associate Professor of English at Hofstra University.

The Afterlife of Pope Joan

The Afterlife of Pope Joan PDF Author: Craig Rustici
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472024698
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 210

Get Book Here

Book Description
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 years was more or less accepted. The Reformation, however, polarized discussions of the legend, pitting Catholics, who denied the story’s veracity, against Protestants, who suspected a cover-up and instantly cited Joan as evidence of papal depravity. In this heated environment, writers reimagined Joan variously as a sorceress, a hermaphrodite, and even a noteworthy author. The Afterlife of Pope Joan examines sixteenth- and seventeenth-century debates concerning the popess’s existence, uncovering the disputants’ historiographic methods, rules of evidence, rhetorical devices, and assumptions concerning what is probable and possible for women and transvestites. Author Craig Rustici then investigates the cultural significance of a series of notions advanced in those debates: the claim that Queen Elizabeth I was a popess in her own right, the charge that Joan penned a book of sorcery, and the curious hypothesis that the popess was not a disguised woman at all but rather a man who experienced a sort of spontaneous sex change. The Afterlife of Pope Joan draws upon the discourses of religion, politics, natural philosophy, and imaginative literature, demonstrating how the popess functioned as a powerful rhetorical instrument and revealing anxieties and ambivalences about gender roles that persist even today. Craig M. Rustici is Associate Professor of English at Hofstra University.

Pope Joan

Pope Joan PDF Author: Donna Woolfolk Cross
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307453197
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description
“Pope Joan has all the elements one wants in a historical drama—love, sex, violence, duplicity, and long-buried secrets. Cross has written an engaging book.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review In this international bestseller and basis for the 2009 movie of the same name, Donna Woolfolk Cross brings the Dark Ages to life in all their brutal splendor and shares the dramatic story of a woman whose strength of vision led her to defy the social restrictions of her day. For a thousand years her existence has been denied. She is the legend that will not die—Pope Joan, the ninth-century woman who disguised herself as a man and rose to become the only female ever to sit on the throne of St. Peter. Now in this riveting novel, Cross paints a sweeping portrait of an unforgettable heroine who struggles against restrictions her soul cannot accept. Brilliant and talented, young Joan rebels against medieval social strictures forbidding women to learn. When her brother is brutally killed during a Viking attack, Joan takes up his cloak—and his identity—and enters the monastery of Fulda. As Brother John Anglicus, Joan distinguishes herself as a great scholar and healer. Eventually, she is drawn to Rome, where she becomes enmeshed in a dangerous web of love, passion, and politics. Triumphing over appalling odds, she finally attains the highest office in Christendom—wielding a power greater than any woman before or since. But such power always comes at a price . . . “Brings the savage ninth century vividly to life in all its alien richness. An enthralling, scholarly historical novel.”—Rebecca Fraser, author of The Brontës

The Legend of Pope Joan

The Legend of Pope Joan PDF Author: Peter Stanford
Publisher: Berkley Trade
ISBN: 9780425173473
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The controversial legend of Pope Joan--an Englishwoman who disguised herself as a man and became a pope in the ninth century--is the subject of this in-depth investigation into the truth behind one of the Catholic Church's most intriguing mysteries.

The She-Pope

The She-Pope PDF Author: Peter Stanford
Publisher: Random House (UK)
ISBN: 9780749320676
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF THE ENGLISH WOMAN WHO FOOLED THE VATICAN. The legend of Pope Joan - the woman who, dressed as a man, headed the Catholic church in the early ninth century - has always been a subject of fascinated speculation but rarely, until now, the subject of serious research. As the future over women in the catholic priesthood continues, and the Church, which once took her story as gospel, now tries to play down the rumours, it is time for a reappraisal. Here Peter Stanford, author of The Devil- A Biography, reveals what can, and cannot, be known of this incredible story, and of the extraordinary woman behind it. In this fascinating account, ranging from secret histories to conspiracy theories, medieval carvings to tarot cards, women priests to cross-dressing clerics, and from romantic fiction to hard facts, he delivers a major study of historical detective work.

The Female Pope

The Female Pope PDF Author: Rosemary Anne Pardoe
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 124

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Book Description


Manual of Indulgences

Manual of Indulgences PDF Author: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Publisher: USCCB Publishing
ISBN: 9781574554748
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
This exclusive English-language translation of the Manual on Indulgences explains what indulgences are and provides the many devotional prayers associated with them.

The Bad Popes

The Bad Popes PDF Author: Eric Russell Chamberlin
Publisher: Barnes & Noble Publishing
ISBN: 9780880291163
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 358

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Book Description
The stories of seven popes who ruled at seven different critical periods in the 600 years leading into the Reformation.

My Life with the Saints (10th Anniversary Edition)

My Life with the Saints (10th Anniversary Edition) PDF Author: James Martin
Publisher: Loyola Press
ISBN: 082944453X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 410

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Book Description
“Martin’s final word is as Jungian as it is Catholic: God does not want us to be Mother Teresa or Dorothy Day. God wants us to be most fully ourselves.” —Washington Post Book World WITTY, WRYLY HONEST, AND ALWAYS ORIGINAL, My Life with the Saints is James Martin’s story of how his life has been shaped by some surprising friends—the saints of the Catholic Church. In his modern classic memoir, Martin introduces us to saints throughout history—from St. Peter to Dorothy Day, St. Francis of Assisi to Mother Teresa—and chronicles his lifelong friendships with them. Filled with fascinating tales, Martin’s funny, vibrant, and stirring book invites readers to discover how saints guide us throughout our earthly journeys and how they help each of us find holiness in our own lives. Featuring a new chapter from Martin, this tenth-anniversary edition of the best-selling memoir updates readers about his life over the past ten years. In that time, he has been a New York Times best-selling author, official chaplain of The Colbert Report, and a welcome presence in the media whenever there’s a breaking Catholic news story. But he has always remained recognizably himself. John L. Allen, Jr., the acclaimed Catholic journalist, contributes a foreword that shows how Martin has become one of the wisest and most insightful voices of this era. “An outstanding and often hilarious memoir.” —Publishers Weekly “One of the best spiritual memoirs in years.” —Robert Ellsberg “Remarkably engaging.” —U.S. Catholic One of Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of the Year Winner of the Christopher Award Winner of the Catholic Press Association Book Award

The Hidden History of Women's Ordination

The Hidden History of Women's Ordination PDF Author: Gary Macy
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019804089X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
The Roman Catholic leadership still refuses to ordain women officially or even to recognize that women are capable of ordination. But is the widely held assumption that women have always been excluded from such roles historically accurate? In the early centuries of Christianity, ordination was the process and the ceremony by which one moved to any new ministry (ordo) in the community. By this definition, women were in fact ordained into several ministries. A radical change in the definition of ordination during the eleventh and twelfth centuries not only removed women from the ordained ministry, but also attempted to eradicate any memory of women's ordination in the past. The debate that accompanied this change has left its mark in the literature of the time. However, the triumph of a new definition of ordination as the bestowal of power, particularly the power to confect the Eucharist, so thoroughly dominated western thought and practice by the thirteenth century that the earlier concept of ordination was almost completely erased. The ordination of women, either in the present or in the past, became unthinkable. References to the ordination of women exist in papal, episcopal and theological documents of the time, and the rites for these ordinations have survived. Yet, many scholars still hold that women, particularly in the western church, were never "really" ordained. A survey of the literature reveals that most scholars use a definition of ordination that would have been unknown in the early middle ages. Thus, the modern determination that women were never ordained, Macy argues, is a premise based on false terms. Not a work of advocacy, this important book applies indispensable historical background for the ongoing debate about women's ordination.

Pope Joan

Pope Joan PDF Author: Michael E. Habicht
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783746764337
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description