The Afterlife of Pope Joan

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Author :
Release : 2010-02-01
Genre : Literary Criticism
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Book Rating : 698/5 ( reviews)

The Afterlife of Pope Joan - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Afterlife of Pope Joan write by Craig Rustici. This book was released on 2010-02-01. The Afterlife of Pope Joan available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. 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

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Release : 2009-06-09
Genre : Fiction
Kind :
Book Rating : 197/5 ( reviews)

Pope Joan - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Pope Joan write by Donna Woolfolk Cross. This book was released on 2009-06-09. Pope Joan available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. “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

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Release : 2000-04
Genre :
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Book Rating : 473/5 ( reviews)

The Legend of Pope Joan - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Legend of Pope Joan write by Peter Stanford. This book was released on 2000-04. The Legend of Pope Joan available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. 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 Female Pope

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Release : 1988
Genre : Reference
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Book Rating : /5 ( reviews)

The Female Pope - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Female Pope write by Rosemary Anne Pardoe. This book was released on 1988. The Female Pope available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle.

The She-Pope

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Release : 1999
Genre : History
Kind :
Book Rating : 676/5 ( reviews)

The She-Pope - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The She-Pope write by Peter Stanford. This book was released on 1999. The She-Pope available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. 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.