LEADER 04217nam 22006974a 450 001 9910966445903321 005 20200520144314.0 010 $a1-282-59146-0 010 $a9786612591464 010 $a0-472-02469-8 024 7 $a10.3998/mpub.135037 035 $a(CKB)2520000000006938 035 $a(OCoLC)647889041 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebrary10371955 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000411431 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11252307 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000411431 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10355948 035 $a(PQKB)10346605 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC3414707 035 $a(MdBmJHUP)muse9517 035 $a(MiU)10.3998/mpub.135037 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL3414707 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10371955 035 $a(CaONFJC)MIL259146 035 $a(OCoLC)824100676 035 $a(BIP)46256379 035 $a(BIP)12432500 035 $a(EXLCZ)992520000000006938 100 $a20050907d2006 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurcn||||||||| 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 14$aThe afterlife of Pope Joan $edeploying the Popess legend in early modern England /$fCraig M. Rustici 210 $aAnn Arbor $cUniversity of Michigan Press$dc2006 215 $a1 online resource (220 p.) 300 $aBibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph 311 08$a0-472-11544-8 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p. 181-196) and index. 327 $aDebating Joan: images, ceremony, and the gelded text -- Comparing Joan: the whore of Babylon and the virgin queen -- Diagnosing Joan: the hermaphrodite hypothesis -- Canonizing Joan: necromancy, papacy, and the reformation of the book -- Playing Joan: popish plots in the Theatre Royal. 330 $aAmid 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. 606 $aJoan (Legendary Pope) 606 $aChurch history$yMiddle Ages, 600-1500 606 $aWomen$xHistory$yMiddle Ages, 500-1500 606 $aPopes$vLegends 615 0$aJoan (Legendary Pope) 615 0$aChurch history 615 0$aWomen$xHistory 615 0$aPopes 676 $a262/.13 700 $aRustici$b Craig M.$f1964-$01820072 712 02$aMichigan Publishing (University of Michigan), 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910966445903321 996 $aThe afterlife of Pope Joan$94381306 997 $aUNINA