The Myth that Refuses to Die

Recently there has been considerable consternation about a television program on the old story of "Pope Joan," that is, a woman of the early Medieval period who supposedly masqueraded as a man in order to pursue her hunger for learning and ended up becoming so famous for her erudition that she was made a cardinal and ultimately elected pope, only to have her true gender revealed when she gave birth to a baby while on her way to her coronation. Supposedly she was then torn limb from limb by the outraged crowd and the embarassed Roman Curia covered the whole incident up, but her memory survived in the custom of all papal processions carefully avoiding the street upon which she met her doom.

There is not one shred of historical evidence for this story, yet it refuses to go away no matter how many times it's debunked. Part of it is pure ugly anti-Catholic glee at the Church heirarchy being made to look foolish, and in modern times feminist hopes that the exclusive masculine priesthood could eventually change, but because of the sheer persistance of the story in the face of fact there seems to be something more basic to human psychology at work here.

First, there is the element of the fear of infiltration, of the outsider sneaking into the inner circle. For those of us who remember the Cold War, the constant fear of Communist infiltration of American institutions was a constant feature of that era. Even today, one of the fears of the War on Terror is of American converts to radical Islamic fundamentalism becoming a sort of fifth column, indistinguishable from us save by their beliefs. But it's more basic than any particular conflict -- part of social cohesion is a clear understanding of who is a member of the group and who is an outsider, and thus the infiltrator threatens to destroy that distinction of us vs. them.

Second, there is the sense of delight at the underling outwitting authority, even if only for a time. Even as we fear the disruption of the social order, we don't want to let it become too rigid or too sure of itself, lest it become a tyranny. From this comes our love for figures such as Robin Hood who break the formal rules of society in order to serve a higher justice. It is also at the root of Trickster figures, who may outwit every power divine and mortal in one story, yet is outwitted and humiliated by a child in the next story. We want to be reassured that authority will be reined in if it should become overweeningly arrogant, yet we also want to be reassured that those who overturn authority will meet their own comeuppance in turn.

I'm not advocating the use or modern retelling of this particular story, since its historical use has generally been such as to be highly offensive to Catholics, and thus even a well-intentioned retelling will be colored by history. But understanding why the particular motif has proved so enduring can help us as writers tap into these sorts of basic narratives.