How Pope Joan Became the High Priestess
Noble Blood
iHeartPodcasts and Grim & Mild
4.8 • 13.5K Ratings
🗓️ 2 January 2024
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
According to legend, around 1100, a woman disguised herself as a man and was unanimously elected Pope. The ruse lasted until she gave birth while riding her horse through the streets of Rome. The story isn't true, but how the story came to be, and why it persisted, becomes its own history of Christianity in Europe and the power of propoganda.
Support Noble Blood:
— Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon
— Merch
— Order Dana's book, 'Anatomy: A Love Story' and its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story'
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Prepare to venture to venture to the darkest most haunted locations once again. |
| 0:06.0 | About 4 o'clock in the morning it felt like the hand of God touched the castle. |
| 0:11.0 | The whole thing just shook. Brace yourself for a |
| 0:15.1 | supernatural journey unlike any other. It felt like there were other guests go |
| 0:21.6 | staying with us that we could not see. |
| 0:24.1 | Listen to Haunted Road season five on the I Heart Radio app, Apple |
| 0:27.5 | Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. |
| 0:31.3 | Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky. |
| 0:37.0 | Listener discretion advised. In 1255, a Pope in Northeast France hand wrote a strange tale. |
| 0:53.0 | Hokes in Rome, a woman becomes Pope. |
| 0:57.0 | According to the Chronicle, in around 1100, |
| 1:01.0 | a woman disguised herself as a man in order to rise through the ranks of the |
| 1:07.5 | Catholic hierarchy from notary to Cardinal and all the way to Pope. This woman pulled off her scheme for a while until one day, she, the Pope, was riding on horseback and went into labor, revealing her deception to the Romans. |
| 1:26.9 | The citizens of Rome dragged her by horseback and stoned her as punishment for breaking the rules. |
| 1:35.0 | This short scandalous story raised a number of questions. |
| 1:40.0 | Who was this woman? |
| 1:42.0 | Where was she from and how did she make it through the gauntlet of Catholic politics without getting caught? |
| 1:49.0 | How did she get pregnant? |
| 1:51.0 | If this happened in 1100, then why is this, a female Pope, |
| 1:56.7 | objectively a massive deal, only being reported for the first time 150 years later. |
| 2:04.0 | Why is the one detail we get about her time as Pope |
| 2:08.0 | that she gave birth on horse back? |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from iHeartPodcasts and Grim & Mild, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of iHeartPodcasts and Grim & Mild and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.