მნათეუსიარამგონია, განმარტებაში აწერია, რომ ამაზე უნდა დამჯდარიყოო. და კიდევ. ეს შეძლება გავს უნიტაზს. ან არ გამოვრიცხავ, რომ სურათი დავდე მე შეცდომით.
აგერ ასე სწერია The reason for the hole is disputed, but as both the seats and their holes predated the Pope Joan story, and indeed Catholicism by centuries, they clearly have need to check the sex of a pope. It has been speculated that they originally were Roman bidets or imperial birthing stools, which because of their age and imperial links were used in ceremonies by popes intent on highlighting their own imperial claims (as they did also with their Latin title, Pontifex Maximus)
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აი კიდო
All Popes when elected must sit on the Sedes Stercoraria, a chair with a hole in the centre of the seat, without underwear on, in order to have their genitals touched, to prove that they are a man. This arose after Pope Joan ruled to make sure that the same mistake would not occur again.
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მნათეუსიNshoshia505ეს შეიძლება უნიტაზი იყოს, მაგრამ განავალი ქვემოთ არ ჩავა და სკამზე დარჩება. აშკარად პატარა ნახვრეტია უკანა ნაწილი არ დაეტევა
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Pope Joan allegedly impersonated
a man to lead the Catholic Church
but the jig was up when she gave birth.
Did a Woman serve as Pope in the Ninth Century?
In a medievаl mystery of the Catholic Church lies evidence of a woman pope, with clues buried in ancient parchment, artwork and writings, even in tarot cards and a bizarre chair once used in a Vatican ritual.
Was there a Pope Joan -- a woman with nerve enough to disguise herself as a man and serve as pope for more than two years in the ninth century? It is one of the world's oldest mysteries. Her story first appeared in histories written by medievаl monks, but today the Catholic Church dismisses it.
"Ninety percent of me thinks there was a Pope Joan," says Mary Malone, a former nun who wrote a history of women and Christianity.
Donna Cross, a novelist who spent seven years researching the time period, says the historical evidence is there. "I would say it's the weight of evidence -- over 500 chronicle accounts of her existence."
Life was often short and brutal for women living in A.D. 800.
"No woman would have been allowed to appear on the streets in public," says Malone. "That named you as a prostitute immediately. Women were confined to their homes."
In the town of Mainz, Germany, where it is thought the girl who might have became Pope Joan grew up, most people lived in mud huts. The average life span was only 30 or 40 years.
But English missionaries were bringing Christianity to Germany, and they created a monastery called Fulda, which became a center of education, books and conversation for travelers -- but it was only for boys.
In his "History of Emperors and Popes," a monk named Martin Polonus who was a close adviser to the pope wrote about a young woman from Mainz who learned Greek and Latin and became "proficient in a diversity of branches of knowledge."
Cross and other historians say a girl studying at the monastery would have no choice but to disguise herself as a boy. But how was it possible to keep the secret?
"First of all, you might want to remember that clerical robes are very body-disguising," says Cross. "Also, in the ninth century, personal hygiene was nonexistent. Nobody bathed. They washed their hands, their face, their feet, but they didn't bathe."
Also, clergy members were required to be clean shaven, and malnutrition made most men and women physically gaunt.
Polonus wrote that this woman was "led to Athens dressed in the clothes of a man by a certain lover of hers." Then, according to the 500 accounts, the woman made her way to Rome.
In the ninth century, Rome and the Vatican were nothing like today's solemn and civilized center of culture and faith. Then the center of the Christian faith was home to bawdy monks, scheming cardinals, cross-dressing saints, intrigue, melodrama, corruption and violence.
"Popes ... killed each other off, hammered each other to death," says Mary Malone, the former nun. "There were 12-year-old popes ... we have knowledge of a 5-year-old archbishop. ... It was a very odd time in history."
That also means it would have been a time of opportunity for someone with ambition and nerve. The chronicles say that's how Joan, known as John Anglicus, or English John, became secretary to a curia, a cardinal, and then, as Polonus writes, "the choice of all for pope" in the year A.D. 855.
Clues in Art
If you travel to Italy and ask questions about Pope Joan, many people will direct you toward the clues embedded in art, literature and architecture.
The Renaissance poet Giovanni Boccaccio, best known for writing "The Decameron," also wrote a book on "100 Famous Women." No. 51 is Pope Joan.
Rare book dealers in Rome pull ancient tarot cards from their shelves. The card for hidden knowledge is "La Papessa" -- the Female Pope.
Quotes From Researchers
''Popes ... killed each other off, hammered each other to death. There were 12-year-old popes... we have knowledge of a 5-year-old archbishop... It was a very odd time in history.'' -- Mary Malone, a former nun who wrote a history of women and Christianity, on ninth century Rome and the Vatican
Travel north to Siena to the Duomo, where inside the cathedral is a gallery of terra-cotta busts depicting 170 popes, in no particular order. In the 17th century, Cardinal Baronuis, the Vatican librarian, wrote that one of the faces was a female -- Joan the Female Pope.
Baronius also wrote that the pope at the time decreed that the statue be destroyed, but some say the local archbishop didn't want a good statue go to waste.
"The statue was transformed," believes Cross. "I mean, literally, it was scraped off, her name, and written on top of Pope Zachary."
At the Basilica in St. Peter's Square are carvings by Bernini, one of the most famous artists of the 17th century. Among the carvings are eight images of a woman wearing a papal crown, and the images seem to tell the story of a woman giving birth and a baby being born.
Medievаl manuscripts tell a similar tale: Two-and-a-half years into her reign, Pope Joan was in the midst of a papal procession, a three-mile trip to the Church of the Lateran in Rome, when suddenly at a crossroads, she felt sharp pains in her stomach.
She was having contractions, the stories say. The unthinkable happened -- the pope was having a baby.
"And then, shock and horror," says Malone. "And then the story gets very confused, because some of the records say she was killed and her child was killed right on the spot. Other records say she was sent to a convent and that her son grew up and later became bishop of Ostia."
Stories vary -- some say the crowd stoned her to death, others say she was dragged from the tail of a horse -- but in most accounts, Pope Joan perished that day.
In the decades that followed, the intersection was called the Vicus Papissa -- the Street of the Female Pope -- and for more than 100 years, popes would take a detour to avoid the shameful intersection.
Polonus writes: "The Lord Pope always turns aside from the street ... because of the abhorrence of the event."
This post has been edited by Vakerman Muxranski on 10 Apr 2009, 03:46
ჯონი (FEMME FATAL)
