THE HISTORY OF THE LIFE and DEATH OF POPE joan: Who was elected to the Papacy, An. 855. Under the name of Johannes Anglus of Mentz in Germany. Published as an Advertisement to all Papists.  
Faithfully collected and asserted by H. J. Gent.  
 depiction of Pope Joan  
London, Printed for F. coals, at the Lamb in the Old bailie. 1663.   

THE HISTORY Of the LIFE and DEATH of POPE joan, &c.  
THE Nativity and Genealogy of some eminent persons, whose Actions and Fortunes have rendered them Famous or Infamous to future Times, are not unlikely compared to great Rivers, whose springs and Rises are most commonly unknown, or very uncertain, because of those indiscernible conveyances and subterraneous hidden passages, and the unobservablenesse of those little Brooks and Rivulets, that concur to make up their swollen Channels;( one Reason why some choice men are challenged by several Countries to derive thence their Life and Originals) Besides the remarkable result of some persons greatness, by strange and secret progressions, do like a deluge or inundation carry all things so before them, beyond any reparation or recovery, and are of so sudden violence, that they leave the World rather in wonder and amazement at their effects, then afford any inquisition or possible knowledge of their Causes.  
This Woman, or Sybilla Pontificia will appear to be one of those grand Incognito's, as to any particulars of her Parentage and Extraction; for had she been possibly to be known, who and whence she was, it had been impossible she should have been what she was. It will sufsice to say, that by the agreement and consent of many Popish Writers, who first broached this story themselves( as shall abundantly hereafter be declared and manifested in their several Testimonies hereunto added) and cannot be taxed or charged with heresy or schism, being written long before Luthers Reformation; She is name by that Masculine Appellation she took and assumed to her self( like Knight Errants that change their former name when they commence their marshal achievements) upon the beginning of her mercurial and Learned adventures.  
So that she is known before her advancement to the papal Dignity, by the name of Johannes Anglus, or Anglicus Moguntinus, John English of Mentz, a City in Germany standing near the River of Rhine, the chief seat of one of the Ecclesiastical Princes Electors of that Empire; who is styled and denominated of this place, well worthy of the Birth it gave to this spiritual Female Potentate; though by this name, some Writers have been erroneously induced to change her Country, and to ascribe her birth to England.  
She is conceived as by presumptuous conjectures it may be maintained, to have been born about the year of the Incarnation 810, or very near thereabouts, of very mean Relations, but of a very great and active Spirit, surmounting the weakness& natural desidiency& unpromptitude of her Sex: obliged to the special kindnesses of Minerva, whose illustrious Graces were abated and dulled with the joint influences of Venus; whose malign conjunction and interposition spoyled all, and made this Queen of Sheba after all her refearches and travels for wisdom, a Concubine and a Strumpet.  
Her Friends necessities not able to maintain and sustain her body, much less Furnish and Replenish her mind, which before her puberty longed insatiably for the apple of knowledge, gave her occasion to bethink herself of removing from that unhappy and injurious condition of her residence with her Friends, into another more favourable and hospital place, and to resolve to that purpose to travail and seek out such a convenience, where she might attain her impatient desires of being accomplished in all the learned Sciences.  
She was grown to some maturity, when she acted this deliberation and resolution to effect; a young man her Lover, or rather Paramour offering his Company and kindness to the expedition; and thereupon she determined to disguise her self under the Counterfeit of the male Sex, and took the name abovesaid, and so Accoutred and accompanied began her Journey; which after much wandring and peregrination, terminated at last at Athens, once the great and famous Lady and mistress of all Literature and newly then restored to some degree of those perfections, for which in former times she was most deservedly celebrated and famed.  
The Ruins of Antiquity( to which the papal Right& opinions are beholding to for most of their Traditions, and therefore not to be Argued by them in this Case against the received Authorities for it) have left no exact instances of her Conversation in this Academy; nor indeed can further notice be taken or required of such persons of such Excellence and Consummate qualities then by the most notable and eximious Conspicuity and Demonstration thereof, which gives credit like the sum and gross of great and wonderful actions, to their small and gradational rises. But because this Athens story is made a grand exception and refutation of such a thing as Pope joan, in the conclusion of this transcript and endeavour, that and other objections shall be answered.  
This must be in the Interim asserted, that this joan was a great and sudden proficient in all the Studies of that place; nor is it thought she ever attained to them by any magic( of which without the cavil of any Protestant, some Popes have been Condemned; as namely, Sylvester the second, whose Character as not so immediately necessary to this work in hand may be forborn) but by the course and ordinary method of the place, though by the unusual extraordinary felicity of her parts, Nature and Ingenuity.  
But this debonarity of her intellectuals was not defaecated and freed from the soyls and pollutions of her naturals and morals; the Records of her being in this place are not altogether silent what Acts she kept in this University with her Enamourato, though how she past from the Dignities and Honours here( as perhaps infamed and secretly withdrawn hence to avoid public scandal) is not manifestly and evidently described.  
But that such a person came to Rome from Athens, from the Dame to the Empresse of the world( not to say from the Matron to the Prostitute) it will be no difficulty to evince; and that this Pope joan did sit in Saint Peters chair, and performed all the Offices of that pretended Supremacy during that Papacy will be as little; and when we have settled her in that Chair, it will be no incongruous compliment to bring her to Bed. And therefore we betake our selvs to Testimonies, wherein following my Authors Rule, I will use some part of their own Language in the Original latin, and because the verity thereof depends upon number of authentic witnesses( of their own party too,) I will not grudge the Reader my trouble, nor deceive him by any design; and first we will mention the names of all such Historians or other Writers that do maintain there was such a Pope as Joan, and then those of the Papal side, who oppugn and deny it.  
The maintainers of it are Marianus Scotus, Sigebert, Gote-fridus, Viterbiensis, Johannes de Parisiis, Martinus Polonus, Petrarch, Boccace, Ranulphus Cestrensis, Johannes Lucidus, Alphonsus E Carthagena, Theodoricus de Niem, Chalcocondilas a graecian Writer, and Wernerus Rolerink, Platina,( the chief and most resented and quarreled) Palmerius, Nauclerus, Sabellicus, Trithemius, Volateran, Bergomensis, Schedel, Laziardus, Fulgosus, Textor, an Epistle Written by the Univerfities of Paris, Oxford, and Prague, to all at Rome, Mantuan, Crantius, and Charanza, and a number more of the Papistical Faction of all Nations: in short, Onuphrius himself, the great and first opposer of this Truth, confesseth; Multos& magni nomini viros, Historiam hanc suscipere, eam quoque vulgo veram existimari; that a great many men, and of great famed do receive this story, and that among the vulgar it is believed for true.  
The other Antagonists besides this Onuphrius a friar( who writ in One Thousand five Hundred sixty six,& was the first Champion of them all, though almost Seven Hundred years after the prank was played) were no less then Cardinal Bellarmine, Cardinal Baronius, and one Flerimundus a French-man, a fine quirking fellow, whose disputes like his Country Fashions, were as gay and pretty, so vain and ridiculous; but when the two great Cardinals, as any the Church of Rome can boast of, applied themselves to the stress of the controversy, we may be sure something more then ordinary engaged their appearance; Nec deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus.  
Come we now to the matter of fact, and because Platina in his lives of the Popes, an Historian of good Credit among themselves, being counted a most Learned man by Trithemius, hath fairly and equally delivered the story, we will show it in his words— Johannes Anglicus ex Moguntia oriundus malis artibus, &c. Pontificatum Adeptus est, mentitus enim sexum cum faemina esset, &c. the whole English was thus,— John English born at Mentz, got the popedom, as men say, by evil Means; For he dissembled his Sex being a Woman indeed, and when she was very young she went to Athens with a Scholar who was in Love with her, where by hearing of good Readers, all good Learning she profited so well, that when she came to Rome, she had few fellows, but never a one her better. Now by reading and disputing learnedly and wittily, she got so much credit, that upon Pope lo the Fourth his Death, she was chosen in his room( as Martian writes) by common consent.  
But within a while after she proved with Child by one of her own servants, and though she carried all closely for a time, yet at length as she went to St. John Laterans, between the Theatre, called the Collosses and St. Clements, she fell in travail, and was delivered of a Child,( a Boy) and dyed in the place( others add she was also butted under that ston or monument of this disgrace) which was in the second year, first month, and fourth day of her reign, and she was butted without any Solemnity.  
Let not the Reader wonder at this her Assumption to the Mitre by reason of her Learning, for in that age very little sufficed the whole Conclave, and a bigger place then that, the whole world, for a Pedant Grammarian, passed then for a Sophy, and ABC's were almost Oracles; Nay Bellarmine in return of this story was not afraid of this happy luxuriancy, as to confess it in a more critical and curious age, by way of Droll, upon Queen Elizabeth, that the Church( meaning of England) had got a Woman also to her Head.  
I omit other Confirmations of this Truth, onely I shall particularise that she succeeded lo the Fourth, in the year 855, and was succeeded By Pope Benedict the Third, in 858. which answers the time above mentioned of two years and some moneths, and supplies that place which the Papists have endeavoured to continue from lo to Benedict, though they justle out a Pope John by number the Eighth,( which name this joan borrowed, as the papal Custom is upon their Election) and instead of a Four and Twentieth, of that name will not reckon but a three& twentieth; imputing this their false reckoning, to the impiety of John the Twelfth, whose story we avoid; Onely thus much in Honour to the Name may be added, that the reason why joan and other her Successors choose this name, was for this reason out of the New Testament— There was a man sent from God whose name was John; but sure there was never a Woman of that name had any mission. But I will not too far anticipate my matter.  
For to return, Joan having by her Learning, and the famed she had raised of her self by her disputations in the Schools,( whether the Nobles and great Personages resorted) two years together,( a rarity in those dayes, as before) ascended the chair, did with no less gravity, seeming prudence and Authority, as well as Piety, behave her self to a general good esteem and respect; She Consecrated and made Prelates, She ordained Presbyters and Deacons; She administered the Sacraments, and Finally all the Offices that pertained to the pretended High Priest, as came in her way during the short time of her reign, she executed in every respect; and this Cornelius Agrippa, a man much Commended by Pope lo the Tenth, writ in a book of his solemnly privileged by the Emperour Charles the Fifth.  
And this had been no great scandal to the Church of Rome, who yet deny this to be true, and call for an account of her Transactions, with the Emperour or any other Christian Prince;( as it was then the Popes Fashion to intermeddle with Temporal Affairs, and to inaugurate and confirm Christian Potentates) but her reign was so short, that no such occurrence happened no more then in other Popes times, as Anastatius, &c. Withal Joan had other private business to mind, which might take her off from busying her self in those wrangling matters and angry Debates and Disputes about power and jurisdiction. She had mancipated her self to sensuality and Cupids Dominion, to the loving embraces of her own chamberlain, whom she more minded then all the Monarchs in the world. I forbear out of respect to the Venerable Dignity of St. Peters chair, to mention her libidinous converse with that fellow any further, leaving them in those abominable secrets, which need a night, and the darkness of oblivion to conceal and abolish them.  
It will suffice to the Ingenious Reader, that she was impregnated by this fellow, and no other person made privy to the burden of her Belly, which through her ignorance, or want of right Computation, or some precipitatancy of nature delivered itself in her pompous procession from the Vatican, to St. John of Lateran: but with such pain and speedy Torment, that the Mitred Mother died instantly thereof, and the Heir to the popedom left it to her Successors at the same instant, at the old rack rent of Simony.  
The Papists here again cavil at the unlikeliness of this story, for that none but aged persons are elected to this dignity, when they have exceeded the years within which this teeming may be supposed, and that by the smoothness of her Face she might likewise have been discovered; to the first it is answered, that several Popes have been elected under the Age of Forty, as lo the Tenth, as Gregory the Eleventh, and Boniface the Ninth, John the Twelfth, alius Thirteenth, Benedict the Ninth; as to the second, it was in those times the Fashion for the Clergy to shave themselves: and as men by shaving may make themselves look like Women, so Women by often shaving, may make themselves look like men, and therefore there was no reason they should suspect her for want of a Beard.  
All the City upon news of this strange accident, were in amazement, but the Clergy recovering themselves out of the stun and perplexity thereof, caused her to be butted in the same place instantly, whereafter a Marble Image was set up as a Monument thereof in the same place where she miscarried; which monument was likewise to be seen within these few years, even in pus the Fifth his time: representing a Woman in Childbed, with a Boy or Infant new born, which the said pus Quintus threw into the tiber, upon pretence, that it cumbered the street: but in truth that he might extinguish the Memory of that shameful Fact, and this a jesuit hath acknowledged, one Elias Hassen Muller, in his History of the Order of Jesuits, and of their Father and Mother. The like Image was set up among the rest of the Images of the Popes, in the renowned Church of Siena( the birth place of this Pope Alexander the Seventh) in Italy, and was to be seen there within less then Sixty years,( but thrown down by Pope Clement the Eighth) which the Bishop of the place would not suffer to be defaced, at the last repairing of the Church, though the Jesuits did earnestly press and request him to deface it; The like is in pictures in several Romish books.  
Now because of that Marble Image standing in one of the chief streets of Rome; the Popes when they go in procession, refuse to go through that street in detestation of the Fact, and go further about; though to slur this remark also, the Papists say it is because that street is little and winding, and is not roomy enough for the Popes great Train in such Solemnities: but that's a mere shift, for as soon as ever by going into narrower lanes and circumambulation, the Pope hath left the place of that Image behind him, he turns into the same street again, and proceeds directly in his way.  
But of further evidences of the Truth hereof, the Chair whereon the Pope is set immediately after his Nomination and Election in the Conclave of the Cardinals is none of meanest; It is a Chair made like a Close Stool, wherein he then sits before publication is made of his Assumption to the papacy, which the lowest Cardinal Deacon,( whose office it is) underfeels to try if the Pope have Male Genitals, and upon his being certified thereof by attrectation of them; he cries out to the rest— Mas nobis Dominus est, i.e. we have a Man to our Lord; so justly fearful are they to have the same trick put upon them again.  
This they likewise triflingly think to evade Florimondus saying, that the Pope sits therein, not in a Corner, but in the great Church of St. Lateran, whether all the World almost comes to see him, where he is attended by the whole college of Cardinals, and whereat there are many ambassadors of Kings and Princes, and so denieth the prebation and Experiment made in the said Conclave; and further they allege, that his sitting in that Chair, is to put him in mind that he is not God but Man, in as much as he stands in need of a Close-stool, as well as others: but no doubt there are more obvious and plainer admonitions to be made use of to that purpose; as King Philip of Macedon had a Boy, who every morning constantly saluted him with this Note, Remember thou art Mortal; but that this disastrous and disgraceful accident could by no common ordinary Memento, be reduced and hinted to their exactest care and inspection.  
As for their other gloss of Bellarmines own framing: that the Pope is set on such a Stool, to signify how he is raised from base Estate to supreme Honour, it is a mere fallacy, for the Popes for many years since this Pope joan have been chosen for the most part out of the college of Cardinals: And the Cardinals Estate is not so base, as that he who from thence is advanced to the papacy, can be truly said to be taken in any sort from off a Closestool; For they are generally Princes Fellowes,( and our cardinal Woolsey, who was not ashamed to prefix his own name before the Kings, loudly speaks as much,) and Pope Sixtus Quintus affirmed, that the Height and splendour of a Cardinalship is equal to the regal Dignity; wherefore unless some better Reason can be given, why the Popes are set on such a stool, which all popish Writers cannot but aclowledge: it must remain for certain, that in former times it was for proof of their Humanity, upon the accident aforesaid.  
All that hath hitherto been said hath been from their own Authorities. I omit what our John Bale, and Robert barns and other foreign reformed Writers have writ on this subject, this being the sum of all, for little more is recorded of her Life. I must omit likewise what other animadversions, exceptions and quarrels the Romanists make upon every of the aforesaid passages thereof, as that there were no schools at Athens, whether she is said to have resorted for learning, no more then at Rome, where it is said she taught publicly, all which are learnedly and with great reason refuted by that judicious Controversiary, Mr. Alexander cook. Fain would the Romans be informed of her parentage, which no question in that ignorance, that clouded the world in that age, they made it little labour to suppress and hid it themselves; but they may very well to their satisfaction and resolution in this point be contra-interrogated, who was the first Father of Pope Higinus, or Denis, whose Genealogies and country could not be found, as likewise John the Nineteenth, Urban the Fourth was begotten by a cobbler, John the Twenty second of a Botcher, Benedict the Eleventh of a Laundress, Benedict the Twelfth of a Miller, Sixtus the Fourth of a mariner, Adrian the sixth of a Brewer, Sixtus Quintus of a Swineherd; Alexander the Fifth confessed he had no Friends, nor never saw any such; and finally there is nothing more omitted in Histories, then who were the Popes Fathers.  
They will indeed confess, that all this smoke that hath been raised was not without some Fire; for when they perceived they could not overthrow the notoriety of this story, they cast about how to elude it; and therefore they say, that great Lies arise out of some Truth, for that Pope John the Twelfth, whom they confess to have been extraordinarily addicted to Women, among other Wenches that he kept had one called joan, who was all in all with him, and ruled the Roast: now the people perceiving what hand she had over him, termed her Pope, and despised him: whereupon arose this slander of a Pope Joan; this was reinforced and seconded by another, that the people had him so much in derision for this effeminacy, that they changed his name, and called him Joan; Both which shadows of Excuse or Extenuation have discovered a most shameful story to the reproach of the papacy, and yet of no purpose, effect or advantage to this false suggestion; A suggestion lewd enough in the Authors, but the substance of it far more leuder in the Actors.  
The Truth is, the papists would rather hear of a hundred Popes Nephews, though they be such as caesar Borgia was to Alexander the sixth, his own natural son, tituladoed with that distanced degree of Relation, then hear of this pope Mother and her Son; which story to avoid they are driven to Feign, to Forge, to Cog, to play the Fools, and in plain English to lie all manner of lies for the covering their shane in this; Onuphrius, Harding, Saundert, Cope, Genebrand, Bellarmine, Bernardus, Florimondus, Papyrius Maso, Baronius, Parsons and divers others have joined hand in hand, with purpose to carry this Cause away by strong hand, but are so entangled in it, that it is with them as with Birds in the Lime twigs, which stick faster in by how much they flitter the more to get out, as by this time it doth appear to all reasonable persons.  
And so we will dismiss this Lady of pleasure, once like her seat of Rome, the Empress of the World, Messallina's or Faustina's successor unto the brothel house, A rare head of the Church that could n●t choose but be spotless and undefiled by such a conspicuous blemish in this female Bishop. Stories are full of such prelates, as have accoutred themselves in marshal habiliments, and changed their Crosier staff for a Spear and a Lance; but there is no such shameless record as of this she prelate, that changed Saint Peters Keys to Sciffers, and the Sword to a distaff; and because I am mentioning the absurdity thereof, it will not be amiss to show the inconveniencies that attended the Roman catholic Religion, by this Joanes being admitted Pope.  
First, It will necessary follow that the Church( according as the papists tenor is) once hopt headless; For the Church is defined by them to be a company of Christian men professing one Faith; under one Head, to wit, the Pope; but she was no pope, for a Woman is not capable of Holy Orders, and could not play the pope; and secondly, That Church by reason of her, must not be owned as a true Church; for where the lawful orderly entire( without breach) succession of Bishops faileth, that cannot be a true Church, which the Roman Church suffered by reason of pope Joanes intervention betwixt lo the Fourth, and Benedict the Third; this will hold against Baronius, and all asserters of the true succession of the Roman Bishops, who reckon no interruption or interregnum thereof though they confess, that many Apostates, rather then Apostolical persons, have occupied that Room; and that there have been many popes which came irregularly to the papacy, and served for no other purpose then ciphers in arithmetic to make up number; Yet this one Woman pope spoils the play and that pretence, for she cannot be reckoned any way to be Saint Peters successor, though we should grant the succession of 
a Chronol. lib. 4. saecul. 10. ad annum 904.  Fifty popes together, who came in unlawfully, and governed as madly.  
Thirdly, It being proved there was such a Pope, the popish priests may well doubt of the lawfulness of their mission; and the Lay papists of the sufficiency of the absolutions, which the priests give ●●on Ear Confessions, and of the Truth of the real presence and Transubstantiation; for unless the popish priests be priested by a lawful Bishop, their priesthood is not worth a Rush; unless the Lay papists be absolved by a lawful priest, their absolution is worth nothing: and unless the words of Consecration be uttered by a lawful priest, intent upon his business, there follows no substantial change in the Creatures of Bread and Wine. Now how can the priests be assured that they were priested by lawful Bishops: and how can Lay priests be assured that they are absolved by lawful priests, since we have seen, and they may when they please, that pope joan, gave Orders, made Deacons, Priests, Bishops and Abbots: For it may be well enough that the priests of this present age, are descended from those who were ordained by her: especially seeing we no where red, that they were degraded by succeeding popes, who had their Ordination from her. Not to mention that high prerogative of infallibility, which the popes pretend to, now resting in a frail seducible Woman, that could not tell so much as the time of her delivery; but so shamefully betrayed the infirmity and weakness of the Apostolical Chair.  
To conclude, all the Water in the River of tiber will never wash off the pollution and slain, which the abomination of this Pope joan hath stuck upon the pontifical Sanctity and Supremacy.  
FINIS.