This was a bit of serendipity, since I just finished reading Adam, Eve and the Serpent by Elaine Pagels. I suggest it as a "reading pair."

Cross takes a few known facts about Pope Joan's life and weaves a story around them. On pp. 412-20, Cross includes an author's note that explores the factual basis of the Pope Joan story -- if you are curious about her, but don't want to read the novel, you might want to start there. In the end, Cross concludes thatthere are only four facts about Joan that have any veracity: her place of birth, that she was a monk, that she was pope, and the manner of her death. The rest of the book is fiction. The story she builds is interesting.

As a young girl, Joan shows a unique aptitude for learning. She is discouraged because she is a girl. However, she preservers and learns to read in several languages. After a terrible massacre in which her brother is killed, she cuts her hair and joins a monastery using her brother's name. She becomes a priest and a skilled doctor. She ultimately makes her way to Rome and becomes pope (I won't say more than that to avoid spoiling the story).

The book has all the devices of historical romance -- a pair of lovers who are separated by fate, come together, and meet a tragic end. The political intrigue is, well, intriguing. The plot is a bit simplistic and predictable, however, and if I weren't interested in the gender-bending aspects of the story I probably would not have finished it.

In light of my recent reading of the Pagels book, I found the contrast between Joan and other clerics interesting. Joan's approach to religion focuses on equality and freedom. She decides that her sex will not stop her. However, the priests she encounters all emphasize authority and hierarchy. It is as if she learned her trade before Augustine, and everyone else learned it after. In some respects this bothered me. Women are often expected to be more virtuous than men, and Joan's character more closely approximates our "modern" values than anyone else in the book. So it bothered me a bit that she was so appealing: she wanted to help the poor, she relied on the evidence of her senses, she avoided politics. I find it hard to believe that someone like that could really become pope in the 800s -- but I might want someone like that as my friend. I think that Cross imagines Joan as too close to our world. It would have been more interesting if Joan was like the ruthless men around her. The Oxford Dictionary of Religion dismisses the story as legend