The First Complete Documentation of the Facts behind the Legend
Who was the elusive figure of Pope Joan? Did she actually exist? How long did she occupy the papal throne? Why have her history and legend remained shrouded in mystery?
The Female Pope is an attempt to discover the truth questions. In this, the first objective and authoritative account of the life of the woman pontiff, Rosemary and Darrol Pardoe set out to unravel some of the secrets of this fascinating religious mystery.
Boring!!! Highly documented I know but it ends with the same conclusion I myself will come up with without reading this book: that whether the female pope really did exist or not remains a mystery.
A slim but solid study of how polemicists of different stripes over centuries have turned a fragment of medieval "urban myth" into a full fleshed conspiracy theory that still has followers.