Review - Pope Joan by Donna Woolford Cross

Title: Pope Joan
Author: Donna Woolford Cross

There is a legend that, in the Dark Ages, a woman ascended to become the head of the Roman Catholic church.  She did so, it is said, by diguising herself as a man for most of her life.

Donna Woolford Cross learned of this legend and did a great deal of research.  After the research, she wrote Pope Joan, historical fiction of the most entertaining kind.

From the earliest days of Joan's life -- in fact, starting the story at Joan's birth -- Cross immerses us in the hard realities of Europe during the days when feudalism had not yet arisen, when the Church had forcibly converted the pagans of the land, bringing education to a select few, but never to girls or women.

The young Joan was ill suited for the strictures of this time, according to the fiction.  But, of course, if a woman had been able to become educated enough to rise to the papacy, she would have had to find a way to get educated.   Cross creates a feasible path for that to have occurred, while also showing how Joan might have taken the opportunity to take the guise of John.

The story is very well told.  Oh certainly there are points in the narrative when it seems to take an incredible coincidence for Joan to move one step closer to her destiny.  But then, what some people call coincidence, others see as fate, or the hand of God.  Interestingly, Cross never has Joan attribute these events to God.  Joan, as written here, is one of the least "religious" people you might expect to be associated with the Church.  But she is kind, she is more intelligent than anyone else in the story, and she has a sense of duty one would hope for from the clergy.

I highly recommend the book.  Having never researched the legend myself, I cannot vouch for the truth of the main fact.  I do find the references Cross provides to be quite interesting, but I certainly did not need them (they are provided at the end of the book in the latest edition.)  I enjoyed the story and the characters.  And that's what fiction is about, first and foremost.