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THE POPE NOT THE CHURCH'S HEAD

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it is plain in the case of Agnes, who was called John Anglicus,^[1] and of her Castrensis, 5: 3,^[2] writes: "A certain woman sat in the papal chair two years and five months, following Leo. She is said to have been a girl, called Agnes, of the nation of Mainz, was led about by her paramour in a man's dress in Athens and named John Anglicus. She made such progress in different studies that, coming to Rome, she read the trivium to an audience of great teachers. Finally, elected pope, she was with child by her paramour, and, as she was proceeding from St. Peter's to the Lateran, she had the pains of labor in a narrow street between the Colosseum and St. Clement's and gave birth to a child. Shortly afterward she died there and was buried. For this reason it is said that all the popes avoid this street. Therefore, she is not put down in the catalogue of popes."

As for a heretic occupying the papal chair we have an instance in Liberius, of whom Castrensis writes, IV [Rolls Ser., 5: 158], that at Constantius's command he was exiled for

↑ This story of the female Pope Agnes (John VIII, about 855), to which Huss refers again and again in his writings (Doc., 59, 61; Mon., 1: 323, 324, 326, 336, 339, 343, 345, 347) as a proof that the papacy is not necessary to the being of the church, was fully believed in his time. Gerson used it to prove that the church may err in matters of fact, and a bust of Agnes was included among the busts of the other popes in the cathedral of Siena in the beginning of the fifteenth century. Dietrich of Nieheim names the very school in which she taught. So far as the story can be traced, it was first told by Martin von Troppau—Martinus Polonus—d. 1278, in his Chronicles. It is now discredited, and the invention regarded as a satire upon the rule of meretricious women over worthless and wicked popes in the ninth and tenth centuries. See Mirbt, p. 97; Döllinger: Fables ef the Middle Ages.
↑ Castrensis or Cestrensis, a derivative of Chester—castra, the name by which Ranulph Higden was often quoted, the author of the Polychronicon or Universal History, in seven books, ed. by Babington and Lumby in Rolls Series, 1865 sqq.,9 vols. The ed. gives the Latin text and also two Engl. translations, one by Trevisa and the other by an unknown writer of the fifteenth century. Nothing is known of the author except that he was a Benedictine monk of St. Werburgh, Chester. He wrote probably after the middle of the fourteenth century. The historical part begins with Abraham and continues to the reign of Edward III, 1312–1377. The work was widely circulated and the author gives a list of the writers upon whom he has drawn. The quotation in regard to Joan, vol. VI, 330, Cestrensis draws from Martinus Polonus.

[1] This story of the female Pope Agnes (John VIII, about 855), to which Huss refers again and again in his writings (Doc., 59, 61; Mon., 1: 323, 324, 326, 336, 339, 343, 345, 347) as a proof that the papacy is not necessary to the being of the church, was fully believed in his time. Gerson used it to prove that the church may err in matters of fact, and a bust of Agnes was included among the busts of the other popes in the cathedral of Siena in the beginning of the fifteenth century. Dietrich of Nieheim names the very school in which she taught. So far as the story can be traced, it was first told by Martin von Troppau—Martinus Polonus—d. 1278, in his Chronicles. It is now discredited, and the invention regarded as a satire upon the rule of meretricious women over worthless and wicked popes in the ninth and tenth centuries. See Mirbt, p. 97; Döllinger: Fables ef the Middle Ages.

[2] Castrensis or Cestrensis, a derivative of Chester—castra, the name by which Ranulph Higden was often quoted, the author of the Polychronicon or Universal History, in seven books, ed. by Babington and Lumby in Rolls Series, 1865 sqq.,9 vols. The ed. gives the Latin text and also two Engl. translations, one by Trevisa and the other by an unknown writer of the fifteenth century. Nothing is known of the author except that he was a Benedictine monk of St. Werburgh, Chester. He wrote probably after the middle of the fourteenth century. The historical part begins with Abraham and continues to the reign of Edward III, 1312–1377. The work was widely circulated and the author gives a list of the writers upon whom he has drawn. The quotation in regard to Joan, vol. VI, 330, Cestrensis draws from Martinus Polonus.

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