Pope Joan

by Donna Woolfolk Cross

  Anastasius replied, “I turned twelve just after Advent.”

  “Indeed! You look younger.” He patted Anastasius’s head.

  A dislike for the stranger rose inside Anastasius. Drawing himself up as tall as possible, he said, “And I think that my uncle’s judgment cannot be so very bad, or else how did he come to be primicerius?”

  His father squeezed Anastasius’s arm in warning, but his eyes were mild and there was a hint of a smile on his lips. The stranger stared at Anastasius, something—surprise? anger?—registering in his eyes. Anastasius met his gaze levelly. After a long moment the man broke the gaze and returned his attention to Anastasius’s father.

  “Such family loyalty! How touching! Well, well, let us hope that the boy’s thinking proves to be as correct as his Latin.”

  A loud noise drew their attention to the far side of the hall as the heavy doors were opened.

  “Ah! Here comes the primicerius now. I shall intrude upon you no longer.” Sarpatus bowed elaborately and withdrew.

  A hush fell over the assembly as Theodorus entered, accompanied by his son-in-law Leo, recently elevated to the position of nomenclator. He stopped just inside the doors to converse briefly with a few of the clerics and nobles standing nearby. In his ruby silk dalmatic and golden cingulum, Theodorus was by far the most elegantly attired of the group; he loved fine materials and favored a certain ostentation in his dress, a characteristic that Anastasius admired.

  Finishing with the formal greetings, Theodorus scanned the hall. Catching sight of Anastasius and his father, he smiled and started across the floor toward them. As he drew closer, he winked at Anastasius, and his right hand moved toward the fold in his dalmatic. Anastasius grinned, for he knew what that meant. Theodorus, who had a love for children, always carried some special treats to hand out. What will it be today? Anastasius wondered, his mouth watering in anticipation. A plump fig, a honeyed filbert, a creamy lump of sweetened almond paste?

  Anastasius’s attention was focused so intently on the fold in Theodorus’s dalmatic that at first he did not see the other men. They came up quickly—three of them—from behind; one clapped a hand over Theodorus’s mouth, drawing him backward. Anastasius thought it was some kind of prank. Smiling, he looked at his father for explanation; his heart leapt when he saw the fear in his father’s eyes. He turned back and saw Theodorus struggling to break loose. Theodorus was a big man, but the contest was hopelessly unequal. The men surrounded him, pinning his arms, dragging him down. The front of Theodorus’s ruby dalmatic was torn, the fine silk hanging in jagged ribbons, exposing patches of white skin. One of the attackers entwined his fingers in Theodorus’s thick black hair and wrenched his head back. Anastasius saw a glint of steel. There was a scream, and then Theodorus’s face seemed to explode in a fountain of red. Anastasius flinched as a fine spray hit his face. He reached up, then stared numbly at his hand. It was blood. Across the room someone shouted; Anastasius saw Leo, Theodorus’s son-in-law, disappear beneath a swarm of attackers.

  The men released Theodorus, and he fell forward onto his knees. Then he raised his head, and Anastasius screamed in terror. The face was dreadful. Blood poured from the black and empty holes where Theodorus’s eyes had been, streaming from his chin onto his shoulders and chest.

  Anastasius buried his face in his father’s side. He felt his father’s large hands on his shoulders and heard his voice, strong and unwavering. “No,” his father said. “You cannot hide, my son.” The hands impelled him, pushing him away, turning him back toward the grisly scene before him.

  “Watch,” the voice commanded, “and learn. This is the price exacted for lack of subtlety and art. Theodorus pays now for wearing his loyalty to the Emperor so openly.”

  Anastasius stood like a post while the attackers carried Theodorus and Leo to the center of the hall. Several times they stumbled and almost fell on the tile floor, slippery with blood. Theodorus was shouting something, but the words were unintelligible. With his mouth open and moving, his face was even more frightful.

  The men forced Theodorus and Leo to their knees and pulled their heads forward. One man raised a long sword over Leo’s neck and with one quick stroke, decapitated him. But Theodorus’s neck was thick, and he continued to struggle; it took three or four sword strokes to cleave his head from his body.

  Anastasius saw, for the first time, that the attackers wore the scarlet cross of the papal militia. “Father!” he blurted. “It’s the guards! The guards of the militia!”

  “Yes.” He drew Anastasius close.

  Anastasius fought against the rise of hysteria. “But why? Why, Father? Why would they do it?”

  “They were ordered to.”

  “Ordered to?” said Anastasius. He tried to make sense of it. “Who would give such an order?”

  “Who? Ah, my son, think.” His father’s face was ashen, but his voice was steady as he replied, “You must learn to think so you will never suffer such a fate. Consider now: Who has the power? Who is capable of giving such an order?”

  Anastasius stood speechless, overwhelmed by the enormity of the idea that had begun to break upon him.

  “Yes.” His father’s hands were gentle now on Anastasius’s shoulders. “Who else,” he said, “but the Pope?”

  5

  NO, NO, no.” Aesculapius’s voice was edged with impatience. “You must make your letters much smaller. See how your sister pens her lesson?” He tapped Joan’s paper. “You must learn a greater respect for your parchment, my boy—there’s a whole sheep gone to make just one folio. If the monks of Andernach sprawled their words across the page in that manner, the herds of Austrasia would be wiped out in a month!”

  John cast a resentful glance at Joan. “It’s too hard; I can’t do it.”

  Aesculapius sighed. “Very well; return to practicing on your tablet. When you have achieved a better control, we will try the parchment again.” He asked Joan, “Have you finished the De inventione?”

  “Yes, sir,” Joan replied.

  “Name the six evidentiary questions used to determine the circumstances of human acts.”

  Joan was ready. “Quis, quid, quomodo, ubi, quando, cur?”— “Who, what, how, where, when, why?”

  “Good. Now identify the rhetorical constitutiones.”

  “Cicero specifies four different constitutiones: dispute about fact, dispute about definition, dispute about the nature of the act, and—”

  There was a thud as Gudrun kicked the door open and entered, stooping from the weight of the heavy wooden water buckets she carried, one in each clenched hand. Joan rose to help her, but Aesculapius put a hand on her shoulder, returning her to her seat.

  “And?”

  Joan hesitated, her eyes still on her mother.

  “Child, continue.” Aesculapius’s tone indicated that he would tolerate no disobedience.

  Joan hastened to reply. “Dispute about jurisdiction or procedure.”

  Aesculapius nodded, satisfied. “Provide an illustration of the third status. Write it out on your parchment, and make sure it will be worth the keeping.”

  Gudrun bustled about, blowing up the fire, bringing the pot to boil, laying the table in preparation for the afternoon meal. Once or twice she looked over her shoulder resentfully.

  Joan felt a stab of guilt but forced her attention back to her work. This time was precious—Aesculapius came only once a week—and her studies mattered more than anything else.

  But it was hard, working under the weight of her mother’s displeasure. Aesculapius obviously noticed it too, though he attributed it to the fact that the lessons took Joan away from household chores. Joan knew the real cause. Her studies were a betrayal, a violation of the private world she shared with her mother, a world of Saxon gods and Saxon secrets. By learning Latin and studying Christian texts, Joan aligned herself with the things her mother most detested—with the Christian God who had destroyed Gudrun’s homeland and, more to the point, with the canon, her husband.r />
  The truth was that Joan worked mostly with pre-Christian, classical texts. Aesculapius revered the “pagan” texts of Cicero, Seneca, Lucan, and Ovid, regarded as anathema by most scholars of the day. He was teaching Joan to read Greek using the ancient texts of Menander and Homer, whose poetry the canon regarded as nothing less than pagan blasphemy. Taught by Aesculapius to appreciate clarity and style, Joan never considered the question of whether Homer’s poetry was acceptable in terms of Christian doctrine; God was in it, because it was beautiful.

  She would have liked to explain this to her mother but knew it would make no difference. Homer or Bede, Cicero or St. Augustine— to Gudrun it was all one: it was not Saxon; nothing else mattered.

  Joan’s concentration had wandered; she blundered and made an ugly blotch on her parchment. She looked up to see Aesculapius regarding her with penetrating dark eyes.

  “Never mind, child.” His voice was unexpectedly gentle; usually he was harsh with careless errors. “It is no matter. Begin again here.”

  THE townspeople of Ingelheim were gathered round the village pond, chattering animatedly. A witch was to be tried today, an event sure to inspire horror, pity, and delight—welcome respite from the daily drudgery of their lives.

  “Benedictus.” The canon began the blessing of the water.

  Hrotrud tried to run, but two men seized her and dragged her back to where the canon stood, his dark brows meeting in frowning disapproval. Hrotrud cursed and struggled as her captors wrested her clawed hands behind her and tied them together with strips of linen cloth, causing her to cry out in pain.

  “Maleficia,” someone muttered, close to where Joan and Aesculapius were standing among the crowd of witnesses. “St. Barnabas, preserve us from the evil eye.”

  Aesculapius said nothing but shook his head sadly.

  He had arrived at Ingelheim that morning for the weekly lesson, but the canon had refused to let the children receive instruction, insisting they first attend the trial of Hrotrud, formerly the village midwife.

  “For you will learn more about the ways of God from observing this holy trial than you will from any heathen writing,” the canon had said, looking pointedly at Aesculapius.

  Joan did not like delaying her lesson, but she was curious about the trial. She wondered what it would be like; she had never seen anyone tried for witchcraft. She was sorry that it was Hrotrud, however. Joan liked Hrotrud, who was an honest woman and no hypocrite. She had always spoken fairly to Joan, treating her kindly and not ridiculing her as so many of the villagers did. Gudrun had told Joan how Hrotrud had assisted at her birthing—a grueling ordeal, according to her mother, who credited Hrotrud with saving her life and Joan’s that day. As Joan stared at the crowd of villagers, the thought came to her that Hrotrud had doubtless helped to birth almost everyone gathered there—those, at least, who had reached six winters or more. One would never know it from the way they gawked at her now. She had become an annoyance to them, a goad to their Christian charity, for ever since the wasting pain had crooked her hands, destroying her usefulness as a midwife, she had lived off the alms of her neighbors—that, and what little she could earn from selling medicinal herbs and philters of her own devising.

  Her skill in this last had proved to be her undoing, for her ability to work cures for sleeplessness and pains of the tooth, stomach, and head appeared to the simple villagers to be nothing less than sorcery.

  Finishing with the blessing of the water, the canon turned to Hrotrud. “Woman! You know the crime of which you are accused. Will you now freely confess your sins in order to ensure the salvation of your immortal soul?”

  Hrotrud regarded him consideringly from the corners of her eyes. “If I confess, you will let me go free?”

  The canon shook his head. “It is expressly forbidden in the Holy Book: ‘You shall not permit a sorceress to live.’” He added, for authority, “Exodus, chapter twenty-two, verse eighteen. But you will die a consecrated death, and a swift one, and through it gain the immeasurable rewards of Heaven.”

  “No!” Hrotrud retorted defiantly. “I am a Christian woman, and no witch, and anyone who says otherwise is a foul liar!”

  “Sorceress! You will suffer the fires of Hell for all eternity! Can you deny the evidence of your own eyes?” From behind his back the canon pulled a soiled linen belt, mutilated by a series of crude knots. He thrust it accusingly at Hrotrud, who started and stepped back.

  “See how she shrinks from it?” someone whispered close to Joan. “She is guilty, sure, and should be burned!”

  Anyone would be startled by so sudden a move, Joan thought. Surely that is no proof of guilt.

  The canon held the belt up for the crowd to observe. “This belongs to Ebo, the miller. It went missing a fortnight ago. Immediately thereafter he took to his bed, afflicted with a terrible pain in the bowels.”

  The faces in the crowd looked solemn. They did not especially like Ebo, who was widely suspected of cheating with his weights. “What is the boldest thing in the world?” began a riddle that they loved to repeat. “Ebo’s shirt, for it clasps a thief by the throat every day!” Nevertheless, the illness of their miller was of grave concern to the entire community. Without him, none of their grain could be turned into flour, for by law no villager could mill his own harvest.

  “Two days ago”—the canon’s voice was dark with accusation— “this belt was discovered in the woods near Hrotrud’s cottage.”

  There was an awed murmur from the crowd, punctuated by scattered cries: “Witch!” “Sorceress!” “Burn her!”

  The canon said to Hrotrud, “You stole the belt and made the knots in it to aid your evil incantations, which have brought Ebo to the very brink of death.”

  “Never!” Hrotrud shouted indignantly, struggling against the bonds that held her. “I did no such thing! I’ve never seen that belt before! I never—”

  Impatiently, the canon signaled to the men, who hoisted Hrotrud like a sack of oats, swung her back and forth several times, then released her at the height of the last swing. Hrotrud cried out in fear and anger as she sailed through the air and dropped with a splash directly into the center of the pond.

  Joan and Aesculapius were jostled as people strained forward, trying to see. If Hrotrud rose to the surface of the pond and floated, that meant the priest-blessed waters had rejected her; she would be revealed as a sorceress and a witch and burned at the stake. If she sank, her innocence was proved and she was saved.

  In tense silence, all eyes remained fixed on the surface of the pond. Ripples circled slowly outward from the spot where Hrotrud had entered the water; otherwise the surface was still.

  The canon grunted and signaled the men, who immediately dashed into the water and dived down to search for Hrotrud.

  “She is innocent of the charges against her,” the canon pronounced. “God be praised.”

  Was it only Joan’s imagination, or did he look disappointed?

  The men kept diving and surfacing with no result. At last one of them broke the surface holding Hrotrud. She lay limp in his arms, her face swollen and discolored. He carried her to the edge of the pond and put her down. She did not stir. He bent over her, listening for a heartbeat.

  After a moment he sat up. “She is dead,” he announced.

  A murmur went up from the crowd.

  “Most unfortunate,” the canon said. “But she died innocent of the crime of which she was accused. God knows His own; He will give recompense and rest to her soul.”

  The villagers dispersed, some making their way over to where Hrotrud’s body lay, examining it curiously, some breaking into little groups that murmured and chattered in low tones.

  Joan and Aesculapius walked back to the grubenhaus in silence. Joan was deeply disturbed by Hrotrud’s death. She was ashamed of the excitement she had felt beforehand about witnessing the trial. But then she had not expected Hrotrud to die. Surely Hrotrud was not a witch; therefore Joan had believed God would prove her innocence.


  And He had.

  But then why did He let her die?

  SHE didn’t speak about it until later, after she had resumed her lesson back at the grubenhaus. She lowered her stylus in the middle of writing and asked suddenly, “Why would God do it?”

  “Perhaps He didn’t,” Aesculapius responded, taking her meaning at once.

  Joan stared at him. “Are you saying that such a thing could have happened in spite of His will?”

  “Perhaps not. But the fault may lie in the nature of the trial rather than in the nature of God’s will.”

  Joan considered that. “My father would say that this is how witches have been tried for hundreds of years.”

  “True enough.”

  “But that doesn’t necessarily make it right.” Joan looked at Aesculapius. “What would be a better way?”

  “That,” he said, “is for you to tell me.”

  Joan sighed. Aesculapius was so different from her father, or even Matthew. He refused to tell her things, insisting instead that she reason her own way to the answer. Joan tugged gently on the tip of her nose as she often did when thinking out a problem.

  Of course. She had been blind not to see it at once. Cicero and the De inventione—until now, it had been merely an abstraction, a rhetorical ornament, an exercise for the mind.

  “The evidentiary questions,” Joan said. “Why couldn’t they be brought to apply in this case?”

  “Explain,” Aesculapius said.

  “Quid: there is the fact of the knotted belt—that is indisputable. But surely there is an argument about what it means. Quis: Who put the knots in the belt and placed it in the woods? Quomodo: How was it taken from Ebo? Quando, Ubi: When and where was it taken? Did anyone actually see Hrotrud with it? Cur: Why should Hrotrud wish harm to Ebo?” Joan spoke rapidly, excited by the possibilities of the idea. “Witnesses could be brought forward and questioned. And Hrotrud and Ebo too—they could be questioned. Their answers might have determined Hrotrud’s innocence. And”—Joan concluded ruefully—“she would not have had to die to prove it!”