Pope Joan

I- it came out ages ago, probably, oh, I, I don't even know.

It's called Pope Joan.

It is not fantasy.

It is an historical novel, and it's about a, kind of a legend that, i- it's from the 9th century.

It's really dark and, but it's, it's just, yeah.

That would...

Oh, my all-time favorite book, Pope Joan.

Yeah.

Among the trumps sat a Popess, a female pope, and a Pope, the head of the church himself.

To a modern eye, the Popess is startling, a woman in the papal tiara, and she has attracted centuries of speculation, some of it tangled up with the old legend of a Pope Joan, who was said to have secretly ruled the church in disguise.

In truth, she was most likely a straightforward allegory of faith or of the church, a companion to the other grand figures of the deck.

But the presence of a Popess and a Pope, plain religious authority laid out as cards in a gambling game, sat uneasily in some quarters, and in later centuries, in more sensitive times and places, these two would be quietly renamed.

Later, occult traditions would transform her into the High Priestess, a guardian of secret wisdom.

But in fifteenth century Italy, viewers may have associated the image with the medieval legend of Pope Joan, with debates over religious authority, or perhaps with a particular courtly joke or reference now lost to us.

Scholars still disagree.

What matters is that the card did not appear in a vacuum.

The neighbors met with good will, parted with a shake of the hand, and never abused each other except behind their backs.

I could give rare descriptions of snug, junketing parties at which I have been present, where we played at all fours, Pope Joan, Tom Come Tickle Me, and other choice old games, and where we sometimes had a good old English country dance to the tune of Sir Roger de Coverley.

Once a year also the neighbors would gather together and go on a gypsy party to Epping Forest.

It would have done any man's heart good to see the merriment that took place here as we banqueted on the grass under the trees.

The family never got over it.

They were immediately smitten with the passion for high life, set up a one-horse carriage, put a bit of gold lace round the errand-boy's hat, and had been the talk and detestation of the whole neighborhood ever since.

They could no longer be induced to play at Pope Joan or Blind Man's Buff.

They could endure no dances but quadrilles.

Then the sudden large house at Barnes with the drive winding to the door.

He used to come home from the city and the constitutional club and sometimes instead of reading the Times or the Globe or the Proceedings of the British Association or Herbert Spencer, play Pope Joan or Jacoby with them all or table billiards and laugh and be silly and take his turn at being bumped by Timmy going the round of the long dining room table tail in the air.

He had taken Sarah and Eve to see Don Giovanni and Winter's Tale and the new piece Lohengrin.

No one at the tennis club had seen that.

To draw patterns for ruffles, which I had not materials to make up.

To play Pope Joan with the curate, to read a sermon to my aunt, or to be stuck down to an old spinet to strum my father to sleep after a fox chase

I am glad you have so good a memory.

Yes, madam, these were the recreations I took you from.