Donna Woolfolk Cross Livres

A world-wide bestseller, major motion picture and upcoming "Director's Cut" TV mini-series exclusively for the U.S!For a thousand years her existence has been denied. She is the legend that will not die–Pope Joan, the ninth-century woman who disguised herself as a man and rose to become the only female ever to sit on the throne of St. Peter. Now in this riveting novel, Donna Woolfolk Cross paints a sweeping portrait of an unforgettable heroine who struggles against restrictions her soul cannot accept.Brilliant and talented, young Joan rebels against medieval social strictures forbidding women to learn. When her brother is brutally killed during a Viking attack, Joan takes up his cloak–and his identity–and enters the monastery of Fulda. As Brother John Anglicus, Joan distinguishes herself as a great scholar and healer. Eventually, she is drawn to Rome, where she becomes enmeshed in a dangerous web of love, passion, and politics. Triumphing over appalling odds, she finally attains the highest office in Christendom–wielding a power greater than any woman before or since. But such power always comes at a price . . .In this international bestseller, Cross brings the Dark Ages to life in all their brutal splendor and shares the dramatic story of a woman whose strength of vision led her to defy the social restrictions of her day.

Uprostred krutej zimy roku 841 pohanská žena dedinského kňaza v Ingelheime privedie na svet dievča menom Johana. Vyrastá s dvoma bratmi; starší z nich ju tajne naučí čítať a písať. Také vedomosti sú totiž aj po vláde osvieteného cisára Karola Veľkého vo Franskej ríši výsadou mužov...

One of history's most controversial figures is vividly portrayed in this tale of a girl who defies her origins to ascend to the papacy as Pope John Anglicus. Set in 814 in Ingelheim, a Frankland village, Joan is born during an unforgiving winter to an English father, a cruel canon, and a Saxon mother. Her father's piety is overshadowed by his brutality, especially towards women, while her mother, Gudrun, imparts knowledge of both Saxon gods and Church teachings. As Joan matures, she grapples with her identity, seen by others as a "lusus naturae," a freak of nature, embodying both male intellect and female form. The status of women in the Dark Ages is dire, viewed as inferior and necessary evils. Following her brother John's death in a Viking raid, Joan seizes the chance to escape her gender's constraints by cutting her hair and disguising herself as a boy. With Gerold, a figure from her past, unaware of her fate, Joan finds refuge in a Benedictine monastery, where she is accepted as a learned man, eventually making her way to Rome. The author notes in the Epilogue that this story is fictional, as the Church has sought to erase Joan's legacy. Regardless of belief in her papacy, the narrative weaves together themes of the Dark Ages, Vatican intrigue, and the plight of women.