Title: Sex, lies and really tall hats
Product review: Sex, sin, greed, a bit of the 'ol ultra-violence, and that's just before 1400! Read The Bad Popes and learn of historical figures such as Marozia and her sister Theodora, the Roman women whom Pope Joan is most likely based upon (created as political satire). In the opening chapters of The Bad Popes Russel Chamberlin traces similarities to the Joan story and the real life Theophylact ladies, it is a deliciously scandalous story. Case in point: their rivals invented the lovely term "Pornocracy", a political system dominated by prostitutes (it was fashionable at that time, as it often is in ours, to label powerful women with such epithets). I love these nasty little tales, they remind me how tumultuous and earthy historical study can be.
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