Book review: Australian author Emily Maguire takes a fresh approach to the apocryphal story of a medieval female pope in her modern retelling of the life of “a brilliant, passionate girl who disguised herself as a boy, followed her lover to a monastery, travelled the world and, eventually, ended up on the throne of St Peter”. A woman, that is, “who may or may not have existed”. It is in the tantalising gaps in the mythology that Maguire has brilliantly fleshed out the legendary figure of Agnes/Joan, who was allegedly the Roman Catholic church’s first (and only) female pope. She reigned for 25 months from 855 to 858 in the interlude between pontiffs Leo IV and Benedict III (she’s also sometimes confusingly called John VIII, despite another pope of that name reigning slightly later).
Buying into the mythology surrounding a female pontiff is to recognise the misogyny embedded in the patriarchal institution of the Roman Catholic church, which continues to deny the office of clergy to women. Rapture is a modern, feminist tale that reframes Joan as an intellectual, an independent thinker and a scholar who dares to question the wisdom of church leaders.
In Mainz, west-central Germany, in 821, Agnes, a motherless five-year-old girl, listens avidly to the men’s talk from beneath the table of her father, “the English Priest”. Unusually for the period, Agnes is literate.
At 18, she becomes drawn to Brother Randulf, a learned, travelling Benedictine monk three years older and a frequent visitor to her home. Agnes’s first experience of sex is with Randulf, accompanied by searing pain. “She is the grass trampled beneath his feet.”
When her father, her educator and protector, dies in an earthquake, penniless Agnes is forced to choose between becoming a wife and mother, with its high risk of dying in childbirth, and a life of the mind. She begs Randulf to take her with him to his monastery at Fulda. “I would rather risk the fiercest shame and even death than resign myself to a life that is less than it might be.”
Randulf chops off her braid and renders her formless in a monk’s cloak. “With the knowledge of Latin, politics and the cold carnality of men already within her”, Agnes journeys to the abbey with Randulf in her new guise. She binds her breasts, and adopts the convincing persona of the smooth-faced Brother John amidst 600 monks, half of whom are illiterate.
Maguire skilfully handles the minutiae of the punishing daily routine at the abbey, depicting an environment that reeks of the stench of unwashed men, of “cloying incense and tallow” and the drone of Latin chants sung by rote. Wary of being unmasked and scrupulously obedient, Agnes “fears every man in the place save the one who brought her”.
When the monks discover that Agnes can already read several languages and write in two, she becomes a scribe, copying manuscripts for the Abbey to sell. After the monastery has been decimated by plague, Agnes and Randulf are forced to flee for their lives. Agnes then travels alone to Greece where she lives as an ascetic for eight years, before moving to Rome. There, she achieves fame as a gifted teacher, attracting the attention of Pope Leo IV, who enlists her as his notary. Later, when she has become his right hand, he elevates her to cardinal. The rest, as they say, is history. Perhaps.
Rapture, Maguire’s seventh novel, is a magnificent achievement, reflecting an impressive blend of imaginative recreation and scholarly research.
Rapture, by Emily Maguire (Allen & Unwin, $36.99), is out now.
