STALENUS, Joannes (1592-1651). Papissa monstrosa, et mera fabula, Cologne, 1639, 8vo, contemporary vellum. FIRST EDITION of this work on "Pope Joan".

STALENUS, Joannes (1592-1651).  Papissa monstrosa, et mera fabula: sive dissertatio historico-theologica: qua ex vulgi errore ortum de Papissa figmentum, ex vera chronologia, et alto scriptorum in subsequentibus annis de ea silentio, ute et leui ac incerta recentiorum narratione, penitus profligatur et eliminatur. Opposita nugis, et clumniis cuiusdam Egberti Grim Calvinistæ. Cologne: Sumptib. hæred. Bernardi Gualteri, 1639. 8vo (150 x 90mm). Woodcut initials and ornaments (part of title cut away with imprint retained, some leaves browned, some mainly marginal worming, occasional spotting and staining). Contemporary vellum, title in old manuscript on spine (lacks ties, some staining). Provenance: old inscriptions to front free endpaper ("Servio pro tempore et loco omnibus te gentibus me"); Thomas Baker, Bookseller, London (small label on front pastedown). FIRST EDITION of this refutation of Egbert Grim's 'Pauselicke Heiligheit' (Wesel, 1635) in which the author claimed that  Joannes Anglicus ("Pope Joan"), who held the office of Pope between 855 and 857, was female, a view dismissed by most modern scholars as a Medieval legend. Stalenus's work takes the form of a series of 'quaestiones' followed by a numbered list of possible answers. For a full discussion of the controversy and the printed pro- and anti-Catholic polemics it gave rise to, see Jan Machielsen's "When a Female Pope Meets a Biconfessional Town: Protestantism, Catholicism, and Popular Polemics in the 1630s" (in Early Modern Low Countries 3 (2019) 1, pp. 1-31). RARE.