pope joan by donna woolfolk cross

you may have heard about this story of a woman who, disguised as a man, rose to the rank of pope in the 800s. then died or was killed after giving birth during a procession to a church in rome. of course the story was suppressed & joan (or john as she was known) was removed from the list of popes.
a bit of background here; it was very crappy to be a woman in this time period (in a lot of them actually) but during this era known by many as the dark ages (some prefer early middle ages) women were treated worse than animals. their husbands or fathers could beat them & rape was considered a minor theft. the belief was that the size of a woman's brain & uterus were directly proportional, the more that a woman learned & the biger her brain got, the smaller her uterus got and then she couldn't have any children. the use of medicines was viewed as witchcraft, especially if administered by women. any knowledge from the greeks was dismissed because it came from "heathens." bathing was almost unheard of, bloodletting was a popular cure & prayer the answer to almost anything. to quote daniel in the episode demons; well, they didn't call them the dark ages because it was dark.
some would argue that there were some bright spots during this time. it's like the night sky, there's some stars & sometime the moon shines, but let's face it, it's dark.

netflix has a documentary called the dark ages, which i recommend

( the long, spoiler filled synopsis & review )