AI Overview “testiculos habet et bene pendentes”: "He has testicles and they hang well" is a phrase from the legend of Pope Joan, which refers to a supposed practice where a new pope would be examined to verify their masculinity by having someone check their genitals through a hole in a special chair, with the phrase being used to declare that the candidate was indeed a man with properly hanging testicles; essentially meaning "he is confirmed as male.". Key points about the phrase: Historical context: The legend of Pope Joan, a woman who disguised herself as a man to become pope, is believed to have originated in medieval Europe. "Sedia stercoraria": The special chair used for the examination was sometimes called the "dung chair" in Latin ("sedia stercoraria"). Verification process: A cardinal would reach through the hole in the chair to confirm the presence of testicles, then announce "He has testicles and they hang well". Although some medieval writers referred to the female pope as "John VIII", a genuine Pope John VIII reigned between 872 and 882. Due to the scarcity of records in the Early Middle Ages, confusion often reigns in the evaluation of events. The Pope Joan legend is also conflated with the gap in the numbering of the Johns. In 2018, Michael E. Habicht, an archaeologist at Flinders University, published new evidence in support of an historical Pope Joan. Habicht and grapho-analyst Marguerite Spycher analyzed papal monograms on medieval coins and found that there were two significantly different monograms attributed to Pope John VIII. Habicht argues that the earlier monogram, which he dates from 856 to 858, belongs to Pope Joan, while the latter monogram, which he dates to after 875, belongs to Pope John VIII.
