Nun Goes To Serious Lengths To Conceal Her Questionable Double Life

Nuns aren't typically in the business of stirring up trouble, but even the most pious among us have their secrets. This was just as true in the 1300s, a time when women of the church were expected to do as they were told without question. But even nuns have their breaking point, and new evidence has recently emerged about one 14th century-era nun who turned her church — and the lives of several others — upside down.

Joan of Leeds

The most captivating thing about Joan of Leeds may not be her story, but her legacy. You see, it’s against all odds that this nun from the 1300s has become a historical figure we know about today since everything we know about her exists in just three letters.

Three Handwritten Letters

That’s right — three handwritten letters found in a medieval document holder tell the sordid story of Joan, the Benedictine nun whose existence eluded historians until 2019, when the letters of William Melton, the Archbishop of York, were finally uncovered.

St. Clements of York

And the story they told has left historians — and lovers of all things melodramatic — desperate for more information about Joan of Leeds. No one knows quite where Joan’s story began, but they do know where it got interesting: A church called St. Clement’s of York.

The Reluctant Nun

Pop culture has introduced the public to all kinds of nuns (and nun stereotypes), from singing nuns to flying nuns to stern ruler-wielding nuns, but one of the most popular nuns we see in the movies are the ones who don’t, they eventually realize, want to be nuns at all.