The Weird Pope Ball-Tugging Chairs!

"In his 1999 book, The Legend of Pope Joan, British writer Peter Stanford reports visiting the Vatican and inspecting an unusual chair inspired by the trouble with Joan. The wooden throne, with a potty-style hole in the seat, is said to have been used until the 16th century in the ceremony of papal consecration. According to medieval accounts, each prospective pope would sit on the hole while an examining cleric felt under the seat. A moment later, the examiner would withdraw his hand and solemnly declare: 'Our nominee is a man.'"

Also: "No one, least of all the Church authorities, can reasonably question the existence of the seats, nor the fact that they were pierced, for one survives in Rome to this day. Pius VI had them both removed from St John's to the Vatican Museum in the late eighteenth century, and one still remains there, in the Museo Pio Clementino."

To prevent girls & eunuchs from being Pope. No fair!