Book against the papacy by Huguenot pastor Steverslot, published in Holland in 1720

A Robo-Pope in an Engraving from an Anti-Catholic Publication of the Eighteenth Century.

A book of 1720 with the witty title "Pope's Porridge Served on the Dishes of the Huguenots, Considering the Papal Rise, Idolatry and Abuses in the Veneration of Images, as well as Their Fall and End" was published in Holland and devoted to a critique of the Papal Church and of the papacy as such. Not confining itself to their luxuries, abuses and vices, the book turns its attention, for instance, to papal dress. It describes the attire of the Roman popes as assembled from various symbolic systems, drawing attention, for example, to the beggar's hood, borrowed from Judaism and paganism.

The author, the Huguenot pastor Laurentius Steversloot (1672-1736), published both theological and literary works. His principal work, "Papekost", is usually not mentioned in official bibliographies, although it enjoyed great success. Repeatedly reissued, "Pope's Porridge" is described by critics as a filthy, insulting pamphlet against Catholics, and one with pornographic pictures besides. A Dutch court banned the book soon after its appearance for slander against the Roman Church, yet it survived many reprintings all the same.