Saint Joan of Arc (Jeanne la Pucelle)

Saint Joan of Arc (1412-1431) called herself, Jeanne la Pucelle, meaning "Joan the Maid." Such was her name to others, followers or enemies, who also called her, simply, La Pucelle (the Maid). Her main accuser spitefully called her "Joan, whom they call the Maid," Joan is feminine for John, which means "God favors," which is echoed by the name given her in the sole literary work composed during her time, the "Maid of God."

It was not until after her martyrdom that she was called "Joan of Orleans," "the Maid of Orleans," for her miraculous intervention in the One Hundred Years War, the final turning point of which was the relief of the city of Orléans from an English siege, conducted under Joan's improbable and brilliant military command. It was at her "Trial of Rehabilitation," starting 1452, that she was referred to as "Joan of Arc, which has stuck.

She saved France, and doing so saved Catholicism itself, which may well have been her mission all along. Saint Joan was canonized by the Catholic Church in 1920.

Portion of the frieze, "The Life of Joan of Arc," at the Panthéon, Paris.

This page presents a Catholic view of Saint Joan that is consistent with the history. It reviews the facts of the life and accomplishments of Saint Joan of Arc, as well as their historical context. It offers commentary and criticism of historical and academic views of Joan, especially as regards the secularization and ideological feminization of her legacy. Presented here, as well, is the theory that Joan's mission was not to save France so much as to save Roman Catholicism.

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Related pages: go to Saint Joan of Arc category for full list of related pages

Useful pages:

• Saint Joan of Arc Glossary for names, places & terms, as well as a flow chart of the lineage of French Kings (which can otherwise be confusing)
• Saint Joan of Arc Timeline: currently on this page (see below and click on "expand"); will become a separate page on completion here

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Joan's mission: France or Catholicism?

Since Joan's time, French patriots have looked to Joan for glory of France. Until the French Revolution, she was also a mark of glory of both the French monarchy and the Catholic Church. During the Revolution the Jacobins suppressed any Catholic associations with her, such as her annual festival in Orléans that had centered around the Cathedral of Sainte-Croix, where Joan had celebrated a Vespers Mass during the siege.

Absent monarchism and Catholicism, Joan remained useful for the Revolution as a symbol of the common people and independence. Napoléon renewed the celebrations of her the Jacobins had halted and restored her birthplace at Domrémy as a national monument. His embrace of Joan met several needs: French nationalism, especially anti-British French nationalism, reinforcement of the Concordat of 1801 between the French government and the Vatican that officially restored the Church in France, and legitimization of his own mission to glorify France and himself as her savior.

Further along, we see Joan's popularity arise during times of crisis or national pride, such as the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, both World Wars, and French post-War nationalism under Charles de Gaulle. Joan's Catholicity was absent from each. While modern academics have co-opted Joan for various agenda, from feminism to cross-dressing, seeing in Joan everything but French nationalism and the Catholic faith, Joan remains a dominant symbol of France, and correctly so.

La vie de Jeanne d'Arc, Panthéon, Paris (wikicommons)

What goes missing is her sainthood. Despite depictions of her visions and divine associations such as that of a panel in La Vie de Jeanne d'Arc at the Panthéon in Paris of a Dove escaping Joan's mouth at her death, the secularization of Joan that started with Voltaire's crude and demeaning 1730s play about her continues.

Voltaire ridiculed Jean Chapelain's 1656 epic poem about Joan that emphasized her divine mission, which, as one modern academic frames it, "is devoted entirely and equally to Church and monarchy." Oh, and the poem itself is "turgid."

But we ought not let Voltaire get away with mockery of Chapelain alone: he pushes around the Maiden herself, and, of course, her virginity:

That Joan of Arc had all a lion's rage ; You'll tremble at the feats whereof you hear, And more than all the wars she used to wage, At how she kept her maidenhead — a year !

He goes on to compare Joan to the Medusa and has her riding into battle naked, but no need to get into it any further here: Voltaire's adolescent ridicule of Joan was about Chapelain's celebration of Joan's Catholic devotion.

On it goes through the progression of modernity, exemplified by the 1844 work of Jules Michelet. a 19th century anti-clerical French historian. Michelet is the originator of the term "Renaissance," meant to describe the end of an abysmal and backward Medieval period marked by superstition, oppression, and the Catholic Church (especially Jesuits), replaced by a "rebirth" of enlightened antiquity. Sadly, this socialist historian has deeply influenced the modern study of history.

The term "Dark Ages" was first used in the 1300s by Petrarch, the Catholic scholar and often deemed founder of humanism. Petrarch, who lived a century before St. Joan, described the conditions in Europe following the fall of the Roman empire up to his own day as "dark." Michelet applied Petrarch's "light" of antiquity to its supposed rebirth in the "light" of the Renaissance:

Nature, and natural science, kept in check by the spirit of Christianity, were about to have their revival, (renaissance.)

But for Michelet, there was one "dark ages" figure to hold on to: Joan of Arc, whom he called "The Maid of Orleans." For him, Joan was a "simple Christian," that is a good Christian as opposed to the clerics around her, bad Christians all. While considering her visions mundane and common,, he presents her divinely-directed acts as if they just, well, happened. Here the historian's judgment is blinded by his prejudice, and like every secular take on her that dismisses the divine:

The originality of the Pucelle, the secret of her success, was not her courage or her visions, but her good sense.

Beyond the absurdity of the claim, as any application of "good sense" would have bound Joan to the fields of her home village, Domrémy, clearly, the only thing Michelet can do with her religiosity is to ignore it when inconvenient, exalt it when it contrasts with the hated priests and bishops, and otherwise treat it metaphorically as just a backdrop to Joan's true purpose, according to Michelet, saving France:

The Imitation of Jesus Christ, his Passion reproduced in the Pucelle — such was the redemption of France.

He concludes his section on "The Maid of Orléans" with an impassioned, shall we say, 19th century romanticization of femininity:

Purity, sweetness, heroic goodness — that this supreme beauty of the soul should have centred in a daughter of France, may surprise foreigners who choose to judge of our nation by the levity of its manners alone ... old France was not styled without reason, the most Christian people. They were certainly the people of love and of grace ; and whether we understand this humanly or Christianly, in either sense it will ever hold good. The saviour of France could be no other than a woman. France herself was woman;

When the religious is replaced by the secular, the secular needs to fill the space of the removed spirit. Thus the Lincoln Memorial is a "temple" and George Washington rises to the heavens in a depiction of his apotheosis in the dome of the U.S. Capitol. Here Michelet transposes Joan's religiosity for France's raison d'être, claiming for France a soul that he otherwise denies in Joan.

The historical problem of Saint Joan

The most prominent modern biographer of Saint Joan is Régine Pernoud (1909-1998), a medieval scholar who warns,

Among the events which he expounds are some for which no rational explanation is forthcoming, and the conscientious historian stops short at that point.

So the "conscientious historian" must contain himself to "the facts" and stick to sorting them out for description while avoiding explanation. It's not only impossible, it's historiographically useless: I can describe the Neolithic Revolution all day long, but if I don't attributed it to a cause I have learned nothing. Same with any historical moment, from the Roman ascension to the last American election. What good is history if it just says and does not explain? (If so, the entire profession would be out of a job.) But for Joan, so it is, because her motives, actions, and outcomes are so improbable that to attribute them to anything other than divine guidance makes no sense. But since divine guidance is impossible, so it goes, Joan's motives don't matter. Pernoud falls back upon,

The believer can no doubt be satisfied with Joan’s explanation; the unbeliever cannot.

To say, then, that the "unbeliever cannot" accept Joan's own explanations is an easy out from what is plain to see. We know she had voices. She testified to it consistently and honestly. No reading of the extensive record shows any hint of guile or manipulation. Like the Apostle Nathanael, "There is no duplicity in [her]."

Instead we hear that it was schizophrenia or moldy bread, which at least recognize that Joan heard voices -- actually Joan didn't just hear voices of Saints, she interacted with them, telling her interrogators of kissing the feet of Saints Catherine and Margaret. Pernoud, however, neither asserts nor denies Joan's voices, which is a complete copout. Unlike the historian, the actors of Joan's day, instead, had to to decide: either Joan acted on voices of God -- or of Satan.

Imagine a book on the life of Jesus written by a non-believer. You would get caught up in denying the Lord's virgin birth, denying the miracles, denying the resurrection, and, ultimately, as some do, denying his historical presence altogether -- understandably so, as the story of Christ makes no sense without his divinity. Accepting his historicity without the miraculous requires denying the authenticity of the Gospels and attributing them to post hoc contrivances. It gets messy and, frankly, serves merely to deny Christ rather than understand him. Once you see the divine hand in Saint Joan's story, it all makes sense, and you won't be able to conceive that what she did could have happened for any other reason or way. As with the life of Christ, deny the divinity and it makes no sense. And that's where Pernoud lands. She denies that Joan was, in CS Lewis' terms, a madman, but neither was she divinely guided. So all we have left is that she was a liar -- and thus of the devil, something Pernoud, a deep admirer of Joan, never broaches, although the English put her to death for it.

Pernoud concludes that when "confronted by Joan" all we can do is to "admire" her, as the common people have since the 15th century, for "in admiring [they] have understood her":

They canonised Joan and made her their heroine, while Church and State were taking five hundred years to reach the same conclusion.

That's as close as Pernoud will come to a "saint" Joan -- she was "canonized" in the hearts of her countrymen, and, by the way, Pernoud incorrectly claims, that the "Church and State" didn't understand her, at least until 1921, forgetting for the moment, of course, that Joan's "Rehabilitation Trial" and its declaration of her innocence was, in Pernoud's own words, "in the name of the Holy See." Worse, but this historian ought to know that very few of the laity were canonized before the 20th century, including the 16th century Saint Thomas More, who wasn't canonized until 1935, and with great hostility for it from the Anglican Church. Saint Joan's canonization underwent a similar dynamic, but was further delayed by the intervention of the French Revolution. Free of having to address whether Joan's spiritual events were real or not, Pernoud's historiography leads her to this sentimentalized and historically insufficient view of Joan's contemporaries and her legacy. So we get these dumb, dull statements of Joan's legacy, such as at end of one of her books,

It remains true that, for us, Joan is above all the saint of reconciliation—the one whom, whatever be our personal convictions, we admire and love because, over-riding all partisan points of view, each one of us can find in himself a reason to love her.

That's no better than this, from the collective wisdom of contributors to "Joan of Arc"'s entry at Wikipedia,

Joan's image has been used by the entire spectrum of French politics, and she is an important reference in political dialogue about French identity and unity.

It's just gross: Joan is in the eye of the beholder. So sayeth the Roman governor, as it were. Worse, my concern is that an historiography that frees itself of having to address whether Joan's spiritual events were real or not leads to a misreading of the facts. We cannot comprehend the motives and choices of Joan herself, much less those of her followers without it. Some girl showed up, led an army, got abandoned by her friends and killed by her enemies. Thanks a lot. No, Joan is only real if her visions were real. Just ask the English and Burgundians who knew full well what this young woman had done and why. The rage of the ecclesiastical Court and its English backers that condemned her is in inverse proportion to the glory of Joan's visions and the reality Joan and her people understood them to be. To read the epithet the English placed upon a placard by the stake is to understand just how real her voices were:

Joan, self-styled the Maid, liar, pernicious, abuser of the people, soothsayer, superstitious, blasphemer of God; presumptuous, misbeliever in the faith of Jesus-Christ, boaster, idolater, cruel, dissolute, invoker of devils, apostate, schismatic and heretic.

It ought not take much faith to see straight through to the Crucifixion of the Lord himself here and the fury of his executioners, which stand for us in the Gospels as more evidence of the Lord's divinity. Uninformed by faith, the condemnation is just hyperbolic political statement. Oh no, it wasn't. They meant it, and meant it hard. Listen to Jean Massieu, Joan's escort to and from the trial,

I heard it said by Jean Fleury, clerk and writer to the sheriff, that the executioner had reported to him that once the body was burned by the fire and reduced to ashes, her heart remained intact and full of blood, and he told him to gather up the ashes and all that remained of her and to throw them into the Seine, which he did.

Or Isambart de la Pierre, a Dominican priest who witnessed the trial,

Immediately after the execution, the executioner came to me and my companion Martin Ladvenu, struck and moved to a marvellous repentance and terrible contrition, all in despair, fearing never to obtain pardon and indulgence from God for what he had done to that saintly woman; and said and affirmed this executioner that despite the oil, the sulphur and the charcoal which he had applied against Joan’s entrails and heart, nevertheless he had not by any means been able to consume nor reduce to ashes the entrails nor the heart, at which was he as greatly astonished as by a manifest miracle.

Now we're talking! So let's re-write this historian's own epithet for Joan, only with faith and love in Christ, as Joan's canonization is to be celebrated, not used as a weapon against Joan's own faith.

They believed in Joan and made her their heroine, affirmed by Mother Church with her official and glorious canonization on May 9, 1921 and followed by State declaring July 10, her Feast Day, a national holiday.

>>here After Joan's presentation to the Dauphin at Chinon, the Archbishop of Embrun, Jacques Gélu, warned the Dauphin to be careful with a peasant girl from a class that is "easily seduced." After Orleans, The Bishop had a change of heart. Using the advice of the Evangelists, "by their fruits ye shall know them," he wrote,

We piously believe her to be the Angel of the armies of the Lord.

He advised the Dauphin,

do every day some deed particularly agreeable to God and confer about it with the maid.

Saving Catholicism

Saint Joan saved France, yes. But she more importantly saved Catholic France and thereby Catholicism itself, as had France fallen to what was to become English Anglican and Protestant rule, so likely would have fallen the rest of southern Catholic Europe.

When, just before the Battle of Orléans, Joan warned her lieutenant La Hire to quit futzing around and get busy so she could save France, she told him that it wasn't about her, it was about God:

This help comes not for love of me but from God Himself, who at the prayer of St. Louis and of St. Charlemagne has had pity on the city of Orléans.

Saints Louis and Charlemagne? Why them?

When Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Imperator Romanorum (emperor of the Romans) in 800, he crowned the Frankish king Charles (Carolus or Karlus) king of western Christianity, creating what would later become the Holy Roman Empire. In submitting as vassal to the Pope, Charlemagne legitimized both his own rule and that of Roman Catholicism across his empire. Among the legacies of Charlemagne was the practice of the laity of memorizing and reciting the Our Father prayer and the Apostle's Creed with the filioque and the traditional singing of "Noel" at coronations in recognition of Charlemagne's coronation by the Pope on Christmas Day.

Saint Louis was the French king Louis IX. Crowned at Rheims in 1226, he consolidated French rule over Normandy at the Treaty of Paris and ruled as a devout and pious Christian to such extent that he was canonized for it not long after his death.

If Joan's mission was to save France, Philip II would have been the better intercessor, not Charlemagne or his grandson St. Louis, for it was Philip who created the modern France that Joan defended. Now, Philip was no Saint, as they say, so in Saints Charlemagne and Louis IX, perhaps Joan was appealing more to the Roman Catholic France than to the territorial France. Or, in that Joan's explanation to La Hire was about Orléans and not France, perhaps "the prayer of St. Louis and of St. Charlemagne" was just for the city and not for France or a Catholici France. But Orléans was the key to it all, so as goes Orléans, so goes France -- and French Catholicism.

We will review here other ways in which Joan characterized her mission as for Catholicism and not just for France, but the larger point is that had Joan not saved France, it may very well have lost its Catholicism under English rule. Had the victor of the Hundred Years War been English and not French, then the King of France during the Protestant reformation would have been English, if not under Henry VIII, likely another.

The Holy Roman Empire, meanwhile, maintained its Catholic rule, but come Martin Luther and the Thirty Years War, we see how tenuous a hold it had upon Germany and central Europe. By the time the Spanish King seized the Holy Roman Empire, had England ruled France, and had France fallen to Anglicanism, there may not have been much of an Holy Roman Empire left to seize, and Voltaire's quip that it was "neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire."

With or without Henry VIII's Anglian church, an English-ruled France would have integrated with the Low Countries and thereby spread its rule into Germany while keeping the rising Spanish power out. Who knows, except that it would have been vastly different. Given how things actually turned out, one can readily see Roman Catholicism as a victim of an English ruled France and northern Europe.

Alternative histories are pure conjecture, as any number of contingencies may have changed the trajectory of an English-ruled France, including the War of Roses which brought Henry VIII's House of Tudor to power in England. Still, we have the plain fact that, as it happened, England separated itself from Rome and France did not, and it was Joan of Arc who, by saving France from English rule, caused that possibility.

Joan and the Pope

We see that Joan considered Charlemagne a Saint

Timeline of the Saint Joan of Arc

Saint Joan of Arc, 1412-1431

Select "Expand" to see the timeline

DATE	EVENT	NOTES
1337–1453	Hundred Years War between France and England	Not a continuous war, but a series of events, battles, alliances, treaties, etc. that decided control of France
1412	Jeanne born to Jacques and Isabelle Darc (or similar surname)	Her birth date was given by a contemporary as Feb 12, but she never claimed that day; Joan said that she was never called by her last name, so she never heard the words, "Jeanne d'Arc".
Jan 6	Joan's birthdate corresponding to the Epiphany.	Per a contemporary but never affirmed by Joan
1415	Battle of Agincourt (overwhelming English victory)	Henry V of England re-asserts English claims on France and commences accumulation of territory in northern France
1418	The French Burgundian faction seizes Paris
1419	Burgundian alliance with the English
1420	Treaty of Troyes gives French succession to English King Henry V	the English maintain their claim on the French throne through the infant king, Henry VI, who assumed the title upon the death of French King Charles VI. He would be crowned King of France in Paris in 1431 under English-Burgundian control of the city.
1422	Charles VI of France and Henry V of England die; the infant king Henry VI declared by the English to be King of France
1425
Summer	Joan experiences her first visions, starting with the Archangel Michael and then with Saints Catherine and Margaret	Joan said she was 13, so the year depends on assumptions of her birth year
	Joan's first vision with St. Michael the Archangel
1428
May	Joan's father allows her to visit a cousin at Burey-le-Petit, who was expecting	the location was near to Vaucouleurs, to where her uncle brought her
May 13	Joan travels to Vaucouleurs and meets Robert de Baudricourt, who rebuffs her.	Coincides with the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord
June	Domreme raided by Burgundian forces and burnt and ransacked.	Domréme villagers flee to Neufchateau for protection from bandits; there, a man sues Joan for breach of marital contract
July	Joan and her family escape to Neufchâteau and stay with "la Rousse" for
Oct 12	The siege of Orleans begins
Fall	Joan again travels to Vaucouleurs to meet Robert de Baudricourt who this time agrees to help her to meet the Dauphin.	or possibly in Jan 1429
1429
Jan	Joan returns to Vaucouleurs and is again rejected by Baudricourt	Joan says "farewell" to a friend
	Joan tells Baudricourt the French would lose another battle. He rebuffs her again and she goes home.
Feb 12	French forces lose the Battle of the Herrings	The French had attacked an English supply convoy that was carrying salted herring to their troops at Orléans.
Feb 13	Baudricourt sends Joan away for the second time	It was the first Sunday of Lent that year, and Joan had returned to Vaucouleurs
	Joan, her uncle and another supporter try to go to Chinon by themselves	They turn back, realizing that they need Baudricourt's introduction
Feb 22	Joan returns and Baudricourt, now convinced by her prediciton of the Battle of Herrings, agrees to send Joan to see the Dauphin
February	Joan travels to Chinon to meet the Dauphin	She is escorted by guards from Vaucouleurs
	Joan meets the Dauphin
Mar 22	Joan dictates her audacious letter of warning to the English King and his commander in France, the Duke of Bedford	Likely written from Poitiers where she was under interrogation by the King's counselors
Mar 25	Joan goes on traditional pilgrimage to Le Puy-en-Vley when Good Friday and Annunciation coincide	Her mother was also on a pilgrimage there
	The Dauphin orders armor plate for Joan (very specialized);	Joan asks for the sword from Sainte-Catherine-de-Fierbois, which was found be+9-hind the altar where, from afar, she had instructed them to find it.
	Siege of Orleans lifted under Joan's leadership
April 29	Joan leads the French army across the Loire and into the City of Orleans.	Joan prays at the Cathedral of Orleans
May 6-7	Joan leads asault on English positions outside of Orléans	She is wounded but returns to the field and leads a final charge
May 8	English abandon Orléans
	Dauphin crowned
Nov 4	Joan leads the assault upon the fortified town of Saint-Pierre-le-Moûtier.	Charles VII enobles Joan following the battle.
Nov 24	Joan's first defeat at La Charité,
1430
May 23	Joan captured by Burgundians at the siege of Compiègne	Joan was delivered to the Duke of Luxumbourg
	Charles VII refuses to pay her ranson
	English pay the ranson and she is transferred to Rouen
1431
Feb 21	Joan's show trial at Rouen commences
May 24	Joan signs the abjuration document
May 28	Joan rescinds her abjuration
May	Joan is convicted of heresy in ecclesiastical court
May 30	Joan is burned at the stake
1456, July 7	The conviction is invalidated and Joan is declared a martyr for France
1905, April 11	Joan beatified by Pope Pius X
1920, May 16	Saint Joan canonized by Pope Benedict XVI

Jeanne la Pucelle, the Maid

Joan may have been called Petit-Jean, by her family, after her uncle Jean. While we know her in English as Joan of Arc, neither she nor her contemporaries used the surname, d'Arc, which only appeared during investigations after her death in reference to her family, Darc. The name d'Arc arose as one of several varieties of her father's family name, Darc, Dars, Dai, Day, Darx, Dart, or d'Arc. Seems to me that d'Arc is merely the coolest sounding of the batch, so it stuck. Either way, the name Arc is derived from the French for "arrow," which would be fitting for Joan's presence and effect upon her time. A final possibility, though, is that her father's family originated in the village Arc-en-Barrois, which would have made her surname "Arc" or "d'Arc".

Joan testified that girls in her village did not use their paternal surname and instead used that of the mother, and hers was Romée, which makes for an interesting connection in that the name derives from "Rome." The name indicates a pilgrimage to Rome at some point, and thereby becomes interesting to us insofar as at her trial by the English, Joan stood resoundingly for the Roman Pope, whom the English supported, over the schismatic Pope who had been supported by her compatriots in France.

Servant of the Lord

It is said that Joan used the term pucelle, for "maid" or "maiden" to emphasize her virginity. In common usage today the masculine puceau directly means a man who has not had sex. However, the feminine pucelle means either "young girl" (maiden) or "virgin," but not necessarily both, although their association may be implied.

But "maid" or "handmaid," as it could also be translated, makes a clear association not with the greatest virgin of them all, albeit the same person, but the greatest "handmaid" of them all, Our Lady. Joan was devoted to Mary, and had inscribed atop of her battle standard along with that of the Lord: "Jhesus Maria," meaning "Jesus and Mary." Joan would have made a direct connection of the word pucelle to the words of Mary herself:

Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”

Joan, though, would have known the passage from the Latin Vulgate Bible with the term, ancilla, which is a female servant or slave:

dixit autem Maria ecce ancilla Domini

The Vulgate New Testament was translated from Greek, so we can go to the original Greek word in Luke 1:38, δούλη (doulē), which means "slave woman" or "female servant," both of which become in English, the traditional "handmaiden," the meaning of which is directly "female servant." I'm only concerned about this as historical treatments of Joan ignore the utterly fundamental significance of pucelle in the context of Luke 1:38, Mary's fiat,

May it be done to me according to your word.

The pucelle is not so much a virgin (and Joan was) as God's loyal handmaid who follows the instructions of the angel. For Mary it was the Archangel Gabriel; for Joan it was the Archangel Michael. For both, it was words from God.

Joan the Virgin

To the modern, especially academic, audience, the matter of Joan's virginity is understood as a male obsession or instrument of the patriarchy, or whatever they say about these things. But to both Joan and her accusers, the matter was serious. Joan herself promised her saintly visitors that she would remain a virgin, and to the Court and priests on both sides of Joan's mission, the French Court to see if she was truly an ambassador from God, and the English to try to prove she was a witch, as a virgin, it was understood, was incorrupt of Satan's reach.

According to Michelet's account,

The archbishop of Embrun, who had been consulted, pronounced similarly ; supporting his opinion by showing how God had frequently revealed to virgins, for instance, to the sibyls, what he concealed from men ; how the demon could not make a covenant with a virgin ; and recommending it to be ascertained whether Jehanne were a virgin.

She was then submitted to the physical test conducted by several ladies of the Court who affirmed her purity. It was at least as important as the questions about her theological purity, questions to which she answered consistently, simply, and strenuously. The examiners concluded "The maid is of God." It was also important for fulfillment of the legend that Joan herself invoked at least once, telling her uncle, Durand Lexart,

"Has it not been said that France will be lost by a woman and shall thereafter be restored by a virgin?

At the Condemnation Trial under the English, Joan was pressed several times on her virginity, including as to whether she would stop hearing the voices were she to lose it or if she were to marry (implying loss of virginity). In one instance, the scribe recorded:

Asked whether it had been revealed to her that if she lost her virginity she would lose her good fortune, and that her voices would come no more to her, She said: "That has not been revealed to me." Asked whether she believes that if she were married the voices would come to her, She answered: "I do not know; and I wait upon Our Lord."

This line of questioning becomes rather sinister when Joan is essentially compelled, or tricked, into wearing women's clothes in prison, which turned her into a target of rape by her English guards. She knew that men's clothing that she insisted on wearing kept her safe from the possibility, so it seems to me the Rouen Court was playing into that situation, whereby were she raped, they could say she no longer had her visions. But she refused to answer that question ("I wait upon Our Lord") and, thankfully, while attacked at one point by the guards, it seems she was not actually raped. As for Joan's view of her virginity, it just was what she was, and she promised the Saints that she would stay chaste. Whatever the academics argument that pucelle means maid or virgin or both, we can see from her perspective that her virginity was essential to her mission both as sign of purity and, more importantly, selfless dedication to the Lord. Saint Paul explains it in 1 Corinthians 7:34:

An unmarried woman or a virgin is anxious about the things of the Lord, so that she may be holy in both body and spirit.

Saint Catherine

Nevertheless, Joan's virginity would most importantly signal her connection to Saint Catherine, the virgin martyr. As did Joan, Saint Catherine precociously presented herself to a king, in her case, the Roman Emperor Maxentius, and boldly declared God's message. As did the sitting French ruler, the Dauphin (heir to the throne, but yet called "Dauphin" as he was not yet crowned King) to Joan, Maxentius ordered an inquiry into Catherine by the emperor's finest pagan theologians and philosophers. When these smartest men in the room were confounded by Catherine's theological arguments, the emperor had her imprisoned and tortured. Joan was also submitted to another but entirely antagonistic inquiry at the British-controlled ecclesiastical Court at Rouen that condemned her, but which she confounded with marvelous simplicity and irrefutable logic. Next for Saint Catherine, we have a slight departure from Joan's story, as Maxentius demanded that Catherine marry him and put her to death when she refused. Nevertheless, there is a parallel for Joan, who was put to death after refusing a conciliatory but compromising offer from the court at Rouen.

If you look up Saint Katherine you will see claims that she never existed, or that the stories about her are medieval fabrications. But that's not how God works. God love types and bookends, and Saint Joan is clearly a "type" of Saint Catherine: When the Dauphin ordered the church inquiry, no one was thinking, "My, that's just what happened to Saint Catherine!" And no such thoughts arose when the court at Rouen tried to force her into admission of heresy by showing her torture machines and then tricking her into signing a document to renounce her visions and to wear women's clothing -- at which point her captors tried to rape her. The very typology of Saint Catherine. And Joan was also visited by Saint Margaret, another virgin and maiden martyr who was killed after refusing to marry a Roman governor and refusing to renounce her faith. The very typology of Joan.

Joan was not mimicking Saints Catherine and Margaret, she was following them directly.

What'd Joan actually do?

It's hard to say what Saint Joan most accomplished, as her episodes are interconnected and woven backwards and forwards. To save France, she needed to crown the Dauphin legitimate King of France; to crown the King, she needed to take the city of Orleans; to take the city of Orleans, she needed the support of the Dauphin (and the French court); to get the support of the Dauphin she needed to prove that she could lead the army. In other words, she re-organized the entire French political and military order.

To those ends, three accomplishments stand out:

1. She generated tremendous enthusiasm from the public, which forced the French court to support her;
2. She breathed confidence into the French army, which had been browbeaten and self-defeating until her leadership inspired them; and
3. She scared the crap out of the English.

As to that last, we know just how much she scared them. From a letter to the King of England by one of his generals,

a greet strook upon your peuple that was assembled there [at Orleans] in grete nombre, caused in grete partie, as y trowe, of lakke of sadded believe, and of unlevefull doubte that thei hadded of a disciple and lyme of the Feende, called the Pucelle, that used fals enchauntements and sorcerie. The which strooke and discomfiture nought oonly lessed in grete partie the mobre of youre people.

Translation: she's a witch!

Joan didn't realize it, but once the King of France was duly crowned, her work was done. It's a very sad period in which, hampered by hedging and outright delays from the Court and military heads, she deman69*ds movement, and now, but nothing. With only a core of supporters, a fantastic group who play an important role in the eventual defeat of the English, Joan fails to take Paris and is captured at a minor battle soon after. She spends the next year being shuffled between castles and prisons, and is fed up to the English who use a French ecclesiastic court to try her for heresy in a rigged show trial.

Her greatest act was to liberate Orléans, and her greatest accomplishment was the eventual victory of France over England to end the Hundred Years War, but her greatest moment was her martyrdom on the stake, repeating the word, "Jesus." Her greatest legacy was an ongoing, Catholic France.

Catholic Joan

Given most biographies and depictions of Joan, it's rather hard to realize her Catholicism. But she was fundamentally, authentically and thoroughly Catholic. Father Jean Massieu recalled that during her trial at Rouen under the English, Joan genuflected before the consecrated Host that lay behind even closed doors:

Once, when I was conducting her before the Judges, she asked me, if there were not, on her way thither, any Chapel or Church in which was the Body of Christ. I replied, that there was a certain Chapel in the Castle. She then begged me to lead her by this Chapel, that she might do reverence to God and pray, which I willingly did, permitting her to kneel and pray before the Chapel; this she did with great devotion. The Bishop of Beauvais was much displeased at this, and forbade me in future to permit her to pray there.

and,

And, besides, as I was leading Jeanne many times from her prison to the Court, and passed before the Chapel of the Castle, at Jeanne’s request, I suffered her to make her devotions in passing; and I was often reproved by the said Benedicite, the Promoter, who said to me “Traitor! what makes thee so bold as to permit this Excommunicate to approach without permission? I will have thee put in a tower where you shall see neither sun nor moon for a month, if you do so again.”

The Bishop of Beauvais' anger at her prayer before the chapel was recognition of her Catholic authenticity, which was his job to deny. Perhaps he truly believed her to be a witch and a heretic, but he simply could not stand for her presentation as a true and faithful Catholic, which is why her worship, on learning that the Lord was present in the chapel, so angered him.

Joan's mother taught her to recite in Latin the Our Father, Ave Maria, and Credo prayers. Her military standard read, "Jhesus Maria," and her final words were "Jesus" repeated as the flames consumed her and while staring at a cross she asked be held before her.

Skeptics say she was merely conforming to norms of her day. Sorry, she believed and she converted many.

Young Saint Joan

Let's next place Saint Joan's birthplace within the context of the story.

Domrémy

Joan's village lay along the upper Meuse River. The village was geographically in the province of Lorraine but was politically under the Duchy of Bar by the time of Joan's birth, indicative of the transient nature of medieval borders and allegiances. At Domrémy the Meuse was yet a small river, but significant enough to contain an island that Joan's father once negotiated to use to protect and hide the villagers and their livestock during military raids during the ongoing civil war between French factions and the overall Hundred Years War between the French and English.

1415–1429  Territories controlled by Henry VI of England in red. Territories controlled by Philip III of Burgundy in purple. Territories controlled by Charles VII of France (previously the Dauphin) in blue. The dotted white line marks Joan's journey from Domrémy to Chinon, and the dotted dark blue line her raid from Orléans to Rheims in 1429. (wikipedia)

The people of Domrémy were loyal to the French cause, which supported the son of Charles VI, Louis, the Dauphin, or heir to the throne. Louis, however, was disinherited by his father, who through a marriage gave the royal succession to the English King, Henry V. (More on all that below.) Domrémy itself was politically and economically unimportant, but it was mixed up in the ongoing war that went on around it, on the periphery but susceptible to raids, cross-alliances, etc.

Another town near to Domrémy that was important to the story of Saint Joan is Vaucouleurs, which lay along the Meuse to the north. Vaucouleurs was loyal to the French cause, but was precariously located near disputed lands between France, Burgundy and the Holy Roman Empire. The town was fortified and held by a French garrison led by Captain Robert de Baudricourt. It is unclear to me how, exactly, Baudricourt maintained his position against the Burgundians and the English, but there was a lot of horse trading and paid protection going on, so it was likely due to adept negotiations as well as his fortifications. Or, there was something divine going on here, as Baudricourt's loyalty to the Dauphin was necessary for Joan's introduction to him.

By the time Baudricourt met Joan, he had already assigned official control of the city to the Burgundian, Antoine de Vergy, but had not yet handed it over to him. Ultimately, and despite being surrounded by Burgundian controlled-territory, Baudricourt never actually ceded the city, although he was forced into a a pledge of neutrality. (Don't play poker with Baudricourt.)

Given that with God there are no coincidences, a similar surrender to that which Baudricourt refused to conclude (through Joan's inspiration?), was accepted by one Pierre Cauchon, from the town of Vitry, from our friend Étienne de Vignolles, who will be known to us in the story of Saint Joan as "La Hire," one of Joan's most loyal commanders and a key warrior in the ultimate French victory. Cauchon, a French Bishop and English-loyalist, was the very guy who orchestrated Joan's execution. Rather odd, these alignments -- or not.

France during the mission of Jeanne d'Arc 1429-1430. French Royal lands are in orange-red and English held territory in yellow-green. The un-colored areas are independent duchies that gave their allegiance to one or the other. he Holy Roman Empire is to the east. The duchies of Luxumbourg and Lorraine were part of the Holy Roman Empire.

Across the region where Joan grew up, a map of loyalties would look like Swiss cheese, or, to be more French, a melted Camembert, with pockets and shoots of loyalties across the various regions. Domrémy, Vaucouleurs, and the all-important Rheims, where Joan needed Charles VII to be coronated, were all held by French-loyalist, mostly the Armagnac faction under the House of Orléans, who opposed the Burgundians under the House of Burgundy. The Duke of Burgundy, meanwhile, held Paris, Troyes, Burgundy, and Flanders (his economic base) and pockets of lands or loyalties across Champagne and Bar.

Three towns of importance to Joan's story prior to leaving the region to meet with the Dauphin (and onward to save France), Domrémy, Vaucouleurs, and Neufchâteau, were all on the border or edge of these opposed loyalties, principally because they were all along the upper Meuse, which was held by Armagnac faction French loyalists. When Joan's home village, Domrémy, was pillaged by Burgundian forces, it was part of an operation ordered by the English to take the loyalist garrison at Vaucouleurs.

The Burgundian hold of Paris and other areas of northern France was due to the English military presence, so it was an alliance that was mutually beneficial but not mutual in purpose. For example, the English needed to hold Paris to maintain their claim on the French crown, but they also needed the Burgundians to administer and defend it.

Had the English managed to push south of Orléans, an Armagnac stronghold and seat of the normal heir to the French throne, the Duke d'Orléans (who was imprisoned in England at the time), they would have very likely taken all of France and enforced the Treaty of Troyes, which gave French succession to the English. Defending Orléans was the Duke's half brother, John the Bastard, who arrived to the city in October of 1428. He huddled the people inside the city walls, abandoning buildings and churches outside the boundaries. A deal was proposed, not by the Bastard, but by terrified citizens of Orléans, to the Duke of Burgundy that would yield the city to him while upholding its neutrality. Ordered by the English, the Duke refused it. Meanwhile within Orléans, desperation set in, especially following the French humiliation at the Battle of the Herrings on February 12 (the outcome of which Joan had predicted to Captain Baudricourt at Vaucouleurs).

Soon after the Battle of Herrings, as things seemed to be falling apart, the Bastard received news of a mysterious "maid" who was going to rescue the city of Orléans. He was curious. He had recieved some reinforcements, but the situation was dire. He wrote,

It is told that there had lately passed through the town of Gien a maid [une pucelle], who proclaimed that she was on her way to Chinon to the gentle Dauphin, and said that she had been sent by God to raise the siege of Orléans and take the King to his anointing at Reims.

So he sent emissaries to the King's court to see what was going on.

The peasant

Joan was a peasant girl, but not just a peasant girl. Her father, Jacques Darc, owned about 50 acres of land for cultivation and grazing and a house big and furnished enough to house visitors. He served as the Domrémy village doyen, which included responsibility to announce decrees of the village council, run village watch over prisoners and the village in general, collect taxes and rents, supervise weights and measures, and oversee production of bread and wine. He was not an inconsiderable man, although he was at best a big man in a very small village.

Her mother was more formidable, coming from a modest but better off family. It was she, Isabelle Romée, who after Joan's death championed her to the Church and French government and forced the reassessment of the her condemnations and execution. The name, which Joan indicated was her surname (and not her father's), as girls in her region went by their maternal family name. If so, the name Romée indicates somewhere in the line a connection to Rome, likely through a pilgrimage at some point. The name of the village itself, Domrémy, has an interesting connection to its possible Roman origin, Domnus Remigius, which placed it under the Archbishop of Rheims, St. Rémi, who baptized Clovis -- thus circling back to a fundamental goal of Saint Joan to coronate the King of France, Charles VII, at Rheims where Clovis was baptized and Philip II coronated. (At the hand of God, there are no coincidences.)

Joan grew up in this little village with her primary role to tend the farm and household and to spin wool. She tended the animals when she was younger but not much, she testified, after she reached "the age of understanding." She likely also helped with sewing and harvesting the fields.

To summarize, the young Saint Joan was illiterate, unschooled in all but the lessons of farming, wool spinning, Church, and local lore. She seems to have had a happy childhood growing up with other children who played together, joined village festivals, and went to Church every week. I like this description of her childhood from Butler's 1894 "Lives of Saints,"

While the English were overrunning the north of France, their future conqueror, untutored in worldly wisdom, was peacefully tending her flock, and learning the wisdom of God at a wayside shrine.

It all changed when she was thirteen and was visited by the Archangel Saint Michael who told her from the beginning that she must go to "France" -- and to church, which she The children noticed that she withdrew from their games and prayed constantly, and urged them all to go to Church. Joan testified,

"Since I learned that I must come into France , I took as little part as possible in games or dancing.

From then on, it was a matter of instruction and timing.

God's will be done

We all know from the Lord's Prayer,

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven

and Jesus' prayer at the Garden,

Not my will but yours

<< confirm

Joan's journey is not so much fulfillment of God's will as her acceptance of it. Every step, every decision was God's will not hers.

What's additionally remarkable is her insistence upon delivering messages of warning and pleas for surrender of the English. Twice << before the Battle of Orleans Joan spoke to the English across the field to implore them to surrender and go away. They ridiculed her (reverse Monty Python scene) and her own military counselors deplored it. But why?

God wants us -- requires us -- to choose him. As his instrument, Joan gave the English the opportunity to choose

Victory at Orléans

Of all the revisions, diversions, and distortions of Saint Joan's story and legacy, I don't think any of them mention that another woman, Yolanda, Queen of Sicily played a crucial role in the story. Yolanda was the Dauphin's mother-in-law. She, too, must have believed the Maid, because she personally financed the campaign on Orléans. That's no small thing, but it is rarely mentioned.

A next character to introduce is the Archbishop of Rheims, Regnault of Chartres, and Chancellor of France. At best, he distrusted Joan, at worst he resented or even loathed her. He was not her friend. Regnault and the Court council had ordered the Bastard to lead Joan's army away from Orléans to take Chécy. The idea was to present a diversion to the English at Orléans. Joan was furious.

Are you the Bastard of Orléans?

Yes, I am, and I rejoice your coming.

Are you the one who gave orders for me to come here, on this side of the river so that I could not go directly to Talbot [English commander] and the English?

John the Bastard explained that the "wisest" men around him had advised the action.

In God's name, the counsel of Our Lord God is wiser and safer than yours. You thought that you could fool me, and instead you fool yourself; I bring you better help than ever came to you from any soldier to any city: It is the help of the King of Heaven. This help comes not for love of me but from God Himself, who at the prayer of St. Louis and of St. Charlemagne has had pity on the city of Orléans. He has not wanted the enemy to have both the body of the lord of Orléans and his city.

Joan there goes for it -- Saints Louis and Charlemagne? These are not just founders of France, these are the founders of Catholic France.

To the Bastard's surprise, and in support of an order from Joan to move supplies by the river, the winds changed, allowing for the operation. The army crossed the Loire and entered the besieged city, which was stirred up and hopeful, finally. But Joan was forced to wait as the French army gathered and prepared. During this time, she wanted out to an embankment and yelled at the English to go home. They replied with insults, including one from an English commander that she was a "cowherd" and would be burned at the stake.

Impatient, impetuous, and sure, Joan was frustrated at the delays. Finally, some skirmishes commenced, with Joan leading one that took an English embankment. It was a small victory, but the first by the French, and invigorating for them. Joan, for her part, was dismayed by the violence, and prayed ceaselessly for the souls of her fallen soldiers, especially those who she feared had not confessed before their deaths. On Ascension Thursday, she sent a third letter of warning to the English to go home, signed

Jesus-Maria Joan the Maid

Marvelous! Since the English had held her herald who brought the first two letters, she sent the last by arrow. They English shouted, "Here's news from the whore of the Armagnacs!", which greatly distressed her. Against various opinions, Joan ordered an assault, finally, and pushed the English back from a second fortification that they had moved to from a first which they abandoned. They were worried. The French commanders, though, exercised their usual defeatism, and begged Joan to just hold the city behind it's fortifications. Joan replied,

Get up tomorrow very early in the morning, earlier than you did today, and do the best you can; keep cose to me, for tomorrow I will have much to do, more than I have ever done before; and tomorrow blood will leave my body above my breast.

Joan led the assault, receivied an arrow in her upper chest, had it treated (without charms, as suggested, which she said would be sinful), and returned to the fight. An impasse followed, and even La Hire wanted to retire. Joan said, no, wait, and prayed in a nearby vineyard for about fifteen minutes. Then she grabbed her standard from her squire, and rushed towards the English embankment. The French army spontaneously erupted in a charge to follow her and took the English stronghold. Orléans was saved. Joan's biographer makes an interesting notation following the description of the battle that the people of Orléans, who had been traumatized and abused by men at arms throughout the Hundred Years War, especially the mercenaries of one side or the other of the Armagnac-Burgundian civil war, received the army in celebration and joy:

Under the command of the Maid, even warfare had breifly changed its face back to a world of honor

Visions not delusions

Several events from her village life stand out. These pieces fall together for the launch of Joan's mission to save France (and/or Catholicism -- more on that later). They are seen by skeptics as to obvious to be true and so fabrications. But if you think about it, her trajectory is entirely contingent upon them, so rather than presenting evidence of fabrication, they are strong proofs:

1. Saint Michael is patron Saint and savior of France, and Saints Catherine and Margaret were actively venerated in the region;
2. Joan's visions started after a raid on her village by an English ally, the Burgundian Henri d'Orly (note that Joan's village of Domrémy was located within territory controlled by the English-allied Burgundians and outside of the control of the Dauphin, the French claimant on the throne);
3. A young man in the village claimed she was betrothed to him;
4. An old beech tree in a grove by the village was said to be occupied by fairies, which village children;
5. Local legends held that an armed virgin or a virgin carrying a banner would save France'

It would make absolutely no sense if Joan had come from a place or experience removed from any of the above. Rather than causing her visions, an assertion for which there is no evidence and that is based solely on rejection of divine inspiration, these contingencies affirmed and supported what the visions told her. The honest observer must accept the clear, incredibly well-documented historical facts of Joan's era, much of which was predicted in her visions. So those who deny her mission as divinely guided can only fall back on the idea that, heh, her visions were not real, but she thought they were, and that's what counts.

For example, as for legends of a virgin savior of France, Joan probably knew of them all. But one, in particular was both more recent and more directly about Joan -- and she understood it early on to be about her. She had not told her parents or the local priest about her visions, which had been going on for several years.

The timeline here is interesting. From the beginning, her voices told her she would go to "France." At some point, she was told specifically to go to Vaucouleurs and speak to Robert de Baudricourt, captain of the guards, who would take her to the Dauphin. By then, she was very clear on her mission, it's purpose and outcome. She told her uncle, whom she asked to introduce her to Baudricourt,

to ask him to lead her to the place where my dauphin was

because,

Was it not said that France would be ruined through a woman, and afterward restored by a virgin?

What "was said" was from old and recent legends and prophesies, the most recent about a woman who would don armor to save France. Joan knew of these and assumed it for herself. Again, academics will say that such prophesies are deliberately and usefully vague. Okay, a virgin savior - take your pick. But a woman putting on armor? That one was unique and directly fulfilled by Joan. Her uncle went with it, and introduced her to the Captain. Joan laid it on him in full. As attested by a witness, a knight, Bertrand de Poulengy,

She said that she had come to him, Robert, on behalf of her Lord, to ask him to send word to the dauphin that he should hold still and not make war on his enemies, because the Lord would give him help before mid-Lent; and Joan also said that the kingdom did not belong to the dauphin, but to her Lord; and that her Lord wanted the dauphin to be made king, and that he would hold the kingdom in trust, saying that despite the dauphin's enemies he would be made king, and that she would lead him to be consecrated. Robert asked her who was her Lord, and she answered, 'The King of Heaven.'"

Another witness, Jean de Metz, a squire at Vaucouleurs, and who testified that Joan said to him,

"I have come here to the King's chamber to speak to Messire Robert de Baudricourt, so that he will take me to the King or have me taken to him. And he hasn't troubled about me or my words. Nevertheless, before mid-Lent, I must go before the King even if I wear my feet off to the knees. For no kings or dukes or king of Scotland's daughter or anybody else in the world can recover the Kingdom of France; there is no aid but myself although I should rather drown myself before the eyes of my poor mother, for it isn't of my estate. But it is necessary that I come, and that I do this, for Our Lord wills that I do it."

Okay, a lot going on there. Let's break it down:

1. Joan clarified that she was following God ("her Lord") and God's will, not that of the Dauphin's or France;
2. The Dauphin should hold off any military action against the English until mid-Lent, which would be precisely when she would meet with him and organize her march on Orléans;
3. She predicted here the coming advances of the English ("despite the dauphin's enemies"), who with the Burgundians subsequently launched major offenses, culminating in the siege of Orléans starting that October;
4. She, Joan, herself would "lead" the Dauphin to his coronation.

Note that this occurred not only before the siege on Orléans, which she had already been told by her voices that she would liberate, but It was a month before the burning of Domrémy, which is often taken as a motive for Joan's subsequent actions.

Shortly after her return home, her village was attacked and all fled to another town, Neufchâteau. It's an unclear and meaningless episode that the Court at Rouen seized upon to discredit Joan. Either she alone or with the family had lodged at an inn that served travelers, including monks, pilgrims, traveling merchants and soldiers. The owner, Jean Waldaires, "la Rousse" (redhead), was a widow, and thus the suggestion at the Trial that la Rousse was either a prostitute or running a brothel, and thus Joan was there for that purpose. Joan testified to having helped with chores there, and we know when she was not tending the cattle the villagers had driven there for protection from the raids, or helping with the inn, she was at church in prayer. What does matter is that Joan's mind was not on anything but what her voices had been telling her. On her return to Domrémy, Joan told a friend,

There was a maid between Coussey and Vaucouleurs who within a year would have the king of France anointed.

It was at this time that the English moved on Orléans, which, along the Loire River, was the key to the rest of France. There was at the time and has been speculation that at this time the Dauphin considered, in face of the English assault, escaping to Scotland or Spain. Had Orléans fallen, this would have been a likely outcome. But it did not, so he did not.

She told her uncle Durand Laxart about it because she needed his help

Probably the first person she told about her own visions with any detail was her uncle, Durand Laxart (or Lassois), the husband of her mother's sister. Joan needed him, as he lived in the regional

Here's an example from a well documented history of the life of Joan as regards the idea that Joan was fulfilling a prophesy as silly:

Prophesies

earliest visions:

"It taught me to be good, to go regularly to church. It told me that I should come into France ... This voice told me, two or three times a week, that I must go away and that I must come to France... It told me that I should raise the siege laid to the city of Orléans. The voice told me also that I should go to Robert de Baudricourt at the town of Vaucouleurs, who was the [garrison] commander of the town, and he would provide people to go with me. And I replied that I was a poor girl who knew neither how to ride nor lead in war."

I was in my thirteenth year when I heard a voice from God to help me guide my behavior. And the first time I was very much afraid. And this voice came about the hour of noon, in the summer time, in my father's garden..."

Then she said that when she had to leave to see her king she was told by her voices: "Go boldly: [92] when thou art before the king he shall have a good sign to receive and believe in thee."(Trial, p 92)

A few days before she was taken prisoner, she told all those at a Mass in the Église de St. Jacques,

"My good friends, my dear little children, I am sold and betrayed. Soon I shall be given up to death. Pray to God for me, for I can no longer serve the King and the Kingdom of France."

Why the betrayal?

It confounds the honest reader the betrayals, denials, and injustices that Joan suffered. It's tempting to recognize the interests and intrigues she provoked as normal reactions to the challenges to authority she presented on all sides, and including her parents.

This essay is not concerned with the particulars of the Trial at Rouen, except for Joan's clear demonstration in it of her divine mission. What I find more interesting is Joan's own confoundment at her situation. She knew which side she was on and which side they were on.

From a typological point of view, the situation is clear: Joan is a "type" of Christ, betrayed by a follower, abandoned by the rest (mostly) ransomed by blood money, persecuted by local religious leaders using the authority of a foreign occupier, abandoned by her followers, tortured, suffered, and put to death by that foreign power.

The history depicts the typology explicitly. However, we can still ask, why'd she have to go through all this?

The Trial

The extent to which the English and Burgundians went to justify the execution of Joan, and the utter hatred of her that the court at Rouen exercised demonstrates by the opposing virtue how important and effective were Joan and her accomplishments.

Having been ransomed by the English from her captor, the Duke of Luxembourg, Joan was handed not to a military court but to an ecclesiastical court. For the English, it'd be an easy solution to put her death, as she had no noble protection that might complicate her execution.Still, it was a tricky situation: this woman had brought great defeats upon them and roused the sentiments of loyal French. For those French who did support the English, it was upon explicit economic, military and political motives, and from popular devotion. The Burgundian people hated their French rivals, the Armagnacs, far more than they championed the English King. The alliance was one of convenience and self-preservation. The Burgundian elites, nobility and ecclesiastic, however, were, if not enthusiastic for English rule, were steadfast in its support, as it not only gave them power over their Armagnac rivals but it empowered them individually in their political economies. An English-ruled France would have put them right at the top.

Given top-down support and the dangers of bottom-up resentment or even potential rebellion that Joan represented, to the English and the Burgundian elites, she simply had to die. Only it had to be justified, and no greater justification could be found in the 15th century than that of the Church.

To get there, it had to be carefully orchestrated with clear lines of authority.

When Joan was captured by Burgundian forces under the Count of Luxembourg, she was de facto held by a Burgundian ally but de jure held by an independent entity. This was an important distinction because it took from English and the Duke of Burgundy direct responsibility for her.

>> from Luxembourg to the English to the Court << see p. 10 justifed every stop

The Rouen court had placed itself in a corner from the beginning.

To explain away the improbability in Joan's actions and words, the ecclesiastical court at Rouen developed a theory of "malice inherent in feminine nature."

Christology of Saint Joan

• born in poverty, among shepherds
• distrust of the leaders
• triumphant entry to Orleans
• betrayal
• Charles VII washing his hands of her
• championed by her mother

Joan's mission: to save France -- or Catholicism?

I have a theory. I developed it before I knew anything about Saint Joan other than she led the French to defeat the English and was burnt at the stake for it all. As I have learned more about her, the theory makes more and more sense that her mission was to save Catholicism, not France.

Henry II's continental holdings in 1154 (in various shades of red), forming part of the "Angevin Empire"

What is "France"?

France, as we know it, doesn't really become "France" until Philip II, but not with national integrity and full identity until Joan of Arc. It's all rather complicated, but following the Norman Invasion of England in 1066, the Normans controlled the north of France and England. After series of power grabs, political marriages, dynastic divisions, and armed contests, by the 12th century, Henry II, who spoke French, had taken over a large part of western France, creating the Angevin Empire, which lasted until the Battle of Bouvines in 1214, in which the French defeated an English and a European coalition that opposed Philip II's conquests of France. As a result, English King John was severely weakened and was forced into signing the Magna Charta and Philip II consolidated France, effectively creating modern France. History weaves complex, indeed.

In 1328, a succession crisis arose at the death of Charles IV of France, whose closest heir was his nephew Edward III of England. Eddie, of course, claimed the throne. Rejected by the French nobles, Ed cut a deal with the Flemish who endorsed him as King of France, everything to do, of course, with the economic binds between English sheep and Bruges, Ghent, and Ypres woolen factories. In the 1340s, Eddie put together an invasion force and in 1346 took the northern city of Caen and then thoroughly humiliated the French at Crécy, largely because the French fought the same war as at Bouvines, with heavy armor, while the English brought in the next thing, the longbow, which could be fired in rapid succession (unlike the French crossbows) and could also pierce armor from distance.

It gets complicated, what with English victories in the southwest of France (remnants of the Angevin Empire) and a series of crises in France, which led to the coronation of Charles VI, "Charles the Mad," renowned today as the crazy king who thought he was made of glass. In 1420, Charles disinherited his own son, who would become the "Dauphin" (claimant to the throne of France) whom Saint Joan herself, basically, crowned as Charles VII, appoints the English King Henry V, who took advantage of the chaos in France and crippled the French army at Agincourt in 1415. After this, the English and their French allies ally, the Count of Burgundy, give or take some stumbles, ally for mutual benefit to take over France.

Most people would look upon the Hundred Years War as, and the language of the day, a war between the English and the French. Indeed, the French called their enemy the English, and the English called their enemy the French. In more than a small way they were all French, which is why the English king claimed the French throne.

In my theory, had the "English," whose rulers spoke French at home, won and reclaimed France on top of England, then both England and France, a hundred years later, would have under Henry VIII left the Catholic church. Sure, lots of conditions may have prevented that, but we can draw a straight line from the Church of England to the Church of England/France. This would not have pleased God.

Whatever the value of my theory that God meant to keep France Catholic, I am intrigued by this excerpt from Mark Twain's account of the trial of St. Joan:

And now, by order of Cauchon, an ecclesiastic named Nicholas Midi preached a sermon, wherein he explained that when a branch of the vine — which is the Church — becomes diseased and corrupt, it must be cut away or it will corrupt and destroy the whole vine.

Whereas the English partisan, Father Midi, saw the destruction of Joan the pruning of a dead branch of the Church (the vine, as Twain correctly explains), by cutting her off, he and Bishop Cauchon were instead pruning themselves from the vine of France. The dead vine cut off was England.

There is an additional

> Henry VIII

> to save France -- from what, the English who were French?

The prophecies of Joan of Arc

Prophecies of the coming of Saint Joan

• Merlin
• St. Bede
• Marie d'Avignon

Joan's own testimony on those prophesies

Joan told her Uncle , Durand Laxart, and a woman with whom she stayed on her second visit with him to Vaucouleurs,

“Was it not said that France would be ruined through a woman and afterwards restored by a virgin?”.

>> see Prophecies | Joan of Arc | Jeanne-darc.info

Testimony of Brother Séguin de Séguin of four of Joan's prophesies

The Dominican friar participated in the inquiry into Joan ordered by the Dauphin after she presented herself to the Court at Chinon. The priest was a Professor of Theology and well-respected. He later testified that she made four prophesies

1. Orléans would be liberated from the English
2. the King would be crowned at Rheims (which
3. Paris would liberated from the English
4. the Duc d'Orléans (Duke of Orleans) would be freed from imprisonment in England

That last prophesy was significant because, while no more improbable than the others, it occurred ten years after her death and had the Duke not returned to France he would never have fathered Louis of Orléans who was crowned Louis XII, King of France, in 1498.

Joan insisted upon the coronation of Charles VII at Rheims, which seemed not ridiculous but dangerous, Rheims was in Burgundy, held by the English allies under the Duke of Burgundy. çéans, Joan insisted upon the necessity that the coronation be held in Rheims, which was where Philip II, creator of modern France, was crowned, and was the site of the baptism of Clovis.

From Fr. Séguin's testimony:

I saw Jeanne for the first time at Poitiers. The King’s Council was assembled in the house of the Lady La Macée, the Archbishop of Rheims, then Chancellor of France, being of their number. I was summoned, as also were [list of names] ... The Members of the Council told us that we were summoned, in the King’s name, to question Jeanne and to give our opinion upon her. We were sent to question her at the house of Maître Jean Rabateau, where she was lodging. We repaired thither and interrogated her. And then she foretold to us—to me and to all the others who were with me—these four things which should happen, and which did afterwards come to pass: first, that the English would be destroyed, the siege of Orleans raised, and the town delivered from the English; secondly, that the King would be crowned at Rheims; thirdly, that Paris would be restored to his dominion; and fourthly, that the Duke d’Orléans should be brought back from England. And I who speak, I have in truth seen these four things accomplished.

Seeing through duplicity or providential foresight?

After the coronation, the Duke of Burgundy made overtures to the newly crowned Charles VII, who preferred the adulation of villages along his march towards Paris to actually entering Paris. A temporary peace was agreed upon, and under hopes that the Duke of Burgundy would join the French against the English. The Duke had no such intention, but took advantage of the lull to reinforce his position with the English who reinforced Paris.

Under Joan's insistence, the Duke of Alençon organized an attack upon Paris on September 8, the Feast of the Nativity of the Mother of God. After an all-day assault that induced both panic and expectant enthusiasm within the city, as sundown fell and by the walls, Joan was struck in the thigh by a crossbow bolt. She called for a continued assault, but the nightfall and shock at her injury dissuaded her troops, who carried her out of a ditch back to the French camp. The next day the King ordered a halt to the attacks and on the 13th a retreat back to the Loire, which meant back to Orléans.

Before leaving St. Denis, where Charles VII had resided during this time, Joan presented a complete set of white armor and a seized sword to the altar at the church of St. Denis, a traditional act of thanks giving by a wounded soldier. After the King left St. Denis, the English took the armor and likely destroyed it.

From here, the usual story is the the King abandoned Joan, while allowing her limited, unsupported military campaigns, which is true. We know that the King and his court, which never really trusted Joan, was hoping for a settlement with the Duke of Burgundy. For her part, Joan "feared nothing but treason."

But there's a bit more to it. The King was not wrong to seek a settlement, and with lingering baggage from the Armagnac-Burgundy dispute, which included the assassination of the Duke of Burgundy's father in 1419 during a tense meeting with Charles himself. The assassination launched the civil war and opened the door for the English, who were already on the move in northern France, to sign the Treaty of Troyes with Charles's weak and insane father, Charles VI. But the history weighed upon the new King. On August 16, 14>> the new King's representatives appealed to the Duke of Burgundy, "the grand duke of the west," they implored, with "greater offers of reparation than the royal majesty actually possessed." King Charles VII thereby ceded authority over the war to his enemy.

Joan, meanwhile, had told the Duke of Burgundy off:

Jesus Mary

Great and formidable Prince, Duke of Burgundy, Jeanne the Virgin requests of you, in the name of the King of Heaven, my rightful and sovereign Lord, that the King of France and yourself should make a good firm lasting peace. Fully pardon each other willingly, as faithful Christians should do; and if it should please you to make war, then go against the Saracens. Prince of Burgundy, I pray, beg, and request as humbly as I can that you wage war no longer in the holy kingdom of France, and order your people who are in any towns and fortresses of the holy kingdom to withdraw promptly and without delay. And as for the noble King of France, he is ready to make peace with you, saving his honor; if you’re not opposed. And I tell you, in the name of the King of Heaven, my rightful and sovereign Lord, for your well-being and your honor and [which I affirm] upon your lives, that you will never win a battle against the loyal French, and that all those who have been waging war in the holy kingdom of France have been fighting against King Jesus, King of Heaven and of all the world, my rightful and sovereign Lord. And I beg and request of you with clasped hands to not fight any battles nor wage war against us – neither yourself, your troops nor subjects; and know beyond a doubt that despite whatever number [duplicated phrase] of soldiers you bring against us they will never win. And there will be tremendous heartbreak from the great clash and from

the blood that will be spilled of those who come against us. And it has been three weeks since I had written to you and sent proper letters via a herald [saying] that you should be at the anointing of the King, which this day, Sunday, the seventeenth day of this current month of July, is taking place in the city of Rheims – to which I have not received any reply. Nor have I ever heard any word from this herald since then.

I commend you to God and may He watch over you if it pleases Him, and I pray God that He shall establish a good peace.

Written in the aforementioned place of Rheims on the aforesaid seventeenth day of July.

Charles VII was not entirely deceived. But he was duplicitous with Joan. He feted her, brought her from castle to castle, but ignored her pleas to carry on the war. Her opportunity came when the need arose to put down Burgundian resistance within the Loire region itself, at a town called Saint-Pierre-le-Moûtier. Sent by the Court, Joan took the fortified town (protected by a moat) on Nov 4, 1429, but only after insisting upon a second assault and standing at foot of the walls inspiring or, perhaps berating, her troops forward. Afterwards, Charles enobled here and her family, both men and women.

The Council ordered to to attack another town in the region, La Charité, also fortified, but denied her additional artillery or funds. So Joan was forced to raise her own army for the attack, which was unsuccessful, her first defeat after Paris. The defeat gave the royal Council further excuse to ignore her and to adhere to the supposed truce with the Duke of Burgundy. Joan's next action was to move north to defend areas that Burgundy had attacked, despite the truce. That Joan knew it was going on means the Court knew it, but the Court deliberately ignored it under the guise of the truce. Whether or not Joan acted with the royal Council's authority, over which historians have argued uselessly, doesn't matter: they knew, she knew, they all knew the Duke of Burgundy was in violation of the truce. That Joan acted on her own authority or the Kings doesn't matter. What matters is that she went to defend Compiègne, which was under Burgundian and English attack, and in doing so

>> the po;int here is that Joan carried on the battles bc she knew that Burdundy was a liar. Chas was hoping it'd work out, but Burg was fortifying his position w/ the English all along. Joan's attacks back in the north forced the situation, flushing Burgundy into revealing himself.

At Compiegne, she was captured, but, as always, standing fast while her army ran away, only this time there was no rallying the troops, as they had gone into the city and the gate was closed on her and surrounded her

>>here

What we will see is that after the English are finally defeated,

> Joan continues her fight until she is captured

>> voices tell her she will be imprisoned

> not long after her death, Burgundy signs a treaty w/ Charles VII

> Henry VI crowned in P:aris in Dec 1831, after Joan exceuted May 30

> Burgundy abandons the English and signs Treaty of Arras on 20 Sept 1435, ending the 100 years war

Why Joan only now?

Jeanne d'Arc was canonized in 1905. It's not unusual for such a long delay in beatification, but there are reasons for it with Saint Joan. So why so long for her?

Once her work was done, she was easily forgotten, beginning with the Siege of Orleans and the coronation of Charles VII, upon which the French court did its best to ignore her. Given the opportunity to ransom her upon her capture, the King refused and, well, washed his hands of her. Once they had consolidated rule over France, the kings had every reason -- well, aside from honesty -- not to attribute the legitimacy of their rule to a peasant girl.

>

A rather interesting document is found from a publication, "The Rationalist" from 1913, The Story of Joan of Arc: the Witch Saint," which seems to have been in response to Pius X's beatification of Joan (final step towards canonization). The author contends that "modern thought" has led to her vindication and not the Catholic Church, which is just using her shrine and stories of miracle cures before it as a "new income." The author says his essay will save Catholicism from itself.

French Revolution

> anticlerical

>

Historical sources

The history of Joan of Arc is comparatively well-documented, even for the 1400s, a period that yields plenty of artifacts and primary sources. The facts of her life a clear and incontestable. In her day, she was the subject of various documented inquiries, an extended court trial, and subsequent inquiries that document witnesses and assessed evidence. We even know much about her mystical experiences -- or whatever they were, as she told the record about them.

The Trials of Jeanne d'Arc

> see Trials - Overview | Joan of Arc | Jeanne-darc.info

Books on Saint Joan of Arc

A word on modern Joan of Arc historiography

You will find in the below review of Mark Twain's biography of Joan mention that Twain has been accused of obsessing over little girls and thus his study of Joan of Arc is infatuation not art, a tainted, shall we say, yucky, take on her story. Not at all! Nonetheless, St. Joan somehow challenges the gender-obsessed 20th and 21st centuries. There is absolutely nothing to consider regarding that she was burned as a witch for having worn men's clothing. It had nothing to do with 15th century gender identity. She was a soldier, and soldiers wear pants and cutting her hair, if she did, was an act of prudence not some transgender identity. So we have today works, websites and popular conceptions of Joan as a modern, sexually unburdened, liberated woman. So when you go looking for information about Joan, look carefully, as the perspectives and agenda reveal themselves, such as non-religious, girl-power, or gay perspectives.

So be careful.

In addition to author agenda and bias, the various biographies or histories, you will find many discrepancies in the facts and timelines provided. The problem is twofold:

1. The record of the Trial at Rouen is subject to reasonable interpretation, as it was deliberately edited by the Court to put Joan in a bad light. The main stenographer was loyal the record, but even his manuscript was subject to change. Additionally, we have only copies of those transcripts, so those are subject editorial abuse, as well. This is not to say that the transcripts are false and ahistorical -- they are a uniquely complete testimony of an historical event. We just need to be careful with it.
2. The various testimonies at the Trial at Rouen and the later Rehabilitation Trial may have conflicting eye witness testimony. That, too, is not irreparable as an historical record, it just means that the historian needs to make choices. More difficult, though, is that the timeline gets confusing as the testimony does not follow chronology. In other words, various witnesses may testify to the same event or moment, but their testimony is scattered across the record, not presented linearly.

So it is best to use various sources and compare them constantly, making up your own mind as to the most accurate.

Annotated bibliography

I'm not yet sure of the perspective of the author of this site, but he has produced a useful bibliography with "comments" (annotations): https://joan-of-arc.org/ls_bibliography.html#joa_pernoud

Suggested Readings

• Joan of Arc : by Mooney, John A. (John Aloysius) (Archive.org) 1919, a Catholic perspective published just before Saint Joan's canonization
• Joan of Arc: her story by Pernoud, Régine (Archive.org) Régine Pernoud was an important French "medievalist" who wrote several volumes on Saint Joan; this work's English translation was published by St. Martin's Press, a major market (not Catholic) publisher

Popular accounts of the life of Joan of Arc

"Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc" by Mark Twain

• Twain's masterful historical-fiction biography of Saint Joan, published in 1896
• See entry here for more on Twain's work on St. Joan

"The Life of Joan of Arc" by Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel

• a children's book first published in 1895
• See entry here for more on Boutet de Monvel and his American sponsor for his Joan of Arch series of paintings

Others

"Saint Joan" by George Bernard Shaw

Not much to say about this one. Shaw was early in adulthood an atheist and seems to have wanted into Deism and perhaps belief if not in Christ but in Jesus. The play is considered one of Shaw's greatest works, and it has been repeated on stage through the 2000s and in film. Shaw wrote it after Joan's canonization, thus the title. But he wasn't celebrating it. He tries to humanize Saint Joan, whom he said was romanticized while her accusers were villainized. For Shaw, Joan's tormenters were motivated by the facts and situations before them; you know, it's just a matter of perspective. I can only say that to frame Bishop Cauchon as honestly motivated is akin to Andrew Lloyd Weber's sympathetic portrayal of Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar. Both did wrong, knew it, and did it anyway. And, worse, Shaw portrays Joan as Weber does Jesus, as an anti-establishment pop star. For Shaw, Joan is a rebel against authority, like his female ubermensch in Man and Superman. Meh.

See also

Here for list of pages on this site related to Saint Joan of Arc

Painting series "Jeanne D'Arc" (1895) by Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel

In 1896, Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel illustrated a children's book of the life of Joan of Arc. Through the early 1900s, he expanded several of the images into full paintings, a collection of which are held by the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, called "La Vie de Jeanne d'Arc":

• 

  La Vision (Vision of the Archangel St. Michael)

• 

  Appeal to the Dauphin (The Dauphin had someone else sit on the throne and hid amidst the Court; Joan identified him immediately)

• 

  The Maid in Armor on Horseback (Now Commander of the French Armies, Joan marches the army to free Orleans from the English siege)

• 

  The Turmoil of Conflict (The Battle of Orleans, which is nearly lost after Joan is hit in the shoulder and neck by a bolt, but she returns to the field and leads the French to victory)

• 

  The Crowning at Rheims of the Dauphin (Joan's mission was to have the Dauphin properly crowned King by French custom and in the form of Charlemagne; the leadership thought it was unnecessary, but Joan understood that the people of France needed the ceremony at the traditional place for it at the Cathedral at Rheims)

• 

  The Trial of Joan of Arc (The King and his councilors betray Joan, leaving her to fight with a small army; she is captured by the French ally of the English. The French King refuses to pay a ransom for her, and she is tried in a French ecclesiastic court under English authority)

Here for more on Boutet de Monvel and his works.

Sources

working sources:

Current:

• Joan of Arc : the legend and the reality : Gies, Frances (archive.org)
• Joan of Arc - Poitiers Testimony\
• Joan of Arc Biography - Visions
• Joan of Arc - Maid of Heaven - Vaucouleurs Where Joan's Mission Began
• The maid of France; being the story of the life and death of Jeanne d'Arc : Lang, Andrew, 1844-1912
• The Golden Longing : Francis Leary

Early sources:

During her lifetime:

• Trian of Condemnation
• Christine de Pizan | Joan of Arc - published in 1429 while Joan was still alive

15th Century

• Trial of Rehabiltation
• Les chroniques de la pucelle (1661)
• Journal of the Siege of Orleans << might be much later >> see pernoud

Wikipedia

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_of_Arc#Chinon
• Siege of Orléans - Wikipedia
• Charles VII of France - Wikipedia
• Armagnac–Burgundian Civil War - Wikipedia
• Dual monarchy of England and France - Wikipedia (English rule in France)

Other:

• De memorabilibus et claris mulieribus: aliquot diuersorum scriptorum opera - (1521 account of Ianna Gallica "Pucella" in Latin (Google Books)
• https://joan-of-arc.org/ls_bibliography.html#joa_pernoud
• Joan of Arc: Her Prophecies (saint-joan-of-arc.com)
• The origin of Jeanne's voices and visions (jeanne-darc.info) and Visions | Joan of Arc | Jeanne-darc.info
• Visions | Joan of Arc | Jeanne-darc.info
• Materials on Joan of Arc (iu.edu)
• At Her Trial, St. Joan of Arc Faced Her Accusers Alone| National Catholic Register (ncregister.com)

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