Saint Joan of Arc (Jeanne la Pucelle)

Saint Joan of Arc (1412-1431) called herself, Jeanne la Pucelle, meaning "Joan the Maid."

Her followers and enemies called her, simply, La Pucelle. Her enemies spitefully called her "Joan, who calls herself the Maid."

It was not until after her martyrdom that she was called "Joan of Orleans" or "the Maid of Orleans" in reference to her miraculous intervention in the 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. The historical record shows that it was at her "Trial of Rehabilitation," starting 1452, that she was first referred to as Jeanne d'Arc, or Joan of Arc".

At her "Trial of Condemnation," she testified as to her name, saying,

In my own country they call me Jeannette; since I came into France I have been called Jeanne. Of my surname I know nothing.

The French Jeanne, or Jehanne, is feminine for John, which means "God favors," and which is echoed by the name given her in the sole literary work composed during her time, the Pucelle de Dieu ("Maid of God"). Most importantly, her "voices" -- God's messengers -- called her "Daughter of God."

She testified,

Before the raising of the Siege of Orleans and every day since, when they speak to me, they call me often, ‘Jeanne the Maid, Daughter of God.’

Joan of Arc saved France, and doing so saved Catholicism itself, which I propose was her mission all along. She was canonized by the Catholic Church on May 16, 1920.

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

These pages present a Catholic view of Saint Joan that is consistent with the historical record. 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 contortions of her life and legacy. Presented here, as well, is the theory that Joan's mission was not to save France so much as to save Roman Catholicism.

Oh, and these pages assume everything that Joan did, experienced and testified to was real, not just to her, but objectively real.

** page under construction **

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This page constructs Joan's background, her person, and the events of her life.

The subsequent page, Saint Joan of Arc: Saving Catholicism presents a larger discussion of the historical context of Saint Joan's accomplishments and purpose.

Other related pages:

• Joan of Arc Timeline
• Kings of France and England
• Popes and antipopes
• 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)

Here for Saint Joan of Arc category list of related pages

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 times. 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 over the schismatic antipope who had before been supported by her compatriots in France.

Servant of the Lord

It is often observed 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 then and now means either "young girl" (maiden) or "virgin," but not necessarily both, although the association may be implied.

But "maid" or "handmaid," as it could also be translated, makes a clear association with the greatest "handmaid" of them all, Our Lady, Mother of God. Joan was devoted to Mary, and had inscribed atop of her battle standard along with that of the Lord: "Jhesus Maria."

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." Historical treatments of Joan ignore the 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 the word of 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. One theory holds that Joan called herself "the virgin," in order to fend off the soldiers around her. But to both Joan and her accusers at the Trial of Condemnation, the matter of her virginity presented a deadly serious theological question: if she was truly an ambassador from God, then she was a virgin; if not, as the English-backed court tried to prove, she was a witch, as a virgin, it was understood, was incorrupt of Satan's reach.

As the 19th century French historian Jules Michelet's explained,

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.

Both the French and the English-supported Burgundians submitted her to the physical test conducted by ladies who affirmed her purity. The French, who first examined Joan both physically and theologically, questions to which she answered consistently, simply, and strenuously, concluded, "The maid is of God." They found nothing impure in her, which was important for fulfillment of the legend that Joan herself invoked, such as she told her uncle, Durand Lexart, and which had become current as she made her way to meet the prince of France, the Dauphin:

"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, which had already been affirmed by ladies of the Burgundian court who examined her physically. They wouldn't let it go. Having caught on to a story about a supposed marriage when she was younger, they pressed her,

“When you promised Our Saviour to preserve your virginity, was it to Him that you spoke?”

“It would quite suffice that I give my promise to those who were sent by Him—that is to say, to Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret.”

“Who induced you to have cited a man of the town of Toul on the question of marriage?”

“I did not have him cited; it was he, on the contrary, who had me cited; and then I swore before the Judge to speak the truth. And besides, I had promised nothing to this man. From the first time I heard my Voices, I dedicated my virginity for so long as it should please God; and I was then about thirteen years of age. My Voices told me I should win my case in this town of Toul.”

And so the case was dismissed, argued by Joan herself before the court a Toul. She was neither bequeathed to nor married the man, and so there was no compromise of Joan to exploit.

It's an odd part of her story, but one that importantly indicates much about Joan. First, either her father, or some guy, or both, tried to marry her off to him. A young girl like Joan would normally have no say in the matter: guided by her voices, she stood it down. Secondly, it's the first event that her voices guided her upon, and she believed and obeyed. Finally, the court at Toul ruled on Joan's side. Common or not, Joan's confidence, mission and guidance got her through the dilemma.

Getting no where with that topic, her persecutors at the Trial of Condemnation moved on, focusing on her use of men's clothing. But they couldn't let it go. Five days later, the questions returned to her virginity:

“Was it never revealed to you that if you lost your virginity, you would lose your happiness, and that your Voices would come to you no more?”

“That has never been revealed to me.”[

“If you were married, do you think your Voices would come?”

“I do not know; I wait on Our Lord.

This line of questioning becomes rather sinister when Joan is tricked, essentially compelled, actually, 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 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 violated.

As for Joan's view of her virginity, it just was what and who 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.

"The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria and Saint Catherine of Siena" by Ambrogio Bergognone. (wikipedia). Catherine of Sienna set important precedent for Saint Joan's affirmation of the papacy at Rome.

Saint Catherine

Joan's virginity importantly signaled 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, 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 French ecclesiastical Court at Rouen that condemned her, but which she confounded with marvelous simplicity and irrefutable logic.

Next for Saint Catherine, Maxentius demanded that Catherine marry him and put her to death when she refused. The parallel for Joan continues, as she was put to death after refusing a conciliatory but compromising offer from the court at Rouen, which is when she agreed to put on women's clothing and is condemned for subsequently abandoning them for men's trousers.

If you look up Saint Catherine 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 guards threatened to rape her. Therein is the very typology of Saint Catherine.

She 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, nor could Joan have anticipated those connections when she started out. Instead, she was following them directly.

Young Saint Joan

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

Domrémy

(Screen capture from Wikipedia entry on Domremy-la-Pucelle)

Today called Domrémy-la-Pucelle, Joan's village of Domrémy lay along the upper Meuse River in northeastern France. The town itself was divided by a stream called "Three fountains," as it was fed by springs, by one of which grew the "Fairie Tree," a beech made famous in her Trial of Condemnation as a implication of sorcery. The village was geographically in Lorraine, thus "the Maid of Lorraine," but was politically under the Duchy of Bar, indicative of the transient and complex nature of medieval borders and allegiances. When Joan testifies that her voices told her to go to "France," it made perfect sense to everyone, as she was speaking to the distinction between these territories and their alliances. The Duchy of Bar lay across both French and Holy Roman Empire (Germany) lands, with Domrémy in the western part that was a fief of the Kingdom of France. At Domrémy the Meuse was yet a small river, but significant enough to contain an island that Joan's father negotiated with its landowners 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. 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, which at the near coincidental death of both kings passed to his son Henry VI, the infant king. 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, and feudal land arrangements.

Vaucouleurs

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 (aligned with England), and the Holy Roman Empire. The town was fortified and held by a French garrison led by Captain Robert de Baudricourt, an exceptional man who managed to maintain his position against the Burgundians and the English. There was a lot of horse trading and paid protection going on, so it was likely due to adept negotiations as well as the city's elaborate fortifications. 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, 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 was accepted by one Pierre Cauchon of Vitry from 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 allied with the Duke of Burgundy and unapologetic English-loyalist, was the very guy who orchestrated Joan's execution. Rather odd, these alignments -- or not.However they conjoin, Baudricourt's loyalty to the Dauphin was necessary for Joan's introduction to the French prince, the Dauphin . Her voices told her to go to Baudricourt first and that she would recognize him once there.

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, Rhiems, 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. 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 French garrison at Vaucouleurs.

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 large 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. Joan's 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 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, the first "King of France," was coronated. If so, with 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 be done

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

Saint or... what?

Joan's biographers like to introduce Joan with a letter she composed to the King of England the day she was given authority over the French army. It's a marvelous, crazy letter, almost arrogant at first glance. A second look, though, and the letter yields instead Joan's simplicity and directness. Indeed, she is hardly arrogant: just brutally honest:

“Jhesus †Maria. “King of England; and you, Duke of Bedford, who call yourself Regent of the Kingdom of France; you, William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk; John, Lord Talbot; and you, Thomas, Lord Scales, who call yourselves Lieutenants to the said Duke of Bedford: give satisfaction to the King of Heaven: give up to the Maid, who is sent hither by God, the King of Heaven, the keys of all the good towns in France which you have taken and broken into. She is come here by the order of God to reclaim the Blood Royal. She is quite ready to make peace, if you are willing to give her satisfaction, by giving and paying back to France what you have taken.

It's a useful letter for the biographer, because it launches her story perfectly. But left unexplained or unattributed to anything but "voices", as they tend rather agnostically to leave her, it makes no sense: okay, so this illiterate girl from a little village hears voices that tell her she will save France and crown the King. She insists on an introduction to that prince, gets the interview, somehow picking him out of a crowd, undergoes three weeks of questions by all the king's finest minds, and passing the test is given a suit of armor and command of the French army. Okay...got it. Thank you, historians. But really?

Let's try it this way: Four years before, God sends Saint Michael the Archangel and Saints Margaret and Catherine to visit with a young girl in a small town in eastern France. Her country is both at war and civil war. The Church is in a state of disruption, with two ongoing antipope claimants, proto-protestant rumblings, and the "conciliarism" movement against papal authority gaining strength as a result of the various papal schisms. Over time, the Archangel and the Saints prepare the young girl spiritually for her mission. In 1428, as the city of Orleans is subjected to a siege by English forces, they now tell her what she will do: save the city and crown the king -- in a city held by the enemy.

Now we can better understand her letter, which went on to explain that the English would do better to abandon Orléans and France itself. She concluded with the warning to the English commander,

You, Duke of Bedford, the Maid prays and enjoins you, that you do not come to grievous hurt. If you will give her satisfactory pledges, you may yet join with her, so that the French may do the fairest deed that has ever yet been done for Christendom. And answer, if you wish to make peace in the City of Orleans; if this be not done, you may be shortly reminded of it, to your very great hurt. Written this Tuesday in Holy Week, March 22nd, 1428.

Later, held captive and subjected to a trial known as the Trial of Condemnation, this letter was presented as evidence against her. After it was read out load, Joan corrected a couple lines, then proclaimed,

Before seven years are passed, the English will lose a greater wager than they have already done at Orlėans; they will lose everything in France. The English will have in France a greater loss than they have ever had, and that by a great victory which God will send to the French.

How do you know this?

I know it well by revelation, which has been made to me, and that this will happen within seven years; and I am sore vexed that it is deferred so long. I know it by revelation, as clearly as I know that you are before me at this moment.

When will this happen?

I know neither the day nor the hour.

In what year will it happen?

You will not have any more. Nevertheless, I heartily wish it might be before Saint John’s Day.

She made the prediction on March 1, 1431. Six years and six months later, in September of 1437, Paris was delivered to the French through the Treaty of Arras, which ended the English alliance with the Duke of Burgundy and from which, in the Hundred Years War, the English would never recover.\

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.

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!

>add cynical views of her victory at Orleans here << see In our Time episode< for them, ... denies tha "she" did it

> instead it was 2,000 troops, go up the South Bank ... Joan is "supposed to have said" they were going the wrong way, and the "English just needed ot be pushed"

Her mission, though, had two parts: take Orleans first, then crown the king at Rheims. The importance of Orleans is easy to understand, as it saved France militarily. But why the need for the coronation at Rheims? Sure, it was the traditional site of French coronations, and so held symbolic value. But let's try to think like God for a moment (try), and it becomes clearer.

The Dauphin, or Prince, was already King of France, having claimed, over English objections, the title at the death of his father, in what is called "ascension" to the throne, so there would normally be as little delay as possible between an ascension and coronation. (Child kings might wait, such as Edward II of England.) Charles VII did not need to be coronated in order to be or even be considered King of France, which he had assumed, albeit contested by the English, upon his father's death in 1422.

But as a religious ceremony affirming the divine rights of kings, the coronation was supremely important. Indeed, we find in the testimonies the coronation of Charles VII called "consecration." For Joan, he was not yet King. She told François Garivel, the Councillor-General to the King, ,

When I asked Jeanne why she called the King Dauphin, and not King, she replied that she should not call him King till he had been crowned and anointed at Rheims, to which city she meant to conduct him.

After the victory at Orleans, Joan insisted that the Dauphin be crowned immediately at Rheims, which was held by the Burgundians, the English allies.

>>Here

She insisted, led continued victories to allow for the passage of the Court to Rheims, and she was the true light of the entire ceremony.

Again, the ceremony did not have to take place, and without Joan's insistence it may not have taken place, at least not then and there. With the victor at Orléans, the Dauphin considered holding the coronation at Orléans instead of the Burgundian-held Rheims

Had it not, the English could have crowned Henry VI at Rheims, as opposed to Paris, which they did in 1431 after Joan's death.

> seems that Bedford never tried for Rheims

It was his to hold and use before Joan's campaign. So the coronation at Rheims was not merely symbolic: it required a military victory and very importantly denied the English use of that same symbolism.

On approaching Rheims, Joan her explained it to the King:

“This is a good people,” she said to us; “I have seen none elsewhere who rejoiced as much at the coming of so noble a King. How happy should I be if, when my days are done, I might be buried here!”

“Jeanne,” then said the Archbishop to her, “in what place do you hope to die?”

“Where it shall please God,” she answered; “for I am not certain of either the time or the place, any more than you are yourself. Would it might please God, my Creator, that I might retire now, abandon arms and return to serve my father and mother and to take care of their sheep with my sister and my brothers, who would be so happy to see me again!”

Still, Joan didn't fully realize that once the King of France was duly crowned, her work was done. It's a very sad period that follows, in which, hampered by hedging and outright delays from the Court and military heads, she demands movement, and now, but got next to nothing in reply. 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 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. But without that trial we know very little about her. Without the trial, Joan could not have convicted her tormentors so thoroughly as she did. Without her trial, Joan did not need to be redeemed by her nation that had abandoned her. Without that redemption we would not have heard from the witnesses to her holiness. Without that testimony, she's just an unusual girl who led an army. Without her martyrdom, there is no Saint Joan of Arc.

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)

So what did Joan do?

Well, her greatest act was to liberate Orléans; her highest moment was the coronation of Charles VII at Rheims; her greatest accomplishment was the eventual victory of France over England to end the Hundred Years War; and her greatest moment was her martyrdom on the stake, repeating the word, "Jesus." Her greatest legacy is the Catholic Church, having given to France the chance to be, as she told the English in her letter to the King and the Duke of Bedord,,

so that the French may do the fairest deed that has ever yet been done for Christendom.

Saving 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. 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. Come Martin Luther and the Thirty Years War, we see how tenuous was the hold of the Holy Roman Empire 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 a Holy Roman Empire left to seize, leaving it, to borrow from Voltaire, "neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire." Papal schisms in the Church leading up to Joan's day made it all inevitable.

Who knows, except that it would have been vastly different. But given the events of the 16th century, 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 by saving France from English rule, it was Joan of Arc who caused that possibility.

Victory at Orléans

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 of Orlėans to lead Joan's army away from the city to take Chécy first. 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?

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, received 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 briefly changed its face back to a world of honor

Visions not delusions

From the transcript of the Trial of Condemnation at Rouen in 1431, "Thursday, March 1st, in the same place, the Bishop and 58 Assessors present":

“Since last Tuesday, have you had any converse with Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret?”

“Yes, but I do not know at what time.”

“What day?”

“Yesterday and to-day; there is never a day that I do not hear them.”

“Do you always see them in the same dress?”

“I see them always under the same form, and their heads are richly crowned. I do not speak of the rest of their clothing: I know nothing of their dresses.”

“How do you know whether the object that appears to you is male or female?”

“I know well enough. I recognize them by their voices, as they revealed themselves to me; I know nothing but by the revelation and order of God.”

“What part of their heads do you see?”

“The face.”

“These saints who shew themselves to you, have they any hair?”

“It is well to know they have.”

“Is there anything between their crowns and their hair?”

“No.”

“Is their hair long and hanging down?”

“I know nothing about it. I do not know if they have arms or other members. They speak very well and in very good language; I hear them very well.”

“How do they speak if they have no members?”

“I refer me to God. The voice is beautiful, sweet, and low; it speaks in the French tongue.”

“Does not Saint Margaret speak English?”

“Why should she speak English, when she is not on the English side?”

Joan first met Saints Margaret and Catherine back at Domremy

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."

Armagnacs v Burgundians

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.

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.

A prime actor in and beneficiary of those entanglements was the priest Pierre Cauchon who became Joan's chief persecutor at Rouen. Cauchon was allied with the Duke of Burgundy, and so where went the Duke, went Cauchon. He had participated in negotiations between the French King Charles VI and the Vatican in 1407 in an attempt to end the schism between a French-supported papal claimant (Avignon antipope) and the Pope at Rome. In 1420, after holding various positions, such as dean at the University of Paris, chaplain of the Duke of Burgundy, archdeacon of Chartres and, in 1420, Bishop of Beauvais, the position under which he would exercise jurisdiction over Joan's Trial of Condemnation. That same year, Cauchon helped negotiate the Treaty of Troyes, which granted to English King Henry V inheritance to the French throne following Charles VI. Cauchon's career took off as a primary liaison between the English and the Burgundians. He escorted the English royal claimant, Henry VI to France in 1430 and acted as Henry's personal counsellor at Rouen, the Emglsh administrative center in France.

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 received 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.

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

The prophecies of Joan of Arc

Jean Dunois testified that not all of Joan's prophesies were fulfilled,

Although Jeanne sometimes spoke in jest of the affairs of war, and although, to encourage the soldiers, she may have foretold events which were not realized, nevertheless, when she spoke seriously of the war, and of her deeds and her mission, she only affirmed earnestly that she was sent to raise the siege of Orleans, and to succour the oppressed people of that town and the neighbouring places, and to conduct the King to Rheims that he might be consecrated (emphasis added)

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 Jean Dunois

Jeanne had expressly predicted that, before long, the weather and the wind would change; and it happened as she had foretold. She had, in like manner, stated that the convoy would enter freely into the town.

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:

Jhesus † 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

Sources 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

• Jules, ed.; Procès de Condamnation et de Réhabilitation de Jeanne d'Arc, dite la Pucelle

Links

• Joan of Arc Trial: Selected Links

Suggested Readings

• Canonization of Saint Joan of Arc << add link >> needs translation
• 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

Transcripts of Joan's Trials

Pernoud's REhabiliation Trial https://archive.org/details/retrialofjoanofa00pern

https://archive.org/details/trialofjoanofarc00dani Daniel Hobbins translation

https://www.amazon.com/Trial-Joan-Arc-Daniel-Hobbins/dp/067401894X > read review critical of HObbin's commentary lol

see review https://www.jstor.org/stable/30040603

Biographies

• Memoirs Of Jeanne D' Arc, Surnamed La Pucelle D' Orleans With The History Of Her Times, Volume 1 : Ireland, W. H. (William Henry), 1777-1835, ed (Archive.org)
• Saint Joan of Arc : born, January 6th, 1412, burned as a heretic, May 30th, 1431, canonised as a saint, May 16th, 1920 : Sackville-West, V. (Victoria), 1892-1962 : (Archive.org)
  • Sackville-West is an early-mid 20th century English writer and contemporary and friend of Virginia Woolf. She was quite famous in her day, although her work on Joan, like that of Mark Twain's, was and is not well-known. I have not assessed the historical value of this book, although it does present some interesting commentary. Sackville-West does not believe that Saint Joan was divinely inspired.

Miscellaneous

• JOAN OF ARC'S PROPHECIES (JEAN BARRY), a chapter from a book by a CIA psychologist who thought that Joan had paranormal powers, and, I can only guess, wanted to employ them against enemies foreign and domestic. As I wrote before, Joan is all things to all people.
• Jeanne d’Arc in the obligation and freedom of the private law
  • some sort of review of Joan of Arc's "tears" (from crying) and their meaning and use over time.

Popular accounts of the life of Joan of Arc

"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

"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

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

Vatican

• General Audience of 26 January 2011: Saint Joan of Arc | BENEDICT XVI

Wikipedia

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_of_Arc#Chinon
• Canonization of Joan of Arc - Wikipedia
• 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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