Ashleigh Haselton
REL 424
Prof. David Reis
June 10, 2015
Joan of Arc: the Warrior Saint
Joan of Arc. Just her name alone conjures up striking images in a person’s mind: a young maiden dressed in a suit of armor, carrying a military banner, sitting astride a horse, leading her men bravely into battle. That is the image that she is famous for, but, there is more to Joan of Arc that just this brave young woman. In my research paper, I will be discussing all aspects of the figure of Joan of Arc, or rather, as many topics as I can fit into my paper without getting too long-winded and too boring. Though, I don’t think the topic of Joan of Arc could ever be too boring to talk about. Alas, I’m getting off topic already. In my paper I will be discussing her life, her role in French military history during her lifetime, her calling from God, her death and why she had the church (for a while) so up in arms, pardon the pun.
So let’s start with her life, and what we know about her. Joan of Arc was born in a village called Domrémy, which was located in northeastern France. She was born to her parents, Jacques d’Arc and Isabelle Romee, a tenant farmer and his wife, both of whom were devoutly catholic. An interesting thing to point out is that when it came to last names, during Joan’s time, it was very complicated to figure out who’s last name a child took when it was born. So for instance, Joan’s mother Isabelle Romee, that name shows that she took a trip to Rome. Her last name may have been actually Isabelle de Vouthon. (Cohen.) While she was on trial, the Maid of Orleans, as she had been dubbed, referred to herself as Jehanne la Pucelle “Joan the Maid”, insisting to the court that she didn’t actually know her last name.
According to Jennie Cohen, when Joan was on trial for heresy, she tried her best to explain to the interrogators that, in her village, young girls took the last name of their mother. (Cohen.) It is also interesting to note that throughout medieval France, last names were not only non-fixed, but they were also used to say that the person makes pilgrimages to special religious places. (Cohen.) This time in medieval history was a time when religion was intensely practiced. Prayer and pilgrimage happened all the time, and people, like Joan’s mother changed their names to reflect their intense faithfulness to visiting important religious sites.
It was around the age of 12 or possibly even 13 that Joan started hearing the “voices” in her head as well as seeing visions. In her intense devotion to God, she interpreted these “signs” as God calling her to do his work. (Cohen.) According to Joan herself, the “voices” that she had been hearing were of St. Michael, St. Catherine and St. Margaret. As she got older, the voices grew bolder and told her to go and aid her Dauphin against the Burgundians and defend France. She did just that! Though, the first time she followed orders from the voices, she was sent packing, since no one believed her. She didn’t give up hope though, and, through perseverance, was finally able to get through to see the Dauphin and share her visions with him (Freeman 2008.)
Scientists today might finally have a diagnosis for the “voices” and “visions” that Joan of Arc experienced throughout her life. According to Giuseppe d’Orsi as well as Joan’s own testimony, whenever she experienced a vision or heard a voice, there was often a “great light” and images that Joan took to be the saints coming to her. In the instances that she didn’t see visions, she heard verbal disturbances. (d’Orsi 2006.) More often than not, the distant sound of bells, because remember, this time period churches were everywhere and people were always in church, praying for some reason or another, triggered an episode.
Modern doctors would have diagnosed Joan as either, epileptic, schizophrenic, migraines, bipolar or any other disease that shares the symptoms that she was experiencing. Doctors drew their theory from the fact that, when she was living at home, Joan tended cows and drank unpasteurized milk with her meals. Another theory that drew scientists and doctors to come up with the idea that she had (possibly) contracted what is known as bovine tuberculosis. (Cohen.) As a side note, I suffer from migraines, seizures as well as have a brain lesion, and it is terrible to live with. I can’t imagine how poor Joan felt; living with whatever disorder she suffered from, because, surely, during her time, the only thing she could link her condition to was god. Nowadays she would be deemed crazy and locked away…poor girl.
Joan testified that her visions and voices often happened while she was asleep and subsequently woke her up. In her own words, she stated that, “I was asleep; the voice awoke me. It awoke me without touching me.” (Arc 1431 in d’Orsi 2006: 154.)Other times it would be bells that triggered her episodes. Again, she states, “I heard them three times, once in the morning, once at the vespers and again while the Ave Maria rang in the evening. I have even heard them oftener that than.” (Arc 1431 in d’Orsi 2006: 154.) I should note that these two statements from the Maid of Orleans herself came from private examinations from 1431. Her episodes varied as to when they happened. According to Joan, “it said to me two or three times a week” to almost daily, “there is never a day that I do not hear them.” (Arc 1431 in d’Orsi 2006: 154.) Even Barstow echoes this, and states in her article, the visions,
“appeared to her in the woods, in church, in battle, in the courtroom; in her cell where her guards made so much noise that she couldn’t follow what the voices were saying. She often heard them when the bells were ringing and when they didn’t ring, she missed them; she asked the church warden at Domrémy to ring the bells more often and when she had joined the army she requested that the chaplains ring the bells for half an hour on end. Her neighbors reported that often when she was in the fields and heard the bells she would drop to her knees. They assumed she was saying her prayers but Joan was in fact listening for her voices; she had become dependent on them.” (Barstow Llewellyn 1985:26.)
No matter what her condition may have been, she never let it stop her from doing what she saw as God’s will. She dropped everything, left her duties of cow tending and housework to her family and left to give the Saint’s message to the Dauphin and urge him to let her take up arms and lead the his army against the enemy in an effort to make her country safe again. After following the voice’s instructions of cutting her long hair and wearing men’s clothing, escorted by a small group of men, she arrived at the Dauphin’s castle and at last was given the audience with him that she waited so long for. (Cohen.)
She borrowed armor to protect herself and dress herself as a man, despite major irritation from the nobility at court and, after being given handed a small army of men, Joan and her soldiers set off for Orleans, ready, willing and eager to fight off the Burgundians. Under Joan’s leadership and guidance from the voices she heard, the French army celebrated many victories, much to the dismay of those who opposed her. In fact, her defeated opponents thought she was a witch in disguise. The Duke of Bedford even went so far as to call her a “disciple and limb of The Fiend.” (Cohen.) With her reputation as a brilliant commander spreading far and wide, she was becoming a danger to some nobility at court.
While away in battle, Joan was captured by the Burgundians. (Frank 1997:52) Thinking that her king would give into the demand for a ransom, Joan bided her time and waited for her him to come through. He never did; in fact, the French never offered a ransom for her! (Boyd 1986:116) And so, for a hefty sum of 10,000 francs, she was sold to the English, the very same English that she fought off at Orleans. (Frank 1997:53) Despite being captured by her homeland’s enemy, as Frank states in his article, “Joan’s mercy to the Englishmen was legendary; we have, for example, a contemporary account of Joan holding in her lap, a dying Englishman casually slaughtered by one of her own soldiers.” (Frank 1997: 53)
At one point during her time in prison, Joan the Maid tried to escape, jumping between 60 and 70 feet from the tower she had been imprisoned in. Miraculously however, she suffered no injury, but was recaptured and put in chains. (Frank 1997:53) Seeing this as a chance of a lifetime, the guards while drunk, attacked her while she was in chains; causing Joan to scream at the top of her lungs for help and to defend herself as best as she could (Frank 1997:53.) To humiliate her even more, a cage was built to contain her and to keep her from escaping again, but, interestingly enough, it was never used (God’s hands at work perhaps?) In order to bring her some sort of comfort while in prison, a priest came to hear her confessions, but also, unbeknownst to her, to spy on her and gather intelligence that the church could use against her and confirm their suspicions of being a heretic. (Frank 1997: 53) Let’s just say while she was in prison, poor Joan could never catch a break. While in prison, she was forced to wear women’s clothing, which made her a huge target for the guards. (Boyd: 1986: 117)
When her chance for a trial finally came around, it was not only unfair, but also rigged against her. She made very few requests for her trial, one of them being an unbiased tribunal, with an equal mix of English and French judges. That request, which was very easy to accommodate, was denied! (Frank 1997: 53.) Another request that Joan had was that she have independent council, so she could have a fair chance at being represented; that request was also denied! (Frank 1997: 53.) She also wasn’t allowed to cross-examine those that were testifying against her.
Surprisingly enough, she wasn’t tried for witchcraft. The reason why she was tried as a heretic was because she believe the voices that she heard, attempted suicide (jumping from the tower) and, the more absurd charges, being “overly militant” or “too rough” towards the English and wearing men’s clothing. (Frank 1997: 53.) As a side note, I can’t help but giggle at some of these ridiculous charges, but I know at the time, Joan wasn’t giggling, in fact she never understood why she was being charged in the first place. To drive their point home and, in a sense, intimidate a confession out of her, the prosecution took her to the torture chamber and showed her the instruments that would be used against her to torture a confession out of her. Seeing these frightening instruments lying around the chamber, Joan, in her unwavering faith, stated to those around her, “Even if you were to tear me limb from limb, I would not tell you more than I have. And even if I should say something, later I would always insist that they were things that you have forced me to say.” (Arc 1431 in Frank 1997: 54.)
Using the signed confession that they weaseled out of her, the church court concluded that she was to spend the rest of her life in prison. Now I will say that no one knows whether or not Joan was literate, so, for all we know, she had no idea what she was signing. We do know that she put her seal on different documents, and that is, more than likely from someone reading the document to her and explaining what it was. In this case, however, they probably tricked her into signing it, saying that the contents don’t matter, and that, if she signed it, that God would protect her.
Ultimately, her undoing was reverting to wearing men’s clothing while in prison. Joan insisted that she did this to protect herself against the leering eyes of her jailers. Using this golden opportunity against her, they concluded that she was a “relapse heretic” , falling right into the trap that the enemy had set for her, and sent her to the stake. (Boyd 1986:117) People came from all over to see the Heretic in her final hours. Her stake was built up high, so everyone could see her burn, and also, so that the executioner couldn’t take pity on her and give her a quick death. (Frank 1997: 54) In her finals hours, her faith never wavering, she asked for a cross, her final words being, “Jesus, Jesus.” (Frank 1997: 54)
Either way you look at it, Joan of Arc never stood a chance when she was put on trial. To make a point, after she was finally dead, Pierre Cauchon, the main judge presiding over her trial, took all the court documents, translate them to Latin and create them as a new copy of the proceedings (Tiefenbrun 2005:470.) To make matters worse, Cauchon also ordered that the Latin records be falsified in some places to tarnish Joan’s image and her memory. (Tiefenbrun 2005:471.) Modern scholars who have read the documents can see that, once translated to English, the documents are more reliable as well as more convenient to use (Hobbins in Tiefenbrun 2005: 471.)
According to Tiefenbrun, even to this day, political leaders sit around the table and discuss how much of a disgrace of justice the trial of Joan of Arc was; the term that they used was travesty. (Tiefenbrun 2005: 470.) To redeem himself in the eyes of the populous, the king of France, Charles VII, the same king that Joan put on the throne, demanded that a re-trial was done to clear her name and rehabilitate her reputation; this happened 25 years after her death, too little too late as far as I am concerned, but it’s better than nothing I suppose. She was cleared of all charges and, in 1920, was declared a saint by the church in an interesting twist of fate. (Tiefenbrun 2005:472.)
When one hears the name Joan of Arc, they automatically picture the girl who was burned at the stake for hearing voices and dressing like a man. People tend to forget that she was also a young woman who took up arms and defended her country against the enemy. She drew her courage from God and the Saints that guided her. She was strong in spirit and unwavering in her faith. Ultimately, it was her faith that was her undoing that led her to her death.
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