Saint Joan of Arc (Jeanne la Pucelle)

Saint Joan of Arc (1412-1431)

Item opusculum super facto Puelle et credulitate ei praestauda
("Concerning the fact of the Maid and the faith due to her")

Saint Joan of Arc called herself, Jeanne la Pucelle, meaning "Joan the Maid." Her followers called her, simply, La Pucelle. Her antagonists spitefully called her "the one who calls herself the Maid" or "Joan who calls herself the Maid."

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

Saint Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc entrance to Orléans through the Burgundy Gate, April 29, 1429
Honorofics:	Jeanne la Pucelle (Joan the Maid, Joan the Virgin) la Pucelle d'Orléans (Maid of Orleans, Virgin of Orleans) la Pucelle de Lorraine (Maid of Lorraine, Virgin of Lorraine)
Born:	January, 1412, Domrémy, Duchy of Bar, Kingdom of France
Died:	May 30, 1430, Rouen, English-held Normandy
Beatified:	April 18, 1909, by Pope Pius X
Canonized:	May 16, 1920, by Pope Benedict XV
Feast Day:	May 30
Patronage:	France, soldiers, prisoners, virgins, those in need of courage, those ridiculed for their faith or youth
Signature:

Preface

These pages present a Catholic view of Saint Joan of Arc that is consistent with the vetted historical record. It reviews the facts of the life and accomplishments of Saint Joan, as well as their historical context. It offers commentary and criticism of historical and academic views of her, especially as regards the secularization and ideological contortions of her life and legacy.

The analysis here starts with faith not doubt, thus Joan's experiences and visions (which I will call her "Voices") are assumed as real. As opposed to skeptical treatments of Joan that begin from doubt, these pages accept their divine nature, which, applied prudently, enables important historical, typological, and scriptural connections to Joan's life and acts that otherwise go unconsidered. The approach here is faithful yet cautious, open but not credulous.

This discussion of Saint Joan is analysis not narrative. Although the narrative is presented, the approach here is thematic not strictly chronological. To review a straight chronology of her life, please see the Joan of Arc Timeline or find a good narrative treatment of her from the Joan of Arc bibliography.

As with any valid historical analysis, this one weighs the evidence, adopts a perspective, and tests it against the historical and historiographic record. The extensive record of Saint Joan allows for cherry-picking and unsupported interpretation of witness motives, so, unlike many histories of Joan of Arc, mine will not use isolated "proof-text" to support the claims, but will instead consider all the evidence, including that which has been used to argue against, especially, Joan's Divine guidance.

Finally, as my arguments are contingent upon the larger historical context before and after the life of Saint Joan, I encourage the reader to explore the history more largely in the sources listed in the footnotes and bibliography.

Presented, as well, is the theory that Joan's mission was not to save France so much as to save Roman Catholicism.

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

Copyright © Michael L. Bromley, 2024-2025. All rights reserved. All content provided on this website, including but not limited to text, graphics, images, and other material is for informational purposes only. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

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Related pages:

• Joan of Arc Timeline
• Joan of Arc bibliography
• 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)
• The Life of Joan of Arc by Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel (with Joan of Arc series from National Gallery of Art)
• List of all Saint Joan of Arc category pages

Go here for Notes on page readability and navigation.

Notes on sources and quotations:

• I am using the 1902 translation of the Trials by T. Douglas Murray; it has gaps, but can be trusted; most importantly scans of it are readily accessible on Archive.org and GoogleBooks.
• Indented text are direct quotations, so quotation marks are only used for nested (innrer) quotations
• Emphasis added to quotations is mine and not from the sources.
• I have deleted spaces between certain punctuation marks
• I have not otherwise modernized spelling or usage in quotations

Notes on names and spelling:

• I am using the French spelling for proper nouns, except as found in sources, such as Murray's which uses the English "Rheims" over the French Reims.
• Where a name includes a de I will generally but not always use the English "of the", and where it is a d' I will use the original French (saying Duc d'Orléans is far cooler than "Duke of Orleans")
• I'm tempted to use the French Bourguignons and duc de Bourgogne instead of the anglicized Burgundy, but the French nasal consonant "gn" is simply unworkable for the English tongue.

Notes on archaic word use:

• "Gentle knight" is translated from the French gentil, which means not "delicate," but "honorable" or "noble"
• "Fair Lord" is translated from the French juste, which means "just" not "good looking"

Crazy, witch or Saint?

Joan's biographers like to present her with a letter she composed to the King of England, the child-king Henry VI, the day she was given an army to march on the English siege at Orléans. 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 bluntly 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, but left unexplained or unattributed to anything but "voices", as they tend rather agnostically to leave it, it makes no sense. Okay, so this illiterate girl from a sidelined village hears "voices" that tell her she will save France and crown its legitimate 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 horse, lance, and suit of armor -- and command of a French army, whereupon she writes a letter to the King of England demanding he surrender all his possessions in and claims upon France -- while displaying knowledge of the English political and military hierarchy... Okay... got it.

Her letter is astonishing. And brilliant.

The English had likely heard the rumors flying about France about "a maid who would save France," but this was their first direct introduction to her. We have no record of how it was received, but it had to be in the back of their minds when she approached Orléans, and on the front of their minds after she routed them, especially this note to the English commander with which she concluded the letter,

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.

But it wasn't mere psychological warfare as our secular historians contend: Joan was prophesizing. At her Trial of Condemnation at Rouen under the English, the letter was presented as incriminating evidence of witchcraft.

“Do you know this letter?”

Yes, excepting three words. In place of "give up to the Maid," it should be "give up to the King." The words "Chieftain of war" and "body for body"’ were not in the letter I sent. None of the Lords ever dictated these letters to me; it was I myself alone who dictated them before sending them. Nevertheless, I always shewed them to some of my party.

Then, without any prompting or context, she continued,

"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."

The prediction came on March 1, 1431. Five years later, in April of 1436, Paris was delivered to the French through the Treaty of Arras, which ended the English alliance with the Duke of Burgundy and from which the English would never recover. Skeptical historians will point out the English presence in France continued for another fifteen years, which is true but meaningless, as the English cause was lost with the Burgundian defection. Paris was the endgame, the "greater loss" that Joan had predicted.

In 1449 the French retook Rouen, where Joan was martyred, and in 1453 the English suffered a final defeat at the Battle of Castillon, which ended three hundred years of English control of southwestern France. Those later victories were only possible with the Burgundian realignment at the 1435 Treaty of Arras, which was only made possible by Joan's military and political victories at Orléans and Reims.

Outside of her declarations regarding Orleans and the crowning of the Dauphin, this prophesy is her most significant -- and one that no one would or could have contemplated at the time, when the English were reinvigorated by her capture and had Henry VI crowned at Paris later in the year after her execution.

Upon Joan's capture, the Duke of Burgundy issued a public acclamation of victory, announcing,

‘Very dear and well-beloved, knowing that you desire to have news of us, we signify to you that this day, the 23rd May, towards six o’clock in the afternoon, the adversaries of our Lord the King and of us, who were assembled together in great power, and entrenched in the town of Compiègne, before which we and the men of our army were quartered, have made a sally from the said town in force on the quarters of our advanced guard nearest to them, in the which sally was she whom they call the Maid, with many of their principal captains .... and by the pleasure of our blessed Creator, it had so happened and such grace had been granted to us, that the said Maid had been taken ... The which capture, as we certainly hold, will be great news everywhere; and by it will be recognized the error and foolish belief of all those who have shewn themselves well disposed and favourable to the doings of the said woman. And this thing we write for our news, hoping that in it you will have joy, comfort, and consolation, and will render thanks and praise to our Creator, Who seeth and knoweth all things, and Who by His blessed pleasure will conduct the rest of our enterprizes to the good of our said Lord the King and his kingdom, and to the relief and comfort of his good and loyal subjects.

We see just how important was Joan's capture to the English and Burgundians: if she is not of divine intervention, they reasoned, then her successes were not legitimate, including, by reference to the English King, the coronation Joan engineered of the French King. Royal legitimacy relied on faith in God's plan, so Joan's capture justified the English cause. One of clerics who saw Joan the day "she was delivered up to be burned," Jean Toutmouille, recalled the moment:

For, before her death, the English proposed to lay siege to Louviers ; soon, however, they changed their purpose, saying they would not besiege the said town until the Maid had been examined. What followed was evident proof of this ; for, immediately after she was burnt, they went to besiege Louviers, considering that during her life they could have neither glory nor success in deeds of war.

In the early stages of Henry V's invasion and rampage across Normandy, 1418, in a particularly violent siege and occupation, the English took the loyal French town of Louviers, killing and ransoming townspeople. In the French revival following Joan's entry, La Hire retook the town in December 1429, which greatly offended the English leadership, and added to their resentment and hatred of Joan. The town remained in French hands through her trial and may well have been the source of growing English impatience with the trial's progress into May of 1431, as the English leadership grew testy over procedures required of an ecclesiastical trial. Around the time of Joan's execution, the English launched the attack, having amassed an unusually large army for the action. Louviers fell, finally, on October 25. Clearly, it was a huge deal for them, and not just because of the town's strategic location south of Rouen and along the south bank of the Seine, and thus along a strategic route to Paris.

In France, meanwhile, Joan's role as emissary of God had been replaced by a mystic, Guillaume of Lorraine, known as "the Shepherd of Gévaudan." Unlike Joan, the Shepherd was actually a shepherd. And, unlike Joan, he demonstrated an outward sign, having the stigmata on his hands, feet and chest. The Bishop of Reims promoted the Shepherd, a most cynical move, as he just wanted to denigrate Joan whom he never liked and whom he distrusted for her insistence upon military conquest of the Burgundians,

Skeptical historians point to the various prophetic figures who appeared around the time of Saint Joan, which, they either state or infer, confers by coincidence of the moment, similar false prophesy upon Joan. One such figure, Catherine de la Rochelle, Joan dismissed as a fraud, having asked her Voices about her,

I spoke of it, either to Saint Catherine or to Saint Margaret, who told me that the mission of this Catherine was mere folly and nothing else.

Joan advised Charles VII not to pay any attention to her. She told the Rouen court,

I told Catherine that she should return to her husband, look after her home, and bring up her children.

Catherine de la Rochelle had joined up with a Franciscan Friar, Brother Richard, a messianic preacher who had been in Paris preaching repentance and divine retribution. In 1429, as news of Joan raced across France, the Burgundians put two and two together and went after him. He fled to Troyes, where he met Joan. The Rouen Trial, with its clerics from Paris, quizzed Joan extensively about her relationship with him. Joan recounts only that he was he was upset at her dismissal of Catherine de la Rochelle and that when he first approached her at Troyes he made a sign of the Cross and threw holy water upon her:

I said to him: "Approach boldly, I shall not fly away!"

Let's just say she wasn't impressed by him. The Rouen court insinuations of a diabolical connection to Brother Richard went nowhere. In France, Brother Richard wore out his welcome, and was relegated to Poitiers, the French bishops telling him to tone it down. Around this time, another mystic, Pierronne, appeared in Brittany, traveling from town to town speaking of saving France and that God, appearing to her in a white robe and a purple tunic, had sent her to affirm and support Joan's mission.. She attracted followers, one of whom was arrested with her outside of Paris by the University clerics who were hectored by Joan's successes. Perrionne remained defiant and refused to recant, and was burned at the stake on September 3, 1430. Her follower recanted and was spared.

Upon Joan's execution, the Charles VII's court turned to the Shepherd of Gévaudan. In June of 1431, amidst the campaign for Louviers, the young man was ridden to battle near Beauvais, where the English destroyed the French contingent, which included La Hire, who escaped. The Shepherd was delivered by the English the ecclesiastical court in Paris, which without much inquiry found him guilty of heresy, including to have had the wounds of the Savior imprinted upon him by the Devil, and had him burned.

While skeptical historians use these mystics to impugn Joan's divine mission, they importantly served to rally the French people around her, before and after her death. That the Shepherd was useless militarily merely reinforced the accomplishments of Joan. Nevertheless, they became useful examples for the English and Burgundians -- and certain historians. We should have no surprise at the appearance of various prophets and mystics upon Joan's entry. She inspired, inflamed, and, with or without the Holy Spirit, created a deeply spiritual moment for France.

With Louviers taken, and the path to Paris fully clear, in December of that year, Henry VI was coronated at Paris in an elaborate ceremony as Henry II, King of France. It was not just English assertion of the Treaty of Troyes, in which Charles VI yielded the French throne to the English upon his death, it was the English declaration of victory over the Maid. Along with the capture of La Hire in May, 1431, the demise of Joan was looking fruitful for the English. British historian Barker notes,

The execution of the Pucelle seems to have changed the fortunes of the English, for Xaintrailles was not the only feared Armagnac captain to lose his liberty this summer. In the very week that Jehanne was burned, ‘the worst, cruellest, most pitiless’ of them all, La Hire, was captured and committed to the castle of Dourdon, close to La-Charité-sur-Loire. A few weeks later, on 2 July, the sire de Barbazan, whom La Hire had rescued from his long incarceration at Château Gaillard the previous year, was killed in a battle against Burgundian forces at Bulgnéville, twenty miles south-west of the Pucelle’s home village of Domrémy. René d’Anjou, Charles VII’s brother-in-law and confidant, was taken prisoner in the same battle, temporarily ending his struggle to assert himself as duke of Bar by right of his wife.

The French, too, yielded to the theory that her capture marked change of fortune. France fell to episodic cat-and-mouse play, both militarily and diplomatically, hoping to weaken the English while luring the Burgundians to their side. By the time of Joan's death, it had yielded no results, yet following her death the strategy continued, with French military actions focused on consolidation and not advance, on defense not attack.

Still, Joan's prophesy unfolded.

As the English-Burgundian alliance unwound, the English King returned home, the English leadership lost confidence, and the French warriors who were the most loyal to Joan started taking more and more land, especially around Paris. In 1435, with the death of the English Duke of Bedford, the Burgundians abandoned the alliance and signed the Treaty of Arras with the French. Soon after, the citizens of Paris opened the city gates to the Bastard of Orlėans and the French army. While it took another twenty years for the end of the Hundred Years War, the outcome by then was sealed, and Charles VII was able to not just consolidate his realm, but reorganize it politically and militarily, significantly contributing to the creation of the modern state in France.

Path from Chinon to Reims (Wikipedia, cropped)

Having liberated Orlėans in 1429 and leading the French army across France to clear the way for the Dauphin's coronation at Reims, to both sides Joan was either a witch or a prophet -- possessed by fiends, or of God. However, detraction is easier to sustain than faith, so the English held to their hatred of Joan longer than did the French their confidence in her. Following the coronation of Charles VII, with Joan at the height of her popularity, the Chancellor, whose goal was ever reconciliation with the Burgundian faction, not its defeat, worked to undermine her. For him, the Maid had at best served to put the issue on the table, but most inconvenient was all this insistence on taking Paris, which was a Burgundian property. As Joan testified at the Rouen trial when questioned about the mystic, Catherine de la Rochelle, whom Joan dismissed,

She told me she wished to visit the Duke of Burgundy in order to make peace. I told her it seemed to me that peace would be found only at the end of the lance.

The Chancellor did not want an attack upon Paris, which is why immediately after the coronation of Charles VII, which he administered as Archbishop of Reims, he went to Saint Denis to negotiate a truce with the English to work around all this trouble Joan had caused. Thus, upon her capture by the Burgundians in May of 1430, de Chartres was downright enthusiastic, announcing publicly to his diocese:

God had suffered that Joan the Maid be taken because she had puffed herself up with pride and because of the rich garments which she had taken it upon herself to wear, and because she had not done what God had commanded her, but had done her own will.

Gerson had died by then, so we can't know his reaction. But Gélu's diocese issued prayers for her release, which were repeated across France, including,

that the Maid kept in the prisons of the enemies may be freed without evil, and that she may complete entirely the work that You have entrusted to her.

Nevertheless, it was de Chartres who controlled French policy, and despite regular Burgundian duplicity he kept trying to negotiate a settlement. After Joan's capture, only minor battles and outright defeats followed, so Joan's legitimacy further faded -- as did de Chartre's need to put up with her.

Historians have attributed Charles' treatment of Joan after his coronation to cynicism and opportunism. I'm not convinced, as he was subject to the machine as much as he was its head. He ended up playing both sides, letting Joan go forth against the English and Burgundians while withholding the resources she needed to prosecute the program. Joan's capture, which was a direct consequence of the French transition from Joan's aggression to the Chancellor's diplomacy, became the excuse to abandon her program altogether upon her capture.

For their part, the English and Burgundians knew full well what this young woman had done, and the danger she posed, even from prison. Although after her capture Joan was no longer a military threat, the coronation of Charles VII was a deep wound that could be healed only by delegitimizing the event by delegitimizing its author, Joan. The Burgundian clerics centered mostly at Paris faced the same problem, and so were most happy to serve as the instrument of recovery for the English. By ingratiating themselves to the English with the needed ecclesiastic stamp of heresy upon Joan, the clerics at the University aimed to elevate themselves and the French Assembly to the level of the English Parliament. Modern historians emphasize these political machinations as the primary motive for Joan's Trial at Rouen.

One may wonder, though, that it is not possible to maintain at once personal ambition and sincere belief, especially when the two affirm one another. Thus did de Chartres justify undermining Joan; thus did the Paris clergy justify her trial; thus did the English desperately need her denunciation; thus did the English Earl of Warwick demand that, when Joan fell dangerously sick in prison, he ordered the doctors to do whatever they could to sustain her:

as the King would not for anything in the world, that she should die a natural death; she had cost too dear for that; he had bought her dear, and he did not wish her to die except by justice and the fire.”

And thus did the English Duke of Bedford, several years later, yet blame his troubles in France on Joan, writing to his King,

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.

Historians have suggested that Bedford was merely casting blame upon "the Pucelle" to excuse his own poor performance. Indeed, he submitted a "written statement he had before given to the King in defense of his conduct in the government of France", explaining:

he then recapitulates the services which he had rendered at the commencement of the wars in that kingdom after the death of King Henry the Fifth up to the time of the siege of Orleans ... and ascribes his subsequent want of success to a lack of sad belief and of unlawful doubt that the people had of a disciple and limb of the fiend called ‘the Pucelle’- that used false enchantments and sorcery; he reminds the King that he had himself come to England to explain the state of affairs in France, and used his utmost endeavours, but without success, to procure the means to carry on the war; he expresses his deep regret that that country should be lost after the great expenditure of blood and treasure which had occurred ; he advises that the revenues of the duchy of Lancaster, which had been vested in Cardinal Beaufort and others for the purpose of fulfilling the will of the late King, should be wholly employed in the defence of France...

He wasn't rationalizing that he had lost to a witch -- this he admits: he was asking for more money to make up for it. Bedford fully believed that Joan, who his government executed four years before, was a "fiend". Near the end of the Trial at Rouen, after reading to Joan the "Twelve Articles of Accusation" (consolidated from seventy), a priest and "celebrated Doctor in Theology," Pierre Maurice, who was deeply tied to the English, lectured Joan on the "peril" she was subjecting upon her soul:

Do not allow yourself to be separated from Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who hath created you to be a sharer in His glory ; do not choose the way of eternal damnation with the enemies of God, who daily set their wits to work to find means to trouble mankind, transforming themselves often, to this end, into the likeness of Our Lord, of Angels and of Saints, as is seen but too often in the lives of the Fathers and in the Scriptures. Therefore, if such things have appeared to you, do not believe them. The belief which you may have had in such illusions, put it away from you.

At this point in the Trial, they just wanted to do away with her, which is why they forced her into the confession and subsequent relapse upon putting back on the men's clothing. Upon that discover, the Bishop of Beauvais exclaimed to the English lord, Warwick,

She is caught this time!

The Bishop, Cauchon, was entirely compromised to the English by his ambitions, but he was convinced that Joan was of the Evil One. He probably never imagined how long the trial would go, as his frustration grew with every unexpected response and retort from Joan to the best theological traps the University of Paris' finest minds could throw at her. One of the priests there who testified at the Trial of Rehabilitation recalled that her responses were inspired:

When she spoke of the kingdom and the war, I thought she was moved by the Holy Spirit; but when she spoke of herself she feigned many things: nevertheless, I think she should not have been condemned as a heretic.

It's an interesting testimony coming amidst a politically-charged reassessment of a trial he had participated in twenty-four years before on behalf of the enemy, so his hedge that "when she spoke of herself" is interesting. His mixed statement shows either that he was putting her in as good a light as possible -- as regarded the King of France, who was under a reassessment as much as was Joan: justifying Joan meant justification for him. Nevertheless, de la Pierre was under oath, and we must take his testimony as such: his only explanation was that Joan had to have been inspired by the Holy Spirit.

The Rouen court had its way, and was unequivocal in its condemnation of Joan not just as a heretic, but as a witch, an "invoker of devils." It wasn't about her man's dress, and it wasn't about apostasy. It was all about her refusal to deny her Voices. To read the epithet placed upon a placard by the stake on which she was burned 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.

Those recollections from twenty years later are at odds with testimony taken shortly after Joan's death. Bishop Cauchon ordered a set of testimonies from priests involved in the Trial to show that Joan had fully recanted and admitted she had made the whole thing up:

On Thursday, June 7th, 1431, we the said judges received ex oficto information upon certain words spoken by the late Jeanne before many truftworthy persons, whilst she was in prison and before she was brought to judgment.

The abjuration was useful, but her "relapse" negated it, so Cauchon needed something else, especially after her death, to justify not only her execution but the entire trial, as the English were furious about the relapse. The notary, Manchon recalled,

On Trinity Sunday, I and the other notaries were commanded by the Bishop and Lord Warwick to come to the Castle, because it was said that Jeanne had relapsed and had resumed her man's dress.

When we reached the Court, the English, who were there to the number of about fifty, assaulted us, calling us traitors, and saying that we had mismanaged the Trial. We escaped their hands with great difficulty and fear. I believe they were angry that, at the first preaching and sentence, she had not been burnt

What she had said in the abjuration she said she had not understood, and that what she had done was from fear of the fire, seeing the executioner ready with his cart.

Known as the "Subsequent Examinations," the testimony came from several of the most extreme accusers against Joan, including a Canon of Rouen, Nicolas Loyseleur, who visited Joan in her prison cell, pretending to be from Lorraine to gain her confidence and confession, all of which he reported back to Cauchon. It's an interesting document, as it shows what Cauchon still needed to prove, and had failed to achieve in the Trial. Two points were addressed by those deposed, one, that Joan admitted her "Voices" had deceived her, and the second, of great importance to Cauchon, that the sign Joan had given privately to Charles VII was not a real crown delivered by an angel. Leaving it that an angel had crowned Charles VII was, shall we say, disadvantageous to the English cause, demonstrating the fragility of, or Burgundian sensitivity to, the English claim in the French throne. Early in the trial, on March 10, Joan was asked,

What was the sign you gave your King?

Her answer infuriated them:

Will you be satisfied thaf I should perjure myself? "

"Have you promised and sworn to Saint Catherine that you will not tell this sign?"

The reference to Saint Catherine was a jab that Joan ignored:

I promised and swore not to tell this sign, and for my own sake, because I was pressed too much to tell it, and then I said to myself: "I promise not to speak of it to anyone in the world." The sign was that an Angel assured my King, in bringing him the crown, that he should have the whole realm of France, by the means of God's help and my labours; that he was to start me on the work — that is to say, to give me men-at-arms; and that otherwise he would not be so soon crowned and consecrated.

They were confounded:

"How did the Angel carry the crown? and did he place it himself on your King s head?" "The crown was given to an Archbishop — that is, to the Archbishop of Rheims — so it seems to me, in the presence of my King. The Archbishop received it, and gave it to the King. I was myself present. The crown was afterwards put among my King's treasures."

The questioning turned to the details, which Joan dangled before them,

"It is well to know it was of fine gold; it was so rich that I do not know how to count its riches or to appreciate its beauty. The crown signified that my King should possess the Kingdom of France."

"Were there stones in it?"

"I have told you what I know about it."

On May 2 at the "Public Admonition by the Judges" in which the Twelve Charges were read in public, the court demanded, again, clarification about the "sign" about the crowning of Charles

On the subject of the sign given to your King... to whom or to some of whom you say that you shewed the crown, these being present when the Angel brought it to the King, who afterwards gave it to the Archbishop?

And again, on May 9, the day the court considered submitting her to torture,

"On the subject of the crown which you say was given to the Archbishop of Rheims, will you defer to him?"

"Make him come here, and I will hear him speak, and then I will answer you. Nevertheless, he dare not say the contrary to what I have said thereon."

The transcript continues,

Seeing the hardness of her heart, and her manner of replying. We, the Judges, fearing that the punishment of the torture would profit her little, decided that it was expedient to delay it, at least for the present, and until We have had thereupon more complete advice.

So much emphasis was put on her clothing that this infuriating matter went unanswered, and so needed clarification even after her death. In his testimony, Loyseleur knew what was needed:

Wednesday, the Vigil of the Feast of Corpus Christi, I repaired in the morning with the venerable Maître Pierre Maurice, to the place where Jeanne, commonly called the Maid, was detained, to exhort and admonish her on the subject of the salvation of her soul. She was besought to speak truth on the subject of that Angel who, she had declared, had brought to him she called her King a crown, very precious, and of the purest gold : she was pledged not to hide the truth, inasmuch as nothing more remained to her but to think of her own salvation. Then I heard her declare that it was she herself who had brought him she called her King the crown in question ; that it was she who was the Angel of whom she had spoken ; and that there had been no other Angel but herself Asked if she had really sent a crown to him whom she called her King, she replied that he had no other crown but the promise of his coronation — a promise she had made in giving to her King the assurance that he would be crowned.

Then he hit upon the next matter of importance,

In the presence of Maître Pierre Maurice, of the two Dominicans, of you, the Bishop, and of several others, I heard her many times declare that she had really had revelations and apparitions of spirits; that these revelations had deceived her; that she recognized it in this, that they had promised her deliverance, and that she now saw the contrary; that she was willing to refer to the Clergy to know if these spirits were good or evil; that she did not put, and would no more put, faith in them.

Ending his testimony with,

I exhorted her, to destroy the error that she had sown among the people, to declare publicly that she had herself been deceived, and that through her fault she had deceived the people by putting faith in these revelations and in counselling the people to believe in them; and I told her it was necessary that she should humbly ask pardon. She told me she would do it willingly, but that she did not think she would be able to remember, when the proper moment came — that is to say, when she found herself in the presence of the people; she prayed her Confessor to remind her of this point and of all else which might tend to her salvation. From all this, and from many other indications, I conclude that Jeanne was then of sound mind. She shewed great penitence and great contrition for her crimes. I heard her, in the prison, in presence of a great number of witnesses, and subsequently after sentence, ask, with much contrition of heart, pardon of the English and Burgundians for having caused to be slain, beaten, and damned, a great number of them, as she recognized.

If we to take the words as they are as sworn testimony, and assume their veracity, we can still see several places where the cleric parses out what Joan did not say. He admits a conditionality of Joan's statement, that "she would do it willingly... when the proper moment came", meaning that she had not actually done so. Then, when he says, "From all this, and from many other indications..." the preposition makes no sense if it only modifies that "Jeanne was them of sound mind." Rather, it necessarily continues its conditionality to "She shewed great penitence and great contrition for her crimes," i.e., "From all this, and from many other indications" wasn't just that Joan was "of sound mind" but that her "great contrition" also so came. The claim, then, is derived from more than what he said she said, making it thereby suspect.

Nor was it supported by the witness of others from the same document. The Archdeacon of Eu, Nicolas de Venderès stated that,

Wednesday, 30th day of May, Eve of the Feast of Corpus Christi, Jeanne, being still in the prison of the Castle of Rouen where she was detained, did say that considering the Voices which came to her had promised she should be delivered from prison, and that she now saw the contrary, she realized and knew she had been, and still was, deceived by them. Jeanne did, besides, say and confess that she had seen with her own eyes and heard with her own ears the apparitions and Voices mentioned in the Case.

which qualifies Joan's admission of a deception by her voices to that she "be delivered from prison." The various testimonies follow the same lines of Joan admitting that her voices deceived her and that she lied about the "crown" that the angels had bestowed upon the king of France.

We must note that none of these testimonies suggest that Joan ever denied the existence of the voices -- that would negate the entire point of the trial that she was heretical for having followed false voices, not just lying about them altogether. Furthermore, the supposed admission that the "angel" was, in fact, her, is neither inconsistent with anything she had said before in the Trial nor with the very notion of a divine delivery, at her hands, of the crown to the Dauphin. Whether literal or allegorical, the outcome was the same: Charles VII was crowned at Reims, led there by Joan.

Had Joan actually so repented it would not necessarily negate her "Relapse", although it should have. That it was not invoked prior to her death or offered in her defense at the stake, renders these statements not only irrelevant but overall false.

Nevertheless, Cauchon's final inquiries served their purpose, and soon after the English went on the offensive, thinking themselves cleared of the witch. Later that year, the year of Joan's death, Henry VI was crowned at Paris.

Alas, for the English, the run would not last long. Joan's faithful lietenants, the Bastard of Orleans and La Hire, would not give up, and through a series of small but stinging bites upon the English supply lines to Paris and across Normandy, they weakened the English hold, leading to the Burgundian betrayal. Just as Joan had told the Count of Ligny back in May, 1431 at the castle at Rouen where she was held,

I know that these English will put me to death, because they think, after my death, to win the Kingdom of France. But were they a hundred thousand godons more than they are now, they will not have the Kingdom.

At these words, one of the Count's English escorts, the Earl of Stafford, drew his dagger but was restrained by his compatriot, the Earl of Warwick.

The historical problem of (Saint) Joan of Arc

The most prominent modern biographer of Saint Joan of Arc, Régine Pernoud (1909-1998), a medieval scholar, counsels,

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

It's a large concession, that, that some events from the life of Saint Joan of Arc have "no rational explanation," but, apparently, this "conscientious historian" must contain herself to "the facts" and stick to sorting them out for description while avoiding explanation, much less inference from those facts. It's historiographically unenlightening and theologically cowardly -- which is the point, to deny God's hand in the story of (Saint) Joan of Arc.

For Joan, it seems, so it is. As Pernoud admits, if back-handedly, because Joan's motives, actions, and outcomes are so improbable, to attribute them to anything other than divine guidance makes no sense. But since divine guidance is "ahistorical," or merely an article of faith, Joan's motives don't matter historically. Pernoud thereby dismisses them altogether, falling back upon,

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

What, then, does the "unbeliever" do with the evidence? That the "unbeliever cannot" accept Joan's own explanations is an easy out from what is plain to see. But the problem is larger. If Joan's Voices were not real, then how to explain their effects?

Such is a core Catholic tenant, drawn from the Gospel of Matthew 7:15-20, from verses labeled in most Bibles, "False Prophets",

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but underneath are ravenous wolves. By their fruits you will know them.

Just so, every good tree bears good fruit, and a rotten tree bears bad fruit.

A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a rotten tree bear good fruit.

Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

So by their fruits you will know them.

and Matthew 12:33, in which Jesus declares to the Pharisees,

Either declare the tree good and its fruit is good, or declare the tree rotten and its fruit is rotten, for a tree is known by its fruit.

and which the Church at Poitiers on the first examination of Joan on behalf of the French King, employed explicitly when discerning Joan, following 1 John 4:1,

Beloved, do not trust every spirit but test the spirits to see whether they belong to God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

The "unbeliever" historian has two outs here: the first is to deny the source of Joan's Voices while admitting their effects; the second is to deny their effects, thus denying both.

To the first strategy, historians like Pernoud step around the problem by ignoring the Voices or even their reality, but taking their effects at face value. Others follow the second approach and minimize Joan's historical role altogether, i.e. lesser effects. Or they use both.

So we hear that it was schizophrenia or moldy bread, which at least recognize that Joan heard voices. Others who question the reality of the Voices must fall back on pseudo-psychological conjecture and sociological babble. For example, historian Ann Lelwyn Barstow argues that subjects of Joan's visions were those Saints with which she most closely identified and was most familiar:

One gets the picture of a lively Christianity informing the mind of the young Joan through legends. well-known across Europe ... That she was visited instead [of the Virgin Mary] by Michael, Catherine and Margaret attest to the potency of their legends in Lorraine, to their particular usefulness to a young patriot in time of national distress, and their appropriateness for an independent-minded woman.

Not there weren't any churches in France called "Notre Dame," but, sure, the Church in Domrémy held (and apparently still holds) a statue of Saint Margaret; Saint Catherine was the patron of nearby church; Saint Michael was venerated in Lorraine and was considered the defender of France; so there you have it.

Given that reasoning, one may suppose that some other "local" Saint, say, Saint Drogo, might have equally conveyed God's message to a thirteen year old in rural eastern France, as, while notoriously butt-ugly, he was from the northeast of the country and spoke French. It's nonsense. Of course God sent the Saints that Joan already knew and trusted. To paraphrase Joan, “Do you think God has not wherewithal to select the right Saints for Joan?"

Indeed, remove Joan of Arc from the moment, and things simply did not happen the way they did. That is, she was an unusually significant historical actor, who cannot be simply discarded with, "well, she believed it, that's all that matters." And remove the divine origin of her Voices and she simply did not, was not able to, do what she did.

If Joan's visions were real, then we have perfectly explainable historical causation, including crucial moments of uncertainty or disobedience to her Voices, such as her flustered recantation, called her "abjuration," when threatened in public humiliation before the stake. Skeptical historians point to this moment as evidence that Joan had just made it all up, ignoring that only two weeks before this demeaning public ceremony, when threated with torture she had told the trial judges,

Truly if you were to tear me limb from limb, and separate soul and body, I will tell you nothing more; and, if I were to say anything else, I should always afterwards declare that you made me say it by force.

But so goes the theory that, fatigued and confused, Joan gave the hostile and abusive English-backed court what it wanted and made up stories of the Saints, whom, it (incorrectly) holds, she had not before mentioned. This ignores the fact that several days later, following the instructions of her Voices, Joan recanted her abjuration, stating,

They said to me: "God had sent me word by St. Catherine and St. Margaret of the great pity it is, this treason to which I have consented, to abjure and recant in order to save my life! I have damned myself to save my life!"

Had she really made it up just to please the court, the recanted her recantation knowing she would burn for it? Or do not even cynics have limits? The notary scribbled in the margin of the court register his agreement with the Saints,

Responsio mortifera

People do not die for a lie. Instead, she was lucid, calm, and firm,

"Do you believe that your Voices are Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret?"

"Yes, I believe it, and that they come from God."

If, as, such theories hold, supporters and detractors of Joan were just using her for their convenience, and that the historical record itself reflects that self-interest and not the truth about Joan, why would Joan have said this? They didn't need anything else to to put her to death, so this report actually serves against the interest of the Rouen court, which would now fully act as instruments of a martyrdom, duly recorded in Latin and preserved for us in history.

Medieval historian Juliet Barker sees Joan's career as entirely political in terms of her own ambitions and those of political actors around her. As such, Barker credits the pro-French Armagnacs for using her to push their war against the English-allied Burgundians, even so as to credit the Armagnacs for having engineered not just Joan's introduction to the French prince, Charles the Dauphin, but to her ability to identify him hidden amidst the courtiers -- they tipped her off!

Of course there is no evidence for such trickery, but the theory does legitimately point to the Dauphin's equivocal position between the anti-Burgundian and reconciliation factions around him. The problem is that is treats the Dauphin as merely going along for a ride with the Maid just to see what might happen. Hardly. He deliberated, spoke with everyone he could and sent her for an inquiry by the finest clerical minds, "the Doctors",theologians, at Poitiers, to where the several of the leading French clerics were exiled from the English-Burgundian occupation of Paris. The clerics investigated her for several weeks, and concluded firmly that the King must not deny God and so must send her to Orleans at the head of his army. Historians have argued that the investigation at Poitiers was just for show, or that the good Doctors merely reviewed her, shrugged their shoulders, saying, "let's see what happens."

Rather, they advised the King to send her with the Army, "placing hope in God" -- meaning to trust that God is in her. Our secular historians seemingly have no idea what "Christian hope" is, and so they see the Poitiers recommendation as expedience, ambivalence, or deflection. They entirely misunderstand the word, "hope".

Per the Catechism of the Catholic Church,

Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit.

Accordingly, the Poitiers Doctors concluded the recommendation to send her to Orleans with,

The king, given the investigation conducted of the said made, as far as he is able, and that no evil is found in her, and considering her reply, which is to give a divine sign at Orléans; seeing her constancy and perseverance in her purpose, and her insistent request to go to Orléans to show there the sign of divine aid, must not prevent her from going to Orléans with her men at arms, but must have her led there in good faith, placing hope in God. For doubting her or dismissing her without appearance of evil, would be to repel the Holy Spirit, and render one unworthy of the aid of God, as Gamaliel stated in a council of Jews regarding the apostles.

No illusions about it. And not just about some cross-dressing prophet. As the most significant of these advisors, Bishop Jean Gerson, observed, allowing a girl to lead an army isn't a trial balloon. In his apologia for Joan written shortly after her victory at Orléans, he observed that to give an army to a woman isn't just crazy, it's dangerous:

The king's council and the men-at-arms were led to believe the word of this Maid and to obey her in such a way that, under her command and with one heart, they exposed themselves with her to the dangers of war, trampling under foot all fear of dishonor. What a shame, indeed, if, fighting under the leadership of a woman, they had been defeated by enemies so audacious! What derision on the part of all those who would have heard of such an event!

The historians reply that this was after-the-fact rationalization, and, besides, the Dauphin was obsessed with prophesy, so he naturally fell to the latest seer. Or, as does Barker, the Dauphin's military situation was not as dire as Joan's "cheerleaders" have claimed, so, by implication, she wasn't the essential actor in the moment and there was no risk in sending her. But not even Barker claims that without Joan's involvement the French would have won at Orléans. The theory is ever insufficient to explain the events. Worse Barker is simply arguing against the historical record. The Dauphin's ecclesiastical advisers whom he asked to investigate her before his endorsement of her, made it very clear as to why they recommended nothing against the girl:

The King, given his necessity and that of his kingdom

Unlike historians, the actors of Joan's day had to to decide: either Joan acted on voices of God -- or of Satan. There was no in between. Just ask the English and Burgundians who knew full well what this young woman had done and why. The rage of the Rouen ecclesiastical Court and its English backers that condemned her is in inverse proportion to Joan's faith in her Visions and the reality her people of France 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 a typology of the crucifixion of the Lord himself 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 of Joan is just hyperbolic political statement. Oh no -- they meant it, and meant it hard. Listen to the priest Jean Massieu, Joan's escort to and from her prison cell at the Trial of Condemnation, including to lead her to the stake,

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.

All our skeptics can do is to question the motives of these testimonies, saying that de la Pierre and Ladvenu were covering up their own shameful involvement in the Condemnation Trial at Rouen. Perhaps, but even if true, the testimony affirms Joan's innocence. The details, though, are hard to ignore: "her heart remained intact", "the oil, the sulphur and the charcoal" -- memory works this way, not imagination.

These historians engage in the same process as writing a book on the life of Jesus as a non-believer. You'd 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. Actually, Thomas Jefferson did just this, conducting a now obscure and theologically meaningless cut and paste job on the New Testament, from which he extracted the angels, prophesies, miracles, and the Resurrection. Accepting the historicity of Christ 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.

And with Saint Joan that's where our historians land. Pernoud 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.

CS Lewis prefaces his argument about Christ's divinity by noting,

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say.

The logic applied to Joan goes the same way: treating her merely as an historical character debases what she was and did. So it is that 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 an historical "saint" Joan -- that she was "canonized" in the hearts of her countrymen.

While affirming Joan's popular canonization, Pernoud incorrectly claims that the "Church and State" didn't understand her until 1921, forgetting that Joan's "Rehabilitation Trial" and its declaration of her innocence was, in Pernoud's own words, "in the name of the Holy See." This historian ought to know that very few of the laity were canonized before the 20th century, including the 16th century Sir Thomas More, who wasn't canonized until 1935, and despite great hostility for it from the Anglican Church. Saint Joan's canonization underwent a similar dynamic, delayed not just by English objections but by the intervention of the French Revolution and overall 18th and 19th century European anti-clericalism and anti-monarchism.

Free of having to address whether Joan's spiritual events were real or not, the secular historiography leads to sentimentalized and historically insufficient views of Joan's contemporaries and her legacy. So we get these dull statements of Joan's legacy, such as at end of one Pernoud's 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 the "Joan of Arc" entry at Wikipedia, casting Saint Joan to the eye of the beholder:

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.

But what is equally bewildering is that these historians mostly ignore the most thorough, considered, and balanced investigation into Joan, that conducted by the Vatican itself. On consideration of a person for beatification and canonization, the Church investigates the case, and thoroughly, assigning advocates for and against the candidate. There were serious charges against Joan, including to have waged war on a Holy Day, disobedience to her Voices, questions about her purity, and her "unsaintly" reluctance to be burned to death (i.e. martyrdom). The Church duly considered those objections, and on May 16, 1920, canonized Saint Joan of Arc.

A final problem the story of Saint Joan presents to secular historians concerns the extensive historical record which they use to argue against her sanctity. That record consists primarily of the transcripts of Joan's two "trials", the "Trial of Condemnation" at Rouen under the English-backed court, and the "Trial of Rehabilitation", over two decades after her death, under the authority of the French government. Regarding the first, doubting historians seek inconsistencies in Joan's testimony and attribute to her claims about her Voices either deceit or emotional frailty under the duress of the trial. These historians then pick and choose what they want to believe from Joan's testimony or from that of the trial court. As to the Rehabilitation Trial, they dismiss it altogether or in part as a propaganda exercise to reverse engineer Charles VII's legitimacy through Joan's exaggerations and outright lies about her saintliness and accomplishments. There exist a rather large body of additional contemporaneous documents, including letters, including some that Joan herself dictated, receipts, "chronicles", which are ongoing observations about past and current events that cover Joan's affairs in real time, as well as official reports on her, such as a summary endorsement of her from the Dauphin's clerics who interviewed her extensively prior to Orléans. Finally there are literary and theological works written shortly after Orléans, and then over the next decades but within the lives of those who witnessed her.

Here's the problem: without that extensive record, Joan's accomplishments yet stand. Rather than building a hagiographic recreation of her life that is passed on orally through the centuries, and written down much later, as we have it for the early Saints, we have an enormous amount of detail to inform of her life. There is no argument as to the proximity of the record to the events, which is historical gold. While it is a legitimate historical exercise to analyze and interpret that record, we can with certainty say that if Joan of Arc did not claim divine guidance, yet accomplished what she did, she would be universally hailed historical hero who, for example, as a young village girl inexplicably knew how to wield a lance, charge a fortification, or, unbelievable as it would sound, talk her way into the French court and personally meet the King. It is her claims of divine guidance that make it all so doubtful to these historians, not her acts themselves.

My concern here is that a historical treatment of Joan that frees itself of having to address whether her spiritual events were real or not, or that attempt to demystify them, leads to significant misreading of the facts. We cannot comprehend the motives and choices of Joan herself, much less those of her followers and detractors without it. We cannot understand Joan of Arc except as a Saint. And when we do, her story -- her historical record -- makes perfect sense.

The mess only a Saint could fix

Map of English possessions in France, 1180-1429 (Wikipedia). In 1180, the Norman House of Plantagenet ruled England and western France in what was called the "Angevin Empire." Philip II of France defeated the Avengins and starting in 1190 called himself "King of France"; the 1280 map depicts the extent of his kingdom under his successors, which was held until the invasion of France by Edward III of England and his son, the Black Prince, who secured Aquitaine at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. Edward had planned to crown himself King of France at Reims, but his invasion of northern France failed, so the English maintained only their holds in the southwest and at Calais along the English Channel. In 1415, Henry V of England successfully invaded northern France and aligned England with the French House of Burgundy, thus holding northern France in 1429, the year Joan of Arc appeared to the Court of the Dauphin Charles, who had been disinherited from the crown in the 1420 Treaty of Troyes that handed succession to Henry V. The 1429 map shows locations of Domrémy and Reims to the east of Paris, surrounded by English-Burgundian lands.

Joan was likely born in January of 1412 in a village in eastern France that lay on the margin of warring French factions and the quasi-independent Duchy of Lorraine. She was about eight years old when in 1420 the French King Charles VI, "the Mad", through marriage to his daughter, granted to Henry V of England succession to the French crown. As did his recent predecessors, when Henry ascended to the English throne in 1413 he proclaimed himself King of France as well. Unlike those predecessors, however, he asserted the English claims on France, including its former possessions in Normandy and southwestern France. Disunited, the French failed to address Henry's demands cohesively, or they simply did not take him seriously.

Rejecting the French response, which was essentially, "here, take another princess," in 1415 Henry invaded Normandy, reviving the ongoing but episodic French succession conflict we now call the "Hundred Years War". At the famed Battle of Agincourt, Henry destroyed French forces that consisted mostly of loyalists to the House of Orléans, while its French rival, the House of Burgundy, sat out, possibly by agreement with the English. Animosity continued between the French factions, further weakening Charles VI, who had long suffered attacks of severe mental illness which periodically left his rule up for grabs.

Born in 1368, Charles VI assumed the throne as a minor at age eleven, so France was ruled by a regency council made up of his father's brothers, but dominated by the youngest, and most ambitious of them, Philip "the Bold", Duke of Burgundy. At twenty years old, In 1389 Charles VI assumed full control from his uncles, whom he forced out by reinstalling his father's old and loyal advisors. While his mental illness must have been already evident, in 1392 Charles lost control of himself and deliriously attacked his own guard, killing a knight and several others. The Duke of Burgundy stepped in again and took command of the King. However, a new regency council was established under the authority of Charles's Queen, Isabella of Bavaria. Between mental bouts Charles exercised rule in competency, but he largely let his wife represent him to the council while the court tiptoed around him, keeping him amused and distracted. Henceforth, she and the the King's younger brother, Louis II, Duke of Orléans, angled for power over Charles' uncles, especially the Duke of Burgundy.

The "Madness of Charles VI" (wikipedia). While on a military expedition near Le Mans in 1392, Charles VI was startled by the ringing of a lance accidentally dropped against a helmet and exclaimed, "Forward against the traitors!" and attacked his own escort.

As regents, the dukes of Orléans and Burgundy largely managed state affairs in conciliation, although when one was traveling the other would pull some stunt back at the court. However, when Philip, the Duke of Burgundy, died in 1404 the Duke of Orleans removed Philip's son, John the Fearless, from both the council and the Royal treasury, a huge powerplay. In 1407, John got back by having Louis assassinated, an act that John not only admitted but acclaimed, justified by removal of excessive taxes Louis had imposed upon Paris and as a general appeal to Parisian autonomy. Additionally, the all-powerful University of Paris was upset that the Duke of Orléans had returned French alliance from the Avignon antipope back to the Roman Pope. Louis had supported the antipope in exchange for an annulment of a prior betrothal of the Princess of Hungry, whom he was angling to marry in order to take the title King of Hungry. After that deal fell through, Louis returned French official allegiance to the Roman Pope, Benedict XIII.

Such is the life of the little brother of a king, only Louis' life was further complicated by a reputation for debauchery and rumors of an affair with his brother's wife, the Queen of France. True or not, the stories came from the camp of Philip of Burgundy, who certainly knew the intimate lives of the court. Since Charles VI son, the Dauphin Charles, was born in 1403, the timeline fits, although there seems not to have been any such rumors about the other children born in the 1390s and early 1400s, including a son born in 1407.

The year after the murder of Louis, a University of Paris theologian, Jean Petit, gave a speech in front of the King justifying the murder of his brother as legitimate tyranicide. Charles VI was powerless to do anything about it, as the Duke of Burgundy held Paris militarily and forced the King to issue an official pardon. The King responded with appointment of an army of 500 that escorted the rival factions for their protection and was pledged to defend whichever side was attacked by the other. One of the most important French theologians, Jean Gerson, was appalled by Jean Petit's speech, and issued a formal objection. A few years later, in 1413, the Duke of Burgundy prompted a street takeover of Paris, called the Cabochien revolt, during which Gerson's house was ransacked and the cleric nearly killed, certainly under orders of the Duke. Gerson fled to the vaults of Notre Dame where he remained hidden for two months. He attributed his escape to the protection of Saint Joseph, whose devotion he henceforth promoted.

The Paris rebellion lasted but four months, and was put down harshly by the new Duke of Orleans, Charles, who led an army that took over the city, while the Duke of Burgundy fled with his Cabochien supporters. From thus grew the so-called Armagnac–Burgundian civil war (Armagnac for loyalists to House of Orleans). Meanwhile, Charles VI's surviving uncle, John, Duke of Berry, was the sole ballast that kept the calm. However, he died in 1416 shortly after the Battle of Agincourt, the English victory that fully split the French factions -- and in which Charles, Duke of Orleans, was captured, leaving a power vacuum on the Armagnac side.

While not officially siding with the English as yet, the Burgundians at the least accommodated their presence in northern France. In 1418 the teenage Dauphin ("prince") Charles, was forced out of Paris by Burgundian elements and fled south to Bourges, where he set up his court. The next year, the Duke of Burgundy, in control of Paris and calling himself Protector of the King of France, approached him to sign a conciliation treaty. So it was agreed to, and to great joy, but the Dauphin's side knew that the Duke was also cutting deals with the English. In 1419 the Dauphin demanded another meeting in person, which was arranged to take place on a bridge -- indicating just how tense the situation had become. Likely planned in advance, as the Dauphin was not present, his escorts axed and killed John the Fearless.

The Conclusion of the Treaty of Troyes..From this 1788 depiction, Henry V receives Catherine of Valois, sister of the Dauphin, Charles, who was disinherited by the Treaty The artist places the Queen of France, Isabel of Bavaria, as the arbitrar of the Treaty, with her husband Charles VI "The Mad" sulking, or disinterested, to the side.

The Burgundians now openly aligned with the English and negotiated the Treaty of Troyes with King Charles VI. Most importantly, Queen Isabeau supported the deal which, through marriage of their daughter to Henry V of England, yielded succession to Henry as King of France, thus cutting off her son, the Dauphin Charles. Among those who negotiated the treaty was a Burgundian Bishop who would later persecute Saint Joan. With the Duke of Orleans in captivity in England, the Dauphin sidelined for the murder of the Duke of Burgundy, and ratified by the Estates-General at Paris, Henry V triumphantly arrived to Parish to sign the treaty.

There's all kinds of messiness here, what with Charles VI bouncing between delusions and paranoias, his wife running the Court during his episodes, and rumored to have had an affair with the King's brother who was murdered by his uncle, whose son, in turn, was murdered by the heir of France, whom the Burgundians claimed was actually the son of the King's brother and so not a legitimate heir. Though weakened, the Armagnac loyalists nevertheless and rather defiantly supported the Dauphin and rallied around his court at Bourges, where, on the death of his father, he assumed for himself the throne of France as Charles VII, although without a full coronation at the traditional city of crowning, Reims, which was controlled by the Anglo-Burgundians. At the same time, Henry V declared himself, according to the Treaty of Troyes, King Henry II of France.

The war escalated from there, with each side taking minor victories as the English secured their hold on northern France and, in 1423 and 1424, inflicted two overwhelming defeats of the French and their Scottish partners. At the prompting of the English, the Burgundians waged slash and burn tactics on areas of French loyalists, including the village of Domrémy, which was subjected to occasional raids and ransoms. By 1428, the French government was going broke and no where, the Duke of Orléans was a still held captive in England, and the French were demoralized and cowered by English armies. Then, in October of that year, the English moved upon the city of Orléans, which was the key to the Dauphin's last line of defense, the Loire River.

A few years before at that village, Domrémy, a thirteen year old girl named Joan began to experience divine voices and visions. The Voices instructed her to lead a good Christian life and, later on, to "go to France" to save save the country and crown its King. In late 1428, Joan's Voices became urgent, telling her "it was necessary for me to come into France" and relieve the city of Orleans from the English siege. That urgency, she told a local French commander in early 1429 was because,

To-day the gentle Dauphin hath had great hurt near the town of Orleans, and yet greater will he have if you do not soon send me to him.

A family affair: 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.

English claims on the throne of France during the 14th and 15th centuries have as bookends several scandals that led to succession crises of the French throne. Just prior to his death in 1314, French King Philip IV's daughter, Isabella of France, who was English King Edward II's wife and thus queen of England, accused the wives of Philip's three sons of adultery. One of those, Margaret of Burgundy, was the Queen to King Louis I of Navarre, who later that year became King Louis X of France. Margaret was jailed for the adultery charges, and so became Queen of France from prison.

In a further complication that reflects upon the story of Saint Joan, Louis X was unable to divorce her, as Pope Clement V died that April and the Papal See remained empty for two years over disputes between the French and Italian Cardinals (see Popes and antipopes flowchart). By the time in 1315 that Margaret either got around to dying of a bad cold from poor conditions in prison, or was helped to not breath any more (cause of death disputed), Louis had only one child, Joan. He quickly remarried and his queen duly got pregnant, but Louis died during her fourth month, apparently after drinking too much chilled wine, or perhaps wine laced with poison. On his deathbed he named Joan his heir, as there was no assurance the baby would be a boy, much less survive infancy.

The French nobility wouldn't have it, and invoked the ancient Salic Law from Clovis that barred women from inheriting the throne. So Joan became Joan II of Navarre but not Queen of France. Meanwhile, Louis' second wife's child was a boy, but he died at four months, leaving Louis' brother, who was regent following Louis' death, to the throne. The brother ruled as Philip V from 1316 to 1322, but his wife, Joan, who was cleared of the charges, issued no male heirs. So the throne passed to the third brother, who became Charles IV, who upon ascension he was granted a divorce from his wife who was in prison under charges of adultery. His new queen died during a premature birth, and all but one daughter of a third wife died young. So upon the death of Charles IV, there was no male heir, either, ending, thus, the House of Capet.

From these events arose the opportunity for Edward III of England, whose mother was the very "She-Wolf of England", Isabella of France, who had launched the series of miseries that followed the charges of adultery of her brothers' wives. With her lover, Roger Mortimer, Isabella usurped her husband Edward II and placed her son on the English throne, making him, as the nephew of Charles IV through his mother, both King of England and the most direct heir to the French crown. But the French nobility again asserted Salic Law and in 1328 gave the throne to Charles' paternal cousin, Philip of Valois, who as Philip VI (1328-1350), started the House of Valois dynasty, to which the Dauphin of Joan's day belonged. Nine years and many disputes later, Edward III declared himself legitimate King of France and invaded the continent.

At the other end of the Hundred Years War, we have Charles VII, the Dauphin to Joan, who was last heir standing of five older brothers, and whose legitimacy was questioned through the possible relationship of his mother, Isabeau of Bavaria ("Isabelle") and the Duke of Orléans -- the brother of the King, Charles VI. Ostensibly, the disinheritance of the Dauphin Charles was over the assassination of the Duke of Burgundy in 1417, which, if so, is not only petty but would defy the vengeance in the act of the early Burgundian assassination of the father of the Duke of Orléans in 1407. Obviously it was in capitulation to Henry V's military domination of northern France, but there needed to be a larger justification, which Henry V's descent from Edward III and mother, Isabella of France, the daughter of Philip IV and sister to the three last Capetian kings, provided.

It's a complicated mess that, honestly, defies historical analysis. But it gets really complicated when we consider that the successor to the murdered Duke of Burgundy was married to Charles the Dauphin's sister, Michelle. Moreover the elder brother of Michelle (and the younger brother Charles), Louis, in 1409 married Margaret of Burgundy, a name that resonates loudly from a century before with Margaret of Burgundy, who had married to Louis X in 1305. Meanwhile, the next in line as Charles VI's heir, John, had been married off to a "Low Countries" (Holland) Countess, which was never intended to be a principal alliance for the King of France. But when Louis died, John and his wife, Jacqueline, were up next, which threw the alliances into a jumble. Alas, John died two years later, in 1417, two years into Henry V's invasion, leaving Charles as Dauphin. When Charles VI died in 1422, the claims upon his inheritance were clear -- and clearly contested, thanks to the machinations of Isabella of France, the She-Wolf of England, from a hundred years before.

Not surprisingly, both the Armagnac and Burgundian factions were of the same larger House of Valois. Both sets of Dukes of Orléans and Burgundy were descendants of Philip VI the first Valois King. We get the term Armagnac from Bernard VII, Count of Armagnac (1360-1418), who was a constable of the French King Charles VI, and who took sides with the House of Orléans upon the murder of the Duke of Orléans in 1407. The Count stepped in for the House of Orléans to oppose John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy. In 1410, he married his daughter to the new Count of Orléans, who was still in his teens. As the Count rallied around the young Duke of Orléans, again holding court for him upon his capture at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, and, later, for the Dauphin Charles after the assassination of John the Fearless, the entire faction came to be known as "Armagnac".

While hardly news to your average Upper Middle Ages graduate student, for the casual reader of history, this is all complicated stuff. What's important in it all is how the marriages created alliances and plausible cross- and counter-claims to inheritances and titles useful for aggressive leaders, like the English Henries III and V, and the French Duke of Burgundy, What becomes even more interesting to the story of Joan is how the next tiers of power attach themselves to events for advantage and ambition. As the Armagnac and Burgundians jostled for power, mid-level players made there choices -- or had their choices made for them.

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 English administrative center in France.

Self-defeating, crossed ambition created the twisted scenario the young Joan was sent to fix in 1429, a crisis and cause hardly unique in history. Joan made it unique. She elevated the Hundred Years War to a higher purpose for the French, settling the issue of French royal succession. Doing so, she resolved the Armagnac-Burgundian civil war by staking it upon the larger war with the English and forcing the Burgundian hand: you're either French or not. By upholding "France" as a concept and not just a territory or deigned monarch, Joan diluted the Burgundian claim on both France and the Low Countries.

Like so many rulers of young political entities, the Valois Burgundians sought expansion and autonomy, attempting to create an independent power to rival England and France. However, the Burgundian dukes, who were themselves French, having beholden themselves to England starting with the 1419 assassination of John the Fearless, depended on their hold on Paris to make themselves useful to the English. However, when French appeasement of the Burgundians ended with the 1432 arrest of the scheming minister Georges de La Trémoille by Joan of Arc's compatriot from the crucial Battle of Patay, Arthur III de Richemont.

While Trémoille had tried vainly to negotiate with the Duke of Burgundy to join the French cause, the Duke tried to turned it around and get Richemont, who had done so before, to jump sides. But in 1435, after unleashing Joan's former commanders, La Hire and the Bastard of Orleans, Jean Dunois, to roam Normandy, Richemont instead got the Duke of Burgundy himself to switch to the French. The English cause was now lost. In a year Paris was recovered by France, along with it the University of Paris, whose clerics had so hated Joan of Arc for having interfered with their English gravy train. And so too began the decline of the Burgundian project, which, like the English-hold on small parts of France, was eventually worn down, succumbing entirely to a more cohesive and national France that arose around its renewed center, Paris.

Back in 1429, had the English managed to push south of Orléans, an Armagnac stronghold and seat of the normal heir to the French throne, the Duke of 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, it was said, 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.

Jeanne

At her "Trial of Condemnation held under English authority," Joan testified as to her name, explaining,

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

Jeanne, or Jehanne, is feminine for Jean (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"). Joan may have been called Petit-Jean, by her family, after her uncle Jean. More importantly, her "voices" -- God's messengers -- called her "Daughter of God":

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.’

It was not until after her martyrdom that she was called "Joan of Orleans" or "the Maid of Orléans" in reference to her miraculous intervention in the Hundred Years War, the 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.

While we know her as Joan of Arc, neither she nor her contemporaries used the surname, "of Arc" (d'Arc), which was a 19th century invention based on her father's surname, Darc, which appeared during posthumous investigations called the Trial of Rehabilitation starting in 1452, nine years after her death. 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. A possibility is that her father's family had originated in the village Arc-en-Barrois, which would have made for the surname "Arc" or "d'Arc". The name Arc is derived from the French for "arrow," which would be fitting for Joan's presence and effect upon her times, and, besides, d'Arc is the coolest sounding of the batch, so perhaps that's why it stuck.

Or perhaps "Arc" really does mean "arrow," as the Hebrew word for which we translate in Genesis 9:12 as "rainbow". As explained by Biblical scholars,

The Hebrew word קֶשֶׁת (qeshet) normally refers to a warrior’s bow. Some understand this to mean that God the warrior hangs up his battle bow at the end of the flood, indicating he is now at peace with humankind, but others question the legitimacy of this proposal.

Running with that typology, with Joan's role fulfilled, after her death she earned the sobriquet, "Arc" for "arrow" or "rainbow," marking her victory for France. In Genesis, it's a logical use for "rainbow," as the atmospheric event typically follows a storm, and God marks the Noahic covenant by putting down the weapon he had used to cleanse the world of sin. I'm not claiming this is the case, but we're operating here on the principle that with God "all things are possible," i.e. when he wants it, there are no coincidences.

The name of Joan's village, Domrémy, has a possible Roman origin, Domnus Remigius, which would have placed it under the authority of Saint Rémi (Remiguis), Bishop of Reims, who baptized Clovis -- thus circling back to a fundamental goal of Saint Joan to coronate the King of France, Charles VII, at Reims where, along with Clovis' baptism, Philip II, the first "King of France," was coronated, setting the precedent. On a similar note, Joan testified that girls in her village did not use their paternal surname and instead used that of the mother. Hers was Romée, which makes for an interesting connection in that the name derives from "Rome," indicating a pilgrimage to Rome at some point by an ancestor. Along with the possible Roman etymological origin to her village name, Domrémy, the connection to Rome becomes interesting insofar as at her trial by the English Joan stood resoundingly for the Roman Pope over the schismatic antipope who had been supported alternately by the warring factions in France, as well as relates to her request, like Saint Paul appealing to Caesar, of an audience before, the Pope in Rome.

Such connections may or may not mean anything, but we ought to acknowledge them.

Jeanne La Pucelle, the Virgin

Joan called herself 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" or "virgin," but not necessarily both, although the association may be made.

Pope Benedict XVI plainly affirms Joan's use of "Pucelle" for "virgin":

She was called by all and by herself “La pucelle” (“the Maid”), that is, 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. Some have beaten up the historical record to prove or disprove her virginity, largely acknowledging it intact. A common theory holds that Joan called herself "the virgin" in order to fend off the soldiers around her., while another claims she wanted to "emphasize her unique identity". Reading modern notions of sexuality into the medieval record over-emphasizes Joan's virginity and the reactions to it by others around her. While the English soldiery called her a whore, as did several of her captors at the Trial of Condemnation at Rouen, her contemporaries generally recognized her as pure, and many around here were chastened themselves by her example or presence, such as her male compatriots who slept by her on the campaign, or who saw her breasts as she was dressed for her a wound. Our skeptical historians ridicule those testimonies, such as that from a knight who accompanied her on the dangerous journey from her home region to the Dauphin's court at Chinon,

On the way, Bertrand and I slept every night by her — Jeanne being at my side, fully dressed. She inspired me with such respect that for nothing in the world would I have dared to molest her ; also, never did I feel towards her — I say it on oath — any carnal desire.

To Joan's ecclesiastic backers and accusers, the matter of her virginity presented a deadly serious theological question: if she was truly an ambassador from God then she had to be a virgin; if not, as the English-backed court tried to prove, she was a witch, for 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 [Jacques Gélu], 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.

The French and, later, the English-supported Burgundians, submitted her to the physical test conducted by ladies who affirmed her purity. The French clerics examined Joan's theological purity, 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 at Rouen, Joan was pressed several times on her virginity, which had already been affirmed by ladies of the Burgundian court. Her accusers 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.”

From "Jeanne D'Arc" by Boutet de Monvel depicting Joan in her cell threatened by the English guards.

Argued by Joan herself before the magistrate at Toul, the marriage claim was dismissed. She was neither bequeathed to nor married the man, and so there was no compromise of Joan for the court at Rouen to exploit. It's an odd part of her story, but one that importantly informs 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: instructed by her voices, she stood it down. Secondly, it's among or even the very first direct event upon which her voices guided her, and she believed and obeyed. Well convinced of her larger mission to "go to France," Joan wouldn't let this claim upon her get in her way. One wonders, even, why it happened, if not to disrupt her trajectory. Getting no where with that topic, which had the dual purpose of accusing her of disobedience to her parents and to suggest that she was not a virgin, her persecutors at the Trial of Condemnation moved on, focusing on her use of men's clothing. But they couldn't let the matter of her virginity go. Five days later, the questions returned to,

“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 later on tricked, compelled, rather, 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 valid 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. It did become the very point upon which she was executed.

As for Joan's own view of her virginity, it was what and who she was, and she promised the Saints that she would stay chaste. Whatever the historians' argument that pucelle means maid or virgin or both, we can see from Joan's 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.

Jeanne la Pucelle, the Handmaid

All this historical emphasis upon her virginity is overplayed and, unfortunately, misses the entire point.

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

For Pope Benedict, it was Joan's consecration to virginity that matters, not her virginity per se:

We know from Joan’s own words that her religious life developed as a mystical experience from the time when she was 13. Through the “voice” of St Michael the Archangel, Joan felt called by the Lord to intensify her Christian life and also to commit herself in the first person to the liberation of her people. Her immediate response, her “yes”, was her vow of virginity, with a new commitment to sacramental life and to prayer: daily participation in Mass, frequent Confession and Communion and long periods of silent prayer before the Crucified One or the image of Our Lady.

It's her "yes" that matters, not her virginity per se, despite modern obsessions with it. Indeed, Joan, like anyone in her day, would have made that 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.”

They would have known the passage from the Latin Vulgate with the term, ancilla, which is a female servant or slave and not necessarily a virgin:

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." In her home parish, Joan would have heard the Gospel in Latin, but if her priest ever preached the passage in a homily -- a certainty -- Joan would have heard not just the direct translation into French,

Marie dit: Je suis la servante du Seigneur

but also the reference to Mary as,

la Pucelle Maria

as "Virgin Mary" as was used commonly at the time. So "pucelle" and "servant" are distinct but both accurate references to Mary. Yet, if we think of Pucelle solely as a virgin, we are missing the larger significance in the context of Luke 1:38, of Mary's fiat,

May it be done to me according to your word.

La Pucelle is a virgin -- and Joan was -- but more importantly she was God's loyal servant who followed the instructions of the Archangel. For Mary it was the Archangel Gabriel; for Joan it was the Archangel Michael. For both, it was the Word of God.

Joan the Catholic

Given most biographies and depictions of Saint Joan, it's rather hard to appreciate her Catholicism -- it is simply ignored or denied. Such historians "contextualize" her amidst a backwards, superstitious, Middle Ages Catholic world, perhaps recognizing that Joan was more devout -- to a backwards religion, apparently -- than were others. Even there, the historical snobbery ever leaks in, as if others less devout than Joan weren't actually believers, just followers of some tradition. Going through the literature, I constantly run into dismissals of or end runs around Catholicism, such as not using "Saint" before a name and "Christian hagiography". Worst of all are those histories that place Joan amidst a syncretic mysticism, a mix of "medieval Catholicism", "folk religion", and paganism, and so attribute her experiences to it.

Saint Joan of Arc -- drop the "Saint," if you will -- Joan of Arc makes no sense unless we recognize her Catholicity. She was fundamentally, authentically and thoroughly Catholic.

John Mooney's 1897 biography, written during the push for her beatification, refreshingly does not question Joan's Catholicism. In the 1919 edition, issued just after the Great War in which Joan's rallying example helped save France, and just before Joan's canonization, the Introduction by Catholic author Blanche Mary Kelly gets it right:

Without the Catholic Faith, she is inexplicable. More than on her sword, she relied on the Mass; more than bread, the sacraments were her sustenance.

Three Masses marked a good day for Joan. She was seen constantly in prayer, and asked for Confession whenever possible. Father Jean Massieu recalled that during her trial at Rouen Joan dropped to the floor at the doors of a chapel when told that a consecrated Host lay inside:

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.”

From "Jeanne D'Arc" by Boutet de Monvel depicting Joan falling to the ground upon learning that the Lord was present behind a chapel door. The Bishop of Beauvais looks upon her angrily.

The English-backed Bishop of Beauvais' anger at her prayer before the chapel was recognition of her Catholic authenticity, which it was his job to deny in order to put her to death. We can never know if he actually believed her to be a witch and a heretic, although we have plenty of evidence to demonstrate bad faith in his motives. Either way, he could not allow 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.

Historians say Joan was merely conforming to norms of her day. It's an interesting point that, for, even if just a social norm, Joan's Catholic devotion well-surpassed that of those around her. Not only did witnesses affirm her distinct piety, she brought them into it themselves. From her soldiers and fellow officers, to the people of France, she affirmed the faith for believers and converted many, including, most famously, one of her captains, La Hire, who became known for prayer before battle, which he learned from Joan.

The cleric Séguin de Séguin recalled,

When she heard any one taking in vain the Name of God, she was very angry; she held such blasphemies in horror: and Jeanne told La Hire, who used many oaths and swore by God, that he must swear no more, and that, when he wanted to swear by God, he should swear by his staff. And afterwards, indeed, when he was with her, La Hire never swore but by his staff.

Her enemies can instruct us here, as well. With the evidence before us from antagonistic points of view, we can learn much about Joan from the attacks upon her. The English-backed Rouen ecclesiastical court pushed her on orthodoxy. The formal charges against her started with a claim of authority from the court,

Article I. And first, according to Divine Law, as according to Canon and Civil Law, it is to you, the Bishop, as Judge Ordinary, and to you, the Deputy, as Inquisitor of the Faith, that it appertaineth to drive away, destroy, and cut out from the roots in your Diocese and in all the kingdom of France, heresies, witchcrafts, superstitions, and other crimes of that nature; it is to you that it appertaineth to punish, to correct and to amend heretics and all those who publish, say, profess, or in any other manner act against our Catholic Faith: to wit, sorcerers, diviners, invokers of demons, those who think ill of the Faith, all criminals of this kind, their abettors and accomplices, apprehended in your Diocese or in your jurisdiction, not only for the misdeeds they may have committed there, but even for the part of their misdeeds that they may have committed elsewhere, saving, in this respect, the power and duty of the other Judges competent to pursue them in their respective dioceses, limits, and jurisdictions. And your power as to this exists against all lay persons, whatever be their estate, sex, quality, and pre-eminence: in regard to all you are competent Judges.

The statement is a rote declaration of authority and purpose, likely not much different from any other such trial, especially the mandate to stamp out "sorcerers, diviners", etc. The problem for the court in this case is that there was no evidence of Satan's works upon Joan outside of her having defeated the English in battle. Even the matter of her clothing, the focus of obsession by historians as much as by the Rouen court, was theologically not difficult to dismiss, as had the Doctors who had investigated her on behalf of the Dauphin at Poitiers.

The Rouen court did its homework. They sent investigators to her hometown, who came back with stories from her village of charms and fairies, from which they inferred that Joan, too, believed in them (modern courts call this "speculative" as opposed to "circumstantial" evidence). Worse for them, they were never able to pierce the consistent Catholic logic of her replies to their examinations. The worst they could find was that she had kissed the feet of Saints, who, by Church dogma, were understood not to have bodies.

This is a girl whose mother taught her to recite in Latin the Our Father, Ave Maria, and Credo prayers. Her religious upbringing was entirely orthodox. Her devoutness to it irrepressible. 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.

To Article I of the formal charges, Joan replied,

I believe surely that our Lord the Pope of Rome, the Bishops, and other Clergy, are established to guard the Christian Faith and punish those who are found wanting therein: but as for me, for my doings I submit myself only to the Heavenly Church— that is to say, to God, to the Virgin Mary, and to the Saints in Paradise. I firmly believe I have not wavered in the Christian Faith, nor would I waver.

Joan was simply and thoroughly Catholic.

Joan and the Saints

The standard modern histories go with Joan's testimony and experiences about her Voices without affirming their reality. Presented with the final indictment from the Trial of Condemnation, which denied her visions, Joan instead resoundingly affirmed them:

As firmly as I believe Our Saviour Jesus Christ suffered death to redeem us from the pains of hell, so firmly do I believe that it was Saint Michael and Saint Gabriel, Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret whom Our Saviour sent to comfort and to counsel me.

That still leaves us with the problem of the effects of the Voices, i.e. divine intervention.

Ultimately, the ecclesiastical court at Rouen condemned Joan for reneging on her vow to wear women's clothes, which was a setup, and, worse, for invoking her Saints for having told her to put them back on. Her visions drove them crazy, and they spent much time challenging and arguing with her about her encounters with the Saints. She answered everything plainly, which, again, drove them crazy.

For a believer, what an an incredible opportunity to learn about the Saints! For example,

“Was Saint Gabriel with Saint Michael when he came to you?”

“I do not remember.”

“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?”

Just magnificent.

So where historians can simply dismiss her testimony as, well, something, taking it on face-value without affirming their reality, Joan here gives us a unique view into the experiences of a real mystic.

The English-backed court of course, was entirely antagonistic to her experiences, and reoriented her testimony and their questions constantly towards the accusations of witchcraft, such as the legend of a "Fairy Tree" at her hometown, Domrémy and mandrakes, a flowering plant which sorcerers were supposed to have used, and which were commonly kept by peasants as charms. Evidently their investigation into Joan's hometown found that mandrakes were used there, which would be affirmed by the village priest who in April 1429, after Joan had already departed, preached against them. After Joan declares,

“Do you want me to tell you what concerns the King of France? There are a number of things that do not touch on the Case. I know well that my King will regain the Kingdom of France. I know it as well as I know that you are before me, seated in judgment. I should die if this revelation did not comfort me every day.”

the questioner turns away from that rather uncomfortable, for the English and their allies, prophesy, then turns to a textbook leading question regarding the mandrakes:

What have you done with your mandrake?

Joan had no counsel, so no one was there to point out that the question assumed she owned one. But no matter for Joan, who swatted it back at them,

I never have had one. But I have heard that there is one near our home, though I have never seen it. I have heard it is a dangerous and evil thing to keep. I do not know for what it is [used].

Getting nowhere with the mandrake, the questioners turned back to the Saints.

“In what likeness did Saint Michael appear to you?”

“I did not see a crown: I know nothing of his dress.”

“Was he naked?”

“Do you think God has not wherewithal to clothe him?”

“Had he hair?”

“Why should it have been cut off? I have not seen Saint Michael since I left the Castle of Crotoy. I do not see him often. I do not know if he has hair.”

“Has he a balance?”

“I know nothing about it. It was a great joy to see him; it seemed to me, when I saw him, that I was not in mortal sin. Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret were pleased from time to time to receive my confession, each in turn. If I am in mortal sin, it is without my knowing it.”

Always deferring to another topic when the prior line of questioning got them nowhere, and seizing on any point Joan made that could be twisted or used against her, her interrogators must have nearly jumped from their seats in glee at this one:

When you confessed, did you think you were in mortal sin?

But they were up against a Saint. Joan replied,

I do not know if I am in mortal sin, and I do not believe I have done its works; and, if it please God, I will never so be; nor, please God, have I ever done or ever will do deeds which charge my soul!

Giving up, the interrogation turned to another topic, with which the court was obsessed, about the "sign" she had given the French king. She left them with an intriguing suggestion about "another, much richer" crown than the one he received at Reims. The next day, they went straight at her visions. The scribe noted that she had previously testified that Saint Michael "had wings" but nothing about the forms of Saints Catherine and Margaret. The scribe noted,

Afterwards, because she had said, in previous Enquiries, that Saint Michael had wings, but had said nothing of the body and members of Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret, We asked her what she wished to say thereon.

Joan responded,

I have told you what I know; I will answer you nothing more. I saw Saint Michael and these two Saints so well that I know they are Saints of Paradise.

Did you see anything else of them but the face?

I have told you what I know; but to tell you all I know, I would rather that you made me cut my throat. All that I know touching the Trial I will tell you willingly.

Do you think that Saint Michael and Saint Gabriel have human heads?

I saw them with my eyes; and I believe it was they as firmly as I believe there is a God.

Do you think that God made them in the form and fashion that you saw?

Yes.

Do you think that God did from the first create them in this form and fashion?

You will have no more at present than what I have answered.

Time to move on, then, now to whether her voices told her she will escape, another argument they used against her as she had attempted to escape from her original capture by the Burgundians. The point of all this focus on the clothing and bodies of the Saints was to prove heresy by stating that she physically interacted with the Saints, when the Church held that angels and saints were not corporeal. From the charges filed against her by the Rouen court,

Article XLI I. Jeanne hath said and published that Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret and Saint Michael have bodies — that is to say, head, eyes, face, hair, etc. ; that she hath touched them with her hands ; that she hath kissed them and embraced them.

Skeptical historians make much of Joan's testimony on the physicality of her Saints and the Archangel Michael, saying that it was a theological trap that the ignorant girl fell into, as if she should have molded her testimony to match their doctrine. Then, they say that she made it all up to feed the judges imagined details to throw them off... from what, is unclear, as what these historians would have wanted her to do here is, at best, not relate her experiences truthfully, or, the worst of them suggest, quit making up stories about them. Again, it ignores the record. At the Trial of Rehabilitation, Augustinian Bishop Jean Lefevre, who was at Rouen, told the examiners,

Jeanne answered with great prudence the questions put to her, with the exception of the subject of her revelations from God: for the space of three weeks I believed her to be inspired. She was asked very profound questions, as to which she showed herself quite capable; sometimes they interrupted the enquiry, going from one subject to another, that they might make her change her purpose. The Examinations were very long, lasting sometimes two or three hours, so that the Doctors present were much fatigued.

Lastly, the historians claim that she made up stories about the Saints and Michael the Archangel, since the Poitiers Conclusions mention only that she had instructions "from God." Several pieces of evidence point to the contrary. First, at the Rouen Trial, on February 27, Joan was pressed about her "Voice." It was this day she revealed the names of Saints Catherine and Margaret:

Are these two Saints dressed in the same stuff?

I will tell you no more just now ; I have not permission to reveal it If you do not believe me, go to Poitiers. There are some revelations which come to the King of France, and not to you, who are questioning me.

Are they of the same age?

I have not leave to say.

Do they speak at the same time, or one after the other?

I have not leave to say ; nevertheless, I have always had counsel from them both.

Which of them appeared to you first?

I did not distinguish them at first. I knew well enough once, but I have forgotten. If I had leave, I would tell you willingly : it is written in the Register at Poitiers. I have also received comfort from Saint Michael."

Again she referred the court to the "Register at Poitiers,"

" I will tell you no more just now ; I have not permission to reveal it If you do not believe me, go to Poitiers. There are some revelations which come to the King of France, and not to you, who are questioning me.

I did not distinguish them at first. I knew well enough once, but I have forgotten. If I had leave, I would tell you willingly : it is written in the Register at Poitiers. I have also received comfort from Saint Michael.

Joan knew the court had investigated her extensively, so she had no reason to assume they had no access to the "Register at Poitiers," which was a transcript of her interviews by the "Doctors" at Poitiers on behalf of the Dauphin in early 1429. She even begged the court to get a copy of it, saying to her interrogator, Beaupère,

I wish you could get a copy of this book at Poitiers, if it please God.

Thus hers was a statement of fact, not a deferral. (The "Register" disappeared, likely destroyed by her enemies at the Court of Charles VII, most likely by the Archbishop of Reims, who opposed her.) In her letter to the King of England, Joan stated,

I am sent here by God, the King of Heaven

Memories of her arrival to Chinon also recall her stating that she was sent by God with no mention of the Saints -- but it is a distinction without a difference, as, and according to Church dogma, any Divine visitor is of God in whatever form. Nevertheless, Joan told the Rouen court that she did not speak of the Voices to anyone except Baudricourt (at Vaucouleurs) and the Dauphin. Asked if she had spoken of them to a priest, she said,

No; only to Robert de Baudricourt and to my King. It was not my Voices who compelled me to keep them secret ; but I feared to reveal them, in dread that the Burgundians might put some hindrance in the way of my journey ; and, in particular, I was afraid that my father would hinder it.

At the Trial of Rehabilitation, testimony consistently mentions that she spoke of a "Voice" coming from the "King of Heaven", such as the Squire Bertrand de Poulengey recollected her having said to his Captain, Baudricourt,

"But who is this Lord of whom you speak?" asked Robert of her. "The King of Heaven," she replied.

Finally, Joan's testimony at Rouen about Saints Catherine and Margaret is extensive and detailed, and not just regarding questions about their physical appearance. She relates exchange with them going back to her early Voices at Domrémy, and on through her military campaigns and capture at Campiègne and subsequent imprisonments. She relates in perfect detail the event, mentioning the Saints in relation to those events, and not as an aside or divergence, as historians suggest. We cannot infer that her absence of mention of the Saints before her Trial at Rouen means that she made it up there. In history, an absence of evidence is not proof; we just need to go with what we have. In this case, we have her plain testimony that she had spoken of the Saints and the Archangel Michael at Poitiers. From her testimony at Rouen, we learn must about her relationship with the Saints, and not just their interactions of guiding, consoling, and redirecting her. After being threatened with torture, Joan turned to them:

I asked counsel of my Voices if I ought to submit to the Church, because the Clergy were pressing me hard to submit, and they said to me: ‘If thou willest that God should come to thy help, wait on Him for all thy doings.’ I know that Our Lord hath always been the Master of all my doings, and that the Devil hath never had power over them. I asked of my Voices if I should be burned, and my Voices answered me: ‘Wait on Our Lord, He will help thee.’

Joan knew full well the consequences of condemnation for heresy, so the stake was on her mind, likely throughout the ordeal. The court brought it up to her directly, though, in the public assembly at the cemetery of St. Ouen, where she was read the documents of abjuration. After his public sermon in which he admonished Joan, the priest Guillaume Érard, who was as violently against Joan as any, including the Bishop of Beauvais, read the charges that she was to abjure, adding that were she not to admit it, she'd burn. From the testimony at the Trial of Rehabilitation by the scribe, Father Jean Massieu,

To which Jeanne replied, that she did not understand what abjuring was, and that she asked advice about it. Then Érard told me to give her counsel about it. After excusing myself for doing this, I told her it meant that, if she opposed any of the said Articles, she would be burned. I advised her to refer to the Church Universal as to whether she should abjure the said Articles or not. And this she did, saying in a loud voice to Érard: “I refer me to the Church Universal, as to whether I shall abjure or not.” To this the said Érard replied: “You shall abjure at once, or you shall be burned.” And, indeed, before she left the Square, she abjured, and made a cross with a pen which I handed to her.

There is much argument as to whether or not in the abjuration Joan knowingly denied the Saints. We know she had earlier disobeyed her Voices when she leapt from captivity from the Burgundians,

About four months. When I knew that the English were come to take me, I was very angry; nevertheless, my Voices forbade me many times to leap. In the end, for fear of the English, I leaped, and commended myself to God and Our Lady. I was wounded. When I had leaped, the Voice of Saint Catherine said to me I was to be of good cheer, for those at Compiègne would have succour. I prayed always for those at Compiègne, with my Counsel.

So perhaps facing the threat of the fire -- understandably so -- she signed the paper. A few days after her abjuration, she was brought back to the Rouen court for a "relapse" trial for having put back on the men's garments. It gave the court the opportunity to not only accuse her of breaking her vow to wear women's clothes but to force her into a denial of her recantation of the Saints. Now imminently facing the stake, Joan admitted that by signing the abjuration document she had betrayed the Saints:

They said to me: "God had sent me word by St. Catherine and St. Margaret of the great pity it is, this treason to which I have consented, to abjure and recant in order to save my life! I have damned myself to save my life!" Before last Thursday, my Voices did indeed tell me what I should do and what I did on that day. When I was on the scaffold on Thursday, my Voices said to me, while the preacher was speaking: ‘Answer him boldly, this preacher!’ And in truth he is a false preacher; he reproached me with many things I never did. If I said that God had not sent me, I should damn myself, for it is true that God has sent me; my Voices have said to me since Thursday: ‘Thou hast done a great evil in declaring that what thou hast done was wrong.’ All I said and revoked, I said for fear of the fire.

Do you believe that your Voices are Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret?

Yes, I believe it, and that they come from God.

Much has been made of this supposed recantation or betrayal of the Voices. It's rather simple, though,

All I said and revoked, I said for fear of the fire.

And now, as she knew full well, she was going to be led to the fire. There's no betrayal in that: rather a correction and support for what would follow, which would have followed, anyway, had during the sermon she had "Answer[ed] him boldly, this preacher!" Neither Joan nor her Voices had let one another down.

"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 Catherine's 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 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 go back to wearing women's clothes -- at which point her guards threatened to rape her. Therein is the very typology of Saint Catherine.

Saint Margaret

She was also visited by Saint Margaret, another virgin and maiden martyr who was killed after refusing to marry a Roman governor and to renounce her faith. Historians point out that Joan may have related herself to Saint Margaret over an incident in which Joan was accused by a man from her region of having broken a vow of marriage. She successfully argued to a magistrate that there was no such betrothal, and the accusation was dismissed. The typological connection holds here, although I don't see it as significant as the betrayals she suffered from Charles VII and, especially, the English-backed court at Rouen.

Saint Margaret's typology for Joan follows more closely Saint Margaret's vows of virginity, her refusal to renounce her faith in a public trial, and enduring imprisonment and torture. (Oh, and Saint Margaret spent her youth as a shepherd.) Additionally, Saint Margaret was burned, and that unsuccessful, thrown into a vat of boiling water, escaping both unharmed, so her martyrdom came at beheading. Joan was burned, of course, but her heart would not, as testified by the English guard who oversaw her execution. Legend holds that while imprisoned, Saint Margaret was devoured by Satan in the form of a dragon, from which she was expelled due to the Cross she held. Here, again, is an important connection to Joan on the stake, as she asked that a cross be held before her and she repeated "Jesus" until she expired.

As with the accusation of engagement, Joan's visions started well before all these events, so she was not mimicking Saints Catherine and Margaret, and nor could she have anticipated those connections when she started out. Instead, she was, at their guidance, fulfilling their types.

The Archangel with the scales, from Maria zu den Ketten Church (mediawiki commons)

Saint Michael the Archangel

It ought not be necessary to point out that Michael the Archangel is God's chief warrior. Let us remind ourselves that Joan was a farm girl, and farm girls in the 15th century didn't lead armies. Of course it was Saint Michael who came to her!

No sooner had she cut her hair and donned trousers at the start of her mission at Vaucouleurs did Joan herself become a warrior. A farm life didn't prepare her for it, and neither did the festivals and children's games of Domrémy. No where does Joan say or even suggest that St. Michael or the Holy Spirit endowed her with martial skills. Yet no where does she say that it was natural to her. Military prowess in all its forms was inherent to her mission, and since her mission was given her by the Archangel, we can only conclude that those skills needed to accomplish it were also given her as a divine Grace.

Another aspect of Saint Michael is seen in his scales of judgment, as he is traditionally depicted holding. Saint Michael appears but twice in the New Testament, the Epistle of Jude and, more famously, Revelation. In Jude, the Apostle teaches,

Yet the archangel Michael, when he argued with the devil in a dispute over the body of Moses, did not venture to pronounce a reviling judgment upon him but said, “May the Lord rebuke you!”

In the Old Testament the Archangel appears as the angel "with a sword," such as in Daniel,

“Your fine lie has cost you also your head,” said Daniel; “for the angel of God waits with a sword to cut you in two so as to destroy you both.”

As the lie had already "cost" -- i.e., judged, the Archangel was the instrument of God's punishment, and not himself the judge. Joan consistently treats her mission as that of carrying out God's will and not exercising herself any reason or justification for it. At the Rouen Trial, Joan was pressed about saying blasphemies, to which she replied,

No; sometimes I said: "bon gré Dieu"

meaning "by God's good will", which was Joan's way of conditionalizing insults or ill thoughts to God's will. Here we can point to Joan's statement to a friendly acquaintance in her home town whom she subjects to punishment should God will it, a story Mark Twain so enjoyed,

I knew only one Burgundian at Domremy: I should have been quite willing for them to cut off his head—always had it pleased God.

Her outburst here barely scratches her larger adherence to Saint Michael's role and example, by which Joan exercised mercy upon her enemies,

On the Sunday after the taking of the Forts of the Bridge and of Saint Loup, the English were drawn up in order of battle before the town of Orleans, at which the greater part of [our] soldiers wished to give combat, and sallied from the town. Jeanne, who was wounded, was with the soldiers, dressed in her light surcoat. She put the men in array, but forbade them to attack the English, because, she said, if it pleased God and it were His will that they wished to retire, they should be allowed to go. And at that the men-at-arms returned into Orleans.

Her numerous displays of mercy towards the enemy shocked and even revulsed her commanders, who would have otherwise slaughtered the English stragglers -- as the English would have done to them. The point is that Joan was free of vengeance, exercising God's will but not exceeding it. Were her mission but to "save France," then murdering as many English and Burgundians as possible would contribute to it. At the trial a Rouen, the court concluded that,

Jeanne hath boasted and affirmed that she did know how to discern those whom God loveth and those whom He hateth.

then demanded,

What have you to say on this Article?

It's a core theological question: did Joan assume judgment upon her enemies?

I hold by what I have already said elsewhere of the King and the Duke d’Orléans; of the others I know not; I know well that God, for their well-being, loves my King and the Duke d’Orléans better than me. I know it by revelation.

They couldn't nail her down on this charge, and it infuriated the court. Joan stood firmly not as God's judge but his instrument for judgement. So back it went to wearing pants, which was the only charge they could hold upon her. Joan's intersection with Saint Michael ceased upon her delivery to the English at the Battle of Compiègne and her imprisonment by the Duke of Luxumbourt. She told the court at Rouen,

I have not seen Saint Michael since I left the Castle of Crotoy.

With her delivery to the English at Crotoy, the duties of the warrior Saint Michael had ceased; however, Saints Catherine and Margaret, virgin captives and martyrs took over, and guided her from there, at times reluctantly on Joan's part, to her martyrdom.

Nevertheless, Joan turned to Saint Michael just before her martyrdom, during her crisis of faith, after having signed the documents of "abjuration" (admission of guilt) and, upon the stake. Her abjuration was conducted in public, followed by a public Mass, in which the priest insulted Joan. (When she defended the integrity of the King of France he told her to shut up).

She afterwards prayed to the Archangel, at least twice. Pierre Lebouchier, a priest, testified that after Joan was denounced in the public by Father Érard, Joan turned to the Achangel:

I was not present at the Process; but, after the preaching at Saint-Ouen, Jeanne, with her hands joined together, said in a loud voice that she submitted to the judgment of the Church, and prayed to Saint Michael that he would direct and counsel her.

He also saw her martyrdom, before which he watched,

While they were tying her to the stake she implored and specially invoked Saint Michael.

Saint Michael was not just the warrior Angel, but also Joan's protector.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel

With histories of Joan we hear less of Saint Gabriel than of the others, although he also visited her. The Rehabilitation Trial recollections of her battle standard are ambiguous, but at the Rouen trial, Joan was clear: she had placed on it the two Archangels, Michael and Gabriel, on it to either side of the Lord who was depicted holding the world in his hands, with Jhesus Maria written to the side. The standard was of great concern to the court at Rouen, not just for what her interrogators considered its presumptuous design, but because that battle flag was a key instrument in her victories over the English and was prominently displayed at the coronation of the Charles VII as King of France. To the English partisans, the standard was demonic. The formal charges included that she had been saying about her battle flags, a ring, some linens and her sword that,

... these things were very fortunate. She made thereon many execrations and conju rations...

Joan replied,

In all I have done there was never any sorcery or evil arts. As for the good luck of my banner, I refer it to the fortune sent through it by Our Lord.

To an earlier interrogation over the banner and the Saints, Joan's responses are marvelous:

“Did the two Angels painted on your standard represent Saint Michael and Saint Gabriel?”

They were there only for the honour of Our Lord, Who was painted on the standard. I only had these two Angels represented to honour Our Lord, Who was there represented holding the world.

Were the two Angels represented on your standard those who guard the world? Why were there not more of them, seeing that you had been commanded by God to take this standard?

The standard was commanded by Our Lord, by the Voices of Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret, which said to me: "Take the standard in the name of the King of Heaven"; and because they had said to me "Take the standard in the name of the King of Heaven," I had this figure of God and of two Angels done; I did all by their command.

Did you ask them if, by virtue of this standard, you would gain all the battles wherever you might find yourself, and if you would be victorious?

They told me to take it boldly, and that God would help me.

Which gave most help, you to your standard, or your standard to you?

The victory either to my standard or myself, it was all from Our Lord.

The hope of being victorious, was it founded on your standard or on yourself?

It was founded on Our Lord and nought else.

If any one but you had borne this standard, would he have been as fortunate as you in bearing it?

I know nothing about it: I wait on Our Lord.

If one of the people of your party had sent you his standard to carry, would you have had as much confidence in it as in that which had been sent to you by God? Even the standard of your King, if it had been sent to you, would you have had as much confidence in it as in your own?

I bore most willingly that which had been ordained for me by Our Lord; and, meanwhile, in all I waited upon Our Lord.

This exchange informed one of the seventy-seven formal charges, LVIII, which read,

Jeanne did cause to be painted a standard whereon are two Angels, one on each side of God holding the world in His hand, with the words “Jhésus Maria” and other designs. She said that she caused this standard to be done by the order of God, who had revealed it to her by the agency of His Angels and Saints. This standard she did place at Rheims near the Altar, during the consecration of Charles, wishing, in her pride and vain glory, that it should be peculiarly honoured. Also did she cause to be painted arms, in the which she placed two golden lilies on a field azure; between the lilies a sword argent, with a hilt and guard gilded, the point of the sword pointing upwards and surmounted with a crown, gilded. All this is display and vanity, it is not religion nor piety; to attribute such vanities to God and to the Angels, is to be wanting in respect to God and the Saints.

Joan of Arc biography Douglas Murray compiled from the various sources and Trials descriptions of the banner, the following depiction:

The description of this banner varies in different authors. The following account is compiled from them. "A white banner, sprinkled with fleur-de-lys; on the one side, the figure of Our Lord in Glory, holding the world, and giving His benediction to a lily, held by one of two Angels who are kneeling on each side: the words 'Jhesus Maria' at the side; on the other side the figure of Our Lady and a shield with the arms of France supported by two Angels" (de Cagny). This banner was blessed at the Church of Saint-Sauveur at Tours (Chronique de la Pucelle and de Cagny).

In that Archangel Gabriel's scriptural role is to announce or clarify God's will and offer comfort in faith in it, Joan's design and use of the standard was by no means a vanity. With Saint Michael on one side, representing execution of God's judgment, and Saint Gabriel on the other, informing God's design, the banner was for Joan a beautiful act of Christian Hope. According to Murray, Joan also used two "pennons," or a small banners, which are typically hung from a lance. One, purchased at Tours along with the battle standard, depicted the Annunciation, and the other was made at Poitiers, showing a white dove with a scroll in its beak that read, De par le Roy du Ciel, which means "By the King of Heaven", and which she used personally. (Note that the battle flag might be held by a page, although Joan mostly wielded it instead of a lance or sword during battle, for it was her primary instrument of war.) The Annunciation, of course, was delivered by the Archangel Gabriel, who said to Mary in Luke 1:28,

Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you.

It might be a symbolic gesture towards Mary, but if we consider that Joan's Voices ordered its design, and for what purpose she used it, Gabriel's greeting to Joan becomes significant: she was chosen by God for this mission. Lastly, that the battle standard depicted the Lord "giving His benediction to a lily," which, along with the figure of Mary on the opposite side, we must consider. The significance of the lily was not just as symbol of France or the monarchy, but of the Annunciation, as Our Lady was frequently depicted with it. At the command of her Voices, Joan deliberately employed explicit connections to the Archangel Gabriel.

When on May 3 Joan was threatened by the torture machines it was Saint Gabriel who consoled her:

Last Thursday I received comfort from Saint Gabriel; I believe it was Saint Gabriel: I knew by my Voices it was he.

The theological implications therein are significant. Saint Gabriel is God's trumpet -- the announcer of God's will. The Archangel, then, was preparing her for the martyrdom to soon come. Saint Gabriel appears in the Old Testament twice, both in Daniel. Here from Daniel 8:15-17:

While I, Daniel, sought the meaning of the vision I had seen, one who looked like a man stood before me, on the Ulai I heard a human voice that cried out, “Gabriel, explain the vision to this man.” When he came near where I was standing, I fell prostrate in terror. But he said to me, “Understand, O son of man, that the vision refers to the end time.”

I can't imagine that Joan knew this passage, as it does not appear in the modern Roman Missal and likely not in hers. In Chapter 8, Gabriel is sent to Daniel to explain God's message -- something Joan may well have appreciated after being threatened with torture. In Daniel 9:21-23, he again appears to assure Daniel of God's purpose and support for him:

I was still praying, when the man, Gabriel, whom I had seen in vision before, came to me in flight at the time of the evening offering.

He instructed me in these words: “Daniel, I have now come to give you understanding.

When you began your petition, an answer was given which I have come to announce, because you are beloved. Therefore, mark the answer and understand the vision.

We can draw another connection to Daniel, again, one Joan would have been unlikely to know about, in that the Book of Daniel was written under Hellenistic oppression of Antiochus IV, the Seleucid Greek king who seized power amidst a succession crisis in which he usurped the throne from the proper heir, his brother's son. Gabriel's appearance to Daniel helped the prophet to sort out the Babylonian, and subsequently Seleucid oppressions, and focus on God's will.

Joan would have been more familiar with Saint Gabriel's appearances in the New Testament in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. In Luke, Gabriel brings glad tidings, not a message that they were about to be burned on the stake, as it was for Joan. Still, Zachariah, Mary, and the shepherds needed his consolation,

Do not be afraid

Joseph, also, needs the Archangels' consolation,

Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid

A larger, less expected connection to the Archangel's appearance at this moment to Joan may be found in Daniel, "to give you understanding," as the Angel said to him in Chapter 9. The Archangel assured Daniel, as he did Zachariah, Mary and Joseph of God's purpose: thus he similarly gave Joan "comfort", as she testified.

Other than Daniel, she might have known of the apocryphal Book of Enoch, 4:12, which informed Catholic traditions and the role of Gabriel to petition God to judgment:

And to Gabriel said the Lord, "Proceed against the bastards and the reprobates, and against the children of fornication and destroy the children of the Watchers from amongst men. Send them one against the other that they may destroy each other in battle, for length of days shall they not  have.

It's doubtful Joan would have known or have been thinking of that, but it definitely points to the end of the Hundred Years War, which was resolved, finally, with betrayal of the English by the Burgundians. Each side used the other, which is why they both so desperately needed Joan's removal, as she exposed their tenuous relationship in face of a resurgent France that Joan had launched.

Whatever it means, Saint Gabriel's comfort for Joan is not a side-story.

Saints Charlemagne & Louis

When, just before the Battle of Orléans, Joan warned the French commander, the Bastard of Orléans, 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?

When Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Imperator Romanorum (emperor of the Romans) in 800, he crowned the Frankish king Charles (Carolus, 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 religious 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 honor of Charlemagne's coronation by the Pope on Christmas Day.

Saint Louis was the French King Louis IX (reigned 1226-1270). Crowned at Reims, he ruled as a devout and pious Christian to such extent that he was canonized not long after his death. Louis' reign was marked by consistent protection of the clergy and Church from secular rule and strict allegiance to the papacy. He is considered the quintessential "Christian" -- but more correctly, Catholic, king. As for historical context regarding Joan, in 1259 he consolidated French rule over Normandy at the Treaty of Paris with English King Henry III. Some historians attribute Louis' concession of Duchy of Guyenne to the English under French vassalage to the outbreak of the Hundred Years War, but there is no direct causality to make that connection, and even if there was any unfinished business Louis preferred settlement over continued war.

If Joan's mission was to save France, Philip II (reigned 1165-1223) would have been the better intercessor, not Charlemagne or his grandson St. Louis, for Charlemagne's empire extended across Germany, and while Saint Louis extended French sovereignty, it was Philip who created the modern France that Joan defended. Philip was the first to declare himself "King of France." 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 one. Or, in that Joan's exhortation to the Bastard was about Orléans and not France, perhaps "the prayer of St. Louis and of St. Charlemagne" was just for the city. But Orléans was the key to it all, for as went Orléans, so went France -- and, ultimately, French Catholicism.

The French King Charles V (reigned 1364-1380) promoted veneration of Charlemagne, including to dedicate a chapel to him at Saint Denis with an elaborate reliquary, which treated him like a Saint. The city of Reims maintained a cult of Charlemagne and actively supported his canonization by the antipope Paschall III in 1165. After resolving the 12th century schism of antipopes aligned with the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick I ("Barbarossa"), Pope Alexander III annulled their papal acts, which included the canonization of Charlemagne. So we can't say that it was of regional tradition or a remnant of the revoked canonization that Joan invoked, but we do know that when referring to "Saint Charlemagne" prior to Orléans, Joan was under the guidance of her Voices. She invoked their names for a reason.

Joan the peasant girl

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

Joan was a peasant girl, but not just a peasant girl. Her father, Jacques, owned about 50 acres of land for cultivation and grazing and a house large and furnished enough to lodge visitors. He served as the 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.

Joan grew up in this little village with daily chores on the farm and in the household, especially to spin wool. She tended the animals when she was younger but not much, she testified, after she reached "the age of understanding." She also helped with harvesting the fields, and had certainly helped move the animals around, especially when the villagers fled for protection from raids. She knew cattle, mules and horses, but more likely as a herder would, not as a scout or soldier, so her natural aptitude as a knight, which astounded all who saw her ride, including in battle gear, was informed by her childhood learning about animals.

The formal charges in the Trial of Condemnation at Rouen claimed of Joan,

In her childhood, she was not instructed in the beliefs and principles of our Faith; but by certain old women she was initiated in the science of witchcraft, divination, superstitious doings, and magical arts. Many inhabitants of these villages have been known for all time as using these kinds of witchcraft.

This, of course, ignored her own testimony during the trial such as that she had learned the basic Catholic prayers at home:

From my mother I learned my Pater, my Ave Maria, and my Credo. I believe I learned all this from my mother.

The ecclesiastical court at Rouen had sent a notary to Domrémy to inquire into her reputation with the locals. His testimony here is from the Trial of Rehabilitation, the inquiry was done before Joan was killed, so the information he gathered was perfectly contemporaneous, making it historical gold:

I was appointed... to proceed to an enquiry on the subject of Jeanne, at that time detained in prison at Rouen. Many times, in her youth, I saw Jeanne before she left her father’s house: she was a good girl, of pure life and good manners, a good Catholic who loved the Church and went often on pilgrimage to the Church of Bermont, and confessed nearly every month—as I learned from a number of the inhabitants of Domremy, whom I had to question on the subject at the time of the enquiry that I made with the Provost of Andelot. When I and the late Gerard made this enquiry, we examined twelve or fifteen witnesses.

The Bishop in charge of the trial was outraged at the exculpatory evidence and refused to pay the man for his services, which further affirms the original evidence the notary had collected on her. That Joan was an exemplary Catholic was affirmed by all who knew her at Domrémy, and no one, not even a Burgundian acquaintance of Joan's, contradicted. Her extraordinary piety that was noted by her contemporaries in the village was from after her visions started. Before then, she was like any other child:

Ever since I knew that it was necessary for me to come into France, I have given myself up as little as possible to these games and distractions. Since I was grown up, I do not remember to have danced there. I may have danced there formerly, with the other children. I have sung there more than danced.

Joan's Voices would frequently accompany the ringing of the bells, and if the bells were late, Joan would chide the boy responsible for ringing them for being inattentive. A contemporary recalled,

I saw Jeannette very often. In our childhood, we often followed together her father’s plough, and we went together with the other children of the village to the meadows or pastures. Often, when we were all at play, Jeannette would retire alone to “talk with God.” I and the others laughed at her for this. She was simple and good, frequenting the Church and Holy places. Often, when she was in the fields and heard the bells ring, she would drop on her knees.

Another aspect of her personality her contemporaries noted was her kindliness and generosity. Her father's house stood on an ancient road, and received passersby frequently, for whom Joan gave up her bed, or according to one witness from Domremy, for the poor. Later, during preparations for the march on Orléans, as related by her confessor throughout her military campaigns, an Augustinian friar named Jean Pasquerel,

She was, indeed, very pious towards God and the Blessed Mary, confessing nearly every day and communicating frequently. When she was in a neighbourhood where there was a Convent of Mendicant Friars, she told me to remind her of the day when the children of the poor received the Eucharist, so that she might receive it with them; and this she did often: when she confessed herself she wept.

And this on the way to battle.

At the Rouen trial, Joan made a revealing off-hand comment about her concern for others. The interrogation was attempting to establish that Joan had deviously fooled the people into worshipping her, an accusation included in the charges against her:

"In what spirit did the people of your party kiss your hands and your garments ? "

Au contraire, as they say, she was just being kindly.

*' Many came to see me willingly, but they kissed my hands as little as I could help. The poor folk came to me readily, because I never did them any unkindness : on the contrary, I loved to help them."

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, went to Church every week and on occasional pilgrimages. Additionally, she was compassionate and kindly. This description of her childhood from Butler's 1894 "Lives of Saints" is apt:

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. 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.

Domrémy

Maps adapted from Domremy-la-Pucelle (Wikipedia)

Today called Domrémy-la-Pucelle, after "the Maid," Joan's home 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, along one of which grew the "Fairie Tree," a beech made famous in her Trial of Condemnation as an implication of sorcery. The village was considered geographically in the general region of Lorraine, thus the later name for her, "the Maid of Lorraine," but it was politically under the Duchy of Bar, and not the Duchy of Lorraine, indicative of the transient and complex nature of medieval borders and allegiances. When Joan said that her voices told her to go to "France," it made perfect sense to everyone, as she was speaking to the distinction between these regions and territories and their various 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. France itself was elsewhere.

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. These raids came in the late 1420s as the English expanded control of northern France.

In the early 1400s, a lull in the ongoing war had heated up as Henry V of England took advantage of a breach in French factions, the Armagnacs, ultimately siding with the King of France under the House of Orléans, and the Burgundians, under the House of Burgundy, ultimately siding with the English. (It's more complicated, but we can see it largely under the theory that my enemy's enemy is my friend.) By 1429, the English-Burgundian alliance was the stronger. The Duke of Burgundy held Paris, Troyes, Burgundy, and Flanders (his economic base with trade to England), as well as pockets of lands and loyalties across Champagne and Bar, admist which Domrémy lay. The all-important city of Reims, the traditional site of coronation of the king of France, while aligned with France, was surrounded by Burgundian lands, and so the city's loyalty was uncertain. Finally, starting in late 1428, the Armagnac stronghold of Orléans, which was the doorway to lower France, risked falling to the English.

France in 1429. Yellow is France, Red is English, Green is Burgundian. White is contested or unaligned. Note the small yellow section at Domrémy at the border of the Duchy of Lorraine. (Mediawiki Commons)

The people of Domrémy were loyal to the French cause, which supported the son of Charles VI, called "the Dauphin", for prince or heir to the throne. The Dauphin Charles, however, was disinherited by his father, who through marriage of his daughter to the English King Henry V, gave the royal succession to Henry and his English heirs. At the near coincidental death of both kings the title passed to Henry VI, the infant king. The Dauphin, meanwhile, asserted his claim to the throne and ruled in lands loyal to him as king of France, although through ascension not coronation.

Domrémy itself was politically and economically unimportant, but was nevertheless mixed up in the ongoing war that went on around it, on the periphery but susceptible to raids, cross-alliances, and fluid feudal land arrangements.

Across the region, 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. The larger border dividing the English and the French was to the center-north, along the Loire River and principally at the city of the Orléans, which was under an English siege as Joan commenced her mission.

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 margins of these opposed loyalties, which followed the path of 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. During one raid, Joan's family fled to Neufchâteau and stayed at the inn of Madame la Rousse, whom the court at Rouen would intimate was a brothel-keeper and thus Joan supposedly worked there as a prostitute. As she did during her stays at Vaucouleurs, at Neufchâteau, Joan helped her hosts with domestic chores, and carried herself admirably and piously.

Vaucouleurs

Vaucouleurs lay along the Meuse to the north of Domrémy. The city was loyal to the French cause, but was precariously located along disputed lands between France, English-aligned Burgundy, and the neutral Holy Roman Empire. The town was fortified and held by a French garrison led by Captain Robert de Baudricourt, an exceptional commander who managed to maintain his position against the Burgundians and the English. His hold on the city was due to deft negotiations as well as the city's elaborate fortifications. By the time Baudricourt met Joan, he had already agreed to yield official control of the city to the Burgundian, Antoine de Vergy, but had not yet handed it over. Ultimately, Baudricourt never actually ceded the city, although he was forced into a a pledge of neutrality. (Don't play poker with Baudricourt.)

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 Reims in 1429. (wikipedia)

Perhaps coincidentally, or not, a similar surrender to that which Baudricourt refused to conclude was submitted by one Étienne de Vignolles, who will be known to us in the story of Saint Joan as "La Hire", one of her most loyal commanders and a key warrior in the ultimate French victory in the war. La Hire sported a, shall we say, vibrant personality, as did many of those who were attracted to and served her cause. The Burgundian official he delivered the city of Vitry to was one Pierre Cauchon, a French Bishop allied with the Burgundians and an unapologetic English-loyalist, and the very guy who orchestrated Joan's trial and execution.

These odd alignments across the rejoin conjoin to form an essential contingency for Joan's mission, especially her instruction to "go to France." Situated amidst shifting and restless alliances, Baudricourt's loyalty to the Dauphin was necessary for Joan's introduction to the Dauphin. Her voices told her to go to Vaucouleurs and that she would recognize Baudricourt once there. Additionally, it was on the dangerous ride through Burgundian territories from Vaucouleurs to the Dauphin's residence at Chinon that Joan's companions, including a knight, realized her purity, piety, and honesty, and the divine nature of her mission. Their testimonials upon arrival at Chinon played a significant role not only in Joan's introduction to the Dauphin but to the growing public enthusiasm over her arrival.

Baudricourt dismissed Joan twice before agreeing to send her to Chinon. At her first encounter, he famously instructed her uncle who had brought her to him to,

take her back to her father and to box her ears.

We can hear his annoyance in his exchanges with Joan, as related by one of Baudricourt's squires,

She told him that “she came to him in the name of her Lord; that the Dauphin must be compelled to persevere and to give battle to his enemies, that the Lord would give him succour before the middle of Lent; that the kingdom belonged not to him, the Dauphin, but to her Lord; that her Lord would have the Dauphin King and hold the kingdom in trust; that she would make him King, in spite of his enemies, and would conduct him to his coronation.” “But who is this Lord of whom you speak?” asked Robert of her. “The King of Heaven,” she replied.

He even had a priest, to whom Joan had confessed, say an exorcism prayer over her:

One day, I saw Robert de Baudricourt—then captain of Vaucouleurs—and Messire Jean Fournier, our Curé, come in to our house to visit her. After they were gone, she told me that the Priest had his stole, and that, in presence of the said captain, he adjured her, saying: “If you are an evil spirit, avaunt! If you are a good spirit, approach!” Then Jeanne drew near the Priest and threw herself at his knees: she said he was wrong to act so, for he had heard her in confession.

By her second encounter in early 1429, people had got curious about her, including two of Baudricourt's lieutenants, both of whom would later lead her to Chinon. Her steadfast witness to her mission had raised much curiosity and wonder. Word of her arrived to the Duke of Lorraine, a rather substantial figure who had ties to both the Duke of Burgundy and the Dauphin's House of Valois, although he declared himself a neutral party as the civil war arose. The Duke sent for Joan. Jean Morel testified at the Trial of Rehabilitation,

I heard it said that the Lord Charles, then Duke of Lorraine, wished to see her, and gave her a black horse.

The Duke, though, was less interested in saving France than in his own health. As Joan explained to the court at Rouen,

The Duke of Lorraine gave orders that I should be taken to him. I went there. I told him that I wished to go into France. The Duke asked me questions about his health; but I said of that I knew nothing. I spoke to him little of my journey. I told him he was to send his son with me, together with some people to conduct me to France, and that I would pray to God for his health. I had gone to him with a safe-conduct: from thence I returned to Vaucouleurs.

We see from the Duke's request just how much Joan had stirred up the region. The Duke of Lorraine was huge. His ambiguity after meeting her, expressed by the gift of a horse and some francs, lay in his disappointment that she didn't cure him and instead told him to drop the mistress and get right with God. Joan told of this encounter to court Lady at Chinon, who testified,

Jeanne told me that the Duke de Lorraine who was ill, wished to see her, that she talked with him, and told him that he was not living well, and that he would never be cured unless he amended; also she exhorted him to take back his good wife.

The Duke of Lorraine gave her a horse and four francs, and sent her back to Vaucouleurs, where she has her third encounter with Baudricourt. This time Baudricourt engages Joan, although we have few details other than that she told him,

“To-day the gentle Dauphin hath had great hurt near the town of Orleans, and yet greater will he have if you do not soon send me to him.”

That day was February 12, the day of the "Battle of the Herrings" over 200 miles away, and so when news arrived to Vaucouleurs of the French disaster, Baudricourt sent her to the Dauphin tout-de-suite, as they say in France.

Joan told the Rouen court about her meeting with Baudricourt,

The third time, he received me, and furnished me with men; the Voice had told me it would be thus.

Poitiers: the first Trial

Almost two decades later, in 1449, one of Joan's severest antagonists and her principal interrogator at the Trial at Rouen, Jean Beaupère, told the Rehabilitation investigators :

With regard to the apparitions mentioned in the Trial of the said Jeanne, I held, and still hold, the opinion that they rose more from natural causes and human intent than from anything supernatural; but I would refer principally to the Process.

That is, she made it all up. But at the end of his recorded testimony, Beaupère reveals his hand:

As to her innocence, Jeanne was very subtle with the subtlety of a woman, as I consider.

So there you have it: a maiden couldn't possibly have done all this, so Joan was no maiden. Instead she was "subtle", that is Eve seduced by Satan. The historian Pernoud takes Beaupère's statement at face value, seeing it as an accusation of "malice inherent in the nature of women." The anticlerical biographer of Joan, Anatole France, saw it more cynically, and not without truth, that

These scholars of the University were human; they believed what it was to their interest to believe; they were priests and they beheld the Devil everywhere, but especially in a woman.

Beaupère's slur puts into question his claim that Joan made it all up, as the reference to "subtle" is itself hardly subtle, a direct reference to Genesis 3:1, in which we find a synonym for subtle, "cunning":

Now the snake was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the LORD God had made. He asked the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You shall not eat from any of the trees in the garden’?”

The Hebrew is "arum" for "shrewd", "cunning" or "crafty" (with a play on a similar word, "arummim" for "naked"), translated into French as "rusé" ("sly" or "cunning"). Beaupère would also have known Saint Paul's reference to Genesis in 2 Corinthians 11:3 about false teachers:

But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts may be corrupted from a sincere [and pure] commitment to Christ.

At best, we can take Beaupère's accusation, as does Pernoud, that women exercise inherent malice, which may or may not be implicated by Eve in Genesis. But the word choice, emphasized by its repetition, "subtle with the subtlety of a woman" was intended to be damning. So if he did mean in the word "subtle" a connection to Genesis, then it belies his claim that he thought Joan's apparitions were "from natural causes." Furthermore, while the Rouen court only needed for Joan to recant her abjuration to put her to death, that was the point of entire exercise, anyway, so they were going to find a way to execute her no matter what. Early on in the trial, as the Rouen priest Massieu testified in 1449,

When I was taking her back to prison, the fourth or fifth day, a priest named Maître Eustace Turquetil, asked me: "What dost thou think of her answers ? will she be burned? what will happen?" and I replied: "Up to this time I have seen in her only good and honour; but I do not know what will happen in the end, God knows!" Which answer was reported by the said priest to the King's [of England] people; and it was said that I was opposed to the King. On this account, I was summoned, in the afternoon, by the Lord of Beauvais, the Judge, and was spoken to of these things and told to be careful to make no mistake, or I should be made to drink more than was good for me. I think that, unless the Notary Manchon had made excuses for me, I should not have escaped.

So outright belief that Joan was under Satan's spell made it both easier and more justified for Beaupère, Cauchon and the French persecutors of Joan. Beaupère, an old associate of Cauchon, was rewarded by the English King in 1431 with the position of canon of the Cathedral of Rouen and given a significant honorarium. After Rouen fell to the French in 1449, Beaupère happened to stumble into the first interrogations for the Trial of Rehabilitation, which was just then starting at Rouen. Beaupère who was covered by the amnesty Charles VII had issued for Normandy, had returned to the city to collect his old honorarium. He kept his resentment of Joan, which Pernoud points out was deep, as he was the object of many of Joan's most glorious retorts during the Rouen Trial, such as her inspired response when he asked her,

Do you know if you are in the grace of God?

The question was by design a trap, for to affirm it would be heretical, and to deny it would be self-condemnatory. Joan's reply is marvelous, akin to Jesus' responses to the trick questions of the Pharisees, unexpected and stunning:

If I am not, may God place me there ; if I am, may God so keep me.

Whereas Beaupère saw it as "female subtlety," secular historians marvel at Joan's answer but attribute it to her innate genius. Even if the response was not directly inspired by the Holy Spirit, that she was in a State of Grace means that the Holy Spirit was, indeed, guiding her. What gets left out of Joan's reply is an even more magnificent rhetorical question that must have infuriated Beaupère, that must be read in full to appreciate:

If I am not, may God place me there ; if I am, may God so keep me. I should be the saddest in all the world if I knew that I were not in the grace of God. But if I were in a state of sin, do you think the Voice would come to me?

Joan was absolutely correct: if the Voices were of God, then she was "in the grace of God" -- a thought entirely inimical to everything Beaupère was trying to prove, and thus more proof that she was under the power of Satan (which would violate Jesus' retort to the Scribes, "How can Satan drive out Satan?"). If, instead, Beaupère was just a bigoted medieval priest insulting the female species, Anatole France's observation still holds, that he saw Joan as corrupted by Satan, or, as the final Sentence of Joan put it, by "the perfidious Sower of Errors":

All the pastors of the Church who have it in their hearts to watch faithfully over their flock, should, when the perfidious Sower of Errors works by his machinations and deceits to infest the Flock of Christ, strive with great care to resist his pernicious efforts with the greatest vigilance and the most lively solicitude, and above all in these perilous times, when so many false prophets are come into the world with their sects of error and perdition, according to the prediction thereof made by the Apostle.

For the English, there was no need to play around with words: Joan was a witch. Eight days before her execution at Rouen, the Bishop of Erard admonished Joan in a public sermon, which Manchon recalled as his having lamented,

Ah! noble House of France, which hath always been the protectress of the Faith, hast thou been so abused that thou dost adhere to a heretic and schismatic? It is indeed a o great misfortune.

Another priest Ysambard de la Pierre similarly recalled the scene,

I was at the sermon of Maître Guillaume Érard, who took as his theme, '' A branch cannot bear fruit except it abide in the Vine," saying that in France there was no monster such as this Jeanne: she was a witch, heretic, and schismatic; and that the King who favoured her was of like sort for wishing to recover his kingdom by means of such an heretical woman.

It's precisely what Beaupère meant all along: God would never have chosen a girl for this purpose, much less this girl who wasn't just a liar, she was seduced by demons. When Joan first appeared at Chinon in 1429, these same prejudices guided her reception. 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. Again mirroring what the Bishop or Erard would say two years later, Gélu applied the formula of the Evangelist, "by their fruits ye shall know them." Thus, he wrote,

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

And he advised the Dauphin,

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

To save France is one thing, but to do it on behalf of God is something altogether different. As historian Deborah Fraioli observes, the situation of France in 1429 was, from the historical point of view, debatably not so dire as the French themselves believed at the time. (I hold that the situation was rather dire,) However, Fraioli points out, from a theological point of view, "the situation takes on a different hue."

As such, the theologians asked to investigate Joan on behalf of the French King needed to consider if God wanted France saved at all, and even if it was correct to petition him for it. The problem facing them was that recourse to the divine must not precede man's own attempts at resolution. That is, did France justifiably need divine intervention at all?

All they had before them was Joan's own assertion that God had sent her to save France. Joan was most uncomplicated in the declaration, and when pressed to show a "sign", she replied that Orléans would be the sign, and to see it they'd have to send her there with the army first.

Whatever reservations the French clerics had held about her before Orléans turned after the battle either to acknowledgement of her as emissary of God, such as we see from Gélu and his fellow Bishop, Jean Gerson, who immediately wrote an apologia for the Maid, or, in the case of the Archbishop of Reims and newly installed Chancellor of France, Regnault de Chartres, acquiescence to events that were beyond his control.

Saint Joan's moment

Joan's moment was made possible by Joan's delivery of Orlėans, the "sign" she had promised the "Doctors" at Poitiers. The importance of Orlėans was easy to understand. But the need for the coronation at Reims was unclear. Sure, it was the traditional site of French coronations, and so held symbolic value. But, as the Dauphin and his advisors argued, it wasn't necessary, and could wait. The Dauphin was already King of France, Charles VII, having claimed the title at the death of his father in 1422, in what is called, without a coronation, "ascension" to the throne. There would normally be as little delay as possible between an ascension and coronation, but the symbolism of the coronation was not necessary to hold the throne, and for the besieged House of Valois it wasn't convenient to adhere to the tradition. Indeed, Joan's insistence must have been most discomfiting, as it raised an issue they didn't want to face.

Nevertheless, as a religious ceremony affirming the divine rights of kings, the coronation was a supremely important rite. Indeed, the coronation was referred to as a "consecration," thus the French name for Reims, la cité des sacres (with sacres indicating consecrated coronation.) Thus for Joan, Charles was not King until he was ceremonially and by the authority of the Church crowned.

François Garivel, the King's Councillor-Genéral, related,

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.

But Reims was surrounded by Burgundian-held territory. After a frustrating month's delay back at Chinon following the relief of Orléans, Joan insisted upon and prevailed in leading clearing the passage to Reims for the coronation.

Recollections of Joan's arrival to Vaucouleurs, where she needed to convince the French Captain, Robert de Baudricourt, to send her to Chinon, recall her mission as to "save France", such as Jean De Novelmport:

What are you doing here, my friend?" I said to her. "Must the King be driven from the kingdom; and are we to be English?" "I am come here," she answered me, "to this royal town, to speak to Robert de Baudricourt, to the end that he may conduct me or have me conducted to the King: but Robert cares neither for me nor for my words. Nevertheless, before the middle of Lent, I must be with the King— even if I have to wear down my feet to the knees! No one in the world — neither kings, nor dukes, nor the daughter of the King of Scotland, nor any others — can recover the kingdom of France; there is no succour to be expected save from me; but, nevertheless, I would rather spin with my poor mother — for this is not my proper estate: it is, however, necessary that I should go, and do this, because my Lord wills that I should do it." And when I asked her who this Lord was, she told me it was God.

Upon her arrival to Chinon, testimonies recall her focus on Orléans, and not upon the King's coronation, although she did mention it. Her uncle, who introduced her to Baudricourt, said,

she told me she wished to go into France, to the Dauphin, to have him crowned.

Guillaume de Ricarville, a royal Steward, who first heard news of her from Orleans, recalled,

when news came that there had passed through the town of Gien a shepherdess, called the Maid, conducted by two or three gentlemen of Lorraine, from which country she came; that this Maid said she was come to raise the siege of Orleans, and that afterwards she would lead the King to his anointing; for thus had she been commanded by God.

In the summary of their findings, the theologians at Poitier spoke of Orleans, and not of the coronation at Reims. However, a priest who was present at Poitiers, gives us a little more detail on what was discussed at Poitiers:

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.

With the only contemporaneous document from Joan's period at Chinon, the Poitiers Conclusions, speaking only of Orlėans, perhaps the recollections from the Trial of Rehabilitations conflated events and ascribed to Joan a prophesy about them. But it makes no sense for the Poitiers Conclusions to mention the crowning, as the Doctors were concerned solely with Joan's first step, Orlėans. And for the theologians to endorse Joan's subsequent mission to crown the King at Reims would question the King's legitimacy, thus it was a topic they would not touch. We do know from her testimony at Rouen that Joan mentioned the Archangel and the Saints at Poitiers, so the discussions certainly covered additional ground past Orlėans, for an obvious question would be what's next after that?

So we see the reason for the focus on Orléans, as all the other prophesies were contingent upon it, so Orléans had to happen first, and none of the others would matter if the "sign" she promised did not arrive there.

It all seems so easy: this girl shows up at the French royal pretender's court, declares he is the true heir to the throne and that she will save his country from a twenty-five-year civil war and a ten-year foreign occupation. The pretender king shrugs and says, here, priests, see if she's real. They do, she is, and the king gives her armor, a horse, and an army and off she goes.

Joan explained it during the Trial at Rouen, when asked,

Why was your King able to put faith in your words?

He had good signs, and the clergy bore me witness

What a great summary! Nevertheless, what Joan had to accomplish to get there is hidden in the compression of the events. So let's review the contingencies, the one thing she needed to do to accomplish the next, starting with her ultimate goal, to save France:

To save France, Joan needed to affirm the legitimacy of the French King, the Dauphin Charles; to crown him legitimately, she needed to take him to the traditional site of coronation at Reims; to get him to Reims, she needed to clear a path through enemy-held territory; to start that campaign, she needed first to relieve the city of Orléans from the English siege; to take Orléans, she had to earn the loyalty and enthusiasm of her fellow military commanders and troops and to exercise tactical brilliance and remarkable bravery; to lead the army, she needed the support of the Dauphin and his court; to convince the Dauphin's court, she had to demonstrate Catholic orthodoxy to her ecclesiastical interrogators at Poitiers; to even be subjected to that investigation, she had to convince the Dauphin of the possibility of her divine mission; to convince him of it, she had to meet with him; to meet with him she needed to have generated popular enthusiasm and curiosity as to who she might be, especially that she might be the fulfillment of the legend of a girl who would save France; for that she had to be thoroughly convinced of it herself; to be convinced of it herself, she had to experience not just the Visions but to embrace and submit to them and their effects upon her piety and faith.

To those ends, several things stand out:

1. She believed and obeyed her Voices;
2. Submitting to their insistence and encouragement, she would not take 'no' from those in her way;
3. She accurately prophesized events and outcomes;
4. She generated tremendous enthusiasm from the people;
5. She breathed confidence into the French army, which had been browbeaten and self-defeated until she inspired them with her leadership and example and disciplined them through the Confessional and the Mass;
6. She exercised decisive military and political leadership, knowing when and where to attack at key moments and taking crucial steps towards formal coronation of the Dauphin Charles as King Charles VII at Reims;
7. She scared the crap out of the English; shifting battlefield confidence to the French.

And that's just to save France.

To become a Saint Joan had to suffer betrayal and martyrdom in a uniquely well-documented show trial at the hands of the English, the "Trial of Condemnation". To preserve the transcripts and memory of that trial, two decades later, with Joan largely forgotten, her mother had to convince the French King and the Pope to reassess her prior conviction in a similarly and uniquely well-documented investigation called the "Trial of Rehabilitation". These transcripts create a rare historical record of a medieval personage which form our understanding of Saint Joan. Without them we likely would never have heard about Joan of Arc, much less Saint Joan of Arc.

As Pope Benedict XVI describes,

Joan of Arc did not know how to read or write, but the depths of her soul can be known thanks to two sources of exceptional historical value: the two Trials that concern her. The first, the Trial of Condemnation, contains the transcription of the long and numerous interrogations to which Joan was subjected in the last months of her life (February-May 1431) and reports the Saint’s own words. The second, the Trial of Nullity of the Condemnation or of “rehabilitation”, contains the depositions of about 120 eyewitnesses of all the periods of her life.

Saint Joan was not canonized for having saved France, nor was she canonized for her visions. She was canonized for her faith, which included faithfulness to her Visions. As Benedict beautifully expresses it,

In Jesus Joan contemplated the whole reality of the Church, the “Church triumphant” of Heaven, as well as the “Church militant” on earth. According to her words, “About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they're just one thing”. This affirmation, cited in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (n. 795), has a truly heroic character in the context of the Trial of Condemnation, before her judges, men of the Church who were persecuting and condemning her. In the Love of Jesus Joan found the strength to love the Church to the very end, even at the moment she was sentenced.

Victory at Orléans

From the testimony of Jean Luilier, a Burgher of Orléans at the Trial of Rehabilitation,

On the [7th] May, 1429, I remember well that an assault was made on the enemy in the Fort of the Bridge, in which Jeanne was wounded by an arrow; the attack lasted from morning till evening, and in such manner that our men wished to retreat into the town. Then Jeanne appeared, her standard in her hand, and placed it on the edge of the trench; and immediately the English began to quake, and were seized with fear. The army of the King took courage, and once more began to assail the Boulevard; and thus was the Boulevard taken, and the English therein were all put to flight or slain. Classidas and the principal English captains, thinking to retreat into the Tower of the Bridge, fell into the river, and were drowned; and the fort being taken, all the King’s army retired into the city. [emphasis mine]

Pretty much sums up the events at Orléans, although we must take careful note of the role of Joan's standard: it won battles, literally, as Joan testified at Rouen, as “It had shared the pain.” We see the Rouen court take much interest in her battle flag, especially since she bore it at Charles' coronation at Reims, but also because of its depictions of Christ and angels and the fleur-de-lis of France. The English-backed Rouen court recognized its symbolic power, and so denigrated it by accusing Joan of using it as a demonic charm.

Two of the "é" of accusation against Joan referenced her standard. Here from Article XX:

She hath put faith in her ring, in her banner, in certain pieces of linen, and pennons which she carried or caused to be carried by her people, and also in the sword found by revelation, according to her, at Saint Catherine de Fierbois, saying that these things were very fortunate. She made thereon many execrations and conjurations, in many and divers places, publicly asserting that by them she would do great things and would obtain victory over her enemies; that to those of her people who carried pennons of this kind no ill could happen. [emphasis mine]

The reading of the Seventy Articles took two days, and Joan was asked to respond to each. She generally responded, as she did to Article XX, with,

I refer to what I have already said.

Although she did offer larger denials or corrections. Here she added,

In all I have done there was never any sorcery or evil arts. As for the good luck of my banner, I refer it to the fortune sent through it by Our Lord.

Among offenses, Joan's use of the fleur-de-lis was especially repugnant to representatives of a pretender to the French throne.

Angel bringing the Golden Lilly to Clovis, from the 15th century Bedford Book of Hours (Wikipedia)

France ancien (Wikipedia)

France Moderne by Charles V, 1376 (Wikipedia)

As every football fan knows, the logo of the New Orleans Saints is the herald of the House of Bourbon and a primary symbol of France itself. If you look it up on Wikipedia, you will learn that early kings of France were fond of a pretty yellow flower that grew along the River Lis, and that Clovis first adopted it as a herald after his baptism at Reims. In Catholic France, however, the legend holds that an angel, or even the Virgin Mary herself, presented "the golden lily" to Clovis as a symbol of purification at his baptism. Whatever the origin, the fleur-de-lis became a tremendously important symbol for the divine right of French kings.

Charles V, the Dauphin Charles' grandfather, reduced the royal coat of arms, the France Ancien, with a field of golden lilies, to just three to mark the Holy Trinity and more clearly his divine right. We can see, then, how freaked out were the Rouen judges, and by extension, the English, at Joan's assertion upon her battle flag of the divine rule of the French monarchy.

The Allegory of the Battle of Lepanto by Paolo Veronese, c. 1572 (Wikipedia. The "Serenissima," representing Venice, introduced to the Virgin Mary by Saints Justina and Mark

Knights typically displayed a banner, but a full standard was of high rank only, as each banner, sequentially, represented battle segments. That Joan was allowed a full standard tells us of not only her authority, but of her resolve. Joan's Voices ordered their design and procurement. We can see it as her will done, fine, that she insisted upon them, but that she was allowed them may rank among the miracles that laid her path. Why would the French have even allowed it? A battle standard is, ultimately, the king's message, especially one as explicit in its message as was Joan's. That standard spoke not just Joan's message, but her endorsement from the Dauphin, which was trumpeted by its rise with the Maid on the march to Orléans.

Discipline and morale win wars, nothing new there, but Joan's discipline was for the soul first, then the soldier. The standard had the image of the Lord on it -- not just a Cross or IHS, but Christ himself holding the world in his hands, or, as described elsewhere, blessing the French herald, the fleur-de-lis, with the Archangels to either side and framed by the words, Jhesus + Maria to the side. If you've been sent by God, you want to advertise it.

Marketers like to think of "ecosystems" of messaging and reinforcement. Joan's imaging operated on several levels, starting with the literal imprint of God's warrant upon her. That's all good and nothing new, but she next connected her people, the soldiers, especially, but not only them, to that God and the mission he imparted upon her.

We might not expect a secular historian to recognize the power of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, although a professor of literature ought to recall that Shakespeare felt it was good for war, having his Henry V, prior to Agincourt, praying for forgiveness for having usurped the throne. More dramatically, and in a more historical example, Pope Pius V ordered prayers and fasting before the 1571 Battle of Lepanto, and his Holy League admiral, Don Juan of Austria, ordered priests aboard ships to hear individual confessions and make general absolutions prior to the battle. Joan insisted upon it.

We hear from a priest Pierre Campaing, how Joan by order, example, or elicitation, brought the French army to Catholic piety through the Sacraments:

I have seen Jeanne, at the Elevation of the Host, weeping many tears. I remember well that she induced the soldiers to confess their sins; and I indeed saw that, by her instigation and advice, La Hire and many of his company came to confession.

The absolution for sins not only frees one of the guilt of sin but reorients one to right purpose. That is, repent, yes, but sin no more, which Joan insisted upon. We hear from witnesses, such as the squire Simon Baucroix,

She would not permit any of those in her company to steal anything; nor would she ever eat of food which she knew to be stolen. Once, a Scot told her that he had eaten of a stolen calf: she was very angry, and wanted to strike the Scot for so doing.

Joan famously taught La Hire to curse more appropriately, using 'Par mon martin ("by my baton") instead of the Lord's name. Even the Duke,d'Alençon was compelled to watch his mouth around her. Louis de Contes, of an important Orleans family, recalled,

To hear blasphemies upon the Name of Our Lord vexed her. Many times when the Duke d'Alençon swore or blasphemed before her, I heard her reprove him. As a rule, no one in the army dared swear or blaspheme before her, for fear of being reprimanded.

The Duke mentioned it himself, admitting,

She was very vexed if she heard any of the soldiers swear. She reproved me much and strongly when I sometimes swore; and when I saw her I refrained from swearing.

And, of course, there would be no "camp followers" around to tempt and corrupt the troops. Baucroix continued,

She would never permit women of ill-fame to follow the army; none of them dared to come into her presence; but, if any of them appeared, she made them depart unless the soldiers were willing to marry them.

And Contes similarly recalled,

She would have no women in her army. One day, near Château-Thierry, seeing the mistress of one of her followers riding on horseback, she pursued her with her sword, without striking her at all ; but with gentleness and charity she told her she must no longer be found amongst the soldiers, otherwise she would suffer for it.

These are distinct memories, data points we can use to understand the moment in time, but together, we see how Joan's battle flag reinforced the essential messages of repentance and justification for devotion and military order.

Remarkably, what we do not hear of from her military compatriots any mention, other than from those who provided her with them at Vaucouleurs, much less any complaints, of her male attire. Jean Dunois, son of the Duke of Orléans, and "Lieutenant-General of the King," doesn't mention her clothing. And neither does the overall commander, the Duke d'Alençon.

For the French bishops at Poitiers, her male dress was an impediment to her endorsement but was accepted not just as an expedient but as Biblically consistent with the examples of the female warriors Deborah and Judith. The problem for the clerics was not her attire but whether or not she was "from God." Once it was discerned that Joan was from God, then affirmed by the events ("signs" that Joan had promised) at Orleans, the matter of her dress was dropped. In his post-Orleans apologia, or defense of Joan, De mirabili victoria ("Miraculous Victory") Bishop Jean Gearson, address the matter of her dress, as it was his concern. The logic from Poitiers was that if she was from God, she'd win at Orléans. She won, and was, therefore, from God. Gerson still felt compelled to defend her attire. He argued,

This law, matter insofar as it is judicial, nor insofar as it is moral, condemns the wearing of manly and wearing like clothes by the maid who was a warrior and acts in a manly manner, while unquestionable signs proved that she has been chosen by the king of heaven as his standard bearer in the eyes of everyone to crush the enemies of justice and to revive its defenders; To overthrow by the hand of a woman, a young girl, a virgin the powerful weapons of iniquity; This made finally surrounded by helpful angels with whom their virginity forms a link of friendship and relationship, as Saint Jerome says and it is frequently seen in the history of Saints dash cecile's for instance dash where they appear with crowns of lillies and roses

As did the soldiery around her, the Bishop realized that if God sent the Maid to save France by arms then she needed to dress accordingly. Throughout the Trial of Rehabilitation, the only mention of Joan's male attire concerned witnesses to the Rouen Trial, or first encounters with her at Vaucouleurs, where she was given men's clothing and a horse to ride to Chinon, and in the early days of figuring her out by the French "Doctors" at Poitiers. For the English and their Burgundian clerics, the opposite was assumed, thus the Rouen court's infatuation with her clothes: she was sent by demons, so her dress was demonic, too. The soldiers and people of Vaucouleurs cared only that Joan be appropriately attired for her mission and otherwise mention it with utter lack of concern. From Durand Lexart:

She told me she wished to go, herself, and seek Robert de Baudricourt, in order that he might have her conducted to the place where the Dauphin was. But many times Robert told me to take her back to her father and to box her ears. When she saw that Robert would not do as she asked, she took some of my garments and said she would start. She departed, and I took her to [Saint-Nicolas]. [emphasis mine]

It's perfectly logical that if she were sneaking off to see the King by herself that she'd want to disguise herself as a man, to which Lexart provides no objection. Later, when Baudricourt finally gave the order to accompany her to Chinon, Lexart explains that,

She came back to Vaucouleurs; and the inhabitants bought for her a man's garments and a complete warlike equipment. Alain de Vaucouleurs and I bought her a horse for the price of twelve francs, which we paid, and which was repaid to us later by the Sieur Robert de Baudricourt. This done, Jean de Metz, Bertrand de Poulengey, Colet de Vienne, together with Richard the Archer and two men of the suite of Jean de Metz and Bertrand, conducted Jeanne to the place where the Dauphin was. [emphasis mine]

Metz, too, testified that the "inhabitants of Vaucouleurs" ad provided her with "a man's dress made for her, with all the necessary requisites". What it came to was that If the Maid was going to fight she needed to be dressed for it. There was no scaling walls in a dress, and certainly not riding a horse like a knight in one. And certainly not in the "red dress, poor and worn," that many, such as Jean de Metz, testified she wore upon reaching Vaucouleurs. Upon its conclusion, the Grand Inquisitor of the Trial of Rehabilitation, Jean Bréhal, issued a summary of his findings which historically, logically and precisely tore into the Rouen show trial, denuding it of all its premises and manipulations. The authors of the 1893 re-publication of Bréhal's Summary, provide Bréhal's conclusion as regards Joan's male attire:

The question thus resolved from the theoretical point of view, the inquisitor adds that, in fact, Joan had excellent reasons -- which she often invoked during the trial -- to justify having adopted the use of male attire. Obliged by her mission to live among the soldiers, she protected her modesty and that of others, whom her youth and female clothing would have exposed to violence or shameful desires. The civil laws, as well as the ecclesiastical laws, proclaim the sufficiency of these motives, and consequently the honesty of her conduct.

It's an interesting point, there, about protecting the modesty of others. Modern historians denigrate -- mock, even -- the testimony of men who slept by Joan or saw her in the flesh when injured, who attested to feelings of chastity around her. Jean de Metz, who accompanied her to Chinon said,

On the way, Bertrand and I slept every night by her — Jeanne being at my side, fully dressed. She inspired me with such respect that for nothing in the world would I have dared to molest her ; also, never did I feel towards her — I say it on oath — any carnal desire.

Were she in that worn red dress, would he have felt differently? Well, no, because she would never have been in that dress, as her Voices had instructed her to put on a pair of pants. She told the Rouen court,

It was necessary for me to change my woman's garments for a man's dress. My counsel thereon said well.

Sadly, the modern vision of Saint Joan of Arc as a cross-dresser mirrors the Rouen court's obsession with her as demonic. It simply didn't matter to the French, who not only were not confused by it, but celebrated her as placed that way by God. As was Gerson, who recognized the absurdity of sending a girl to lead an army, any incredulity regarding her dress was irrelevant to the larger problem of how, par mon martin, did this young girl do what she did? Faith dissolves such questions.

The Maid in Armor on Horseback from Jeanne D'Arc (1909) by LOusi Maurice Boutet de Monvel, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (via Wikipedia)

A crucial aspect of leadership is authenticity, so as a military leader her to male attire was a necessary baseline and otherwise unimportant. Far more important was her presence before the armor, in armor, holding either a lance or her battle flag -- on a horse.

At Rouen, the inquisitors spoke of horses frequently, but only about their expense, as they wanted to prove Joan dishonest and corrupt. One would think it far more astonishing that the Maid could ride a warhorse than that somebody gave her one. Nevertheless, that was their purpose, especially a warhorse, which was expensive:

Had you, when you were taken, a horse, charger, or hackney?

I was on horseback; the one which I was riding when I was taken was a demi-charger.

Who had given you this horse?

A the Trial went on through February, 1431 Joan provided more detail about her Voices. On February 22, she gave a condensed view of the period of time from May, 1428, when she first went to Vaucouleurs, to October of that year, when the siege of Orléans began, to February of 1429 when Captain Baudricourt agreed to send her to Chinon:

When I heard it for the third time, I recognized that it was the Voice of an Angel. This Voice has always guarded me well, and I have always understood it; It said to me two or three times a week: "You must go into France." My father knew nothing of my going. The Voice said to me : "Go into France! " I could stay no longer. It said to me: "Go, raise the siege which is being made before the City of Orleans. Go!" it added, "to Robert de Baudricourt, Captain of Vaucouleurs: he will furnish you with an escort to accompany you." And I replied that I was but a poor girl, who knew nothing of riding or fighting. I went to my uncle and said that I wished to stay near him for a time. I remained there eight days. I said to him, "I must go to Vaucouleurs." He took me there. When I arrived, I recognized Robert de Baudricourt, although I had never seen him. I knew him, thanks to my Voice, which made me recognize him. I said to Robert, "I must go into France!" Twice Robert refused to hear me, and repulsed me. The third time, he received me, and furnished me with men; the Voice had told me it would be thus. [emphasis mine]

Somehow, between May of 1428 and March of 1429, Joan developed martial skills that not only amazed those who saw her, but confounds historians who understand that handling a lance the way Joan did takes years of training. The Duke d'Alencon recalled among his first encounters with Joan,

After dinner the King went for a walk; Jeanne coursed before him, lance in hand. Seeing her manage her lance so well I gave her a horse.

How do the historians explain this? Hagiographic, reconstructed memories. Note, though, that the English had no doubt of Joan's prowess on a horse, and the extent to which they and the Burgundians celebrated having taken her down from one upon her capture at Compiègne.

Horsemanship takes leadership. The animals are keenly sensitive to human emotions and temperament. A truly, but wonderful, apocryphal story of Alexander the Great's management of a wild horse, which became his warhorse, Bucephalas, stands as testimony to the relationship between horsemanship and leadership. Somehow, Joan had it, too.

In his 1906 "Young Readers" series book Joan, Andrew Lang tells the story of Joan processing by horseback into Orleans alongside Jean Dunois, the people crowded around Joan, some trying to kiss her hand. A torch lit her banner, which scared her horse. She deftly reigned the horse and crushed the fire with her gloved hand. Another take on the story is that she wielded the horse to put out the fire with its tail. I like that one better!

The biographer Murray, summarizes her horsemanship with,

Jeanne appears to have been a good horse-woman; she rode “horses so ill tempered that no one would dare to ride them.” The Duke de Lorraine, on her first visit to him, and the Duke d’Alençon, after seeing her skill in riding a course, each gave her a horse; and we read also of a gift of a war-horse from the town of Orleans, and “many horses of value” sent from the Duke of Brittany. She had entered Orleans on a white horse, according to the Journal du Siège d’Orléans; but seems to have been in the habit of riding black chargers in war; and mention is also made by Châtelain of a “lyart” or grey. A story, repeated in a letter from Guy de Laval, relates that, on one occasion (June 6th, 1428), when her horse, “a fine black war-horse” was brought to the door, he was so restive that he would not stand still. “Take him to the Cross,” she said; and there he stood, “as though he were tied,” while she mounted.

Having inspired the army through heraldry, faith, and credible soldiery, Joan still needed to exercise practical leadership, which means on the field leading by example. She not only wanted á l'arm! and now, she wanted to be at the front of the attack:

On this day La Hire commanded the vanguard, at which Jeanne was much vexed, for she liked much to have the command of the vanguard

from Murray p. 32:

"Which fortress was being attacked when you made your men retire ? "

" I do not remember. I was quite certain of raising the siege of Orleans ; I had revelation of it. I told this to the King before going there."

" Before the assault, did you not tell your followers that you alone would receive the arrows, cross-bolts, and stones, thrown by the machines and cannons ? "

" No ; a hundred and even more of my people were wounded. I had said to them : 'Be fearless, and you will raise the siege.' Then, in the attack on the Bridge fortress, I was wounded in the neck by an arrow or cross-bolt ; ^ but I had great comfort from Saint Catherine, and was cured in less than a fortnight. I did not interrupt for this either my riding or work. I knew quite well that I should be wounded ; I had told the King so, but that, notwithstanding, I should go on with my work. This had been revealed to me by the Voices of my two Saints,^ the blessed Catherine and the blessed Margaret. It was I who first planted a ladder against the fortress of the Bridge, and it was in raising this ladder that I was wounded in the neck by this crossbolt."

Strategic and tactical genius

It was said that Jeanne was as expert as possible in the art of ordering an army in battle, and that even a captain bred and instructed in war could not have shown more skill; at this the captains marvelled exceedingly

>> artillery   We see in the testimony of Sieur de Gaucourt that after the investigation into Joan ordered by the Dauphin, as frustrating as it was for her, as she wanted to get moving right away instead, the inquiries had the effect of ramping up enthusiasm. Joan was not alone in wanting to get moving to "save France." Sieur de Gaucourt recalled,

After numerous interrogations, they ended by asking her what sign she could furnish, that her words might be believed? “The sign I have to shew,” she replied, “is to raise the siege of Orleans!”

Imagine to hear that from this young girl with her hair shorn, and dressed like a squire. There she is, annoyed and impatient, and there they are, expectant but unsure, defaulting to, essentially, "we don't find anything wrong in her," and she goes straight at it.

Whereas desperate men make desperate decisions, this wasn't desperation, it was faith. Joan convinced the Dauphin (but not everyone around him), and, more importantly, his army, that she would win. There was no apparent deadline on Orleans, as it was holding, and had been for months. Only Joan knew it was about to be lost.

Joan was so self-sure, so pious, so consistent, and so competent that people believed her. She told everyone she met flatly, such as she said in front of the Dauphin's squire:

I am come from the King of Heaven to raise the siege of Orleans and to conduct the King to Rheims for his crowning and anointing.

At the Trial of Rehabilitation, the Count du Dunois, known in Joan's time as "the Bastard of Orléans," stated,

I think that Jeanne was sent by God, and that her behaviour in war was a fact divine rather than human.

He says, "I think," not "I thought," so it was a reflection made years later. But at the time, the Bastard, who was in charge of the defense of Orléans. freely submitted to Joan's orders and leadership. Whatever he thought at the time, looking back, it only made sense to him that she was truly sent by God. Joan acted "boldly", as she testified, but entirely free of pretense. When John II, Duc d'Alençon, arrived to Chinon having gotten word of "a young girl who said she was sent by God," he first encountered her in conversation with his distant cousin, the Dauphin,

I found Jeanne talking with the King. Having approached them, she asked me who I was. “It is the Duke d’Alençon,” replied the King. “You are welcome,” she then said to me, “the more that come together of the blood of France the better it will be.”

The next day he saw her leading the Dauphin on a walk, carrying a lance:

Seeing her manage her lance so well I gave her a horse.

The Duke was convinced: Joan was authentic. Her prophesies had not yet been fulfilled, so he was acting on intuition and observation. After Orléans, of course, everyone believed, such as the until-then doubtful Bishop Gerson who upon Joan's victory at Orléans wrote his apologia for her. The Duke d’Alençon subsequently and personally experienced another of her miraculous interventions at the Battle of Jargeau, after Orléans:

Jeanne said to me: “Go back from this place, or that engine”—pointing out an engine of war in the city—“will kill you.” I retired, and shortly after that very engine did indeed kill the Sieur de Lude in that very place from which she told me to go away. On this account I had great fear, and wondered much at Jeanne’s words and how true they came.

To follow Joan was to believe in her, for, as Bishop Gerson wrote, the downside to a defeat with a woman would be a disaster -- as it was when Joan was captured and confidence in her faded.

Until then, to confront Joan in battle was to believe, as well, as we heard from the English general's letter to his King, attributing his loss at Orléans to the French to his troop's "lack of firm faith, and unlawful doubt that they had of a disciple and limb of the devil, called the Maid, who used false enchantments and sorcery." Indeed, we might attribute the ferocity of the Trial at Rouen and the rush to burn her to the shame of having been humiliated by a girl.

Above all else, it was Joan's piety that astounded and gave foundation to her proclamations. So many of the witnesses at her Trial of Rehabilitation recall her in prayer, including at Vaucouleurs, Chinon and during the campaigns. (She even made it once to a Mass on the way to Chinon, although she wanted to go more).

On completing their investigation of Joan, which lasted almost a month, the Dauphin's theologians and experts concluded, according to the Dauphin's squire, Gobert Thibault, they were convinced,

I heard the said Lord Confessor and other Doctors say that they believed Jeanne to be sent from God, and that they believed it was she of whom the prophecies spoke; because, seeing her actions, her simplicity, and conduct, they thought the King might be delivered through her; for they had neither found nor perceived aught but good in her, nor could they see anything contrary to the Catholic faith.

Road to Reims

Noble Dauphin! hold no longer these many and long councils, but come quickly to Rheims to take the crown for which you are worthy

The path between the victory at Orléans and the the coronation at Reims wrapped around a mixture of French court indecision, Joan's insistence on getting on with saving France, not just Orléans, and the next moves by the English. Joan's strategy was simple, as she had employed at Orléans,

Let us advance boldly in God’s Name!

The crowning of Charles VII by Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel. Joan's mission was to have the Dauphin properly crowned and consecrated the traditional location at the Cathedral of Reims.

The sacred coronation did not have to take place, and without Joan's insistence may not have taken place, at least not then and there and with that king. With the victory at Orléans the Dauphin and his court considered holding the coronation at Orléans instead of the rather inconveniently Burgundian-surrounded Reims. Joan wouldn't have it differently. With hindsight we can see why: had the French not asserted control of Reims, the English may have coronated Henry VI as King of France there, as opposed to at Paris as they did in 1431 after Joan's death. The coronation of Charles VII at Reims, therefore, was not merely a symbolic act: it also politically and militarily denied the English use of the city's tremendous symbolism.

Back in 1360, the English King Edward III marched upon Reims to claim the French Crown by coronation at the sacred site. The French prince, Charles V, who was at the time regent for his captured father, John II, ignored the English advances. As the people of Reims alone resisted the English siege, Edward realized that Charles hadn't taken the bait, so he moved his army southward hoping to provoke Charles by burning towns around Paris. But when the English army was camped outside of Chartres, southwest of Paris, a hailstorm struck it, killing a thousand knights. Hailstorms don't usually kill a thousand knights, but when they do it's clearly an act of God. Or so Edward saw it, and he sued for peace.

Reims, meanwhile, having asserted itself against the English, kept that sense of independence and singular importance as the crowning city, and maintained loyalty towards Armagnac France, despite that, at the Treaty of Troyes in 1420, Charles VI submitted the city to the English as an instrument of the succession to Henry V. Taking the city, was another thing. The Burgundians kept pressure on it but were unable to take it, leaving the city loyal to Charles VII upon his arrival. He had to get there first.

A popular genre of Joan of Arc historiography focuses on her military exploits, generally seeking to answer questions such as, Did Joan of Arc actually lead the French army? Was she a brilliant tactician, or just a one-pony show of attack! attack! attack!? Did she really do anything, or was she just a puppet dressed up like a knight?

The answer is, yes, she led the army but was not its primary leader; yes, she was frequently at the front lines, only fighting with her banner and not her lance; and, yes, her strategy was à l'arme!, only for Joan, it wasn't a strategy, it was on orders from above. Jean Dunois, the Bastard of Orleans, recalled:

And then she said this, or something approaching it: "When I am vexed that faith is not readily placed in what I wish to say in God's Name, I retire alone, and pray to God. I complain to Him that those whom I address do not believe me more readily; and, my prayer ended, I hear a Voice which says to me: 'Daughter of God! go on! go on! go on! I will be thy Help: go on!' And when I hear this Voice, I have great joy. I would I could always hear it thus." And, in repeating to us this language of her Voice, she was — strange to say! — in a marvellous rapture, raising her eyes to Heaven.

Battle of Patay, June 18, 1429, an enormous French victory sparked by a scared - God sent? - buck. (Page image from the Chronicle of Charles VII )

Joan held no doubts as to her victory. The problem was those around her. But the sign from Orléans was indisputable, and indisputably miraculous, so even the king, if with hesitation, did as Joan said. After a month's delay, ever frustrating to Joan, the army reorganized, rearmed, and went on the advance to clear the English from the Loire valley. For their part, the English, reeling from the suddenness of Orléans, nevertheless reorganized and reinforced. Though the English fought hard, the old tactics failed to work as before, the walls failed to hold back the onslaught, and the certainty of Henry V's providence failed to uphold English courage. God's favor was upon Joan and the French.

There were battles such as at Jargeau, where Joan's standard, again raised at the walls after she had been seriously injured, sparked the French breakthrough. There were battles such as at Patay, where a startled stag alerted a French cavalry led by La Hire to an English ambush, setting off a French rout that would not have happened had Joan not insisted that La Hire continue the advance, whereupon he encountered the ambush. Before Patay, a disaster for the English numerically far worse than that at Orléans, the Duke d' Alençon, the overall commander of the French army, recalled Joan's exhortations for battle:

In God's Name! We must fight them at once: even if they were hanging from the clouds we should have them, because God has sent us to chastise them .... The gentle King shall have to-day the greatest victory he has ever had. My Counsel has told me they are all ours.

Another knight recalled that he and La Hire had warned Joan that the English were,

assembled and prepared for battle.. and were all ready to fight. She replied, speaking to the captains: "Attack them boldly, and they will fly; nor will they long withstand us." At these words, the captains prepared to attack: and the English were overthrown and fled. Jeanne had predicted to the French that few or none of them should be slain or suffer loss: which also befell, for of all our men there perished but one gentleman of my company.

Upon news of the arrival of of the Constable Arthur de Richemont, husband of the daughter of the assassinated Duke of Burgundy, John the Fearless, the Duke d'Alençon threatened to resign. Richemont was considered untrustworthy and treasonous for having sided previously with the English. Joan broke the impasse, telling Richemont:

Ah! fair Constable, you have not come by my will, but now you are here you are welcome.

Richemont's arrival is notable, as he was inspired to rejoin the French cause only after Joan's stupendendous victory at Orléans. He put together a large army and marched to the Loire to join her. His arrival to Beaugency forced the English to retreat and regroup at Patay, where La Hire destroyed them. Ultimately, Richemont would prove indispensable to the French victory in the Hundred Years War, both for his diplomatic and military skills. Joan applied the Lord's counsel to the Apostles who worried about some man who was casting out demon's in Jesus' name, here from Mark 9:38:

John said to Jesus, "Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us." Jesus replied, "Do not prevent him. There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me. For whoever is not against us is for us."

Earlier, as the French commanders had gathered and considered what to do at the English fortification at Jargeau, Joan told them,

No, do not fear their numbers; do not hesitate to make the attack; God will conduct your enterprise; if I were not sure that it is God Who guides us, I would rather take care of the sheep than expose myself to such great perils!

Outside the town, raising her standard, Joan rallied the French after a successful English attack. Even La Hire was unsure about the enterprise, and tried to negotiate with the English commander, Lord Suffolk. Alençon ordered him to cease, but he, too, was hesitant, needing Joan's encouragement,

Forward, gentle Duke, to the assault!

The Duke described the moment,

And when I told her it was premature to attack so quickly: "Have no fear," she said to me, "it is the right time when it pleases God; we must work when it is His Will: act, and God will act!" "Ah! gentle Duke," she said to me, later, "art thou afraid? dost thou not know that I promised thy wife to bring thee back, safe and sound?"

In the assault upon the fortified town, Joan directed artillery, encouraged Alençon to ignore Lord Suffolk's entreaties, and, of course, personally led the escalade upon the walls, during which, having scaled a ladder, she was struck on the head by a stone. She fell to the ground, rose and declared,

Friends! friends! come on! come on! Our Lord hath doomed the English! They are ours! keep a good heart.

The Loire Campaign, May-June, 1429	Dates	Notes
The Siege of Orléans.	May 4-8	Click expand for details After learning of a French assault that had begun the afternoon of May 4, Joan ordered her mount and standard and rode to the action, where she joined the assault. On May 6, after Joan reluctantly agreed with the French commanders to pause for the Feast of the Ascension on the 5th. Early on the 6th, Joan led a militia of Orleans citizens out of the gate and singlehandedly halted an English rally by turning against it, raising her standard and yelling, Au nom de Dieu! ("In the name of God"). Though wounded in the foot, Joan insisted on joining the assault on the 7th upon the English stronghold directly across from the city, again leading the citizen army. That morning, though, she was struck between her neck and shoulder by a longbow, fulfilling her premonition from the day before that she was to be wounded. She was carried back to the city, but returned to the battle that evening, claiming that the fortress would be taken. After the French commander called off the assault, Joan left for prayer, the returned with instructions that the fortress would fall once her banner touched the wall. This she did, and shouted, Tout est vostre – et y entrez! ("All yours, go in!"). The French overran the English fort, and the English army retreated from Orlėans the next day.
Battle of Jargeau	June 11-12	Click expand for details The French offensive started upon the "suburbs" of Jargeau, then upon the walled city. Joan commanded artillery positions and targets, then led the assault. While scaling a wall with her banner in hand, Joan was knocked to the ground by a large stone that split her helmet. To Joan got back up, and rallied the French army, which broke through and cleared the city of the English.
Battle of Meung-sur-Loire	June 15	Click expand for details Base for the English commanders and located by an important bridge, the French first assaulted the bridge, then drove the English from the town into a nearby fortified castle. The French moved onward to the next strategic bridge at Beaugency.
Battle of Beaugency	June 16-17	Click expand for details Like Meung-sur-Loire, the town was taken by the English the year before to isolate the French to the south of the River and to stage the English offensive upon the entire region. Pushed to the attack by Joan, the French took the bridge, which pushed the English to within the castle walls. The English surrendered on the 17th. Most importantly, it was at Beaugency that the hated Duke of Richemont arrived with 1,000 men. Against the wishes of the French commanders, Joan welcomed him to the cause.
Battle of Patay.	June 18	Click expand for details While not directly involved in the fighting, Joan's role was, as always, to push the French commanders to continued attack. The English, meanwhile, were reinforced with longbowmen, who prepared a trap for the French calvary. While making their preparations, a stag jumped from the woods, alerting the French as to the English position. The knights under La Hire attacked immediately and destroyed the French forces.

Leading up to Patay, "Jeanne and the army," as Alençon described it, cleared out the rattled English from their holds at Meung-sur-Loire, and Beaugency. Regarding the consequence of Patay, Joan's Voices did not lie: as Orléans shocked the English, Patay knocked them them out of central France, opening the way to Reims. At Patay, the elements of the ultimate French victory were compounded: the English lost leaders and confidence, fearful of the the Maid -- or witch, shocks which, more importantly, were felt in Paris by the Burgundian leaders, as wells; French military leadership consolidated under Alençon, Richmond, and La Hire, who were instrumental in the ultimate French victory; above all, Joan directed and redirected French attention to the purpose given her by her Voices to coronate Charles at the holiest place of coronation of French kings, Reims. None of that would have happened without Joan's constant admonition to push forward in total confidence of fulfilling God's will.

The path to Reims yet needed Joan's exhortations and her banner. Jean Dunois recalled that as the King took council on what to do with the city of Troyes, try to take it or bypass it on the way to Reims,

The place where the King first halted, with his army, was under the town of Troyes; he there took counsel with the nobles of the Blood, and the other captains, to decide whether they should remain before this town, in order to lay siege to it, or whether it would not better avail to pass on and march straight to Rheims, leaving Troyes alone. The Council were divided in opinion, and no one knew which course to pursue, when Jeanne suddenly arrived, and appeared in the Council. "Noble Dauphin," she said, "order your people to come and besiege the town of Troyes, and lose no more time in such long councils. In God's Name, before three days are gone, I will bring you into this town by favour or force, and greatly will the false Burgundy be astounded." Then Jeanne, putting herself at the head of the army, had the tents placed right against the trenches of the town, and executed many marvellous manœuvres which had not been thought of by two or three accomplished generals working together. And so well did she work during- the night, that, the next day, the Bishop and citizens came all trembling and quaking to place their submission in the King's hands. Afterwards, it was known that, at the moment when she had told the King's Council not to pass by the town, the inhabitants had suddenly lost heart, and had occupied themselves only in seeking refuge in the Churches. The town of Troyes once reduced, the King went to Rheims, where he found complete submission, and where he was consecrated and crowned.

Following the coronation, Joan endured more agonizing delays as Charles spent his triumphant moment in public adulation and under the assumption that the Duke of Burgundy would yield out of respect for his formal consecration. Instead, Charles and his ministers were baited into circular negotiations, temporary truces, and increasing demands from the Burgundians that included yielding back to them cities taken by the French.

Joan of Arc biographer Anatole France, an anti-clerical writer, claims that on insisting upon the Coronation at Reims Joan lost the moment to seize Normandy and thus Paris. The claim conflates Joan's mission of saving France with territorial conquest, something Joan understood simply as "to make war on the English." Joan knew -- was told -- that the Anointment must come first, although she had no idea that God's plan operated on a different timeline for its culmination in saving France, and, especially for her role in it, which wound through her capture by the Burgundians at a minor battle at Compiegne in Burgundian-held France.

Ironically, only the French court ignored her thereafter, declining to ransom her, and going on as if she had never existed. To the Burgundians and English, though, it was everything: the witch was defeated.

At the Trial of Condemnation at Rouen, on March 12, 1431, Joan was asked,

Has not the Angel, then, failed you with regard to the good things of this life, in that you have been taken prisoner?

I think, as it has pleased Our Lord, that it is for my well-being that I was taken prisoner.

Has your Angel never failed you in the good things of grace?

How can he fail me, when he comforts me every day? My comfort comes from Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret.

Joan's modern biographers agree with the English and Burgundians who thought that after the Coronation Joan's magic had worn off. Instead, Joan's destiny was, like so many Saints, and in the likeness of Christ, betrayal, doubt, faith, and martyrdom.

Crown delayed

There is a curious story that the Rouen court spies had picked up on, likely from Vaucouleurs, that during Joan's final meeting with Robert Baudricourt in early 1429, she told the Captain that she would marry and have three sons, and that the Captain offered to that end his personal assistance, at least for one of the sons. Although the trial transcript contains no mention of it, one of the court's Seventy Articles is dedicated the story, accusing her of,

Having become familiar with the said Robert, Jeanne boasted that, after having done and accomplished all that had been commanded her of God, she would have three sons, of whom the first should be Pope, the second Emperor, and the third King. Robert de Baudricourt, hearing this, said to her, " Would I could be father to one myself, if they are to be such great people! my own value would thereby be the greater!" "Nay, nay, gentle Robert," replied Jeanne, "it is not time; the Holy Spirit will accomplish it." This is the tale which the said Robert hath in many places often affirmed, told and published, and this in presence of prelates, lords, and high personages.

What have you to say to this Article?

I refer to what I have already said. I never boasted that I should have three children.

The Rouen court was not stupid, and did not, as the Captain supposedly had, taken the exchange literally. While deliberately suggesting a sexual relation with Baudricourt, we can infer, also, a fear of Joan's larger purposes -- the King, yes, got that, oh well, but also Pope and Emperor? More important to the Rouen court was theological heresy than licentiousness, which was nevertheless a useful charge when trying a witch. Invoking the Holy Spirit for motherhood of Pope, Emperor and King was no small matter, and not just for the allusion to the Virgin Mary, but also in relation to recent schisms in the Church and the ever-ongoing contests over the Holy Roman Empire and the various Papal lands in Italy.

For the Rouen court, that Joan was now a prisoner of the English meant that the birthing of a Pope and Emperor was fake. If she made false claims upon the Pope and Emperor, then her actions to crown the King were false, too. The entire Trial was all about that coronation. And they went after it constantly, especially regarding Joan's confounding, complicated and evolving descriptions of an angelic crown given to Charles.

Throughout the Rouen Trial, Joan gave hints and details about the "sign" she gave to the French King upon meeting him at Chinon in the form of an angelic crown, as well as a "crown a thousand times more rich" than that he received at his coronation at Reims. The court was most keen to use these stories against her, and returned to the topic frequently. There were two threads of these visions that Joan introduced in her testimony at Rouen, and which the court smugly tossed about -- and which has driven much modern historical questions about Joan's sincerity. For the Rouen court, these visions of an angelic crown for the French King gave opportunity to denigrate not just her but Charles. For modern academics, it must be of delusion or deceit.

From the Seventy Articles, starting with Article LI:

Jeanne hath not feared to proclaim that Saint Michael, the Archangel of God, did come to her with a great multitude of Angels in the house of a woman where she had stopped at Chinon; that he walked with her, holding her by the hand; that they together mounted the stairs of the Castle and together gained the Chamber of the King; that the Angel did reverence to the King, bowing before him, surrounded by this multitude of Angels, of which some had crowns on their heads and others had wings. To say such things of Archangels and the Holy Angels is presumption, audacity, lying, as in the holy books we do not read that they did a like reverence, a like demonstration, to any saint — not even to the Blessed Virgin, Mother of God. Jeanne hath said that the Archangel Saint Gabriel hath often come to her with the blessed Michael, and sometimes even with thousands of Angels. She hath also proclaimed that the same Angel, at her prayer, did bring in this company of Angels a crown, the most precious possible, to place upon the head of her King — a crown which is to-day deposited in the treasury of the King ; that the King would have been crowned at Rheims with this crown, if he had deferred his consecration some days: it was only because of the extreme haste of his coronation that he received another. All these are lies imagined by Jeanne at the instigation of the devil, or suggested by demons in deceitful apparitions, to make sport of her curiosity, — she who would search secrets beyond her capacity and condition.

She stood firm by her story, replying:

On the subject of the Angel who brought the sign I have already answered. As to what the Promoter suggests on the subject of the thousands of Angels, I do not recollect having said it — that is to say, the number; I did certainly say that I had never been wounded without receiving great comfort and help from God and from the Saints Catherine and Margaret. As to the crown, on this also I have replied. Of the conclusion which the Promoter makes against my deeds, I refer me to God, Our Lord; and where the crown was made and forged, I leave to Our Lord.

We must always keep in mind that the Rouen court had investigated Joan extensively, and so knew what the French knew, including the gossip and stories running across all of France that proved convenient to her prosecution. The Rouen judges, for example knew about the Poitiers Conclusions, and if not actually holding a copy of it (or even the original notes), they knew about the French clerics' endorsement of giving Joan a chance to show a sign at Orleans. Furthermore, there could not have been a person in France who had not heard about the sign Joan was supposed to have given the Dauphin at Chinon. That and the story of her miraculous recognition of the Dauphin had great circulation and embellishment, although no one but Joan and the King knew for sure about the sign she gave him, either by vision or word.

On the second day of the Trial, while the court was still gathering Joan's background, she freely told her background story, starting with her first Voices, and how they eventually told her to "Go into France!" As he described heading from Vaucouleurs to Chinon, the questioner interrupted her to ask the all-important question for the court, "Who counselled you to take a man's dress?" She "several times refused to answer," then stated that she needed them to get to Chinon safely.

She next described her first meeting there with the Dauphin:

When I entered the room where he was I recognized him among many others by the counsel of my Voice, which revealed him to me. I told him that I wished to go and make war on the English."

When the Voice shewed you the King, was there any light?

Pass on.

Did you see an Angel over the King?

Spare me. Pass on. Before the King set me to work, he had many apparitions and beautiful revelations.

They had already heard all this and were looking to trap Joan into a heresy. The questioner interjected,

What revelations and apparitions had the King?

Joan's responded with a rather beautiful affirmation of her experiences:

I will not tell you; it is not yet time to answer you about them; but send to the King, and he will tell you. The Voice had promised me that, as soon I came to the King, he would receive me. Those of my party knew well that the Voice had been sent me from God; they have seen and known this Voice, I am sure of it. My King and many others have also heard and seen the Voices which came to me: there were there Charles de Bourbon and two or three others. There is not a day when I do not hear this Voice; and I have much need of it. But never have I asked of it any recompense but the salvation of my soul. The Voice told me to remain at Saint-Denis, in France; I wished to do so, but, against my will, the Lords made me leave. If I had not been wounded, I should never have left. After having quitted Saint- Denis, I was wounded in the trenches before Paris; but I was cured in five days. It is true that I caused an assault to be made before Paris.

From thus came the accusation of heresy,

Is it a good thing to make an assault on a Festival?

to which she replied,

Pass on.

The next session took place two days later, now with questions focused on Joan's Voices, and with various attempts by a "well-known Doctor," Jean Beaupère, to associate them with her habit of fasting, or to get her to admit that she herself was the author of them. Joan responded to Beaupère's rather sarcastic question if the Voice had touched her arm to awaken her, and where, exactly, it was, and, finally, if she had thanked it. She briefly entertained those questions, then launched into an altogether different reflection:

The Voice said to me: "Answer boldly; God will help thee." Before I had prayed it to give me counsel, it said to me several words I could not readily understand. After I was awake, it said to me: "Answer boldly."

Thereupon, the clerk noted, "[Addressing herself to Us, the said Bishop:],

You say you are my judge. Take care what you are doing; for in truth I am sent by God, and you place yourself in great danger.

The record makes no mention of any response, except that Beaupère continued to try to establish inconsistencies in the voices in order to show they were of her deficient imagination:

Can you not so deal with your Voices that they will convey this news to your King?

Joan here gave another hint about the "sign" given to the King as coming not from her but her Voices, which she will later more directly assert

Why does not this Voice speak any more to your King, as it did when you were in his presence?

I do not know if it be the Will of God. Without the grace of God I should not know how to do anything.

Here we get early hints of the angelic visit, which would contradict the theory that she invented it later in the trial. About a week later, on March 1, and after long and extensive questioning on a variety of topics, the court turned back to the "sign" that Joan had given the King:

I think my King took with joy the crown that he had at Rheims; but another, much richer, would have been given him later. He acted thus to hurry on his work, at the request of the people of the town of Rheims, to avoid too long a charge upon them of the soldiers. If he had waited, he would have had a crown a thousand times more rich.

Have you seen this richer crown?

I cannot tell you without incurring perjury; and, though I have not seen it, I have heard that it is rich and valuable to a degree.

The biographer, Pernoud, rightly observes that Joan's account here "has disconcerted historians," some of whom say she made up the story just to mess with the court, or just because she was crazy. Pernoud explains it away as symbolic heraldic language that was losing currency during the reign of the University of Paris scholastics who sought logical and not symbolic thought.

Anatole France holds that Joan related here, as elsewhere in the Trial, her account of angels delivering the "crown" to Charles to what she would have known about the angelic crown Saint Catherine bestowed upon the Roman Emperor Maxentius' wife, who was herself martyred for converting to Christianity. France says,

This question bore upon matters which were of great moment to her judges; for they suspected the Maid of having committed a sacrilegious fraud, or rather witchcraft, with the complicity of the King of France. Indeed, they had learnt from their informers that Jeanne boasted of having given the King a sign in the form of a precious crown.

Anatole France elsewhere reviews legends about Joan, a catalog of what contemporaries and later writes said she did that he wants us to recognize as evidence of the myth-making of Saint Joan. One concerns the "crown" that the Joan stated at Rouen that Charles had "deferred." The legend goes that,

A bishop kept the crown of Saint Louis. No one knew which bishop it was, but it was known that the Maid had sent him a messenger, bearing a letter in which she asked him to give up the crown. The bishop replied that the Maid was dreaming. A second time she demanded the sacred treasure, and the bishop made the same reply. Then she wrote to the citizens of the episcopal city, saying that if the crown were not given up to the King, the Lord would punish the town, and straightway there fell so heavy a storm of hail that all men marvelled. Wizards commonly caused hail storms. But this time the hail was a plague sent by the God who afflicted Egypt with ten plagues. After which the Maid despatched to the citizens a third letter in which she described the form and fashion of the crown the bishop was hiding, and warned them that if it were not given up even worse things would happen to them. The bishop, who believed that the wondrous circlet of gold was known to him alone, marvelled that the form and fashion thereof should be described in this letter. He repented of his wickedness, wept many tears, and commanded the crown to be sent to the King and the Maid.

The biographer explains,

It is not difficult to discern the origin of this story. The crown of Charlemagne, which the kings of France wore at the coronation ceremony, was at Saint-Denys in France, in the hands of the English. Jeanne boasted of having given the Dauphin at Chinon a precious crown, brought by angels. She said that this crown had been sent to Reims for the coronation, but that it did not arrive in time. As for the hiding of the crown by the bishop, that idea arose probably from the well-known cupidity of my Lord Regnault de Chartres, Archbishop of Reims, who had appropriated the silver vase intended for the chapter and placed by the King upon the high altar after the ceremony.

Joan could not have known about that story, and if she did she would have dismissed it, as she did regularly whenever the Rouen court would throw rumors or legends at her, such as that of someone catching butterflies with her battle standard:

My people never did such a thing : it is your side who have invented it.

The story, which the biographer France leaves ambiguously apocryphal, does not satisfy Joan's testimony. The allegorical explanation fails since Joan is speaking literally here. Or, perhaps, she is speaking prophetically, an explanation which I do not find in any of the commentaries. If so, I wonder that Joan worries that the King had hurried to his coronation for some other reason than an angelic or symbolic crown from heaven or Saint Denis.

It's odd, since it was Joan herself who rushed Charles to Reims, and while ever frustrated by inaction, she pushed the army, with the king in train, towards Reims. So for what, if not a crown held by the English at Saint Denis, was Charles supposed to await before the coronation?

In another work, the biographer Pernoud states that it was a canard Joan had made up,

possibly to throw her judges off the scent, to allude to that sign as to a concrete object, a crown brought by an angel. In the course of the following interrogations she amplified that image as if at random; it is easy to grasp the symbolic bearing.

Well, Joan told the Rouen Court plainly,

The crown signified that my King should possess the Kingdom of France.

So it was allegorical, a "signal"?

Wait -- an allegory needs its concrete counterpart. So what was the crown?

The Rouen court obsessed over this story, and made it a significant element of the "Subsequent Examinations," the post-hoc testimony of certain clerics' supposed conversations with Joan on the day of her execution. These testimonies are highly dubious, conducted mostly by the most vociferous of her interrogators at the direction of the "Promoter" himself, Bishop Cauchon. The document commenced with the statement,

Thursday, 7th day of June, 1431, We, the Judges, did ex-officio take information upon certain things which the late Jeanne had said before persons worthy of credit when she was still in prison and before being brought to judgment.

The depositions were, then, eight days old. If, as was well attested, there was much remorse in Rouen at Joan's execution, the delay to issue this document makes sense: Cauchon's cover up needed tightening, as doubt had crept in. More importantly, Cauchon needed to deliver more than just Joan's ashes to the English: he needed a sound bite from Joan herself for the King of England to announce that she had admitted she was not from God. The need for such affirmation belies the precariousness of the premise. The problem, of course, was that all of France, well, outside the King's inner circle, and half of northern France, Paris included, believed Joan was sent from God. The "Bourgeois of Paris, a Burgundian chronicler at the University of Paris, recognized, upon Joan's death, that even in Paris there were divergent views of the Maid:

There were people here and there who said that she was a martyr for her right Lord; others said that she was not and that those who had protected her had done wrong. So said the people, but whether for bad or good she had done, she was burned that day.

In addition to the week's delay to issue the "Examinations" document, more damning is that the next day, June 8, the English released a statement from the child King, now ten, that directly referenced Cauchon's "Examinations", stating that Joan,

confessed without any ambiguity that the spirits who she affirmed had many times appeared to her were evidently wicked and deceptive... She confessed herself to have been tricked and deceived by them.

Way too convenient. Worse, though, is that four days later Cauchon and several of his Rouen court conspirators received "letters of guarantee" that protected them from liability for their actions in the Trial. There's no proof therein of a quid pro quo, but that was a quid pro quo, and one that was negotiated in advance of the "Examinations." With the well-documented paper trail of reimbursements and remunerations that tied the Judges to the English is without debate. The "letters of guarantee", then, guaranteed they could keep the money. More interesting is that it was even of concern.

And, of course, later that month the English released another letter from Henry instructing his subjects and authorities to tell the "truth" that Joan had admitted her voices had deceived her. The University of Paris duly repeated the statement and forwarded it to Rome.

Most incriminating, though, is that by issuing Subsequent Examinations, Cauchon preempted the release of the official transcripts of the Trial, which were laboriously verified among versions and translated into Latin over several months. The veracity and accuracy of the transcripts has been much debated, but for our purposes here we have the consensus source, that of Manchon, which has been accepted from the Trial of Rehabilitation onward. The Trial notaries, who were sworn to the truth, did not include the Examinations in the official transcript, which was closed on the day of Joan's execution, and after the supposed interviews of her had been conducted. There is no mention of the "Examinations" in the Trial transcript, which means that that the official notaries, who were on duty the day of Joan's death, neither witnessed nor reported on them, as they did regularly on conversations outside of their direct witness.

Another piece of evidence to consider is that the official Transcript mentions a sermon delivered before Joan as she was set to be burned. The sermon, for which there is no transcript, was condemnatory and did not mention any final recantation. In short, Cauchon conspired with and or forced others to lie for him.

I'm not the only one to question these testimonies, nor do all historians agree as to their dishonesty, but any credulous use to justify the position that Joan's Voices were not real betrays the historical perspective. As for Pernoud, she details the self-condemning actions of Cauchon without drawing any conclusions about it. Too bad, for Pernoud had the historical chops to put this question to bed.

Had Joan truly repented that morning, then Cauchon, who expressed open contempt for her upon her execution, would be in violation of his office, which is not implausible, while condemnatory of him. He told Joan,

Ah! Jeanne, have patience; you die because you have not kept to what you promised us, and for having returned to your first evil-doing.

Worse, Joan was "last preached to" in public then burned, with no mention of these recantations. Testimonies of this sermon all relate condemnation alone, such as,

When Jeanne was proclaimed an obstinate and relapsed heretic, she replied publicly before all who were present: "If you, my Lords of the Church, had placed me and kept me in your prisons, perchance I should not have been in this way." After the conclusion and end of this session and trial, the Lord Bishop of Beauvais said to the English who were waiting outside: " Farewell! be of good cheer: it is done."

Finally, the testimonies in the "Subsequent Examinations" were unusually consistent with one another, even for witnesses of the same event, with each focused on the same, two overriding ideas: 1) that Joan admitted her voices deceived her; and 2) that the angel who bestowed the mysterious "crown" was herself, not an angel. Four of the seven testimonies in the Subsequent Examinations discuss the "crown," one which came from her Confessor at Rouen, Dominican Friar Martin Ladvenu:

I heard Jeanne say that, although she had stated in her avowals and confessions, and had affirmed above in the course of the Case, that an Angel from God had brought a crown to him whom she called her King ... that in spite of all she had affirmed on the subject of this Angel, no Angel had brought the crown ; it was she, Jeanne, who had been the Angel, and who said and promised to him whom she called her King, that, if he would set her to the work, she would have him crowned at Rheims. There was no other crown sent from God, in spite of all she might have affirmed in the course of the Case on the subject of the crown and the sign given to him whom she called her King.

and from "Subsequent Examinations," testimony of Pierre Maurice, a young and enthusiastic theologian from the University of Paris who spent the entire trial attempting to "enlighten" Joan:

The day of the sentence, Jeanne being still in the prison, I repaired to her in the morning to exhort her to save her soul. In so exhorting her, I asked her what was the Angel mentioned in the Trial, who, according to her, had brought a crown to him whom she called her King? She replied that it was herself who was the Angel. Having questioned her afterwards on the subject of the crown which she had promised to her King, of the multitude of Angels who at that time accompanied her, she replied that it was true that Angels appeared to her under the form of very minute things. Finally, I asked her if this apparition were real" Yes," she replied, "the spirits did really appear to me — be they good or be they evil spirits — they did appear to me."

That first testimony was from Ladvenu, who was assigned Joan's confessor during her last days at Rouen, and about whom little is known, although he testified four times in the Rehabilitation Trial The second, Maurice, was a star student at the University of Paris who was made a Canon at Rouen by the English, and who had tied his career entirely to the English cause. What gives pause here, as I have discussed, is the consistency in the testimonies and the choice of witnesses, all of whom were trusted to say the right thing. That is, they were engineered.

Another of the testimonies, from another Dominican, from Jean Toutmouille noted,

I first heard Maître Pierre Maurice, who had gone earlier to her, declare she had confessed that all which concerned the crown was fiction: that it was she who was the Angel.

We know that Nicolas Loyseleur, who was the fourth in the Subsequent Examinations to mention the crown, had deceptively administered confessions to Joan while pretending to be a sympathetic compatriot from Lorraine. Worse, he allowed witnesses to secretly watch and record her words. He confessions, then, were intelligence that was shared with the inquisitors, in absolute violation of sigillum confessionis, or "seal of confession". If Maurice announced what Joan confessed, as Toutmouille stated, that, too, was in violation of the seal.

It was all highly irregular, as numerously testified by those present at Rouen who were around for the Trial of Rehabilitation starting 1450. Ladvenu testified four times between 1450 and1456, focusing mostly on the corruption of the Judges (they "wished to have letters of guarantee from the King of England, and received them"), her illegal imprisonment in a military and not ecclesiastical prison, and how the execution itself was illegal, as the ecclesiastical court condemned her to the hands of the secular authorities who burned her immediately without any official judgement.

Ladvenu was either pliable or acting on self-preservation and justification, or, if we believe instead his final deposition, he admitted to having lied in the Subsequent Examinations testimony. He concluded his statements to the Rehabilitation inquiry with,

Up to the end of her life she maintained and asserted that her Voices came from God, and that what she had done had been by God's command. She did not believe that her Voices had deceived her: [but that] the revelations which she had received had come from God.

From the historian's point of view, I am comfortable to take Ladvenu's witnesses at the Rehabilitation, which were consistent over the span of the six years through which he submitted his recollections, over that he gave under duress (or if at all) from Cauchon at Rouen a week after Joan's death, especially since, along with Ysambard de la Pierre, Ladvenu was "with her until her last breath" on the pyre. He not only felt rather guilty over it all but also came under censure or threats for those sentiments form the English. That memory was in him strong twenty years later. He wasn't alone. At Joan's death, there was a great sense of regret, and not just in the executioner, as both de la Pierre and Ladvenu and others reported, but among public witnesses as well as clerics who were not so bound by hatred of Joan knotted up in their own satisfaction.

So where does that leave us? If we discount the "Subsequent Examinations," and take Joan's testimony about the "sign" and the "crown" literally, and not symbolically, then Joan was speaking to more than her own role in Charles' coronation.

When we look at them in tandem, it gives us a little light, though on the "crown sent from God," as it aligns with her statements about the "sign" at Chinon:

The sign was that an Angel assured my King, in bringing him the crown, that he should have the whole realm of France, by the means of God's help and my labours; that he was to start me on the work — that is to say, to give me men-at-arms ; and that otherwise he would not be so soon crowned and consecrated ... The crown signified that my King should possess the Kingdom of France.

As such, both "signs", or, more accurately, visions, are about "France" and not the Coronation. Subsequent events support the thesis.

Following his coronation, Charles VII gained no further lands than what Joan had delivered to him on the way to Reims (indeed, he conceded back to the Burgundians some of it in an ill-fated attempt at reconciliation). And instead of continuing Joan's advance, he dithered and delayed, and set Joan to the side. By bringing Charles to Reims, Joan saved France, but culmination of that outcome took decades, something Joan never conceived -- except in this vision that Charles was impatient and lost as a result a larger crown.

Charles had the army in place. He had the right leader in Joan. Instead, he issued equivocal proclamations of how he was going to go easy on the enemy, let them come home, and then, maybe, if needed, raise that army to set things right, as he did, years later. In prosecuting an extended war, Charles suffered through years of intrigue, palace coups, and even betrayal by his own son. Had he marched an army far larger than the English could ever have mustered, and one with Joan of Arc and all the enthusiasm of the French at its head, and an English army that literally fled what they feared was an actual witch, Paris and Normandy were all his.

The haste, then, was perhaps that of inaction, which surrendered the immediate opportunity for the larger, more glorious crown.

Road to Rouen

Burgundian possessions under the rule of Duke Charles the Bold, 1465–1477 (Wikipedia). Go here for an animated map showing the growth of the Burgundian state. Note the dotted-line that marks the border between France and the Holy Roman Empire, which the Duchy strides. The death of Philip the Good at the 1477 Battle of Nancy against the Swiss Federation allowed the French King Louis XI (son of Charles VIII) to absorb the French portion of the Duchy, thus ending the "Valois House of Burgundy" started in 1363 by Philip the Bold, the brother of the French King Charles V (grandfather of Charles VII).

Even as Joan led the French army and its King towards Reims for the sacramental coronation of Charles VII, the French minister Georges de La Trémoïlle commenced negotiations with the Burgundian court. The talks advanced enough so that the day after the coronation a formal, fifteen day truce was begun.

France was Charles VII's for the taking, especially Paris, but now, not later. Instead, the newly crowned King preferred the adulation of the people along a slow march towards but not into Paris -- which means he did not want to take Paris. Charles and his ministers had ceded authority over the war to their enemies.

How do we even make sense of this? The English were reeling from Joan's onslaught, and as the French army marched triumphantly to and from the sacred coronation of the French King, the Burgundians faced the logic of an English alliance that was losing its authority among the people. And the French minister proposes Burgundian neutrality? It's hard to see to what advantage de La Trémoïlle was leveraging, much less what was the actual situation being leveraged.

At best, de La Trémoïlle's strategy would isolate the English, perhaps weakening their hold on Normandy. At worst, it would have forced the English to seize Paris, which they had otherwise left to the Burgundians to run under a small English guard. It wouldn't look good to crown Edward VI at Rouen, a city of no cultural significance. Or, just as bad, Burgundian neutrality may have opened access for that coronation to take place at Reims. If so, and if the English managed to pull off the sacred coronation at Reims, it would have meant not just dual claims on the Crown but competing claims of the anointed Crown, which could have forced the Vatican to take sides -- and which likely would have brought about another papal schism were one side or the other to reject the papal intervention.

The problem with the French Court's strategy, which came down to wishful thinking, is that it left everything in the hands of the other parties. So long as the English regent of France, the Duke of Bedford, was in commanded of an experienced, formidable army -- and married to the sister of the Duke of the Burgundy -- and so long as the Duke of Burgundy had nothing to lose in the negotiations, the English-Burgundian alliance would hold, especially since the textile factories in Flanders were supplied by English wool. The French strategy to isolate the English through Burgundian neutrality failed to cover the strong hands the Dukes of Bedford and Burgundy were holding. Ultimately, the desired Burgundian realignment to France was achieved, but it didn't happen by itself, and far from immediately. They thought it would magically following Charles' coronation, which is why after it they saw Joan's continued presence inexpedient.

The standard historical explanation that we encounter for the French abandonment of Joan and her reconquest of France is that de La Trémoïlle and the Archbishop of Reims, Regnault de Chartres, came to resent her out of jealousy, or sexist resentment, or something, and so worked against her, whether that be to French advantage or not. The biographer Murray writes,

There existed a bitter feeling of jealousy towards Jeanne in consequence of her great successes in the field. This was notably shown during her attack upon Paris, where she was thwarted in every direction, and all possibility of victory was taken from her by the conduct of the King.

That's exactly what happened, especially at Paris, but "jealousy" hardly satisfies the motives. There's far more to it.

At Orléans Joan had proven herself real, and the entire country was awed and amazed, including one rather complicated figure, Arthur III de Richemont of Brittany who had fought for the French at Agincourt, switched to the English side, rejoined the French Court, only to be kicked out of it two years prior to Joan's arrival. Making it even more complicated, after his father died, his mother married Henry IV of England, becoming Queen Dowager at Henry V's court, and de Richemont himself was married to the sister of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. His homeland, Brittany, had an identity distinct from England and France, although it was geographically attached and thereby more largely tied to France. Yet even in the name "Richemont", a francophone version of the English "Richmond", do we see the crossed identities. Just as French clerics at Paris tied their ambitions to the English, and through the myopia of self-advancement loathed Joan's challenge to their English nest egg, de Richemont, inflamed by the miracle at Orléans, and with a latent patriotism for France -- and recognizing opportunity, raised an army of a thousand and marched to the Loire to fight alongside the Maid.

We must recall that the Burgundian state was in part a fief of both France and the Holy Roman Empire. And, Burgundian Flanders was technically a French fief but in practice was ruled outright by the Duke. As they extended their holdings, the dukes of Burgundy, though French, saw themselves more and more as lords of an autonomous state. Philip the Good, the Duke of Burgundy of Joan's time, had greatly expanded Burgundian Flanders, which neither the English nor the French could claim. It really didn't matter to Philip whether the King of France was English or French; what mattered was the given advantage. By 1429, the assassination of the Duke's father ten years before had become as much an opportunity as a rationale for the war against the Armagnacs, as it empowered him as hegemon.

Where the Armagnac-Burgundian split was originally a fight between French factions, by Joan's time the Armagnacs were "the French" and the Burgundians were "the Burgundians." The French court, though, held to the view that the Duchy of Burgundy was French, and thus the factional split was an internal affair, whereas the English problem was external. Yet, had the English seized Orlėans and so isolated France to the south, or defeated it outright, the Duchy of Burgundy would have become effectively an English and no longer French vassalage; that is, French in name only, and its Flemish and Germanic holdings would have become more and more defining of the Duchy than its French origins. De La Trémoïlle and de Chartres, who together ran Charles VII's court, saw the Duchy of Burgundy as French, and its alliance with England thereby not sustainable. So it was, but that view ignored the deep ambitions of both parties: the English wanted France to become English, while the Burgundians wanted it to become Burgundian.

Joan and her military victories tore into all these cross-ambitions. Her insistence upon taking the English and Burgundians on the field was entirely at odds with court machinations that sought negotiated settlements. For Joan, as long as the Burgundians were allied with the English they were equally the enemy. She told the Rouen court,

As soon as I knew that my Voices were for the King of France, I loved the Burgundians no more. The Burgundians will have war unless they do what they ought; I know it by my Voice.

Having welcomed de Richemont to the fight, Joan struck at the heart of de La Trémoïlle's and, thus, Charles VII's feudal designs. De Richemont's entry meant war, not compromise. Joan knew it so. She was sent to save "France" and not "feudal France," and so rejected a diplomatic settlement with the Burgundians. At the Trial, she recalled her conversation with the reputed mystic, Catherine de la Rochelle, who wanted to meet with the Duke of Burgundy to "make peace":

I told her it seemed to me that peace would be found only at the end of the lance.

Interestingly, the mystic's solution to the war was the same failed strategy as that of Charles: "make peace" with the Duke of Burgundy.

De La Trémoïlle and Charles refused to allow de Richemont's presence at the coronation, which was by custom de Richemont's due. Charles said, according to a Chronicler,

he would rather never be crowned than have my lord [de Richemont] in attendance.

Joan, the chronicler reported, was angry at de Richemont's exclusion. She certainly knew of but didn't care about palace back stories and generational resentments. She just wanted to win the war. If that meant peaceful Burgundian recognition of Charles as King of France, so be it, which is why she invited the Duke to the Coronation, the day of which she wrote him again, saying,

And it is three weeks since I wrote that you should be at the anointing of the king, which today, Sunday the seventeenth day of this month of July, is taking place in the city of Reims: to which I have had no reply, nor have I ever heard any news of that herald.

Back to war, then, for which de Richemont was most welcome.

Historians have recognized this aspect of Joan's influence upon events, especially in the later re-militarization of France under de Richemont, after he expelled de La Trémoïlle from the French Court. Arriving with his soldiers to Jargeau was his first ploy to regain power as Constable of France. By welcoming him, and forcing the general, d'Alençons, to accept his presence, it was Joan who put into place the dynamics that would lead to the reconciliation of Burgundy with France four years after her death. Though well before the final expulsion of the English, in which de Richemont was the crucial commander, that reconciliation was a key turning point, also coming through the leadership of de Richemont. Joan made it happen.

Date	Timeline of Arthur III de Richemont
Early life	Younger son of the Duke of Brittany, John IV and Joanna of Navarre, who subsequently married Henry IV of England.
1410-1414	aligns with Armagnac faction during open conflict with Burgundians
1415	fights for French at Agincourt; wounded, captured and held for five years
1420	convinces brother, Duke of Brittany to join English side in Treaty of Troyes that recognized the English king as heir to France; Dukes of Brittany and Burgundy set informal understanding of mutual support
1422	entitled by English as Duke of Touraine
1424	returns to French Court and made Constable of France
1425	Duke of Brittany signs Treaty of Saumur with Charles VII
1427	English raids force Duke of Brittany to enter truce, separating Brittany from France
	kicked out of French court by de La Trémoïlle
1429	in June brings army to join Joan of Arc, and fights with the French at Battle of Patay
1432	March, Treaty of Rennes signed between Charles VII and Duke of Brittany, enhancing de Richemont's status with French court
1433	overthrows La Trémoïlle
1435	helps negotiate Trety of Arras which re-aligns Burgundy to the French
1444	heads reorganization of the French army on professional terms
1450	commands French victory at Battle of Formigny, in Normandy, and lays seige on Caen
1457	becomes Duke of Burgundy upon death of his nephew
1458	dies

De La Trémoïlle and de Richemont's mutual history and animosities were large. Both had deep ties to the Burgundians: de La Trémoïlle was raised in the Burgundian court alongside the future John the Fearless, and de Richemont was married to one of his daughters. Both joined the Armagnac cause during the height of the armed conflicts with the Burgundians of the early 1410s. Both fought for France at Agincourt and were captured by the English. De La Trémoïlle was released right away, while de Richemont, who was injured in the battle, was held for five years, after which he joined the English cause, indicating either a conversion or, more likely, a deal: he convinced his brother, the Duke of Brittany, to join the Burgundians in support of the English at the 1420 Treaty of Troyes. The English rewarded de Richemont, but with a title and not a high command, so, frustrated at the sidelining, he returned to the French court, where he brought his brother back into the Armagnac fold through a treaty with Charles.

At the French court, de Richemont, who was recruited by de La Trémoïlle, helped de La Trémoïlle to oust and replace the top court minister, Pierre de Giac. But things fell apart for de Richemont in 1427 when de La Trémoïlle turned on him, in part because of his volatile personality, and mostly because de Richemont's brother had been forced by battle into signing a truce with the English. The alignment switch was seen by the French as a unforgiveable betrayal, and thus the the severe animosity against them. After his return to the French cause alongside Joan of Arc, de Richemont maneuvered himself back into the good graces of Charles VII, and took revenge upon de La Trémoïlle, kidnapping and ransoming him for money and a pledge to stay out of the French Court. Amidst the oscillating alliances and defections stood Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. Burgundy knew these characters well, and so after Joan's death, he offered to de Richemont lands that belonged to de La Trémoïlle in exchange for de Richemont's loyalty.

As we consider the betrayal of Joan, perhaps La Trémoïlle and the Archbishop Regnaud de Chartres didn't deliberately abandon Joan and were instead merely practicing standard statecraft. Negotiation was as much a part of Medieval warfare as swords and crossbows. For example, after the English victory at the "Battle of Herrings" during the siege of Orléans, the city's leadership offered to the Duke of Burgundy the city's neutrality under him in exchange for relief from the English. Understanding that the Duke of Orléans was being held in England, that Orléans was the center of Armagnac resistance to the Burgundians, this offer is simply weird. The Armagnac movement was named for the the Count of Armagnac, the father-in-law of Louis I, the Duke of Orléans, whom John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, murdered in 1407. Any question as to the desperation felt in Orléans (which has been questioned by historians) should be replaced by wonder at the desperation of the city in offering to surrender to the son of the Duke of Burgundy who had murdered the father of the current Duke of Orléans. Burgundy, of course, was all for it, but the idea was vetoed by the larger Duke, the English Bedford, who smelled victory over France. He crowed,

I would be mighty angry to cut down the bushes so that someone else could get the little birds from the branches!

Then the Maid got in the way of it all, which makes the French diplomatic maneuvering leading up to and after the Coronation of Charles so glaringly odd: Bedford was absolutely right: Orléans gone, France gone. Joan's logic was different: Orléans saved, the King of France saved; the King crowned at Reims, France saved; Paris taken, France liberated. It is reasonable to see that a personal spat in the French Court got between God's plan for France as understood by Joan and what its leadership chose to do, but that still doesn't explain the larger outcomes, all of which depended Joan's path from Chinon to martyrdom at Rouen.

A final possibility brings us into the ever dubious realm of "psychohistory", which tries to understand the past by putting it on the sofa and asking about its childhood. At first it seems reasonable that much of the capitulation to the Burgundians that Charles VII had authorized was due to his deep sense of guilt over the "murder on the bridge" of John the Fearless. The King held, the theory goes, lingering baggage from the assassination of the Duke, which launched the Armagnanc-Burgundian 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 troubled father, Charles VI. This dark history weighed upon him, we are told. If so, we must imagine a newly crowned and victorious King waking up the next day thinking himself unworthy of it all. It's not just dubious, its nonsensical, much less provable. Rather, we know from Joan the "sign" that she showed him back at Chinon, a golden crown brought by angels. Whether Charles saw it or not (Joan says he did), I'm thinking survivor guilt gets washed away pretty quickly by God's agents delivering an entire country to you.

Joan, as we have seen, on the day of the Coronation affirmed the Charles' peace overtures to Burgundy, only under far different terms from those La Trémoïlle and the Archbishop de Chartres were seeking. Joan wrote that the Duke would do better to wage war against the "Saracens," by which she meant the heretical Hussites of Bohemia, than against the French.

Her letter in full reads:

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.

The French ministers, instead, made it altogether too easy for the Duke, seducing him with "greater offers of reparation than the royal majesty actually possessed," including to yield the town of Compèigne, which a year later continued to hold out against the Burgundians, although at the expense of Joan's capture and her ransom to the English. The Duke of Burgundy had no intention of respecting "neutrality," and instead took advantage of the French self-deception in order to reinforce his position with the English -- who took advantage of the reaffirmed alliance with the Burgundians to reinforce Paris with 1,000 troops.

During a lull in the lulls, and at Joan's insistence -- indicative of the authority she yet held -- the Duke of Alençon was finally allowed to organize an attack on Paris, coming on September 8, the Feast of the Nativity of the Mother of God. Joan was at the front. After an all-day assault that induced both panic and expectant enthusiasm within the city, as sun fell Joan "reached the walls of Paris" and was struck in the thigh by a crossbow bolt.

Joan described it briefly to the Rouen court,

I was wounded in the trenches before Paris, but I was cured in five days. It is true that I caused an assault to be made before Paris.

We find greater details from a witness who was rather amazed by it all:

The Maid took her standard in hand and with the first troops entered the ditches toward the swine market. The assault was hard and long, and it was wondrous to hear the noise and the explosion of the cannons and the culverines that those inside the city fired against those outside, and all manner of blows in such great abundance that they were beyond being counted. The assault lasted from about the hour of midday until about the hour of nightfall. After the sun had set, the Maid was hit by a crossbow bolt in her thigh. After she had been hit, she insisted even more strenuously that everyone should approach the walls so that the place would be taken; but because it was night and she was wounded and the men-at-arms were weary from the day-long assault, the lord of Gaucourt and others came to the Maid and against her will carried her out of the ditch, and so the assault ended.

Must have seemed like another Orlėans or Jargeau about to happen -- the Maid is down! the Maid returns to the attack! Such was in Joan's mind, as well, for the next day she went looking for d'Alençon to resume the attack. But over the night the King halted the campaign, and ordered a retreat back to the Loire, which meant back to where it all started, Orléans.

Joan was certain about taking Paris. She had warned the English King and his regent, Bedford, in her Letter to the English,

And do not think in yourselves that you will get possession of the realm of France from God the King of Heaven, Son of the Blessed Mary; for King Charles will gain it, the true heir: for God, the King of Heaven, so wills it, and it is revealed to him [the King] by the Maid, and he will enter Paris with a good company.

A letter dated June, 1429, just before the Loire campaign, from a young lord who had joined the army in enthusiasm at the news of the Maid, noted from an encounter with her,

After we had arrived at Selles, I went to her lodging to see her, and she called for wine for me and said she would soon have me drink it in Paris.

A report sent before the attack to the French Queen and her domineering mother, Yolanda of Sicily, discussed the progress of La Trémoïlle's negotiations, hoping for a "good treaty," yet also declared that Joan

leaves no doubt that she will bring Paris under her control.

This was her way: flat promises of battlefield success. Yet Joan never seems to have claimed with certainty that she herself would be in Paris. The King would, absolutely, she declared, but for her, as with the young lord who would drink the wine in Paris, or bringing Paris "under control," she might or might not be there. Similarly, at the Rouen trial she answered questions about the Count d'Armagnac who wrote her regarding the papal schisms:

I replied, among other things, that when I should be at rest, in Paris or elsewhere, I would give him an answer.

In that letter, dated, August 22, 1429, Joan wrote,

This thing I cannot tell you truly at present, until I am at rest in Paris or elsewhere; for I am now too much hindered by affairs of war; but when you hear that I am in Paris, send a message to me and I will inform you in truth whom you should believe, and what I shall know by the counsel of my Righteous and Sovereign Lord, the King of all the World, and of what you should do to the extent of my power.

It's all ambivalent and conditional. In fact, Joan's Voices never told her she would be in Paris. From the Rouen trial,

When you came before Paris, had you revelations from your Voices to go there?

No, I went at the request of the gentlemen who wished to make an attack or assault-at-arms; I intended to go there and break through the trenches.

Paris would come to the French, as she predicted, but not with Joan herself entering the gates. Joan's Voices, instead, guided her to Paris through her legacy, not by carrying her battle standard through its streets.

Before leaving St. Denis, where Charles VII had resided during the Paris campaign, Joan presented her complete set of white armor and a sword she had seized in battle to the altar at the church of Saint Denis, a traditional act of thanksgiving by a wounded soldier. After the King left Saint Denis to the English, they took Joan's armor and likely destroyed it. From there, the usual story is the the King abandoned Joan, while allowing her limited, unsupported military campaigns, which is true. For her part, Joan "feared nothing but treason."

Charles VII was not entirely deceived by his counselors, but he was duplicitous with Joan. Back at the French Court, 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 continued Burgundian resistance within the Loire region itself, at a town called Saint-Pierre-le-Moûtier. Sent officially 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 her troops forward.

The Court next ordered her to attack another town in the region, La Charité, which was also fortified, but denied her additional artillery or funds. Joan was forced to raise her own army for the attack, which was unsuccessful, her first defeat after Paris, giving the Court further excuse to ignore her and to adhere to the supposed truce with the Duke of Burgundy. On her own accord, Joan moved north to defend areas that Burgundy had attacked, despite the truce. That Joan knew violations of the truce were going on means the Court knew it, but the Court deliberately ignored it under the guise of an agreement. That Joan acted on her own authority or the King's doesn't matter. What matters is that she went to defend Compiègne, where she had stayed previously during the Coronation campaign, and which was an article of negotiation between the French and Burgundians. The town was under Burgundian and English attack, with few resources and a small force to defend itself. There Joan was captured, but, as always, standing fast amidst battle, only this time there was no rallying the troops, as they had gone into the city and the gate was closed behind her as the Burgundians surrounded and pulled her from her horse.

Joan lamented not having been able to successfully defend Compiègne. While imprisoned, Joan learned of her pending transfer to the English and leapt from her cell, a fall of some forty to sixty feet. Questioned on February 21, 1430 about the attempted escape, Joan explained,

When I knew that the English were come to take me, I was very angry; nevertheless, my Voices forbade me many times to leap, In the end, for fear of the English, I leaped, and commended myself to God and Our Lady. I was wounded. When I had leaped, the Voice of Saint Catherine said to me I was to be of good cheer, for those at Compiègne would have succour. I prayed always for those at Compiègne, with my Counsel.

Questioned about it again on March 14, she added,

I had heard that the people of Compiègne, all, to the age of seven years, were to be put to fire and sword ; and I would rather have died than live after such a destruction of good people. That was one of the reasons. The other was that I knew I was sold to the English; and I had rather die than be in the hands of my enemies, the English.

The siege was raised on October 24 of 1430, so perhaps Joan knew this when she testified,

I said that before Martinmas many things would be seen, and that the English might perhaps be overthrown.

Martinmass, or the feast of Saint Martin, was November 11 of that year, so the saving of Compiègne would have been just while she was about moved to the English from the Burgundians, sometime in November. That Joan prophesized the relief of Compiègne through Saint Catherine might be disputed because she may have heard of the relief of the city from prison. It's likely so, that she knew it, but it doesn't mean her Voices didn't tell her. When she stated that she thought "many things woudl be seen" by Martinmass, she was being pushed by the questioners on her shocking statement that we have on this page come to recognize as the fall of Paris to the French six years later,

Before seven years are passed, the English will lose a greater wager than they have already done at Orleans; 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.

Asked how she would know this, she said it was "by revelation." The questioner pushed her on it, to which she replied that

and I am sore vexed that it is deferred so long

Pushed again,

In what year will it happen?

she replied,

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

As regards Compiègne, here it gets even more interesting. As was their technique, here the interrogator pulled out some background intelligence, trying to throw her off. He asked her,

Did you not say that this would happen before Martinmas, in winter?

It's astounding. Clearly Joan had told someone back in prison under the Burgundians, which the Rouen court picked up on, her prophesy about a great defeat of the English "before Martinmas." Thereby Joan did not, as critical historians claim, just make it up on the fly during testimony. She affirmed what they had heard, although she did not apply that particular prophesy to Compiègne. She did say that Saint Catherine told her, after her leap, that

those at Compiègne would have succour.

So it seems that Joan herself did not connect those two events, which we can do by looking back on it logically. But the logic of her prophesy that "the English might perhaps be overthrown" before Martinmas becomes even more astounding when we consider what happened at Compiègne. The events there, indeed, marked a hugely important moment for the ultimate French victory.

Another of Joan's captains, a Marshall of France named Jean de Brosse, Lord of Boussac. De Brosse believed in Joan from the beginning, having urged Charles to send her to Orléans, to where he accompanied her at the head of the army sent by Charles. Two years later, having fought aside Jean Dunois, de Richemont, La Hire, and, another of Joan's compatriots, Jean Poton de Xaintrailles, all of whom were the key figures in the ultimate French victory, and all of whom had been sidelined by Charles and La Trémoïlle's various and failed negotiations and truces. De Brosse was grieved at the capture of Joan and pleaded with the King to save her. Charles refused, so de Brosse, already badly in debt, raised his own army, which further ruined him financially. In May, just after Joan's capture, he and de Xaintrailles led 4,000 troops to Compiègne in order to liberate Joan, whom they thought was held there. They After Joan's martrydom, De Brosse tried to avenge her murder by laying siege to Rouen, which failed. He returned to his castle to learn that his wife had died, and he himself followed her the next year, dying in terrific debt.

Again, de Brosse, La Hire, de Richemont, de Xaintrailles were forced by the French diplomatic program into mercenary campaigns. On consideration, several unexpected outcomes come if it. First, it was not atypical of a lord to raise and fight with his own army; in fact, that's how feudal warfare worked. However, by engaging in mercenary campaigns these warriors were, if you think about it, serving the interests and plans of Joan of Arc more than Charles VII. As a result, Charles later on turned to de Richemont to professionalize the army, which we can see as a reorganization of the the warfare Joan carried on after the Court cut her off after Paris. Second, and more importantly, these mercenary campaigns, especially by La Hire and de Xaintrailles, two of Joan's most ardent believers, by carrying on their raids, weakened the English hold on Normandy and forced the Duke of Burgundy into the Treaty of Arras, which effectively ended the war. While these generals were active prior to Joan's arrival, it was she who coalesced them into the common cause of saving France, not just defeating the Burgundians and, especially the English.

>> here

La Charité became a matter of great attention at the Rouen trial. Questions on it included,

Did you never speak with the said Catherine on the project of going to La Charité-sur-Loire?

What did you do in the trenches of La Charité?

Why did you not enter La Charité, if you had command from God to do so?

Had you any revelation to attack La Charité?

Did you do well or ill to advance on La Charité?

The point was that Joan had failed to take the city, and, as with her failed assault on Paris, she was thereby a false prophet. Article LVII of the Seventy Articles of accusation attacked her on this point:

The day of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, Jeanne did assemble the whole army of Charles, to make an attack on the city of Paris ; she did lead the army against the city, affirming that she would enter it on that day — that she knew it by revelation: she directed all the arrangements possible for the entry. And, nevertheless, she is not afraid to deny it before us here in court. And at other places also, at La Charité-sur-Loire, for example, at Pont L'Evêque, at Compiègne, when she attacked the army of the Duke of Burgundy, she affirmed and foretold that which, according to her, would take place, saying that she knew it by revelation : now, not only did the things predicted by her not come to pass, but the very contrary happened. Before you she hath denied having made these predictions, because they were not realized, as she had said; but many people worthy of trust report to have heard her utter them. At the time of the assault on Paris, she said that thousands of angels were around her, ready to bear her to Paradise if she should be killed: now, when she was asked why, after the promises made to her, not only did she not enter Paris but that many of her men and she herself had been wounded in a horrible manner and some even killed, she answered "It was Jesus, who broke His word to me.

What have you to say to this Article

As to the beginning, I have answered it already. If I think of more later, I will willingly answer then. I never said that Jesus had failed me.

The operations against Charité, Paris, and others such as Compiegne, where Joan was captured by the Burgundians, were unsuccessful. Joan assured fellow commanders about various actions, such as at Saint Pierre le Moustier, which she took prior to her assault on Charité. Of the former city, she told her steward, Jean d'Aulen,

she would not leave until she had taken the town.

She did, but she subsequently failed to take Charité, which, d'Aulen, said, was from lack of support from the crown:

Moreover, that, some time after the return from the consecration of the King, he [the King] was advised by his Council — then at Mehun-sur-Yèvre — that it was most necessary to recover the town of La Charité, which was held by the enemy; but that first must be taken the town of Saint Pierre le Moustier, which likewise was held by the enemy;

Joan admitted the failure to the Rouen court:

At the request of the men-at-arms, there was an assault made before Paris, and, at the request of the King himself, one also before La Charité. These were neither against nor by the order of my Voices.

>> here

The deception of the examiners shows here, as Joan's assault on Paris preceded the others. In the truce agreed upon just after the July 17 coronation, the Duke of Burgundy agreed to surrender Paris to Armagnac control. He lied, of course, so Charles had to make a show of force. But that's all he wanted.

>> here

When he called off the attack on Paris and ordered a bridge dismantled that Joan would need to renew the assault -- rather indicative of their relationship, whereby he needed not her obedience, which he had, but a reason for the order. Most deceitful; but it worked. Paris was left alone, and Charles disbanded the army, again leaving Joan without the means to pursue her agenda. Charles lacked the political will to cut her off completely, so played for and against her by allowing her to run her own campaigns without official backing, especially financially. She ended up chasing down rogue cities along the Loire, and then, eventually, to rescue besieged Armagnac cities to the norther, such as Compeigne, where, with a small contingent and entirely on her own as a commander. she was captured by the Burgundians.

Well informed by their spies and informants in France, the Rouen court knew all this. But they spun it to delegitimize Orléans and Reims, by associating those victories with her subsequent failures.

As to Joan's

No, I went at the request of the gentlemen who wished to make an attack or assault-at-arms; I intended to go there and break through the trenches.

Had you any revelation to attack La Charité?

No, I went there at the request of the men-at-arms, as I said elsewhere.

Did you have any revelation to go to Pont l'Evêque?

After I had had, in the trenches of Melun, revelation that I should be taken, I consulted more often with the Captains of the army ; but I did not tell them I had had any revelation that I should be taken.

Was it well to attack the town of Paris on the day of the Festival of the Nativity of Our Lady?

It is well done to observe the Festival of the Blessed Mary, and on my conscience it seems to me that it was, and ever will be, well to observe these festivals, from one end to the other.

Did you not say before Paris, "Surrender this town by order of Jesus?"

'* No, but I said, 'Surrender it to the King of France.'"

Ultimately, there's no need to bother with the whys and hows of Joan's betrayal. God allowed it, and the Saints Margaret and Catherine told her it was coming <<quote >> here

What matters is that for whatever means, under whatever influence or motive, Charles VII never received the angelic crown Joan had prophesized. He rushed into agreements and truces of no substance, prolonging the war and abandoning Joan to her martyrdom. But what Joan had launched was unstoppable.

While undermined by the French court in her continued war against the English and the Burgundians, Joan was right. After her death in 1431, her compatriot warriors, the Duc d'Alençon, La Hire, Jean Dunois and, of course, Artur de Richemont, carried on the fight, raiding northern France, liberating towns, raising alarms, and menacing English and Burgundian holds. The raids challenged the alliance and opened the opportunity for the Congress of Arras that realigned the Burgundians to the French, and which was engineered by de Richemont himself. Absent the pressure of warfare that Joan brought on, there was no need for the English and the Burgundians to enter into the Congress of Arras in the first place.

Saint or Servant of France?

France doesn't become "France" until Philip II in the late 12th century, but even so it lacked national integrity until after the appearance of Joan of Arc. Instead, Charles VII is generally credited with the ultimate victory of France over England in the Hundred Years War, as well as for administrative and military reforms that centralized the French state and led to a greater uniformity of the French language and culture, which remained an ongoing process as the various duchies evolved from French suzerainty to outright ownership. Charles VII, though, had no "France" to rule without Joan.

The order of Joan's Voices to "go to France" is generally interpreted in the light of Domrémy's location within a French fief and not within directly owned French territory. Indeed, the Duchy of Bar was not fully absorbed into France until 1766. That line of thought places Joan's directions to travel into "France" literally from without it. Joan certainly took it literally that she was going "to France."

However, we might argue that as a French vassal state (split with the Holy Roman Empire) starting in 1301, Joan's region of the Duchy of Bar, called Barrois mouvant, was essentially French, even to the extent that the French exercised authority to tax within the duchy. In 1430s Joan's Armagnac contemporary, René of Anjou, a direct descendant of John II of France (reigned 1350-1364) and brother-in-law of Charles VII, held the title Duke of Bar, and later, that of Duke of Lorraine. If we look at Joan's order to "go to France" from this perspective, the command takes on an ideological, not geographic or political, meaning.

So what is "France"?

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

Following the Invasion of England in 1066, the Normans controlled both the north of France and England. After series of power grabs, political marriages, dynastic divisions, and armed contests, by the 12th century, English King Henry II, who spoke French, had also taken over a large part of western France through his marriage to Eleanor of Aguitaine, creating the Angevin Empire, which rules England and most of the west of France. The Angevin rule lasted until the Battle of Bouvines in 1214, in which the French defeated an English, Flemish, and Holy Roman Empire coalition that opposed Philip II's territorial expansion. As a result of Bouvines, the English King John was severely weakened and was forced into signing the Magna Charta, while Philip II consolidated a coherent "France." However, John managed to keep a foothold in lower Aquitaine and Gascony, which had a traditional and independent Basque and not French identity. 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. Edward, of course, claimed the French throne. Rejected by the French nobles, Edward 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, Edward 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.

In the 1380, Charles VI, "Charles the Mad," renowned today as the crazy king who thought he was made of glass, inherited the French crown. Weakened by bouts of insanity, various actors pushed and pulled the strings around him, leading to the 1420 disinheritance of heir, the Dauphin Charles, whom Joan, essentially, crowned Charles VII. Meanwhile, 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.

>>here >> 100 years war summary

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. Historians correctly recognize that the Hundred Years War sparked English national identify, so had the English, whose rulers spoke French at home, won and reclaimed France on top of England, would France have become English, or England French?

Certainly, had England conquered France, the English court would have maintained its French identity, which was the stronger of the two cultures. English, then, would have been isolated to England, as English had no presence in France, but French would have not only persisted but have been enhanced in England, for, to combine the two, Henry VI, who spoke French and English, would have had to use French officially. It seems clear that had the English conquered France, the English court would have become more French and less English.

Nevertheless, English control of France would have deep implications, which we can see in the English occupation of northern France in the 1420-30s. Firstly, any English conquest of France would be accompanied by Burgundian empowerment and expansion, which would have included the Low Countries -- making English-Burgundian controlled France less French and more Dutch. Next, the University of Paris would have been greatly empowered in its "conciliar" project to supersede papal authority through "councils." While the conciliar movement continued under Charles VII, who aggressively pursued French interests over Papal authority, including to declare Papal authority subservient to the French counsels, the movement failed, and France largely returned to Papal subservience by the end of Charles VII's life. By contradistinction, an English controlled France may well have more effectively implemented the conciliar movement, which was consistent with its tradition of parliamentary rule.

Obviously, had England conquered France, Henry VIII may never have married Catherine of Aragon, or have demanded papal nullification of the marriage to her. Or, maybe he would have and the Pope more vehemently would have denied the annulment Henry demanded. Lots of contingencies here, but to assume that Henry VIII's establishment of the Church of England was over the papal denial of that annulment is naive, at best. Even if given the annulment from Catherine, Henry would have dissolved the Catholic Church, which, if the English had conquered France, would have included its dominion over France.

The variables here are infinite, and counter-factual history can only inform, not prove anything, but with an eye to larger events that we do know, we can understand much of Saint Joan's instructions to "go to France." A France ruled by Henry VIII would no longer be a Catholic France. Certainly, events may have prevented that, but we can imagine a straight line from the Church of England to the Church of France.

Vive La France

During and since Joan's time, French patriots have looked to Joan for glory of France. Until the French Revolution, she was a mark of glory for both the French monarchy and the Catholic Church. During the Revolution, the Jacobins suppressed any Catholic or monarchical associations, including her annual festival in Orléans that had centered around the Cathedral of Sainte-Croix, where Joan celebrated a Vespers Mass during the siege. Joan nevertheless remained useful for the Revolution as a symbol of the common people and "independence."

Napoléon renewed the celebrations that the Jacobins had halted and also 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. Interest in Joan grew from there, leading to the publication of her Trials by Quicherat in 1840 << todo.

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

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. While modern academics have co-opted Joan for various agenda, from feminism and anti-patriarchy, to cross-dressing and "gender fluidity", seeing in Joan everything but French nationalism and the Catholic faith, which, in turn, they deplore when Joan's image is adopted by "far right" monarchists and nationalists. Nevertheless, while seemingly all things to all people, Joan remains a dominant symbol of France, and correctly so.

What goes missing is her Catholicity. 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 Shakespeare's characterization of her as a fraud in his hagiographic Henry VI and in France in Voltaire's crude and demeaning 1730s play about her, the secular view of Joan persisted, Voltaire ridiculed Jean Chapelain's 1656 epic and Catholic 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." Voltaire's mockery was not just of Chapelain, but of 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, as Voltaire's tantrum was more about his own anti-Catholic bigotry than Joan of Arc. She was merely a useful target.

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.)

All the while consigning to the dark Petrach, and thus, Dante and other early "Reniassance" figures for Michelet, there was one "dark ages" ambassador to hold on to: Joan of Arc, whom he called "The Maid of Orleans." For Michelet, 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 hand:

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

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

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

I can't even begin to process the association of "redemption of France" with the "imitation" and Passion of Christ, and we're better off, as with Voltaire, just not going there. But Michelet gets even more grotesque with his impassioned, shall we say, 19th century romanticization of femininity represented by Joan:

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 fills the empty space. Thus the Lincoln Memorial is a "temple" and George Washington rises to the heavens in a an "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. Michelet, as least, recognized in Joan a good Christian, but like scholars who have followed sees her faith as an anachronism and her visions as irrelevant at best.

Joan's >>here >> the church

The Babylonian Captivity

Joan herself was born amidst an ongoing papal schism. When she was five years old, the "Western Schism" of 1378 was finally settled with a consensus selection at Rome of Pope Martin V, although two rival claims persisted. However, the antipope from Avignon, Benedict XIII, refused to concede, and he moved to Spain under the protection of the King of Aragon who used his presence there for leverage on other issues with Rome. It was Benedict's successor, the antipope Clement VIII who twelve years later finally gave up on the project on July 26, 1429 when the King of Aragon withdrew his support for him. Note the date: Joan's triumph at Orléans was in May and the coronation of Charles VII at Reims occurred on July 17. There is an interesting parallel to Joan in the Schism itself, precipitated by Pope Gregory XI's move from Avignon to Rome in 1377, ending the uncontested "Avignon Papacy" but prompting the schismatic, French-backed papacy back at Avignon. Known as the "Babylonian Captivity," the official Avignon papacy lasted through seven Popes across sixty-seven years. We see in these events an inversion of antagonists from that of Joan's day: Where the English provoked God's wrath in the Hundred Year's War, the French caught themselves up in less-than-holy entanglements during the Avignon period, which ended only after the intervention of another female Saint, Catherine of Sienna.

In 1289, Pope Pope Nicholas IV allowed the French King Philip IV to collect a one-time Crusades tithe from certain territories under Rudolf of Habsburg (who was not happy about it) in order to pay down Philip's war debts. With the costs of ongoing wars with Aragon, England and Flanders, Philip was up to his ears in financial gamesmanship, including debasement of the currency, bans on export of bullion, and seizure of the assets of Lombard merchants. In 1296, he imposed a severe tax upon Church lands and clergy in France, which didn't go over well with Rome. Pope Boniface VIII responded with the first of three Papal Bulls aimed at Philip denying his right to tax the Church without papal permission and generally asserting papal over secular authority.

The "Palace of the Popes" in Anagni, south of Rome, where Philip IV attacked Pope Boniface VIII (wikipedia)

The Pope compromised by allowing such a tax for emergencies only, and Philip went ahead anyway with at least some. Things escalated from there, with Philip prosecuting clerical agents from Rome in royal courts and the Pope issuing a wonderfully named Bull, Ausculta Fili ("Listen, My Son"), which Philip not only ignored but had burned in public. Boniface called the French Bishops to Rome, the assembly of which Philip preempted by convening the first Estates General in France, a council with representatives from the nobility, clergy, and commons. Boniface issued another Bull asserting Papal authority and excommunicated anyone, ahem, who prevented clerics from traveling to Rome. Philip did the obvious thing and sent a small army of sixty troops to arrest the Pope and force his abdication. The soldiers stormed the papal estate at Anagni, south of Rome, and held him for three days until residents retaliated and rescued the Pope from the French. Now Philip got an excommunication directed at him personally. Boniface, though, likely from injuries or trauma suffered from the attack, and possibly from poisoning by the French, died shortly after.

Philip's excursion to Anagni put pressure on the subsequent Papal conclave to avoid further antagonism with him. The next Pope, Benedict XI, rescinded the excommunication but not that of Philip's minister who led the attack on Boniface, thus leaving the conflict unsettled. Benedict, though, died within a year, and after a year-long impasse between French and Italian Cardinals at the ensuing Conclave, Philip had his way with selection of the Frenchman, Raymond Bertrand de Got, as Pope Clement V. Clement basically did Philip's will, which included effective rescindment of Boniface's Bulls, a posthumous inquisition into Boniface in order to discredit him (which failed), sanction of Philip's arrest of the Knights Templar, and, most importantly, move of the entire Papal court to Avignon in the south of France. This was 1309.

Return from exile: Gregory XI & Saint Catherine of Sienna

Philip's capture of the Papacy worked well for him but no so much for the Church, which, bound to French dominance, lost its legitimacy elsewhere. At first the old enemies of Philip, England and Aragon, found it convenient not to have to deal with the Italians in Rome so did not object. However, a succession crisis among Philip IV's heirs led to the English claims on the French throne and outbreak of the Hundred Years War, over which the Avignon Papacy, while maintaining neutrality and assisting in treaty settlements, leaned towards the French side. So when Gregory XI moved the papacy back to Rome in 1376, the French were furious while the English could sit on their hands and shrug, "oh well." No objection them. And no objection, either, from the Holy Roman Emperor, whose brand was quite literally diluted by the move from Rome to Avignon.

Map showing support for Avignon (red) and Rome (blue) during the Western Schism (Wikipedia)

Shortly after arriving at Rome, Gregory died. Under the threats from a Roman mob to appoint an Italian, i.e., not a French pope, and with disunity and among the French faction, as well as absence of some of the French Cardinals, the Conclave compromised on a bishop from Naples, who became Urban VI.

Two years later, with Urban refusing to return to Avignon, the French Cardinals held their own conclave south of Rome at Anagni, at invitation of the Count thereof, Onorato Caetani, who was angry at Urban VI for removing him from lands appointed to him by Gregory XI. The French Bishops selected a rather complicated man, Robert of Geneva, son of the Count of Geneva, who had studied at the Sorbonne, held a rectory in England, and earned the nickname "Butcher of Cesena" for authorizing the massacre of three to eight thousand people for the town's participation in a 1377 rebellion against the Papal States (lands directly ruled by the Pope). Now Clement VII, Caetani tried to set up shop in Naples, but was chased out of town by a mob who supported the Roman Pope, shouting, "Death to the Antichrist!" King Charles V of France, who certainly had a say in Caetani's selection, welcomed him back to Avignon as Clement VII and gathered support from various regions and countries who, for whatever reason, preferred France over England, such as the Scottish who went with whatever the English did not.

This time period crosses with that of Saint Bridget of Sweden (1303-1373) who was terribly upset at the Avignon papacy, but whose pleadings to the Church to return to Rome were ignored. In 1350, Bridget sought papal authorization for her order, the Bridgettines, but she refused to go to Avignon, and went to Rome instead where she awaited the Pope's return -- which occurred finally in 1367 when the Avignon Pope Urban V visited Rome as a symbolic gesture of a permanent return. In Rome, he ran the Holy See from the Vatican but ran into various problems with local lords who had gotten used to having things their way. Along with rebellions within the Papal States (taking advantage of the absence of Rome), Urban faced trouble with the bishops back at Avignon who demanded his return. He did grant Saint Bridget her order in 1370, but as he prepared that year to return to Avignon, Saint Bridget told him that if he left Rome he would die. He did, and three and a half months later he died.

Urban's successor, Pierre Roger de Beaufort, who became Gregory XI, had witnessed in person Bridget's prophesy to Urban V, which may have, one can imagine, at least been in the back of his mind when he privately vowed before God to return the papacy to Rome should he be selected as Pope. Whatever the intention, for the first years of his papacy there were plenty of fires to put out (or try) and reforms to institute, including, interestingly, his 1373 règle d'idiom, which instructed clergy to speak the local vernacular to their flocks outside of the liturgy, came well before the proto-Protestant heretic John Wycliffe translated the Bible into English. Gregory's attempts to reconcile the kings of France and England failed.

The Avignon papacy was not tenable. And no matter how you look at it, Saint Peter died at Rome and not Avignon. Gregory XI seemed to think so, anyway, but he only acted on the conviction at the insistence of Saint Catherine of Sienna (1347-1380). Saint Catherine had picked up where Saint Bridget had left off, dictating a series of letters to the Pope commanding him, among things, to return to Rome and in language Gregory characterized as having an “intolerably dictatorial tone, a little sweetened with expressions of her perfect Christian deference.” Not sure if it's Catherine so much as Gregory not wanting to hear it. For example, she wrote,

I have prayed, and shall pray, sweet and good Jesus that He free you from all servile fear, and that holy fear alone remain.  May ardor of charity be in you, in such wise as shall prevent you from hearing the voice of incarnate demons, and heeding the counsel of perverse counselors, settled in self-love, who, as I understand, want to alarm you, so as to prevent your return, saying, “You will die.”  Up, father, like a man!  For I tell you that you have no need to fear.

In 1376, Catherine traveled to Avignon on behalf of the Republic of Florence to negotiate a peace with the Papal States. She failed at the immediate mission but through a divine inspiration won a far more important one: when they met, she told him that she knew of his private vow to return the papacy to Rome. He so decided, but wavered in face of strenuous French objections. When Catherine heard of the indecision, she wrote,

I beg of you, on behalf of Christ crucified, that you be not a timorous child but manly. Open your mouth and swallow down the bitter for the sweet.

In January of 1377, Gregory moved the papacy back to Rome. He soon after died, and his successor Urban VI refused to return to Avignon, where the French bishops held their own conclave and selected Clement VII, the first antipope of the "Western Schism" that would last almost seventy years, and that would lay the ground for the Martin Luther and the protestant schisms that followed.

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