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

The divine origin of Joan's visions (which I will call her "Voices") is assumed here, which enables important typological and scriptural connections to Joan's life and acts. As opposed to skeptical treatments of Joan that simply assume that her visions were not of divine origin, these pages will assume a divine nature for them, only with prudence. The approach here is faithful yet cautious.

This discussion of Saint Joan here 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 here, 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

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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, the "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 not only impossible, it's historiographically useless. 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. Joan did experience voices and visions. If they were not real, then how to explain their effects? Such is a core Catholic tenant, drawn from the Gospel of Matthew 7:15-20, 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.

and 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 employed with Joan 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" historians have 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."

If Joan's visions were real, then we have perfectly explainable historical causation, including for her flustered recantation, called her "abjuration," of her Voices 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, 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!"

The notary scribbled in the margin of the court register his agreement with the Saints,

Responsio mortifera

Did she really make this up just to please the court? Or do not even cynics have limits? Joan did not make this up, for 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 at the head of 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.

My larger concern here is that a historiography that frees itself of having to address whether Joan's spiritual events were real or not 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.

But what is equally bewildering is that these historians mostly ignore the most thorough, considered, and balanced investigation into Joan, by the Vatican itself. On consideration for beatification and canonization, the Church investigates the case, and thoroughly, assigning advocates for and against the candidate. We'll get into it later, but there were serious charges against her, including to wage war on a Holy Day, disobedience to her Voices, questions about her purity, and her reluctance to be burned to death, which was possibly "unsaintly."

The Church duly considered those objections, and on May 16, 1920, canonized Saint Joan of Arc.

Some background (aka 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 II "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 she must 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.

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.

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 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.

Crazy, Saint or witch?

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

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. The next year, after Joan's execution, the English king 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. Ultimately, the English-Burgundian alliance would unravel, but, meanwhile, following Joan's capture the French, too, yielded to the theory that her capture marked, for France, her loss of divine order, falling to episodic cat-and-mouse play, both militarily and diplomatically, hoping to weaken the English while luring the Burgundians to their side. At the time of Joan's death, it had yielded no results. After her death, the strategy continued, and French military actions were focused on consolidation and not advance, defense. Still, Joan's prophesy unfolded. As the English-Burgundian alliance unwound, the English King returned home, the English leadership lost confidence, and the French under Joan's old warriors 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 Rheims (wikiepdia, cropped)

Having liberated Orlėans in 1429 and leading the French army across France to clear the way for the Dauphin's coronation at Rheims, 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.

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 Rheims, 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.

Poitiers: the first Trial

At the Trial of Rehabilitation, the available Rouen Trial actors testified under oath as to what happened under their watch. As opposed to the conclusions drawn at Cauchon's "Subsequent Examinations". the notary Manchon, who was with Joan until the end, declared:

She never revoked her revelations, but maintained them up to the end.

The Dominican Martin Ladvenu was also deposed, saying under oath a slightly -- but not substantially -- different view of her final acts from what he had told Cauchon, which was,

On the morning of the day on which sentence was delivered and before she was brought to judgment, Jeanne, in presence of Maître Pierre Maurice, Nicolas Loyseleur, and Brother Jean Toutmouillé, who were with me, did say and confess that she knew and recognized that the Voices and apparitions which had come to her, mentioned in the Case, had deceived her, because they had promised she should be delivered and freed from prison ; and that she certainly now saw clearly the contrary.

Ladvenu, who held the Cross up to Joan upon the pyre, in 1455, again under oath, stated,

When I was with her, and exhorting her on her salvation, the Bishop of Beauvais and some of the Canons of Rouen came over to see her; and, when Jeanne perceived the Bishop, she told him that he was the cause of her death that he had promised to place her in the hands of the Church, and had relinquished her to her mortal enemies.

>> here

At Joan's presentation to the Dauphin at Chinon, the Archbishop of Embrun, Jacques Gélu, warned the Dauphin to be careful with a peasant girl from a class that is "easily seduced." After Orleans, the Bishop had a change of heart. Applying the formula of the Evangelist, "by their fruits ye shall know them," 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 says, from a theological point of view, "the situation takes on a different hue." Thus the theologians asked to investigate her on behalf of the French King, the Dauphin Charles, needed to consider that 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 Orleans would be the sign, but they'd have to send her there with the army.

>> God chooses the weak

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

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 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 to the English. But in 1435, after unleashing 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. So 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.

The moment was made possible by Joan of Arc's delivery of Orlėans, the "sign" Joan had promised the "Doctors" at Poitiers back in 1429. The importance of Orlėans is easy to understand, as it saved France militarily. But the need for the coronation at Rheims 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 very convenient to adhere to the tradition.

Nevertheless, as a religious ceremony affirming the divine rights of kings, the coronation was supremely important. Indeed, the coronation was called a "consecration." For Joan, he was not King until he was ceremonially and by the authority of the Church crowned. She told François Garivel, the King's Councillor-Genéral,

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 Rheims was surrounded by Burgundian-held territory. To much bewilderment, Joan wouldn't have any delay, and following the relief of Orléans, she insisted upon and prevailed in leading the French army to continued victories that allowed for the passage of the court to Rheims 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.

Recollections of her arrival to Chinon, recall her focus on Orléans, and not upon the King's coronation, but she did mention it. Her uncle, who introduced her to Baudricourt, recalled,

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.

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. Not exactly.

What Joan had to accomplish is too quickly forgotten in the compression of the events. So let's review the contingencies:

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.

And, I'd add, she saved Catholicism.

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 Archbishop of Rheims, Saint Rémi, 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 it up since the Poitiers Conclusions don't mention the Saints or the Archangel, only that she had instructions "from God." To draw that conclusion, they have to ignore extensive witness testimony from the Trial of Rehabilitation stating that prior to Orleans Joan never mentioned them. 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."

Twice more 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, 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. 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. Joan had placed the two Archangels, Michael and Gabriel, on her battle standard to either side of the Lord who was depicted holding the world in his hands with Jhesus Maria written above. The standard was of great concern to the court at Rouen, not just for what her interrogators considered its presumptuous design, but because that standard 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 conjurations...

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, which read,

Article LVIII 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.

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. When Joan was threatened by the torture machines it was Saint Gabriel who consoled her:

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.

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 was on the way to battle.

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 Rheims, 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 Rheims 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.