Joan of Arc (born c. 6 January 1412; executed on 30 May 1431), also known as Jeanne d'Arc or Jehanne la Pucelle ("Joan the Maiden" or "Virgin"), is a 15th century personnage, national icon of the French, and a canonized saint of the Catholic Church.
Importance to History
Describing visions of saints and angels which she said had ordered her to drive the English out of France, she played a role in allowing Charles VII's army to retake a large portion of his dynasty's former territories which had been under English and Burgundian dominance during the Hundred Years' War.
After traveling to meet with the heir-apparent who later became King Charles VII, she was examined and approved by clergy and then sent with a relief army to lift the siege of Orléans. Two subsequent campaigns paved the way for Charles VII's coronation at Rheims, an important symbol of his legitimacy in the view of the people of the time.
The Royal government attempted to negotiate a truce which it hoped would lead to a permanent peace. This policy contradicted Joan of Arc's desire to press forward with further military campaigns. She helped encourage an attempt to retake Paris, but was wounded and forced to withdraw under orders from Charles VII. As the truce was abandoned the following Spring, she led a small force which attempted to relieve the besieged town of Compiègne but was captured by Burgundian troops and handed over to their English allies. Several months later the English government arranged a heresy trial overseen by clergy who supported their cause, and Joan was burned at the stake in Rouen. After the English were expelled from Northern France in the 1450s, the case was investigated and then formally appealed via a petition from Joan's aged mother Isabelle and two of her surviving brothers. Pope Callixtus III authorized an official appeal of the case, during which the Inquisitor-General overturned the original conviction and described Joan as a martyr who had been wrongly executed by a corrupt tribunal controlled by a secular government. She became a symbol of the French Catholic League in the 16th century, an object of derision in the writings of the secular philosophers of the 17th, and a popular heroine and saint in the eyes of many of the French people. She was officially beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1920.
Background
Joan was born near the end of the lengthy Truce of Leulinghen which had established an uneasy peace with England for a generation. But events had brought war back to the French countryside during the troubled reign of King Charles VI, who was plagued by periodic episodes of mental illness. Several years before Joan's birth, two members of the Royal family, Duke John the Fearless of Burgundy and Duke Louis of Orléans, developed into bitter opponents as each vied to control the government. The rivalry finally came to head in 1407 when John the Fearless arranged the assassination of Louis of Orléans in 1407. During the resulting war, the two factions loyal to their families became known as the Armagnacs (supporters of the Duke of Orléans) and the Burgundians (supporters of the Duke of Burgundy). During this division, King Henry V of England renewed his family's claim to the French throne and demanded territorial concessions as the price of continued peace. When these demands were not met, Henry invaded France and won a famous victory at Agincourt on 25 October 1415. Henry began conquering large sections of northern France beginning in 1417 and gained the Burgundians as allies after John the Fearless was assassinated by the Armagnacs in 1419 and his heir, Philip III, chose to enlist the aid of the English to exact revenge. Via the Treaty of Troyes in 1420, Henry and Philip divided the kingdom between themselves and disinherited the Crown Prince - the future King Charles VII.
In an odd twist, Henry V and Charles VI died one after another in 1422, leaving Henry's infant son Henry VI as the heir to both kingdoms. The baby's uncle Duke John of Bedford served as the de-facto head of the government.
The English made steady gains on the battlefield. By 1428 most of northern France was occupied by their troops. On 12 October 1428 the English began the siege of Orléans, whose bridge over the Loire River was an important route for invading the central core of Charles VII's remaining territory. Joan of Arc would become famous for lifting this siege.
Life
Childhood
Joan of Arc was born in the farming village of Domrémy in the Duchy of Bar (now Domrémy-la-Pucelle in the district of Lorraine). Her date of birth is given as "the Feast of the Epiphany" (January 6th), and must have occurred around the year 1412. Her parents were Jacques d'Arc and Isabelle (Isabellette) Romée (aka "de Vouthon"). The family farm included about 50 acres of land and her father served as a village official. The area was surrounded by lands which were loyal to the Duke of Burgundy and his faction but the nearby town of Vaucouleurs had remained loyal to the French crown, as was true of most people in Domrémy itself. Joan would say that she only knew of one pro-Burgundian villager.
Joan later testified that she experienced her first vision around 1424. She would report that St. Michael, St. Catherine, and St. Margaret told her to drive out the English and bring the dauphin to Reims for his coronation. At the age of sixteen she asked a kinsman, Durand Lassois, to bring her to nearby Vaucouleurs, where she petitioned the garrison commander, Count Robert de Baudricourt, for permission to visit the royal French court at Chinon. Baudricourt's sarcastic response did not deter her. She returned the following January and gained support from two men of standing: Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulegny. Under their auspices she gained a second interview, where she made an apparently miraculous prediction about a military reversal near Orléans.
Rise to Prominence
Baudricourt granted her an escort to visit Chinon after news from the front confirmed her prediction. She made the journey through hostile Burgundian territory in male disguise. Upon arriving at the royal court, she impressed Charles VII during a private conference. He then ordered background inquiries and a theological examination at Poitiers to verify her morality. During this time, Charles's mother-in-law, Yolande of Aragon, was financing a relief expedition to Orléans. Joan of Arc petitioned for permission to travel with the army and wear the equipment of a knight. Because she had no funds of her own, she depended on donations for her armor, horse, sword, banner, and entourage. Historian Stephen W. Richey explains her rise as the only source of hope for a regime that was near collapse.
"After years of one humiliating defeat after another, both the military and civil leadership of France were demoralized and discredited. When the Dauphin Charles granted Joan’s urgent request to be equipped for war and placed at the head of his army, his decision must have been based in large part on the knowledge that every orthodox, every rational, option had been tried and had failed. Only a regime in the final straits of desperation would pay any heed to an illiterate farm girl who claimed that voices from God were instructing her to take charge of her country’s army and lead it to victory."
Joan of Arc arrived at the siege of Orléans on 29 April 1429, but Jean d'Orléans (aka Dunois), the acting head of the Orléans ducal family, initially excluded her from war councils and failed to inform her when the army engaged the enemy. She overcame this by disregarding the veteran commanders' decisions, appealed to the town's population, and rode out to each skirmish, where she placed herself at the extreme front line, carrying her banner. The extent of her actual military leadership is a subject of historical debate. The eyewitness accounts say that she often made intelligent suggestions in the field, but that her soldiers and commanders regarded her mainly as a divinely-inspired mystic whose victories were attributed to God. Traditional historians, such as Edouard Perroy, conclude that she was a standard bearer whose primary effect was on morale. This type of analysis usually relies on the condemnation trial testimony, where Joan of Arc stated that she preferred her standard to her sword. Recent scholarship that focuses on the rehabilitation trial testimony more often suggests that her fellow officers esteemed her as a skilled tactician and a successful strategist. Stephen W. Richey asserts that "She proceeded to lead the army in an astounding series of victories that reversed the tide of the war." In either case, historians agree that the army enjoyed remarkable success during her brief career.
Leadership
Joan of Arc defied the cautious strategy that had previously characterized French leadership, pursuing vigorous assaults against outlying siege fortifications. After several of these fell, the English concentrated forces at the stone fortress that controlled the bridge, les Tourelles. On 7 May, the French assaulted the Tourelles. Contemporaries acknowledged Joan as the hero of the engagement, during which at one point she pulled an arrow from her own shoulder and returned, still wounded, to lead the final charge.
The sudden victory at Orléans led to many proposals for offensive action. The English expected an attempt to recapture Paris or an attack on Normandy; Dunois later said that this in fact had originally been the plan, until Joan convinced them to proceed instead to Reims. In the aftermath of the unexpected victory, she persuaded Charles VII to grant her co-command of the army with Duke John II of Alençon, and gained royal permission for her plan to recapture nearby bridges along the Loire as a prelude to an advance on Reims and a coronation. Hers was a bold proposal, because Reims was roughly twice as far away as Paris, and deep in enemy-held territory.
Joan of Arc changed the fortunes of King Charles VII. By the end of his reign, he had regained every English possession in France except for Calais and the Channel Islands. (Portrait by Jean Fouquet, tempera on wood, Louvre Museum, Paris, c. 1445)The army recovered Jargeau on 12 June, Meung-sur-Loire on 15 June, then Beaugency on 17 June. The duke of Alençon agreed to all of Joan of Arc's decisions. Other commanders, including Jean d'Orléans, had been impressed with her performance at Orléans, and became strong supporters of her. Alençon credited Joan for saving his life at Jargeau, where she warned him of an imminent artillery attack. During the same battle, she withstood a blow from a stone to her helmet as she climbed a scaling ladder. An expected English relief force arrived in the area on 18 June, under the command of Sir John Fastolf. The battle at Patay might be compared to Agincourt in reverse: The French vanguard attacked before the English archers could finish defensive preparations. A rout ensued that decimated the main body of the English army and killed or captured most of its commanders. Fastolf escaped with a small band of soldiers and became the scapegoat for the English humiliation. The French suffered minimal losses.
The French army set out for Reims from Gien-sur-Loire on 29 June, and accepted the negotiated neutrality of the Burgundian-held city of Auxerre on 3 July. Every other town in their path returned to French allegiance without resistance. Troyes, the site of the treaty that had tried to disinherit Charles VII, capitulated after a nearly bloodless four-day siege. The army was in short supply of food by the time it reached Troyes. Edward Lucie-Smith cites this as an example alleging that Joan of Arc was more blessed than skilled: A wandering friar named Brother Richard had been preaching about the end of the world at Troyes, and had convinced local residents to plant beans, a crop with an early harvest. The hungry army arrived just as the beans ripened.
Reims opened its gates on 16 July. The coronation took place the following morning. Although Joan and the duke of Alençon urged a prompt march on Paris, the royal court pursued a negotiated truce with the duke of Burgundy. Duke Philip the Good broke the agreement, using it as a stalling tactic to reinforce the defense of Paris. The French army marched through towns near Paris during the interim and accepted more peaceful surrenders. The duke of Bedford headed an English force and confronted the French army in a standoff on 15 August. The French assault at Paris ensued on 8 September. Despite a crossbow bolt wound to the leg, Joan of Arc continued directing the troops until the day's fighting ended. The following morning, she received a royal order to withdraw. Most historians blame French grand chamberlain Georges de la Trémoille for the political blunders that followed the coronation.
Capture, Imprisonment, and Trial
After minor action at La-Charité-sur-Loire in November and December, Joan went to Lagny-sur-Marne the following March, then to Compiègne on May 23rd to defend against an English and Burgundian siege. A skirmish on 23 May 1430 led to her capture. When she ordered a retreat, she assumed the place of honor as the last to leave the field. Burgundians surrounded the rear guard.
It was customary for a war captive's family to raise ransom money whenever the captor allowed a ransom, which the Burgundians did not allow in this case. Many historians condemn Charles VII for failing to do more to intervene. She attempted several escapes, on one occasion leaping from a seventy foot tower to the soft earth of a dry moat. The English government eventually obtained her from Duke Philip of Burgundy. Bishop Pierre Cauchon of Beauvais, an English partisan and member of the Council which oversaw the English occupation of northern France, assumed a prominent role in these negotiations and her later trial.
Joan's trial for heresy was politically motivated. The duke of Bedford claimed the throne of France for his nephew Henry VI. She was responsible for the rival coronation. Condemning her was an attempt to discredit her king. Legal proceedings commenced on 9 January 1431 at Rouen, the seat of the English occupation government. The procedure was irregular on a number of points.
To summarize some major problems, the jurisdiction of judge Bishop Cauchon was a legal fiction. He owed his appointment to his partisanship. The English government financed the entire trial. Clerical notary Nicolas Bailly, commissioned to collect testimony against her, could find no adverse evidence. Without this, the court lacked grounds to initiate a trial. Opening one anyway, it denied her right to a legal advisor.
The trial record demonstrates her exceptional intellect. The transcript's most famous exchange is an exercise in subtlety. "Asked if she knew she was in God's grace, she answered: 'If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me.'" The question is a scholarly trap. Church doctrine held that no one could be certain of being in God's grace. If she had answered yes, then she would have convicted herself of heresy. If she had answered no, then she would have confessed her own guilt. Notary Boisguillaume would later testify that at the moment the court heard this reply, "Those who were interrogating her were stupefied" and abruptly halted the questioning for that day. This exchange would become famous, and is incorporated into many modern works on the subject.
Several court functionaries later testified that significant portions of the transcript were altered in her disfavor. Many clerics served under compulsion, including the inquisitor, Jean LeMaitre, and a few even received death threats from the English. Under Inquisitorial guidelines, Joan should have been confined to an ecclesiastical prison under the supervision of female guards (i.e., nuns). Instead, the English kept her in a secular prison guarded by their own soldiers. Bishop Cauchon denied Joan's appeals to the Council of Basel and the Pope, which should have stopped his proceeding.
The twelve articles of accusation that summarize the court's finding contradict the already-doctored court record. Illiterate Joan signed an abjuration document she did not understand under threat of immediate execution. The court substituted a different abjuration in the official record.
Execution
Heresy was a capital crime only for a repeat offense. Joan agreed to wear women's clothes when she abjured. A few days later, according to eyewitnesses, she was subjected to an attempted rape in prison by an English lord, and she resumed male attire either as a defense against molestation or, in the testimony of Jean Massieu, because her dress had been stolen and she was left with nothing else to wear.
Eyewitnesses described the scene of the execution on 30 May 1431. Tied to a tall pillar, she asked two of the clergy, Martin Ladvenu and Isambart de la Pierre, to hold a crucifix before her. She repeatedly called out "in a loud voice the holy name of Jesus, and implored and invoked without ceasing the aid of the saints of Paradise." After she expired, the English raked back the coals to expose her charred body so that no one could claim she had escaped alive, then burned the body twice more to reduce it to ashes and prevent any collection of relics. They cast her remains into the Seine. The executioner, Geoffroy Therage, later stated that he "...greatly feared to be damned for he had burned a holy woman."
Appeal
A posthumous retrial opened as the war ended. Pope Callixtus III authorized this proceeding, now known as the "rehabilitation trial", at the request of Inquisitor-General Jean Brehal and Joan of Arc's mother Isabelle Romée. Investigations started with an inquest by clergyman Guillaume Bouille. Brehal conducted an investigation in 1452. A formal appeal followed in November 1455. The appellate process included clergy from throughout Europe and observed standard court procedure. A panel of theologians analyzed testimony from 115 witnesses. Brehal drew up his final summary, the "Recollectio F Johannes Brehalli", in June 1456, which describes Joan as a martyr and implicates the late Pierre Cauchon with heresy for having convicted an innocent woman in pursuit of a secular vendetta. The court declared her innocent on 7 July 1456.
(Adapted from Wikipedia's article on Joan of Arc)
External References:
Joan of Arc Archive
Association for Joan of Arc Studies
Joan of Arc Primary Sources Series
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