Joan
of Arc

• Joan of Arc was actually not poor, contrary to what some accounts say. She was born to a farmer who owned 50 acres in Domrémy in the Vosges department of France in the year 1412. According to Joan of Arc’s history, she had the nickname “the maid of Orléans,” although her real name is truly a mystery.

• Her real name is a mystery. The English name “Joan of Arc” is a translation of the French “Jeanne d’Arc;” nevertheless, that was not Joan of Arc’s last name. To be clear, her family did not originate from any area known as “Arc,” and no such hamlet actually exists. Given that apostrophes were not commonly used in the fifteenth century, it is probable that she went as “Jehanne D’arc” or “Jehanne Tarc” in honor of her father.

• When Joan of Arc entered the war with her visions, she effectively turned a territorial war into a religious war, convinced by the divine nature of her mission. Joan of Arc would assume the role of commanding the French forces after the French army suffered a devastating fight and failure against the English at Agincourt. Seven months would pass during the English attempt to capture Orléans during the blockade. One of Joan of Arc’s most well-known miracles is said to have occurred here. It is thought that as she and her army were attempting to reach Orléans, the wind and water currents abruptly changed, allowing them to go there covertly.

• She succeeded at the Siege of Orléans, establishing her legend.

• She had the King crowned in Reims. The French King Charles VII would be able to go to Reims and be crowned there thanks to her triumph at the Siege of Orléans and a number of subsequent successes. His crowning provided him a great deal of legitimacy because Reims was historically the location of French kings’ coronations. The English King Henry VI’s later crowning in 1431 at Notre-Dame de Paris was not the same.

• According to a legend, Joan of Arc was accompanied by bagpipers who played “Hey Tuttie Tatie,” which was allegedly also performed for Robert the Bruce as he approached the Battle of Bannockburn.

• Joan of Arc was taken prisoner by a party of French lords from Burgundy who were supporting the English on May 23, 1430, in Compiègne, France. They imprisoned Joan of Arc for months in Rouen Castle’s dungeon, also called the Tour Jeanne d’Arc.

• She was sentenced to death and burnt at the stake on May 30, 1431 in Rouen. Joan of Arc was around 19 years old at the time. After she passed away, her body was burned again to prevent the collecting of relics by being converted to ashes. The neighboring Seine River was then used to discharge her remains. Twenty-two years after her passing, the Hundred Years’ War would still be raging, with Charles VII of France exploiting Joan of Arc’s inspiration and sense of justice for his cause.

• To commemorate the location of her heresy-related burning at the stake in Rouen, a subdued statue of her has been erected beside the “Église Sainte-Jeanne-d’Arc.”

• She was declared a martyr and canonized as a saint by the Catholic Church. Pope Callixtus III’s court reviewed the case in 1456 and found the defendant to be innocent as well as a martyr. She wasn’t, however, declared a saint by the Roman Catholic Church until 1920.

• She inspired the bob haircut. The bob cut was created in 1909 by a hairstylist named Antoni Cierplikowski, a Polish man whose alias was Monsieur Antoine de Paris. Joan of Arc inspired him. He was a Paris-based hairstylist, and his services were in very high demand in the city. The bob cut was therefore created.

When Burgundian forces stormed Domrémy in July, the town caught fire, the crops were devastated and Joan, her family and the other villagers were forced to evacuate. In January 1429, she left Vaucouleurs once more. Once more, she was denied; however, now she had two of Baudricourt’s men on her side. Charles II, Duke of Lorraine, who had learned of Joan during her sojourn at Vaucouleurs, called her to Nancy. The duke believed she might have healing capabilities because he was sick. She chastised him for living with his mistress and did not give any remedies.

The English invasion of France was continued by Henry V’s brothers, John of Lancaster, First Duke of Bedford, and Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. Anglo-Burgundian rule extended to the majority of northern France, Paris and portions of southwestern France. Charles had not yet been crowned, and since the Burgundians held Reims, the location of French kings’ traditional coronations, doing it there would assist in bolstering his claim to the throne. The English had begun to encircle Orléans in July 1428 and had nearly cut it off from the rest of Charles’ domain by seizing many of the minor bridge towns on the Loire River. As the final defense against an invasion on the rest of Charles’s domain, Orléans played a strategic role. In her subsequent story, Joan claimed that this was the time when her visions instructed her to leave Domrémy and aid the Dauphin Charles.

The French hero Joan of Arc was executed at the stake for heresy on May 30, 1431, in Rouen, Normandy, which was under English rule at the time. The 19-year-old was not only proclaimed immortal, but she also became a national symbol for the French for her work during the protracted Hundred Years’ War.

Believed to have been preaching heresy, Joan was placed on trial. She was charged with blasphemy for dressing in men’s clothing, acting on demonic visions and unwilling to surrender her words and concede to the church because she believed that only God should judge her. By having her verdict handed down by an evangelical court, Joan’s captors attempted to suppress parts of her trial, although the proceedings were politically driven. It was suggested that Joan’s triumph was proof that she was a servant of God since she testified that her visions had told her to conquer the English and crown Charles. There was no doubt about the outcome. Charles’ claims to validity could have been undermined by Joan’s guilt by demonstrating that he had been consecrated via the actions of a heretic. Cauchon presided over the trial as the regular judge. The experiment was funded by the English. Instead of being held captive by the English and guarded by male troops under the Duke of Bedford’s command, Joan was supposed to be in the care of the church throughout the trial and under the care of women. Under inquisitorial rules, Joan was subjected to protracted questioning without a lawyer. The trial records may have been fabricated, according to evidence.

In the trial, Joan displayed excellent restraint. Torture devices were displayed to Joan in an effort to get her to surrender. Cauchon met with roughly a dozen assessors (clerical jurors) to discuss whether or not she should be tortured after she refused to be intimidated. The majority made a decision not to. A document of abjuration was later given to her, in which she agreed not to wear men’s clothes or carry weapons. She heard it read out loud and signed it.

An unrepentant or relapsing heretic may have been handed over to the judgment of the secular courts and offered the option of receiving the death penalty for public heresy, which constituted a capital offense. Joan was no longer an unrepentant heretic after signing the abjuration, but she could still be put to death if found guilty of returning to her old ways. At the rehabilitation trial, witnesses said that guards had forced Joan to wear men’s clothing while also subjecting her to maltreatment and rape attempts, including one by an English aristocrat. Cauchon was informed that Joan had started dressing like a man again. He dispatched priests to urge her to maintain her subjection, but the English forbade them from going to see her. Joan was put to death on May 30, 1431, when she was around 19 years old. Despite court procedure mandating that heretics be barred from receiving the sacraments, she was permitted to do so in the morning. She was subsequently brought to Rouen’s Vieux-Marché (Old Marketplace), where her sentence of conviction was delivered aloud. She was handed over to the English and bound to a large plastered pillar for death by burning though she should have been handed over to the proper authority, the bailiff of Rouen, for a secular sentence. She requested a cross to be placed next to her chest as she passed away and was given one by an English soldier made out of a stick. A procession crucifix was brought from Saint-Saveur’s Church. It was held in front of her eyes while she was being executed, and she clutched it before her hands were chained. Her remains were dumped into the Seine River when she passed away.