Joan of Arc, memory of: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 02:05, 15 February 2010

Joan as a religious phenomenon - Saint or sinner?

In the 15th century, when considering the phenomenon of one, such as Joan, who claimed to hear voices or see visions beyond the ken of those around her, the principal means of attempting to comprehend such unusual occurrences was religious and recourse was had to trained clerics who were considered the experts of the day in examining such matters.

Apart from the possibility that the claimant was dishonest or insincere in reporting her experiences, there were two main explanations which the 15th century offered. The first was that the claimant was God-inspired and the alternative was that she had been deceived by Satan.

An examination by clerics at Poitier which took place soon after Joan first met with the Dauphin resulted in a pronouncement that the examiners could find no wrong with her. The full report of this examination is lost to history. Subsequently, two major legal processes were held which resulted in opposite conclusions - one that she was a heretic, for which she was burnt, and the other setting aside that verdict and, 500 years later, declaring Joan to be a Saint.

Saint Joan

One of the most well known facts about Joan of Arc is that she is a Saint of the Roman Catholic Church. The formal process of canonization, which had been initiated a little over a half century earlier, was completed in 1920 when Pope Benedict XV declared her to be a Saint of the Church. Thus the debate within the Church over the meaning of Joan's life, begun during her life in the 15th century, was brought to a close after nearly 500 years.

That debate had begun the moment Joan stepped onto the stage of world history in 1429 when she led French forces in triumph at Orleans. For the Church of the time, heavily involved as it was in worldy affairs, and being the human institution that it was, shared the divisions of that worldly society. The Church, in short, was as divided and conflicted about the meaning of Joan as was the world around it.

This division was most obviously manifest in the two "Trials" which have ever since defined her in both life and death. In the first of these Trials, that which has become known as the Trial of Condemnation, Joan, a prisoner in the hands of the English whom she had defeated in battle, was declared by a Church court which tried her, in a political trial masquerading as a religious one, to be a heretic and was burnt at the stake.

Later, while Joan was still within the living memory of those who knew her and fought with her, another Church process, in a series of hearings now known as the Rehabilitation trial of Joan of Arc, declared the verdict of the first Church trial to be null and void, and set it aside. Many modern historians consider that the second Trial was no less politically motivated than was the first, since its protagonists had their own worldly reasons for challenging the original verdict.

Since the original verdict was not reversed, but only set aside (as the Devil's Advocates in Joan's canonization hearings would want to point out), this left open the question of the final judgment of that Church. But that process was brought to an end in 1920 with Joan's canonization, and since that time the cult of Joan within the Catholic Church has been strong.

Harlot of the Armagnacs

If the Nullification Trial formed the basis for eventually viewing Joan as a Saint, the original Trial of Condemnation was the basis for considering her a heretic. In fact, it was as a relapsed heretic that Joan went to the stake.

Fundamentally, Joan was acting within a political context (the Hundred Years' War), and was acting politically in taking sides (with the French) in that conflict. As a result of this, her contemporaries tended to view her depending upon their own political orientation. In particular, her English enemies, under whose auspices her Trial in Rouen was conducted, viewed her as an "Arm of the Fiend", deceived by Satan appearing in the form of an angel, a blasphemer, et cetera.

On at least two occasions (at Poitiers, and apparently also prior to her Trial in Rouen), Joan was inspected by women in order to determine whether or not she was a virgin. Apart from possibly discrediting her completely if she was found not to be a virgin, this "test" also ruled out the possibility that she was a witch, for it was held at the time that a virgin could not be a witch since the pact a witch was alleged to have made with the Devil involved sexual intercourse.

However, it was common among the English soldiery to refer to her as a witch, or as the "harlot of the Armagnacs". Harlotry in some form was necessary in order to support the charge of her being a witch. Later English writers, for example, Shakespeare, also portrayed Joan as a witch. In order to do this, they asserted that Joan was in fact not a virgin. In Shakespeare's Henry VI, part 1, Joan in the end pleads for her life on the pretext that she is pregnant.

While the suspicion or belief that Joan was misled by Satan, or was a harlot and a witch were common among Joan's enemies at the time, almost no one today holds to this view, at least not in this form.

Joan's voices and visions

The subject of the nature and origin of the voices and visions which Joan of Arc experienced has been of intense interest not only to her contemporaries, but to scholars, religious figures, and students of history all the way down to modern times.

Joan of Arc on film

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)

The Passion of Joan of Arc (original French title La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc) is perhaps the most powerful treatment of Joan's story ever flmed. Produced in France in 1928 by Carl Theodor Dreyer, it featured Renée Jeanne Falconetti in the title role.

Joan of Arc in poetry and music

A sheet music cover from 1917. (Historic American Sheet Music Project, Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library)

Joan, like many figures of broad appeal to a variety of causes, was soon the subject of popular ballads and poetry. One of the earliest is a poem dedicated to her 1429 by Christine de Pizan, "Hymn to Joan of Arc"; it is the only known tribute composed while Joan was still living. Other treatments include Voltaire's mock-epic The Maid of Oranges, along with Friedrich Schiller's dramatic rebuttal to Voltaire, The Maid of Orléans (Die Jungfrau von Orleans).

In classical music, Joan has been celebrated as the subject of a number of operas and musical dramatizations, most famoulsy in Tchaikovsky's opera The Maid of Orleans (1878-79), based in large part on Schiller's work. At its premiere in 1881 in Saint Petersburg, the role of Joan was sung by Mariya Kamenskaya.

In popular and art music, Joan has also been a recurrent subject. Best-known is Leonard Cohen's ballad "Joan of Arc," which takes as its conceit a dialogue between Joan and the fire which is about to consume her; in its most memorable recording, Jennifer Warnes sings the part of Joan, while Cohen sings that of the fire. Art song treatments of Joan go at least as far back as 1953, when Ballade des Dames du temps jadis, Georges Brassens's adaptation of a poem by François Villon, was composed. In 1982, the band Orchestral Maneouvres in the Dark released two singles, "Joan of Arc" and "Maid of Orleans." In 2005, Kate Bush recorded "Joanni" on her album Aerial.

A different tradition from these art songs can be found in military and patriotic songs which invoke Joan as a leader and inspiration to action; a number of these were popular in World War I and World War II. With titles such as "Joan of Arc They Are Calling You," these songs attempted to evoke a patriotic sense of duty by recalling Joan's bravery in battle.

Joan of Arc in fiction

Mark Twain's Joan of Arc, 1896

The most ambitious attempt to retell Joan's story in fictional form was Mark Twain's Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, by the Sieur Louis de Conte' -- a nom-de-plume further identified as Joan's page and secretary. The work is fictionally presented as a translation "out of the Ancient French into Modern English from the Original Unpublished Manuscript in the National Archives of France". Such a conceit was far from new -- indeed Cervantes had used a similar premise in Don Quixote, which he claimed was translated out of Arabic -- but the idea of a serious pseudo-historical memoir was a radical departure from Twain's previous work. The novel was serialized in Harper's Magazine in 1895, and published in book form the following year. The book proved popular, but was widely criticized by the literary lights of the day; despite this, Twain regarded it as his finest work.

Fictional treatments of Joan since Twain's have taken a variety of angles on her story, some quite fanciful. Thomas Keneally's Blood Red, Sister Rose (1974) has Joan taking a turn toward the Occult, while Pamela Marcentel's An Army of Angels (1997), though incorporating extensive research and offering a vivid portrait of the younger Joan, eventually grows heavy with the weight of its ritualistic prose. In her native France, Joan has also been the subject of many fictions; prominent among these is Michel Peyramaure's Jeanne d'Arc (1999). In Brazil, Erico Verissimo's A Vida de Joana D'Arc (1935), a young adult novel, encompasses Joan's entire life in an accessible style.

Joan's story has also been a source for a wide variety of Manga and graphic novels, among them Yoshikazu Yasuhiko's Jeanne and Arina Tanimura's Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne, in which Joan is reincarnated as a gymnastics champion who fights a secret battle against demons that emerge from paintings.

Internet resources

Joan of Arc in the First World War by B.J. Omanson, covers interest in Joan of Arc during the First World War.

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+{{subpages}}
+[[Image:Jeanndarc vanier.jpg|thumb|250px|right|Madame [[Pauline Vanier]], Companion of the Order of Canada, dressed as Joan of Arc, circa 1920.  Many women in modern times have taken Joan as a role model, and sometimes demonstrated their feeling by dressing as Joan in plays, photographs, and [[tableaux vivants]]. <small>Photo by Sidney Carter / Library and Archives Canada</small>]]
 Among the many important figures of [[history]], some few stand out as transcending the accidents of their time and place. The young 15th century [[France|French]] peasant girl, known to history as '''[[Joan of Arc]]''', who led her nation's armies to victory in the later stages of the [[Hundred Years' War]] and became a French national heroine, is one such.
-In Joan's case, although she has become a ''French'' national heroine, she has also become a heroine to many of other nationalities. And although she was a pious and devout [[Catholic]] (and, since 1920, a recognized [[saint]] within the Catholic Church), she has become a religious inspiration to many of other faiths and, not only people of faith, but aetheists and agnostics as well. And although very much a child of the 15th century, into which she was born, she has remained an inspiration over the centuries since.
+In Joan's case, although she has become a ''French'' national heroine, she has also become a heroine to many people of other nationalities. And although she was a pious and devout [[Catholic]] (and, since 1920, a recognized [[Saint]] within the Catholic Church), she has become an inspiration to many people of other faiths and, not only people of faith, but [[atheism|atheists]] and [[agnosticism|agnostics]] as well. And although very much a child of the 15th century, into which she was born, she has remained an inspiration over the centuries since.
+Belonging to all people, all times, and all [[religion]]s, the transcendent figures of history possess two biographies. First, there is the record of their lives and deeds. In Joan's case, the documentary sources for this are voluminous, especially when one considers the fact that she lived in the years before the printing press and widespread [[literacy]], and was also young, female, and not of [[nobility|noble]] class.
+But beyond Joan's actual life, there is a second biography, and that is the record of how men and women of subsequent ages have viewed her as seen in [[literature]], [[drama]], [[folklore]], and other media and forms. The story of Joan of Arc, as seen by her viewers and storytellers, is the subject of this article.
+==Joan as a religious phenomenon - Saint or sinner?==
-Belonging to all people, all times, and all religions, the transcendent figures of history possess two biographies. First, there is the record of their lives and deeds. In Joan's case, the documentary sources for this are voluminous, especially when one considers the fact that she lived in the years before the printing press and widespread literacy, and was also young, female, and not of noble class.
+In the 15th century, when considering the phenomenon of one, such as Joan, who claimed to hear voices or see visions beyond the ken of those around her, the principal means of attempting to comprehend such unusual occurrences was [[religion|religious]] and recourse was had to trained clerics who were considered the experts of the day in examining such matters.
-But beyond Joan's actual life, there is a second biography, and that is the record of how men and women of subsequent ages have viewed her as seen in literature, drama, folklore, and other other media and forms. The story of Joan of Arc, as seen by her viewers and storytellers, is the subject of this article.
+Apart from the possibility that the claimant was dishonest or insincere in reporting her experiences, there were two main explanations which the 15th century offered. The first was that the claimant was [[God]]-inspired and the alternative was that she had been deceived by [[Satan]].
-==Joan's voices and visions==
+An examination by clerics at Poitier which took place soon after Joan first met with the [[Dauphin]] resulted in a pronouncement that the examiners could find no wrong with her. The full report of this examination is lost to history. Subsequently, two major legal processes were held which resulted in opposite conclusions - one that she was a [[heresy|heretic]], for which she was burnt, and the other setting aside that verdict and, 500 years later, declaring Joan to be a Saint.
+===Saint Joan===
+One of the most well known facts about Joan of Arc is that she is a Saint of the [[Roman Catholic Church]]. The formal process of [[canonization]], which had been initiated a little over a half century earlier, was completed in 1920 when [[Pope Benedict XV]] declared her to be a Saint of the Church. Thus the debate within the Church over the meaning of Joan's life, begun during her life in the 15th century, was brought to a close after nearly 500 years.
-The subject of the nature and origin of the voices and visions which [[Joan of Arc]] experienced has been of intense interest not only to her contemporaries, but to scholars, religious figures, and students of history all the way down to modern times.
+That debate had begun the moment Joan stepped onto the stage of world history in 1429 when she led French forces in triumph at Orleans. For the Church of the time, heavily involved as it was in worldy affairs, and being the human institution that it was, shared the divisions of that worldly society. The Church, in short, was as divided and conflicted about the meaning of Joan as was the world around it.
-Joan of Arc's religious visions have interested many people.  The consensus among scholars is that her faith was sincere. She identified [[Saint Margaret the Virgin|St. Margaret]], [[Catherine of Alexandria|St. Catherine]], and [[Michael (archangel)|St. Michael]] as the source of her [[revelation]]s although there is some ambiguity as to which of several identically named saints she intended. Devout Roman Catholics regard her visions as divine inspiration.
+This division was most obviously manifest in the two "Trials" which have ever since defined her in both life and death. In the first of these Trials, that which has become known as the [[Trial of Joan of Arc|Trial of Condemnation]], Joan, a prisoner in the hands of the [[England|English]] whom she had defeated in battle, was declared by a Church court which tried her, in a political trial masquerading as a religious one, to be a heretic and was burnt at the stake.
-Analysis of Joan of Arc's visions is open to evidentiary challenge.  The only detailed source of information on this topic is the condemnation trial transcript in which she defied customary courtroom procedure about a witness's oath and specifically excluded testimony about her visions from any guarantee of honesty.  She complained that a standard witness oath would conflict with an oath she had previously sworn to maintain confidentiality about meetings with her king.  It remains unknown to what extent the surviving record may represent the fabrications of corrupt court officials or her own possible fabrications to protect state secrets.   Some historians sidestep speculation about the visions by asserting that Joan of Arc's belief in her calling is more relevant than questions about the visions' ultimate origin.
+Later, while Joan was still within the living memory of those who knew her and fought with her, another Church process, in a series of hearings now known as the [[Rehabilitation trial of Joan of Arc]], declared the verdict of the first Church trial to be null and void, and set it aside. Many modern historians consider that the second Trial was no less politically motivated than was the first, since its protagonists had their own worldly reasons for challenging the original verdict.
-Documents from Joan of Arc's own era and historians prior to the twentieth century generally assume that Joan of Arc was both healthy and sane.  A number of more recent scholars attempted to explain Joan of Arc's visions in psychiatric or neurological terms.  Potential diagnoses have included [[epilepsy]], [[migraine]], [[tuberculosis]], and [[schizophrenia]]. None of the putative diagnoses have gained consensus support because, although hallucination and religious enthusiasm can be symptomatic of various syndromes, other characteristic symptoms conflict with other known facts of Joan of Arc's life.  Two experts who analyze a temporal lobe tuberculoma hypothesis in the medical journal ''Neuropsychobiology'' express their misgivings this way: "It is difficult to draw final conclusions, but it would seem unlikely that widespread tuberculosis, a serious disease, was present in this 'patient' whose life-style and activities would surely have been impossible had such a serious disease been present." Historian R&eacute;gine Pernoud was sometimes sarcastic about speculative medical interpretations.  In response to another such theory alleging that Joan of Arc suffered from bovine tuberculosis as a result of drinking [[pasteurization|unpasteurized]] milk, Pernoud wrote that if drinking unpasteurized milk can produce such potential benefits for the nation, then the French government should stop mandating the pasteurization of milk. Ralph Hoffman, professor of psychology at Yale University, points out that visionary and creative states including "hearing voices" are not necessarily signs of mental illness and names Joan of Arc's religious inspiration as a possible exception although he offers no speculation as to alternative causes.
+Since the original verdict was not reversed, but only set aside (as the Devil's Advocates in Joan's canonization hearings would want to point out), this left open the question of the final judgment of that Church. But that process was brought to an end in 1920 with Joan's canonization, and since that time the cult of Joan within the Catholic Church has been strong.
-Among the specific challenges that potential diagnoses such as schizophrenia face is the slim likelihood that any person with such a disorder could gain favor in the court of Charles VII. This king's own father, Charles VI, was popularly known as "Charles the Mad," and much of the political and military decline that France had suffered during his reign could be attributed to the power vacuum that his episodes of insanity had produced. The previous king had believed he was made of glass, a delusion no courtier had mistaken for a religious awakening. Fears that Charles VII would manifest the same insanity may have factored into the attempt to disinherit him at Troyes. This stigma was so persistent that contemporaries of the next generation would attribute inherited madness to the breakdown that England's King Henry VI was to suffer in 1453: Henry VI was nephew to Charles VII and grandson to Charles VI.  Upon Joan of Arc's arrival at Chinon the royal counselor Jacques G&eacute;lu cautioned, "One should not lightly alter any policy because of conversation with a girl, a peasant... so susceptible to illusions; one should not make oneself ridiculous in the sight of foreign nations...." Contrary to modern stereotypes about the Middle Ages, the court of Charles VII was shrewd and skeptical on the subject of mental health.
+===Harlot of the Armagnacs===
-Besides the physical rigor of her military career, which would seem to exclude many medical hypotheses, Joan of Arc displayed none of the intellectual decline that normally accompanies major mental illnesses.  Joan of Arc remained astute to the end of her life and rehabilitation trial testimony frequently marvels at her intelligence. "Often they [the judges] turned from one question to another, changing about, but, notwithstanding this, she answered prudently, and evinced a wonderful memory." Her subtle replies under interrogation even forced the court to stop holding public sessions. If Joan of Arc's visions had some medical or psychiatric origin then she would have been an exceptional case..
+If the Nullification Trial formed the basis for eventually viewing Joan as a Saint, the original Trial of Condemnation was the basis for considering her a heretic. In fact, it was as a relapsed heretic that Joan went to the stake.
-==Joan of Arc's transvestism==
+Fundamentally, Joan was acting within a political context (the [[Hundred Years' War]]), and was acting politically in taking sides (with the French) in that conflict. As a result of this, her contemporaries tended to view her depending upon their own political orientation. In particular, her English enemies, under whose auspices her Trial in Rouen was conducted, viewed her as an "Arm of the Fiend", deceived by Satan appearing in the form of an [[angel]], a blasphemer, et cetera.
-:'''''From the trial transcripts'''''
+On at least two occasions (at Poitiers, and apparently also prior to her Trial in Rouen), Joan was inspected by women in order to determine whether or not she was a virgin. Apart from possibly discrediting her completely if she was found not to be a virgin, this "test" also ruled out the possibility that she was a [[witch]], for it was held at the time that a virgin could not be a witch since the pact a witch was alleged to have made with the Devil involved sexual intercourse.
-::Asked if God ordered her to wear a man's dress, she answered the dress is a small, nay, the least thing. Nor did she put on man's dress by the advice of any man whatsoever; she did not put it on, nor did she do aught, but by the command of God.
+However, it was common among the  English soldiery to refer to her as a witch, or as the "harlot of the Armagnacs". Harlotry in some form was necessary in order to support the charge of her being a witch. Later English writers, for example, [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]], also portrayed Joan as a witch. In order to do this, they asserted that Joan was in fact not a virgin. In Shakespeare's ''Henry VI, part 1'', Joan in the end pleads for her life on the pretext that she is pregnant.
-::Asked whether it seemed to her that this commmand to assume male attire was lawful:
+While the suspicion or belief that Joan was misled by Satan, or was a harlot and a witch were common among Joan's enemies at the time, almost no one today holds to this view, at least not in this form.
-:'''''Joan'''''
+==Joan's voices and visions==
+The subject of the nature and origin of the voices and visions which [[Joan of Arc]] experienced has been of intense interest not only to her contemporaries, but to scholars, religious figures, and students of history all the way down to modern times.
-::"Everything I have done is at God's command; and if He had ordered me to assume a different habit, I should have done it, because it would have been his command."
+==Joan of Arc on film==
-Joan of Arc wore men's clothing between her departure from Vaucouleurs and her abjuration at Rouen. This raised theological questions in her own era and raised other questions in the twentieth century. The technical reason for her execution was a biblical clothing law. The rehabilitation trial reversed the conviction in part because the condemnation proceeding had failed to consider the doctrinal exceptions to that stricture.
+===''The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)===
-Doctrinally speaking, she was safe to disguise herself as a page during a journey through enemy territory and she was safe to wear armor during battle. The ''Chronique de la Pucelle'' states that it deterred molestation while she was camped in the field. Clergy who testified at her rehabilitation trial affirmed that she continued to wear male clothing in prison to deter molestation and rape. Preservation of chastity was another justifiable reason for crossdressing: her apparel would have slowed an assailant.
+The Passion of Joan of Arc (original French title ''La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc'') is perhaps the most powerful treatment of Joan's story ever flmed.  Produced in France in 1928 by [[Carl Theodor Dreyer]], it featured [[Renée Jeanne Falconetti]] in the title role.
-She referred the court to the Poitiers inquiry when questioned on the matter during her condemnation trial. The Poitiers record no longer survives but circumstances indicate the Poitiers clerics approved her practice. In other words, she had a mission to do a man's work so it was fitting that she dress the part. She also kept her hair cut short through her military campaigns and while in prison. Her supporters, such as the theologian Jean Gerson, defended her hairstyle, as did Inquisitor Brehal during the Rehabilitation trial.
+==Joan of Arc in poetry and music==
+{{Image|Joan calling.jpeg|right|150px|A sheet music cover from 1917. <small>(Historic American Sheet Music Project, Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library)</small>}}
+Joan, like many figures of broad appeal to a variety of causes, was soon the subject of popular ballads and poetry.  One of the earliest is a poem dedicated to her 1429 by [[Christine de Pizan]], "Hymn to Joan of Arc"; it is the only known tribute composed while Joan was still living.  Other treatments include Voltaire's mock-epic ''The Maid of Oranges'', along with [[Friedrich von Schiller|Friedrich Schiller]]'s dramatic rebuttal to Voltaire, ''The Maid of Orléans'' (''Die Jungfrau von Orleans'').
-According to Francoise Meltzer, "The depictions of Joan of Arc tell us about the assumptions and gender prejudices of each succeeding era, but they tell us nothing about Joan's looks in themselves. They can be read, then, as a semiology of gender: how each succeeding culture imagines the figure whose charismatic courage, combined with the blurring of gender roles, makes her difficult to depict."
+In classical music, Joan has been celebrated as the subject of a number of operas and musical dramatizations, most famoulsy in [[Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky|Tchaikovsky]]'s opera ''The Maid of Orleans'' (1878-79), based in large part on Schiller's work.  At its premiere in 1881 in [[Saint Petersburg]], the role of Joan was sung by [[Mariya Kamenskaya]].
-== Legacy ==
+In popular and art music, Joan has also been a recurrent subject.  Best-known is [[Leonard Cohen]]'s ballad "Joan of Arc," which takes as its conceit a dialogue between Joan and the fire which is about to consume her; in its most memorable recording, [[Jennifer Warnes]] sings the part of Joan, while Cohen sings that of the fire.  Art song treatments of Joan go at least as far back as 1953, when ''Ballade des Dames du temps jadis'', Georges Brassens's adaptation of a poem by [[François Villon]], was composed.  In 1982, the band [[Orchestral Maneouvres in the Dark]] released two singles, "Joan of Arc" and "Maid of Orleans."  In 2005, [[Kate Bush]] recorded  "Joanni" on her album Aerial.
-Joan of Arc has remained an important figure in Western culture. From [[Napoleon I of France|Napoleon]] to the present, French politicians of all leanings have invoked her memory. Major writers and composers who have created works about her include [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]], [[Voltaire]], [[Friedrich Schiller|Schiller]], [[Giuseppe Verdi|Verdi]], [[Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky|Tchaikovsky]], [[Mark Twain|Twain]], [[George Bernard Shaw|Shaw]], [[Bertolt Brecht|Brecht]] and [[Arthur Honegger|Honegger]].  [[cultural depictions of Joan of Arc|Depictions of her]] continue in film, television, and song.
+A different tradition from these art songs can be found in military and patriotic songs which invoke Joan as a leader and inspiration to action; a number of these were popular in [[World War I]] and [[World War II]].  With titles such as "Joan of Arc They Are Calling You," these songs attempted to evoke a patriotic sense of duty by recalling Joan's bravery in battle.
-Joan of Arc became a semi-legendary figure for the next four centuries.  The main sources of information about her were chronicles. Five original manuscripts of her condemnation trial surfaced in old archives during the nineteenth century. Soon historians also located the complete records of her rehabilitation trial, which contained sworn testimony from 115 witnesses, and the original French notes for the Latin condemnation trial transcript. Various contemporary letters also emerged, three of which carry the signature "Jehanne" in the unsteady hand of a person learning to write. This unusual wealth of primary source material is one reason DeVries declares, "No person of the Middle Ages, male or female, has been the subject of more study than Joan of Arc.
+==Joan of Arc in fiction==
+{{Image|12516r.jpg|left|150px|Mark Twain's ''Joan of Arc'', 1896}}
+The most ambitious attempt to retell Joan's story in fictional form was [[Mark Twain]]'s ''Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, by the Sieur Louis de Conte''' -- a [[nom-de-plume]] further identified as Joan's [[Page (servant)|page]] and secretary. The work is [[fiction]]ally presented as a translation "out of the Ancient French into Modern English from the Original Unpublished Manuscript in the National Archives of France".  Such a conceit was far from new -- indeed [[Miguel de Cervantes|Cervantes]] had used a similar premise in [[Don Quixote]], which he claimed was translated out of [[Arabic]] -- but the idea of a serious pseudo-historical memoir was a radical departure from Twain's previous work.  The novel was serialized in [[Harper's Magazine]] in 1895, and published in book form the following year.  The book proved popular, but was widely criticized by the literary lights of the day; despite this, Twain regarded it as his finest work.
-In 1452, during the postwar investigation into her execution, the Church declared that a religious play in her honor at Orl&eacute;ans would qualify as a [[pilgrimage]] meriting an [[indulgence]]. Joan of Arc became a symbol of the [[Catholic League (French)|Catholic League]] during the 16th century. F&eacute;lix Dupanloup, bishop of Orl&eacute;ans from 1849 to 1878, led the effort for Joan's eventual [[beatification]] in 1909. Her [[canonization of Joan of Arc|canonization]] followed on [[16 May]] [[1920]]. Her feast day is [[30 May]]. She has become one of the most popular saints of the Roman Catholic Church.
+Fictional treatments of Joan since Twain's have taken a variety of angles on her story, some quite fanciful. [[Thomas Keneally]]'s ''Blood Red, Sister Rose'' (1974) has Joan taking a turn toward the [[Occult]], while Pamela Marcentel's ''An Army of Angels'' (1997), though incorporating extensive research and offering a vivid portrait of the younger Joan, eventually grows heavy with the weight of its ritualistic prose.  In her native France, Joan has also been the subject of many fictions; prominent among these is Michel Peyramaure's ''Jeanne d'Arc'' (1999).  In Brazil, [[Erico Verissimo]]'s ''A Vida de Joana D'Arc'' (1935), a young adult novel, encompasses Joan's entire life in an accessible style.
-She operated within a religious tradition that believed an exceptional person from any level of society might receive a divine calling. She expelled women from the French army and may have struck one stubborn camp follower with the flat of a sword. Nonetheless, some of her most significant aid came from women. Charles VII's mother-in-law, Yolande of Aragon, confirmed Joan's virginity and financed her departure to Orl&eacute;ans. Joan of Luxembourg, aunt to the count of Luxembourg who held Joan of Arc after Compi&egrave;gne, alleviated Joan of Arc's conditions of captivity and may have delayed her sale to the English. Finally, [[Anne of Burgundy]], the duchess of Bedford and wife to the regent of England, declared Joan a virgin during pretrial inquiries. For technical reasons this prevented the court from charging Joan with witchcraft. Ultimately this provided part of the basis for Joan's vindication and sainthood. From [[Christine de Pizan]] to the present, women have looked to Joan of Arc as a positive example of a brave and active female.
+Joan's story has also been a source for a wide variety of [[Manga]] and [[graphic novel]]s, among them Yoshikazu Yasuhiko's ''Jeanne'' and Arina Tanimura's ''Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne'', in which Joan is reincarnated as a gymnastics champion who fights a secret battle against demons that emerge from paintings.
-Joan of Arc has been a political symbol in France since the time of [[Napoleon]]. [[Classical liberalism|Liberals]] emphasized her humble origins. Early [[Conservatism|conservatives]] stressed her support of the monarchy. Later conservatives recalled her nationalism. During [[World War II]], both the [[Vichy France|Vichy Regime]] and the [[French Resistance]] used her image: Vichy propaganda remembered her campaign against the English with posters that showed British warplanes bombing [[Rouen]] and the ominous caption: "They Always Return to the Scene of Their Crimes." The resistance emphasized her fight against foreign occupation and her origins in the province of [[Moselle|Lorraine]], which had fallen under [[Nazism|Nazi]] control. [[Traditionalist Catholic|Traditional Catholics]], especially in France, also use her as a symbol of inspiration, often comparing the 1988 excommunication of Archbishop [[Marcel Lefebvre]] (founder of the [[Society of St. Pius X]] and a dissident against the Vatican II reforms) to Joan of Arc's excommunication. Three separate vessels of the [[French Navy]] have been named after Joan of Arc, including a [[FS Jeanne d'Arc|helicopter carrier]] currently in active service. At present the controversial French political party [[National Front (France)|Front National]] holds rallies at her statues, reproduces her likeness in party publications, and uses a tricolor flame partly symbolic of her martyrdom as its emblem. This party's opponents sometimes satirize its appropriation of her image. The French civic holiday in her honor is the second Sunday of May.
+==Further reading==
-==Further redaing==
+* ''Fresh Verdicts on Joan of Arc'', edited by Bonnie Wheeler
+* Marina Warner, ''Joan of Arc: the Image of Female Heroism'', University of California Press, 1981
+* Timothy Wilson-Smith, ''Joan of Arc: Maid, Myth, and History'', Sutton Publishing, 2006, ISBN 0-7509-4341-6
-* ''"I do not name to you the voice of St. Michael": the Identification of Joan of Arc's Voices'', by Karen Sullivan in '''Fresh Verdicts on Joan of Arc''', edited by Bonnie Wheeler
+==Internet resources==
-[[Category:CZ Live]]
+*[http://www.scuttlebuttsmallchow.com/joanarc.html Joan of Arc in the First World War] by B.J. Omanson, covers interest in Joan of Arc during the [[World War I|First World War]].
-[[Category:Joan of Arc]]
-[[Category:History Workgroup]]

Joan of Arc, memory of: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 02:05, 15 February 2010

Contents

Joan as a religious phenomenon - Saint or sinner?

Saint Joan

Harlot of the Armagnacs

Joan's voices and visions

Joan of Arc on film

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)

Joan of Arc in poetry and music

Joan of Arc in fiction

Further reading

Internet resources

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Joan of Arc, memory of: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 02:05, 15 February 2010

Joan as a religious phenomenon - Saint or sinner?

Saint Joan

Harlot of the Armagnacs

Joan's voices and visions

Joan of Arc on film

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)

Joan of Arc in poetry and music

Joan of Arc in fiction

Further reading

Internet resources

Navigation menu

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