User:James F. Perry/Draft

Nota Bene - the following is a draft page for CZ articles which I am working on - a personal Sandbox, if you will. Please do not delete! James F. Perry 09:22, 3 June 2007 (CDT)

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.

Religious figure

Saint

Joan of Arc is the patron saint of:

captives; France; imprisoned people; martyrs; opposition of Church authorities; people ridiculed for their piety; prisoners; rape victims; soldiers; WACs; WAVES; Women Appointed for Voluntary Emergency Service; Women's Army Corps

Heretic / witch

In her own day, the question of Joan's voices and visions was addressed through the perspective of religion, with the main question being the origin of her experiences. Many, including the English who captured her, were of no doubt that the experiences had their source in the work of the Devil and that Joan, in refusing to renounce them, was a heretic.

Early chroniclers

Prior to 1850, when Jules Etienne Quicherat made the full records of Joan's two Trials available along with all the other documents and chronicles of her time, biographers and chroniclers were operating at a distinct disadvantage in not having available to them the full record of Joan's life and deeds.

Some of the earliest chroniclers, those of the 15th century in the immediate aftermath of Joan's life, are themselves sources (among other things, as the fount of certain typified views of Joan), but they wrote from a particular perspective, either to prove or disapprove of Joan. These writers did not generally write about Joan as a saint, but as an historical personage, and a celebrity. They also wrote under the influence of parties who had a partisan stake in some particular view of Joan's life. Generally did not write as detached historians.

• Perceval de Cagny - wrote about 1436, was associated with d'Alencon, one of Joan's principal supporters and a key witness at the Nullification trial, favorable to Joan
• Jean Chartier, a royal chronicler, wrote in the 1440s. The Valois line had an interest in Joan's case as the validity of their kingship could not be seen to depend on a convicted heretic
• Siege Journal - written in the 1470s based on documents from 1429. Gives a detailed military account of the period
• Chronique de la Pucelle - was based on Chartier, the Siege Journal, and the Nullification Trial, gives no attempt to understand Joan as a person, her psychology
• Engerrund de Monstrelet - Burgundian chronicler who was present when the Duke of Burgundy first questioned Joan following her capture, but claims not to recall what was said. wrote in the 1440s.
• Bourgeois of Paris, actually connected with the University of Paris, was highly unsympathetic to Joan, who was termed by him "a creature in the shape of a woman", approved of the Rouen Trial and Condemnation

Feminist icon

The image of a strong female leader has proved irresistable to modern-day feminists.

The triggering incident which led to Joan's being burnt at the stake was her donning of male attire while in prison. As a result, she has become a hero to many in the LGBT community for her seeming challenge to gender role stereotypes.

Question: Did God order you to wear a man's dress?

Joan: The dress is a small, nay, the least thing. I did not put on man's dress by the advice of any man whatsoever; I did not put it on, nor did I do aught, but by the command of God.

Question: Did this commmand to assume male attire seem lawful to you?

Joan: 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.

National heroine / war leader

Although the term was not in use at the time, Joan has become one of the prototypes of a national liberation struggle leader. As such, she has been evoked iin support of such causes through the years in many different countries. In particular, she was applealed to as an inspirational figure in both the first and second World Wars, sometimes on both sides of the struggle.

Psychoanalytic case study

Among the scientific, or naturalistic explanations of Joan's experiences, are many of a psychological nature, as for example, that she was a schizophrenic, or hysteric, or suffering side effects of anorexia.

Religious reformer

In 1519 (?), Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door at Wittenberg. This marked the watershed moment in what is now known as the Protestant Reformation, though that was not Luther's intention at the time. Nor did Luther act in vacuo, and his protest was prefigured long before this event.

In the latter half of the 14th century, about a half century before Joan's birth, the English theologian John Wycliffe advanced the idea that the Bible was the sole authority on religious matters, thus challenging the Church hierarchy. He also advocated translating the Bible into English so that those who could read English but not Latin could have access thereto. And he differentiated between what he called the "actual Church" and the "true Church" criticizing what he saw as the hypocrasy of the clergy. The movement which he inspired - the Lollards - survived his death but was declared heretical and repressed in the early 1400s.

In Bohemia, Jan Hus, who was influenced by Wycliffe, advanced many of the same causes in his attempts to reform the clergy. In 1411, he was excommunicated and then, in 1415, was burnt at the stake. After his death, his followers - called Hussites - fought a series of wars known as the Hussite Wars with the secular authority supported by the Papacy. These wars lasted from 1419 until 1436 and thus were contemporaneous with Joan of Arc's life and activity.

At one time during her career, Joan wrote a letter condemming the Hussites.

Joan's experiences, exhibiting as they do, a direct communication with the Divine, thus by-passing the extablished hierarchy of the Church, have led to her not only being suspect by those operating within that extablished order, but being cited as an example of a precurser of the Protestant Reformation.

see G.B. Shaw's Preface to his play Saint Joan

Political prisoner

The Trial of Joan of Arc raises several questions of great relevance to modern civil libertarians, including:

• right to remain silent
• right to a trial by one's peers
• right of judicial appeal
• no torture or the threat thereof
• no secret trials
• right to legal counsel and representatiøn
• improper police proceedures (the surreptitous spying on Joan during confession)

see The Right to Remain Silent . . .' by Henry Ansgar Kelly in Speculum 68 (1993), p 992-1020

Scottish history

Glorious Revolution | Jacobites | Jacobite Rebellion of 1689-90 | Battle of Killiecrankie | Bonnie Dundee | Glencoe Massacre | Convention Parliament | Revolution Settlement | Darien Expedition | Treaty of Union (1707) | Jacobite Rebellion of 1715 | Battle of Sheriffmuir | Jacobite Rebellion of 1745| Battle of Prestonpans | Battle of Culloden | Charles Edward Stuart | Act of Proscription | Scottish Diaspora | Highland clearances | Porteous Riot | Visit of King George IV to Edinburgh 1822 | John Sobieski Stuart