Read on Twitter
Happy Sunday, it's time for the latest #EuropeanBios entry, #36, Joan of Arc, born in France in 1412. She's a lot more interesting than most of the saints, and her reputation and life story are a mass of contradictions and exaggerations.
I've discovered that when finding a biography of a famous woman it's very important that the book be written by a woman, because history is full of sexist male historians who take the views of previous sexist male historians at face value even when they are self-evident nonsense.
Let's get the main arc out of the way and on to the fun facts: as a teenager, Joan started hearing voices who she believed to be divine (angels, various saints) who wanted her to make Charles VII king of France, which was at the time under British rule.
Joan managed to raise an army (more on this later). Charles accepted her help, she fought some battles and won, and Charles did indeed become king. But Joan herself was captured, handed over to the English, put on trial for witchcraft (amongst other things) and burned alive. Oof.
But let's dig into the myth. First, Joan is frequently described as having come from peasant stock. This isn't true. Like all the saints I've read about, she was a child of privilege, her parents being relatively wealthy but not noble, aka "commoners". Their house still stands!
Some depictions go further and describe her as being a shepherdess, but this is even less likely. It's possible that as part of the lands her family owned they also owned some sheep, and so Joan may have interacted with the sheep a handful of times, but she was not a shepherd.
Still, she certainly didn't have any training as a soldier, and yet she is credited with great military victories. To get to the truth here it's probably best to consider the sources: her French backers and her English enemies.
The French have nothing but good things to say about Joan. She learned how to ride a battle charger in six weeks, she was great at military strategy, particularly the placement of artillery, she was brave and cunning. She was so good, they said, she must have had god's help.
(Incidentally, this book was how I learned that there was a confused point in history at which you would find simultaneously on the same battlefield knights on horseback in armor and also goddamn artillery, lobbing ordinance at the knights, surely a terrifying transition period)
The English on the other hand say Joan was a useless girl, who wept at the sight of blood and bodies, employed absurd tactics, and didn't do any actual fighting. She was so terrible, they said, that her success could only possibly be because she was a witch.
In truth it's possible for both things to have been mostly true. Stripping away myth, it's almost impossible that somebody with Joan's age and experience could really have been a good soldier. She did in fact hate bloodshed and swore at her own trial that she never killed anyone.
On the other hand, was she a better military commander than her French counterparts? Quite possibly, because they were all useless. Part of why the English were beating the French is that their commanders were all unprofessional nobles obsessed with chivalry over tactics.
So anyone who wasn't an idiot son of a nobleman could have done a better job, but she didn't do a *great* job. Her strategy was to run screaming headlong into the face of the enemy. This worked through sheer surprise initially, but ultimately was how she was cut off and captured.
It seems Joan's bigger contribution to the French cause was not military but morale. They were getting the shit kicked out of them because the English were a lot more technically skilled at warfare. Joan gave them a romantic cause to rally around and become soldiers.
Her most famous battle was the seige of Orleans. The actual fighting was commanded by a professional general. Joan rode into battle carrying a banner, riding a beautiful horse, a visible and tangible inspiration to the troops, but by her own admission did no fighting.
And she raised a LOT of troops. The more success she had, the bigger her myth became, the more troops joined the cause, creating even more success, in a successful feedback loop that eventually achieved her goal. No small feat for a teenaged girl! But not a military feat.
The English of course were incensed, and there was a sizable anti-Charles faction of the French who weren't fans either. These were the ones who captured her and handed her over to the English for trial.
Joan was tried for witchcraft, several times, and most of the records of her trial are about religious questions and whether her various voices and claims were blasphemous or satanic. But her *real* crime, what got her killed, is that she was violating gender norms.
Joan cross-dressed. It's impossible 600 years later to say if she was trans or lesbian and anyway those concepts didn't exist at the time. What we know is: she called herself a woman, famously remained a virgin her entire short life, and dressed as a man whenever she could.
It is hard to overstate the degree to which this enraged her captors. She was repeatedly offered the ability to save her own life by dressing as a woman, which she even accepted, but then almost immediately regretted and recanted. She *loved* her fine, showy male clothes.
Her virginity also enraged them. They kept trying to slur her as a slut who slept with the troops to ensnare them, but Joan repeatedly allowed herself to be physically inspected to prove her virginity. They tried to change this by raping her in jail but she fought them off.
Her virginity was also a big motivator for her troops. It's not clear to me at this distance in time and space why that is, but one of the primary things that inspired men to join her cause is that she was chaste, which was seen as being next to divine.
Hearing voices she claimed to be angels and saints, oddly, did not get her into too much trouble. Her descriptions of her voices were non-blasphemous, consistent with orthodox religious views at the time. Most people at the time believed her voices were really supernatural.
As for a non-supernatural explanation of her voices, it's hard to know. Most of the saints report talking to god, even lots of non-holy people did at the time. Was Joan mentally ill, or just really imaginative? At this distance it's impossible to know. But *she* believed it.
Beating men at war? Fine. Constantly calling them idiots? Not great, but okay. Talking to god? No problem. But consistently and unapologetically dressing as a man drove everyone nuts, even Charles, who was relieved to have the problem she presented solved for him by the English.
And so she was murdered, aged 19, in a gruesome public burning. Her example inspired many women after her to take charge, but her execution kicked off witch trials across Europe for centuries after her death. Patriarchy will go to enormous lengths to defend itself.
After her death the French (the ones on Charles' side, who liked her) made her a saint. Her list of qualifying miracles for sainthood include "riding very fast one time" and "remaining a virgin while surrounded by men", no, for real. Also some people claimed she healed them.
Her legacy is mixed. She was clearly an incredibly charismatic, passionate woman who achieved amazing things, but not exactly the things she is famous for achieving. But her example of sticking it to The Man, which truly she did, has survived for centuries anyway.
Post-script fun fact: there are a lot of debates about Joan's hairstyle for some reason? But dark hair in a bob, like a man's cut at the time, is historically accurate. In France the style is still known as coupe à la Jeanne d’Arc, i.e. "Joan of Arc's hairstyle".
