Joan of Arc
c. 1412–1431

Arc, although one of the most familiar figures in European culture, remains one of the most enigmatic. Born in Domrémy, at the eastern edge of France, she led the French army to numerous victories, brought a king to his throne, and was condemned to the stake, all before turning twenty. She claimed that her actions were inspired by God who ordered her to save the French from English domination during the Hundred Years War. The broad outlines of Joan of Arc's military career, imprisonment, interrogation and execution are well-known, although conclusions drawn from these vary dramatically. Information can be found in chronicles from the period and in the transcripts of her trial and its subsequent nullification, but few of these texts are objective. Partisans from both sides depicted her to suit their own political ends, and her interrogators brought the bias of the Church to their questions. Thus, whereas it is possible to reconstruct the broad outlines of her life, interpreting it depends upon filtering through sources frequently expressing diametrically opposed views and based on unreliable testimony. Joan's voice, albeit mediated by the scribes who took the notes, is heard through transcripts, giving some sense of her concerns and her understanding of her own exploits.

JOAN OF ARC AS WARRIOR

Joan of Arc dated her first visions to 1424, when she was told that she should drive the English out of France and bring the dauphin to Rheims for coronation. Five years later she was successful on her second attempt to convince Robert de Baudricourt (c. 1400–1454) to provide an escort for her to Chinon to make contact with the future Charles VII (1403–1461). On the journey, which crossed Burgundian-held territory, Joan wore male cloth-ing. Upon arriving at Chinon, she was able to recognize Charles, who saw an advantage in supporting her cause. After inquiries into her background and an examination by the clergy that confirmed her status as a virgin, she received a knight's clothing and equipment and was sent to join the siege at Orleans. Joan's role in this battle, and her other military exploits, is subject to debate. Nonetheless, barely a week after she arrived, Orleans was recaptured by the French. Charles granted her co-command of his army, and a series of victorious battles ensued, culminating with the entry into Rheims on July 16 where the king was crowned the following day. Joan then refused to obey the king, who requested that she abandon her military role. She set out to recapture Paris and failed. She then laid siege to Compiègne where she was captured and subsequently sent to Rouen for interrogation.

JOAN OF ARC ON TRIAL

The clerics charged with questioning Joan focused their interrogation on many issues, combining their roles as scholastics, jurists, and confessors. They addressed points of religious doctrine of which Joan was ignorant. Karen Sullivan points out the transcripts "constitute a scene of confrontation between clerics … who believe that truth can be obtained through questioning, and Joan who does not share the clerics' formation and does not conceive of truth as they do" (Sullivan 1999, p. xxiv). The decision to hand Joan over to the English authorities for execution came after several weeks of interrogations. Her request to be transferred to a women's prison was denied. Joan was burnt at the stake in Rouen on May 30. A new inquiry was opened in 1450. Again, political motivation was at the heart of the proceedings—rehabilitation of the woman who had placed the king on the throne thus legitimizing his position. A subsequent inquiry, begun in 1455, led to the nullification in 1457 of the original verdict.

SEX AND GENDER PERSPECTIVES

Joan of Arc can to a certain extent be seen as a pawn of Charles VII, who first profited from her ability to galvanize the troops and then abandoned her once he was crowned. He restored her reputation when it was expedient to do so.

Women participating in military expeditions and serving as leaders in Europe were not unknown in the Middle Ages both before and after Joan of Arc. A special knightly order, the Order of the Hatchet, was created in 1149 to honor the women who fought the Moors in Tortosa. Isabella of Castille (1451–1504) frequently went to the battlefields during the Reconquista. Women participated in the Crusades on many levels. Muslim accounts refer to women wearing armor in battle and engaging in combat. Marguerite of Provence (c. 1221–1295), for example, is credited with securing the ransom for her husband, Louis IX of France (1214–1270), in 1250. Philippa of Hainault (1314–1369), wife of Edward III (1312–1377), while serving as regent, raised an army against the Scots in 1346.

Yet, Joan of Arc's conduct differs in significant ways from the behavior of most women in these examples. Her resistance to abandoning her military role places her at odds with the mainstream. After the coronation of Charles VII, societal practices would have dictated that she reintegrate herself into society as a woman and marry. Her transgressive behavior placed her in a nonnormative situation, underlining the distinction between her and women who helped as needed, often substituting only until their husbands returned. Further, this transgression was exacerbated by her choice of clothing, which also raises numerous questions of how to interpret Joan in terms of gender and sexuality.

Joan of Arc dressed in men's clothing from her departure from Vaucouleurs, the first stop on her voyage from her home to Chinon to her abjuration at Rouen, when she agreed to wear women's clothing, but within days, resumed male dress. There is speculation on her treatment in prison—that she might have been sexually threatened or assaulted by the guards. The trial does report that when Joan redressed herself in male clothing, she wore two layers of clothing, suggesting that she may have been attempting to deter those acts. Her choice of male dress posed certain theological problems at the time based on the injunction in the biblical book of Deuteronomy against women wearing men's clothing. Temporary cross-dressing might have been tolerated in exceptional circumstances, such as for protection while traveling, participation in the military, or even as a means of protection against rape while in prison. However, the perception of the clerics who interrogated her was that Joan's donning of male garb was not entirely for practical reasons. Rather, dressed and coiffed as she was "in the manner of fops," Joan may have derived pleasure from her sartorial choices (Sullivan 1999, p. 48). Further, her dress upset the natural order between referent and sign, as her gender contradicted her sex.

Francoise Meltzer maintains that Joan's life and death represents "a moment in the history of the West in which gendered subjectivity was put fleetingly at risk" (Meltzer 2001, p. 23). Charges that, through her change of dress, Joan also usurped male roles suggest a destabilization of the medieval sex-gender system. Thus, Leslie Feinberg's inclusion of Joan of Arc in her canon of transgendered warriors both reflects late-twentieth-century perceptions of Joan and substantiates the clerics' discomfort with Joan's clothing and behavior. Whereas the nullification trial normalized Joan of Arc, validating her supernatural inspiration and paving the way for her canonization in 1920, she may be an example of the self-fashioning subject, one who creates a modern identity and complicates the relationship between sex and gender.

FRENCH NATIONALIST ICON

In the early nineteenth century, the image and story of Joan of Arc began to be exploited for political reasons. For nearly two centuries it has been appropriated and manipulate to incarnate an idea of France, from both extremes of the political spectrum. Jules Michelet's multivolume Histoire de France [History of France] (1965–1967 [1840s]) highlighted Joan's martyrdom and sacrifice for France, establishing her as the French national heroine. Her image as resisting foreign oppressors came into play as early as the Franco-Prussian War (1870). As an icon for nationalism she became an alternative to the Republican Marianne to rightist ideologues, Action Française set up the "Fête de Jeanne d'Arc" as an alternative to Bastille Day. Members of the Action Française attempted to use Joan to legitimize their royalist politics. During both world wars, the image of Joan of Arc as rebelling against foreign oppression was a potent symbol. During the First World War (1914–1919), republican Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929) and reactionary Action Française were united through Joan of Arc and formed a strong patriotic front. Iconography of Joan of Arc in World War II (1939–1945) presented equally notable contradictions. Under the Vichy regime (1940–1944), a poster showing Joan of Arc being burnt at the stake in Rouen with the caption "Les assassins reviennent toujours.sur les lieux de leur crime" [The murderers always return to the scene of the crime]. Here the murderers are the British, who return to bomb Rouen, the site of Joan's burning. At the same time the flag of Charles de Gaulle's government (1959–1969) in exile had the Cross of Lorraine (originally held to be the symbol of Joan of Arc), as its emblem. The Front National party, founded by nationalist politician Jean-Marie Le Pen (b. 1928) in 1972, used the motto "Avec toi, Jeanne, pour la France!" ("With you, Joan, for France!"). A tricolor flame as its emblem reinscribes it as an icon of the extreme right.

see also Virginity; Witchcraft.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barstow, Anne Llewellyn. 1986. Joan of Arc: Heretic, Mystic, Shaman. Lewiston, NY: E. Mellen Press.

Fraioli, Deborah A. 2000. Joan of Arc: The Early Debate. Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: Boydell Press.

Hanna, Martha. 1985. "Iconology and Ideology: Images of Joan of Arc in the Idiom of the Action Française, 1908–1931." French Historical Studies, 14:2 215-239.

Meltzer, Françoise. 2001. For Fear of the Fire: Joan of Arc and the Limits of Subjectivity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Michelet, Jules. 1965–1967. Historie de France [History of France]. Rencontre. [Orig. pub. 1840s.]

Richey, Stephen W. 2003. Joan of Arc: The Warrior Saint. Westport, CT: Praeger.

Sullivan, Karen. 1999. The Interrogation of Joan of Arc. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Warner, Marina. 1981. Joan of Arc: The Image of Female Heroism. New York: Knopf.

Wheeler, Bonnie, and Charles T. Wood, eds. 1996. Fresh Verdicts on Joan of Arc. New York: Garland Publishing.

                                         Edith Benkov