Joan of Arc
legendary. unrepentant. Proud.
JOAN OF ARC, 1412 - 1431, France
Following the final battle of Orleans where Joan led the French army in a decisive victory over the English, the dauphin was crowned king at Reims where Joan stood proudly by his side.
When asked later at her trial by her inquisitors, “Why was your flag more carried in the church at Reims than those of other captains?” she answered simply that, as “it had borne the burden, it was quite right that it received the honour.”
I was sitting at a cottage reading her trial notes, half distracted by the wind in the trees and the waves lapping the shore when that line silenced the world around me.
She essentially says to her accusers, “because I did the work I am worthy of recognition” i.e.reward or compensation.
Imagine the audacity of this girl in medieval France where women didn’t claim agency or claim any type of authority. And yet. There is Joan. Who had done the work and claimed her worth.
Imagine where we would be if we had learned and celebrated this one lesson from Joan of Arc: worth is unapologetically claimed.
Joan was born a peasant girl in 1412 on a small farm in a rural village on the eastern frontier of the kingdom of France. She was born into a hyper patriarchal society based on class and power. Children had no rights. Women had no rights. In some ways they didn’t exist outside their father’s or husband's home.
This was a society fine tuned with layers and layers of hierarchy. Wherever you were determined how many people were above you and who could make your life essentially miserable.
There is more written about Joan of Arc than most people in history and yet she remains one of the most enigmatic figures. It’s not the what that is mysterious, it’s the how.
Because on the surface there should have been no chance whatsoever that a young peasant girl dressed as a man could lead an army with such precision that she would turn the Hundred Years’ War to France’s favor and ultimate victory over England.
She belonged to the wrong gender, wrong social class, and wrong age to achieve what she dreamed of. And yet she did.
How she did it is a story filled with courage, intrigue, madness, and mysticism, which spanned more than half a century and another 600 years for her to be canonized and reconciled from heretic and witch to venerable, blessed, and finally Saint. That’s a long time to wait for her story to be reconciled.
On her road to reconciliation, Joan of Arc has been called many names: cross-dresser, heretic, maid, witch, saint. Artists and historians haven’t quite given us a true picture of Joan of Arc because her story doesn’t fit neatly within any binary.
The English would have you believe that Joan was “a pernicious temptress, presumptuous, credulous, rash, superstitious, a false prophetess, a blasphemer, seditious, cruel, apostate, schismatic” only able to achieve victory in consort with the devil.
The French would have you believe that she was touched by god, exalted, separate from and above the rest of us only able to accomplish what she did through divine grace and intervention.
Modern historians, psychologists, and neuroscientists have weighed in on Joan’s legend and would have you believe that Joan likely suffered from epileptic hallucinations, was schizophrenic, bi-polar, suffered from bovine tuberculosis, or meniere's disease, some people think she was simply crazy.
None of them would allow us to see Joan as a person.
None of them would allow us to see that a 17 year old non-gender conforming person could lead an army to victory when many nobles and military men had failed.
What if that had been Joan’s story for the last 600 years? This piece invites viewers to acknowledge and celebrate Joan’s accomplishments, not as the exalted one, but as someone who redefined class, religious, social and gender roles so she could step into the full expression of her personhood to achieve victory.
Artwork by Moonjube
