In the history of the world, many influential women who have done things never thought to be possible by women. Women such as Rosa Parks, Marilyn Monroe, and Michelle Obama are inspiring girls all around the world to be whom they want to be. However, there has been one woman that has been covered in dust as her past has gotten farther away from us. She helped France in the 1400’s to get through to the end of the Hundred Years’ War, which could have never been finished without her leadership and heroism. Her name is Jeanne d’Arc and she is most commonly known as Joan of Arc. This woman who would lead the French to victory was persuaded to do so by visions, but were they all in her head or did she have an illness that prompted these visions, and would eventually lead to her death.
When Joan was born on the 6th of January, 1412 she was born as Jeanne d’Arc to a peasant family who farmed for a living. As a young child, she worked on the farm helping with the livestock and also mastered the art of spinning and sewing.
When she grew up and reached her teens, she had begun to see visions of saints from the Catholic religion. While she got older the visions and voices only got stronger. Although these visions would ultimately lead to her death at the time, they were telling her what was needed to end this war. The visions she received were from St. Michael, Catherine of Alexandria, and St. Margaret, and they told her how to win the Battle of New Orleans. She repeatedly experienced these visions all throughout her life; and she acted on these visions and made the decision to follow what her visions had been telling her to do for years.
She tried to enlist into the French army, and began by going to the captain of the French forces, who decided he did not have time to listen to peasant girl’s visions. When she had gone back to him, he gave in. She then set off to see the King, but first, she had to disguise herself. She dressed as a man and visited Charles VII. When she arrived and explained her reason, he knew that he had exhausted his supply for the war, and she knew he needed a new tactic. After he had made sure that she was not a witch, he agreed to let her become a soldier and put her in charge of a unit of the French army.
Equally important is what the Hundred Years’ War was started over. The kings of England claimed that because they had inheritance from the Queen of France, Isabella of France, they should be able to rule over France as well, but the people of France disagreed. It is not known when the war officially started, but it is believed to be in November 1337 in a town named Cadzand. The battle of Cadzand was when the English army attacked an undefended Flemish community near Sluys. The war was a lot of fighting on the battlefield, but it also was between the kings of each country. With all the rivalry between the kings they had many disputes over who was really king. Even after King Louis XVI was decapitated, George III claimed to be King of France meaning that this rivalry lasted for almost 450 years.
The war had been going on since before she was ever born, and growing up she never had any training on how to fight or lead an army. However, when she enlisted and was accepted, she was automatically placed as a general over a French army unit, and had no experience, and she also faced many hardships because of her gender. While Joan had been resting one night, she suddenly woke up and knew what she had to do and went and got herself into her armor and went to where her vision led her. When she arrived and she realized that she had been correct in her theory, and that there was an altercation that she had not been told about. Her arrival alerted the French and they took the fort. She gathered her unit and two days later she went across the bank to attack. The British had attempted to escape, but Joan had gotten there too fast and attacked them there. In the middle of the battle, she was wounded, but quickly returned to the battle so that she could continue to keep fighting for her country. The next day after they had capitulated, they were seen retreating, but as it was a Sunday, she would not allow her unit to pursuit. When Joan was on the battlefield, she wore chainmail armor with white cloth laid over with the fleurs-de-lis printed on it. She carried her banner proudly, and has proudly said: “I loved my banner forty times more than my sword. And when I went against my enemy, I carried my banner myself, lest I kill any. I have never killed a man” (Colrat). She would then lead her men to Orleans just as her visions told her she would. She helped defeat the British and crowned the King of France. Afterwards in 1429, Charles would lead the army. Charles would lead the army towards the center of Paris, but the British were already there. In the battle Joan was wounded, instead of being able to return to the battle, she was captured. Charles VII had to means to have her liberated, but never would.
Whenever Joan was captured, she wasn’t captured in France, however she was caught in England, so she had to handle their rules. At the time of her capture witches were believed to be supernatural beings with “special powers in the eyes or mouth, are able to turn themselves into animals or have magic ‘familiars’, move at high speed at night, ‘eat’ other humans, and gathering secret conventions” (Koning). The witch hunt in England at the time, in which Joan had been captured, had been long awaited, because they were under the rule of clerical elite and had denied the existence of the witch community. The people of Europe had thought that since Jeanne said that she was prompted by visions that they must have come from the devil. She was put to trial as a witch and was eventually persecuted. Fifteen months later Joan would finally be put to trial for being a witch. She was put to trial because of political necessity.
The ethics used in Jeanne’s trial were later questioned twenty-four years after her trial originally took place. One of the judges on Jeanne’s case was Cauchon, and he was a man that little good could be said about. He was a known enemy of Jeanne because he blamed her for the problems caused in England. He also would treat the prisoners badly by refusing them the right to food and subduing them to torture, and his apprentice was threatened with death by drowning if he didn’t keep his mouth shut. There were multiple things going wrong with Jeanne’s case such as she was denied the consolations of her religion, cross-examinations, threats to her chastity, and was chained to her bed at night. On the morning of May 29, 1431, she was announced guilty of the charges against her, and the next morning she was put on a wooden stake in the town of Rouen, France. With a crowd of ten thousand she was then burned at the stake at only nineteen years of age. Her ashes were collected and scattered in the Seine River. Almost twenty years after she was burned at the stake Charles VII requested can inquiry into the case. He preceded to read into the case and then cleared her of all charges. The Catholic Church in the year of 1920 canonized her as a saint, and she has continued to inspire women left and right, but did she ever really see the visions that prompted her?
Whenever she is discussed about in the present day her visions are also brought up. Some people believe that she may have had no visions whatsoever while others believe that she had. There has been scientific research however that points to her having epilepsy. The full term is idiopathic partial epilepsy with auditory features also known as IPEF. Joan would recall hearing bells ringing after each vision would end, and also would experience them in her sleep. Both of these are symptoms of IPEF that over 40% of people with IPEF suffer with. This theory has not been 100% proven, nonetheless but the people behind this theory hope to use a strand of her hair to test so they can prove that she had this disease.
Works Cited
McGill, Sara Ann. “Joan of Arc”. Joan of Arc, Aug. 2017, pp. 1–2. EBSCOhost.
“Joan of Arc’s ‘Voices’: Inspired or Epileptic?”. Military History, vol. 33, no. 5, Jan. 2017, p. 12. EBSCOhost.
Yvonne Lanhers, and Malcolm G.A. Vale. “Joan of Arc, Saint”. Britannica Biographies, Mar. 2012, p. 1. EBSCOhost.
Dorau, Bethany Groff. “ENGLAND AND FRANCE: Excerpt from the Trial of Joan of Arc”. Defining Documents: Middle Ages, July 2015, pp. 134–140. EBSCOhost.
Colrat, Jean Claude. “Banner”. Joan of Arc (Jeanne D’Arc) 1412 – 1431, 29 Oct. 2018, http://www.jeanne-darc.info/biography/banner/
Mortimer, Ian. “What Hundred Years War?”. History Today, vol. 59, no. 10, Oct. 2009, pp. 27–33. EBSCOhost.
Koning, Niek. “Witchcraft Beliefs and Witch Hunts”. Human Nature, vol. 24, no. 2, June 2013, pp. 158–181. EBSCOhost.