Today is the feast day of Joan of Arc, patron saint of soldiers and France. She was born around 1412 in rural France to a farmer with 50 acres and his wife. She never received any formal education and was illiterate. Her local church however was right around the corner from her home and it could be inferred that her ecclesiastical knowledge came from her close proximity to the church as well as her intense devotion. 

 

She was able to convince the heir presumptive of France to give her armor and ride into battle with his officers. Naturally the Dauphin was skeptical of the farm girl, but on the losing side of a French civil war, he was ready to try almost anything. When Joan correctly predicted the outcome of a battle several days before it was confirmed, the French Prince gave Joan a suit of armor and a horse and other supplies were donated by the town.  

 

Joan never led troops herself, instead she was the banner bearer, seeing but not participating in the action. She did however offer advice to military leaders, and as many of her earlier predictions had come true, they listened to her. 

 

She was a puzzle - for someone without a military background and who could not read or write, she was making startling predictions with accuracy and doling out battle tactics that worked. 

 

Her good fortune didn’t last long though. She and the troop she was traveling with were ambush and she was captured by English forces. (Just a quick side note, this was the Hundred Years War and Northern parts of France teamed up with England to defeat the southern parts of France.)

 

Joan was not a model prisoner, and tried to escape multiple times. She had become a fairly well known figure for having visions at the time so the English didn’t wish just kill her with no cause. Rather they intended to use her to humiliate the French. 

 

The English Church brought a case against Joan for heresy and cross-dressing. They knew they didn’t have much of a case and stacked the jury with pro-English clerics and refused to give Joan counsel.

 

The English Church members set up theological-philosophical puzzles and traps hoping to walk Joan into giving heretical answers. 

 

Their attempts were in vain. Joan’s managed to side-step and maneuver the word puzzles as if she herself was a theologian. The cross-dressing charge was the only hope for the crooked revenge-bent England clerics.

 

It was obvious to the court that Joan had only dressed in men’s clothing and armor because it was necessary. She testified that on two occasions, she needed to disguise herself and on the other cases the men’s armor protected her from rape and molestation as it was much more difficult for an assailant to take off. 

 

The pro-English jury sentenced Joan to death anyhow for the repeat offense of crossdressing. She was burned at the stake and then her body was burned two more times in the hopes that no relics would be made of her body. Joan was only 19. 

 

We have so many records of Joan because, twenty years after her death the Church investigated the trial at the request of Joan’s grief-stricken parents. Investigators discovered testimony and paperwork from the trial had been falsified and protocol was thrown to the wind. Joan was exonerated of any crime and the charismatic illiterate farm girl became a French icon.

 

 

Philip Freneau

 

Fair flower, that dost so comely grow, 

Hid in this silent, dull retreat, 

Untouched thy honied blossoms blow, 

Unseen thy little branches greet: 

  No roving foot shall crush thee here, 

  No busy hand provoke a tear. 

  

By Nature's self in white arrayed, 

She bade thee shun the vulgar eye, 

And planted here the guardian shade, 

And sent soft waters murmuring by; 

  Thus quietly thy summer goes, 

  Thy days declining to repose. 

  

Smit with those charms, that must decay, 

I grieve to see your future doom; 

They died—nor were those flowers more gay, 

The flowers that did in Eden bloom; 

  Unpitying frosts and Autumn's power 

  Shall leave no vestige of this flower. 

  

From morning suns and evening dews 

At first thy little being came; 

If nothing once, you nothing lose, 

For when you die you are the same; 

  The space between is but an hour, 

  The frail duration of flower.