Joan of Arc

The historical figure we call Joan of Arc was born Jeanne d'Arc c.1412 in northeast France. During a crucial time in the Hundred Years War, she managed to gain an audience with the Dauphin, the rightful heir to the French throne, who was having trouble not only with the English but also with his own countrymen.

They met in late February or early March at the Dauphin's court in Chinon, where he had retired since being driven from the capital, Paris, years earlier. Orléans was under siege at the time, and she told the Dauphin that she had come to raise the siege and ensure his coronation. This was based on a series of visions she had.

Not willing to accept the seventeen-year-old illiterate peasant girl at her word, she was sent to theologians at Poitiers to be examined. Her strong Catholic upbringing was in her favor, but they could not agree that she was in fact seeing visions of St. Michael and others. Still, if she went to Orléans and was successful, that would be the best test of her claims. First she was sent to Tours where the Dauphin's mother, Yolande of Aragon, led a team of women who examined her physically and determined that she was, indeed, a virgin as she claimed. The prophecy that a virgin would be France's savior might have been satisfied by this girl, after all.

The Dauphin was sufficiently convinced that he commissioned plate armor for his maiden warrior. She gained a sword, brought from under the altar in the church at Sainte-Catherine-de-Fierbois. The Armagnac faction was severely demoralized at this point in the face of the Burgundian and English occupation, but Jeanne's arrival, her constant optimism, and her profound and public assurances of the divine support of their cause inspired the troops. Before going to raise the siege of Orléans in April of 1429, she dictated a letter to be delivered to the Duke of Bedford, warning him that she would drive him out of France.

She and the troops arrived at Orléans on 29 April. They managed to get her into the city where she was initially treated as a symbol, with no part in the military attempt to fight back. On 4 May, the Armagnac troops in Orléans took the offensive. Jeanne always seemed to be in the thick of the fighting, and gained the respect of the troops and their commanders, who sometimes even accepted her suggestions on where to focus their forces.

The next day was Ascension Thursday, commemorating the bodily ascension of Jesus to Heaven after the Resurrection, and therefore a day when no fighting was allowed by the Church. Jeanne dictated another letter to the English to leave France; it was tied to a crossbow bolt and fired at the enemy. On the next two days, the Armagnacs made progress, but each time they wanted to stop and consolidate their gains, Jeanne urged them to continue the forward offensive. Their progress continued from 5 - 7 May, when they attacked the main English stronghold. Jeanne, holding her banner, got an arrow in her shoulder but was part of the successful assault. On 8 May it was clear that Orléans was free of danger from the English.

For the French, like theologian Jean Gerson, the liberation of Orléans satisfied Jeanne's claim that she was sent by God. To the English, it clearly affirmed that the power behind her came from the devil.

She was famous, and there was more to come. See you next time.

The Romance of the Rose, Part 2

The title of this blog post is almost "literal" in the sense that the Roman de la Rose was written in two parts: one by Guillaume de Loris in the first half of the 13th century and the second by the poet Jean de Meun in the second half. Jean saw nothing wrong with taking what Guillaume had written and adding to it—in fact, adding four times the number of lines as the original—but also changing its themes to those of personal interest to him.

Jean added new allegorical figures such as Nature and Genius, and continued the conversation about the nature of Love and its affect on the narrator. More than that, however, was a cynical approach to other topics, mocking many of the people and conventions of his society.

He attacks the priesthood, monastic orders, and the papacy, considering the Church's fairly recently push to outlaw clerical marriage. He attacked the mendicant orders: they had begun to push into the universities, becoming teachers and threatening the seniority of the secular clergy. He also mocks the nobility and the pretensions of royalty in a pre-echo of the 14th century's peasant's cry of "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?"

He also took the opportunity to express cynical views on women and marriage. He offered his list of women's vices and how men could avoid their traps. Although this may have been entertaining to some readers, as the work became popular it was attacked by many writers of the 14th century, such as by Jean Gerson, Christine de Pizan, and Pierre d'Ailly.

One of its aspects that may have helped its duplication and distribution is that the (second) author had a broad knowledge of current scientific and literary knowledge. He packs into the total work a lot of references to classical authors and historical events. In fact, it is a reference to a specific event that helps place the composition: the execution of Conradin by Charles of Anjou in 1268, so the poem was completed after that date and before Jean's death in 1305.

Despite the hostility it received from some quarters, it was enormously popular. Chaucer made a translation called The Romaunt of the Rose, which he mentions in his poem The Legend of Good Women, but the extant version of The Romaunt of the Rose that we have may not have been produced by Chaucer, since parts of it differ stylistically from Chaucer's other works.

Back to the hostility, however, and a contemporary of Chaucer: Christine de Pizan is considered one of the earliest feminist writers, and we should talk about her more. We'll start that conversation next time.