Joan of Arc or Jeanne d'Arc, known under a variety of other names and appellations throughout history--such as la Pucelle, the Maid, the Maiden, Princesse Royale, and l'enfant de France--has been the subject of an incredible number of publications since the fifteenth century. In France alone there were more than 20,000 manuscripts, books, scholarly articles, plays, poems, and newspaper and magazine items dealing with the events of her life through the year 1920, the date of her canonization by Pope Benedict XV. If one then totals the accumulated bibliography on Joan in just the rest of Europe and the Americas, from her own era to the last decade of the twentieth century (running well over 50,000 publications), one can easily see that she is among the most researched personalities in European civilization. Very few individuals in history can claim such a remarkable record. Perhaps very few hereafter ever will.

It is not my intent today to capsulize for you this prodigious outpouring of interest over the last six centuries--such a goal is unattainable. Also, I do not intend to state categorically or otherwise who she was, which interpretation is correct, or where research in the future might lead us. I have four principal aims in this address. First, it is necessary to trace the major episodes or phases of The Hundred Years' War to provide you with the historical backdrop during which Joan rose to prominence and gained her reputation. Second, I shall present the figure of Joan as she emerges from the pages of the most important traditional historical scholarship and literature, those sources which are most methodologically trusted and verifiable. Third, I shall examine Joan at the hands of her detractors, who have grown increasingly more evident and vocal during the twentieth century. Some of these conclusions may shock or at least alarm those who attach themselves to the more traditional interpretations, but they must be stated since they constitute an integral part of the historical record. Last, since most of us live in a computer literate world, I shall detail for you my own investigations over the last year of "surfing" the Internet. Joan is one of the liveliest topics on it. Perhaps nothing is a more fitting tribute to her timeless appeal. Along the way, I trust that you gain a greater understanding of Joan, her life, her mission, her death, her meaning.

Joan of Arc was born in January, 1412, at Domremy in the Castellany of Vaucouleurs, a region on the northeastern Lorraine frontier that had remained loyal to the Armagnac cause. Her father was Jacques d'Arc, reported to be a highly respected leader of his village; her mother was Isabelle Romee. Like many other young persons of her age, she was devoted to the saints whose images stood in the parish church, and, early on, she became convinced that they were devoted to her. She knew her prayers, was instructed in the faith, went to Mass frequently, and knelt in the fields when she heard the angelus bell. Unlike others, however, she was certain that she heard the voices of the saints speaking directly to her, particularly those of St. Michael, St. Catherine, and St. Margaret; the first saint was of renowned military reputation, while the other two were famous martyrs. These voices announced that they had a mission for her: she must depart her village, seek an audience with the dauphin, and lead him to Rheims to be crowned and anointed. These commands to her were nothing less than direct commands from God, upon which it was imperative to act immediately.

Supposedly upon the advice of an uncle, and accompanied by him, she went to Captain Robert de Baudricourt, commander of the military garrison at Vaucouleurs, to seek an escort to the king's temporary residence at Chinon. Given the extremely unsavory conditions of army camps during the Middle Ages and the personal habits of many of the personnel, it should not appear surprising that Baudricourt was taken aback with the pleading of an innocent, angelic-looking peasant girl telling him of her mission and goals. She professed, he rebuffed, and she returned home. Later in 1428, a raid by Burgundian troops caused her family and others at Domremy to flee for a short time to the nearby village of Neufchateau. After further urging by her voices, Joan returned with her uncle to Vaucouleurs early in 1429. Perhaps influenced more by her persistence than by his acknowledgement of her divine mission, Baudricourt granted Joan an escort of six men. Somehow, this small ensemble managed to travel through 300 miles of Anglo-Burgundian territory to Chinon where Joan, dressed as a man, presented herself to Charles with the simple announcement that she had come on God's behalf to help him and his kingdom.

At first, Charles was as incredulous as Baudricourt had been and he refused to see her. Although the sources conflict at this point, Joan reportedly revealed things that were only known to the dauphin. The extraordinary character of this incident made her suspect, and, after a cursory local examination by several bishops and theologians that must have been unconvincing, Charles ordered her to be turned over to a commission of theologians at Poitiers who, after a three-week interrogation, pronounced her to be simple, good, honest, and virtuous. In the course of the proceedings she predicted, among other things, that the siege of Orleans would be decided in favor of France, the English would be destroyed, the king would be crowned at Rheims, and Paris would be restored to its time-honored dignity as the capital of France.

In April, Joan, now accepted by the dauphin, was sent to Tours. She was given a horse, a suit of white armor, a banner with the inscription Jesus Maria, and a sword which, after instructions from her voices, she had found buried near the altar of the Church of St. Catherine at Fierbois. At the head of a small militia-type troop, she moved on to Blois, where she joined a force variously estimated at between 3,000 to 12,000 men. They marched on Orleans together, arriving there on April 28. The ensuing military activity took more than a week, but by May 7, an all day battle brought victory to the French; the next day, the English withdrew their forces. Although wounded in the shoulder in the heat of the conflict, Joan found time amid the wild celebrations that broke out in the city to admonish the army on its moral laxity. She tried to get rid of the throng of prostitutes who followed the army (a customary practice in medieval warfare), she forbade her own men to curse, and she repeatedly encouraged them to confess their sins and attend Mass. Soon thereafter, Joan rejoined Charles at Tours.

News of this victory spread throughout France and beyond. The blow to English prestige and the resulting elevation of French morale was considerable. The French, or at least some of them, believed that they were accompanied by a saint. She made up for her apparent ignorance of military affairs with a reckless abandon that inspired the troops. A flurry of slogans was invented--one of the most popular was that before her appearance, two hundred Englishmen could repel five hundred Frenchmen; after Joan appeared, two hundred Frenchmen could repel five hundred Englishmen. She also received accolades from some distinguished French churchmen and celebrated intellectuals, one of whom, John Gerson, a former Chancellor of the University of Paris, wrote a treatise supporting and praising her valiant efforts. This treatise would resurface as part of her rehabilitation some twenty five years later.

Joan spent most of the rest of May with Charles while he pondered laboriously over what the next course of action should be, even proposing that French troops concentrate their efforts on an invasion of Normandy. All Joan wanted to do was to get to Rheims where Charles could be property crowned and anointed with the holy oil that had supposedly been sent from heaven initially to be used on the Merovingian king, Clovis, the father of France, in the late fifth century. In June, she received royal leave to join the government forces engaged in the freeing of the Loire basin. It might have been advantageous had this army headed directly for Paris, but Joan stated over and over that her main mission was to lead Charles to Rheims for his coronation, and her perseverance won the day.

It should not be surmised that Joan was ever in command of the army. In an important victory at Patay, for example, she was in the rear; in others, such as Jargeau, Meung, and Beaugency, her whereabouts are open to dispute. But she was with the army, and in the popular imagination that was sufficient. Essentially, she had official command only over the handful of men who started out with her and who formed her military household, although others frequently rallied to her standard in battle. There is also a dispute over her official tide, but "Captain" seems closest to historical reality. Only once in the months before her capture is she ever referred to in any document as one of the commanders, and that may be an overstatement.

By the end of June, Joan had caught up with Charles. After additional victories at Auxerre, Troyes, and Châlons in the first two weeks of July, she and the king were received joyously at Rheims. On July 17, 1429, Charles was crowned in the cathedral with a crown of no special importance since he had apparently forgotten to bring his own. Joan and her banner stood behind the king during the ceremonies.

At this particular point, Joan's role was really ended. She had been instrumental in securing the relief of Orleans, the king had been crowned, and she had revived hopes for the ultimate victory of the French dominion. That was a spectacular success. Had Joan retired here, her fate may have been radically different, but she was convinced that her mission was only half-completed--the English were not yet driven out of France. Her wish to continue the war, however, did not conform to the wishes of Charles. The king was anxious to get back to his comfortable chateau in the Loire valley, and his advisors preferred to negotiate with the English and the Burgundians rather than continue the struggle. But Joan's voices drove her on. She refused to listen to the advice of government ministers or to take orders that deviated from her course; she had become a nuisance. This may be apocryphal but Charles, in a fit of pique, was said to have wished that she would go and hang herself.

Soon thereafter, events prevented Charles from returning to the Loire, and, regardless of whatever actually happened between them, Joan was permitted to go on with the French army and Charles accompanied her. In August, the French scored victories at Compiegne, Senlis, Beauvais, and St. Denis. But then, in an abortive attack on Paris in early September, Joan was wounded again; this time an arrow pierced her thigh. The French retreated and Joan, much to her chagrin, spent the next few weeks wallowing in idleness with Charles.

In the autumn of 1429, the French seized several additional towns of no great strategic importance and then retired for the winter. Then in March and April of 1430, when Joan became weary from the long period of agonizing inactivity, action resumed. With a significantly smaller military force than she was accustomed to, and without the consort of Charles, she took off once again. In the third week of April, after reinforcements had arrived (perhaps at the request of Charles), she was victorious at Lagny. She then moved on to Senlis. An intricate series of events now transpired which included the news that young King Henry VI and a new English army had landed at Calais, and that the English and Burgundians would concentrate their efforts at capturing Compiegne. This was catastrophic. All of her efforts on behalf of her voices and her God might come to naught if this enemy strategy came to fruition. After receiving word that a large enemy force was threatening this vitally important city, Joan, in her usual haste--and once again equipped with a much smaller force (perhaps fewer than 500 men who were foolish enough to accompany her)--arrived at Compiegne in the dawn hours of May 24. Most of her troops, completely outmatched in manpower and sensing disaster, deserted her. She was eventually dragged from her horse and captured in a swampy meadow by a Burgundian archer. She was turned over to a Burgundian partisan who sold her to the English for ten thousand pounds. The days of The Maid as a war hero were now over. Rumors spread that she was possessed by demons and was, most certainly, a witch. She had but one more year to live. Her fate would be decided by the Inquisition.

Joan was abandoned quickly by Charles, who did nothing, either militarily or diplomatically, to secure her release from the English. Apparently, he never even offered to match the ransom request--a piddling sum by medieval standards of ransom raised for such luminaries as Richard the Lion Heart and St. Louis to free them from their European and Moslem captors during the Crusades. Indeed, Joan was abandoned by everyone, she thought, except her God and her voices.

The English, nervously and impetuously desirous of destroying what they believed to be the abnormal influence that Joan had wielded positively over her own forces and negatively over those of England and its Burgundian allies for almost two years, were resolved to destroy her. They were anxious to have her condemned to death as a witch to prove that England and its fifth column ally in France were being defeated by a person possessed by an insidiously demonic--not divine--power. It should be emphasized that this era was marked by witchcraft trials all over Europe. These occurred regularly during the Middle Ages, almost on a cyclical basis. Joan, unfortunately, happened to be captured at a most inopportune moment. The witch hysteria was at its zenith.

The Church, too, was much concerned over Joan's claim that she was inspired directly by God. According to prevailing medieval dogma, Joan's revelations were impossible. In the course of many centuries, the Church had interposed itself between God and man as the only possible mediator of divine grace. Personal communion with God did away with the necessity of the Church, and any such protestations to the contrary smacked of the heresies of Peter Waldo, John Wyclif, John Hus, and a host of other important religious figures. Joan's fate was sealed almost before the proceedings began.

The trial took place in the city of Rouen where Joan had been incarcerated since being handed over by the English to their inquisitorial commission. It began officially on January 9, 1431, and would end with her burning at the stake on May 31. It was presided over by Pierre Cauchon, the Bishop of Beauvais, in whose diocese Joan had been taken prisoner. It should be noted that Cauchon was one of the many residents who had to flee Beauvais temporarily when French forces stormed the town the preceding August. Time does not permit an intensive examination of the day-to-day deliberations or a recitation of the large number of charges against her, but significant elements of the period of confinement, the day of execution, and the post-trial happenings will comprise the next section devoted to Joan's detractors.

Joan's trial was probably no more unfair than any other trial by inquisition. She was charged essentially with heresy and sorcery, and a large assemblage of legal and theological talent was employed to try her. Joan asserted early on that she was God's messenger, commissioned by Him through the voices of the saints and angels. Her interrogators countered this assertion with the charge that her inspiration came rather from the devil and his demons. They also condemned her supposed knowledge of the exact identities of her voices (who spoke to her in French), her historical prophesies and revelations, her wearing of men's clothing, her use of a cross as well as the names of Jesus and Mary on her banner, and her obstinance in defying Church judgments--especially in matters of faith. To the tribunal the essential question was: Would Joan be willing to leave the determination solely to the Church? If she refused this submission, her guilt was established, for to deny the authority of the Church was the commonest and deadliest of heresies. If she submitted, then the ecclesiastical commission before which she stood was ready to assume the functions of the Church and decide the issue against her.

Hour after hour, day after day, through the long months of the trial, the intrepid Joan foiled her inquisitors by the ingenuous candor of her speech and disarmed them by the shrewdness of her retorts. When asked repeatedly if she was in the state of grace, she would reply that, if she were not, she hoped God would bring her there and if she were, that He would keep her there. She thus avoided presuming on the authority of the Church by answering in the affirmative, and, conversely, avoided convicting herself by a negative response. Joan refused to be browbeaten into declaring anything that was against her convictions or to be forced to acquiesce to the will of her tormentors. She persistently denied the charges levied against her. Her will was indefatigable. The prosecution grew steadily impatient with her obstinence. The Inquisition always pressed for a rapid confession, due mainly to the fact that their judicial dockets were normally filled with a backlog of pending cases. As a result, in May, articles were drawn up convicting her of sorcery and heresy and quickly approved by the theological faculty of the University of Paris, long considered the dominant theological school in Europe.

On the morning of May 24, 1431, Joan was brought to the churchyard of St. Ouen in Rouen to hear the sentence committing her to the flames. She was weary, deserted, heartsick, and homesick. Her body was pained and her mind anguished, both devastated by the long imprisonment after a lifetime spent on the open farm fields of her youth and on the battlefields of her short military career. She was totally worn out by the severe strain of her long trial, some of which occurred during the Lenten fast which she had faithfully kept, even with her meager prison food. She was horrified at the thought that her nice body, as she put it, would be devoured in flames and burned to ashes.

It is for these reasons, perhaps more than any others, that Joan abjured after the sentence was read against her. Although there are conflicting reports at this critical juncture, Joan confessed to a document drawn up in French by Cauchon and his assistants that said, among other things, that she invented her visions and revelations, she practiced superstitious divinations, she blasphemed God and the saints, she transgressed divine and ecclesiastical law, she wore men's clothing as an abhorrence to her sex, she bore arms with the desire of shedding blood, she despised God and the sacraments, she worshipped and invoked spirits, she acted schismatically, and she committed errors against the faith. After her recantation, Cauchon changed her sentence from excommunication and burning to a penance of perpetual imprisonment. She returned to prison, resumed female clothing, and had her head shaved since she had formerly worn it in the custom of the French army of the period.

Once back in prison, however, she realized that she had been untrue to herself, her voices, and her faith. On May 28, only four days into her lifetime sentence, she resumed wearing male clothing since, as she said, she was a soldier of God. She announced that she had confessed to her guilt simply out of fear, that everything that she said in her testimony was absolutely true, and that she did not understand what the implications of her abjuration entailed.

To the Inquisition, this was clearly a relapse into heresy, for which there was no atonement. There could be no more trial deliberations, no more prosecution, and no more defense. She was turned over to the authorities to be sentenced according to the specifications predating her abjuration. On the morning of May 30, 1431, she was led to her final destination, the market square at Rouen, where she was fastened to a stake surrounded by a mass of combustible materials and burned to death as a heretic. A huge throng of spectators from Rouen and the surrounding areas witnessed what we in the twentieth century would label a media event. It was reported that she died with the name of Jesus on her lips.

After Joan's death, the course of the war continued in favor of France. At the Congress of Arras in 1435, the Duke of Burgundy abandoned his English alliance on very generous terms. England was offered both Guienne and Normandy as fiefs of the French crown on the condition that Henry VI renounce all claims to the French throne. The English not only refused this offer, but they demanded that all of France north of the Loire be turned over to them and be free from any feudal obligations. This was a stupid move. It inspired the French government to press forward with the war, and in the next decade, they initiated massive military reorganization and needed tax reform. In a sense, France returned to the sagacious policies of Charles V and they yielded fantastic returns. After the beginning of a total military onslaught in 1449, French armies conquered Rouen, Caen, and Cherbourg in 1449 and 1450 and liberated Normandy. Bordeaux and Bayonne were taken in 1450 and 1451, and Guienne and Gascony were finally added by July, 1453. Although this was not the official end of the war, since none was ever declared and since the English persisted in its claims until 1492, it was, effectively, the real end. France, due to the intercession of Joan of Arc, had turned the tide of battle and won the war.

Three years after the military action ended, Joan got her retribution. In 1456, in order to conciliate Charles VII and free the French monarchy from the charge that it had been assisted in its victory by a convicted sorceress and heretic, the papacy ordered a rehearing of Joan's case. In the extensive rehabilitation proceedings that followed, there was a complete examination of the original trial; of the objectives and methods of operation of the prosecution; of the activities therein of Pierre Cauchon who was responsible for adhering to the letter of inquisitorial law; of the testimony of Joan, her witnesses, and her defense; and all other particulars that pertained to the case. Much of what we now know of the original hearings and the specifics of this famous trial is culled from their deliberations and documentary publications. In the end, the original trial was judged irregular; its verdict was overturned and Joan's punishment was deemed unjustified. Joan was vindicated.

In 1909, slightly more than 450 years after her rehabilitation, Pope Pius X declared her beatified. In 1920, Pope Benedict XV canonized her a saint. As will be seen in the following section, there were many reasons why these events occurred so long after Joan's death (in 1431) and her rehabilitation (in 1456), including serious political and diplomatic considerations. But for now, that is unimportant. In a way, and at last, Joan had joined her voices. She was now one of them.