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Joan of Arc is a national heroine of France and a Roman Catholic saint. A peasant girl born in eastern France who claimed divine guidance, she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years' War, which paved the way for the coronation of Charles VII. She was captured by the Burgundians, sold to the English, tried by an ecclesiastical court, and burned at the stake when she was 19 years old.

It appears that Joan was more than a figurehead.  Records indicate she led an attack on the English and was victorious.  Also it is said that she somehow withstood a blow from a stone cannonball to her helmet as she climbed a scaling ladder.

What do you guys think about this legend?  Did she exist?  Did she really have divine guidance?  How did a mere peasant girl of maybe 16 or 17 rise to lead the Royal army of France into battle?  Where did she get her battle skills?  How did she convince the king AND the soldiers to let her lead the army?

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What do you guys think about this legend? Did she exist? Did she really have divine guidance? How did a mere peasant girl of maybe 16 or 17 rise to lead the Royal army of France into battle? Where did she get her battle skills? How did she convince the king AND the soldiers to let her lead the army?

Did she exist?  I would imagine, there seems no reason to believe otherwise.

Did she have divine guidance?  I would imagine not.  Many of the accounts describing her comment on her exceptional intellect, so considering her sex and socio-economic status I think she employed religion as a means of gaining notoriety.

You raise an interesting point in asking about how someone of her background could possibly lead the House of Valois to a victory over the Plantagenet forces.  From what I gather she advocated for aggressive military tactics designed to get the Valois forces off their heels and wasn't afraid to take the battle to the Plantagenet armies.  That said, it doesn't hurt to remember that she wasn't exactly confronting Edward III or the Black Prince.  The power of the Plantagenet in England was in steady decline that began at the death of Edward III over half a century prior to Joan's exploits.  I think in part she emerged just as the English began their descent down the path that ultimately resulted in the loss of all continental holdings and the infamous War of the Roses (in which over half the English nobles died and the Plantagenet family was displaced by the Tutors).

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Good points all.  I wonder if she was mostly a figurehead...a mascot of sorts to inspire the troops?  Maybe used as propaganda or a recruitment tool?  It does appear that she took part in actual combat.  But given her background, I'd be surprised to learn that she could wield a sword, much less know how to don armor.

Lets assume for the sake of argument, that she truly didnt have visions of divine guidance.  What would be her motivation to bother even trying to join the French army?  And what might have led her to even dream of aspiring to become a leader?  She was a farmgirl for crying out loud.  

I dunno...odd story eh?

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Originally Posted by Dennis Young:
Good points all.  I wonder if she was mostly a figurehead...a mascot of sorts to inspire the troops?  Maybe used as propaganda or a recruitment tool?  It does appear that she took part in actual combat.  But given her background, I'd be surprised to learn that she could wield a sword, much less know how to don armor.

Lets assume for the sake of argument, that she truly didnt have visions of divine guidance.  What would be her motivation to bother even trying to join the French army?  And what might have led her to even dream of aspiring to become a leader?  She was a farmgirl for crying out loud.  

I dunno...odd story eh?

I'm not sure.  I don't know all that much about her, and am thus speculating based on my understanding of the Hundred Years War.  Its possible that her loyalty to the French crown motivated her, or perhaps she had a grudge against the English (they weren't very nice to the French peasants, google chevauchée for an example).

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Maybe she didnt like farm chores.  

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7 Things You Didn’t Know About Joan of Arc
History.com Staff

Today marks the 600th anniversary of Joan of Arc’s birth—maybe. No official records of the date exist, and Joan herself could only guess she was 19 during her trial for heresy in 1431. (Her friends and relatives provided the same estimate for her birth year—1412—during the posthumous hearings that nullified her conviction two decades later.) In the years following the execution of the iconic French heroine and Roman Catholic saint, her birthday came to be celebrated on January 6, the day of the Epiphany in the Christian religion. To commemorate the occasion, here are a few facts about the legendary “Maid of Orléans” that might come as a surprise.

1. Joan’s real name was Jehanne d’Arc, Jehanne Tarc, Jehanne Romée or possibly Jehanne de Vouthon—but she didn’t go by any of these.

Joan didn’t hail from a place called Arc, as the typical Anglicization of her father’s surname, d’Arc (sometimes rendered as Darc or Tarc), might imply. Instead, Jehanne—or Jehanette, as she was known—grew up in Domrémy, a village in northeastern France, the daughter of a farmer and his devoutly Catholic wife. During her trial before an ecclesiastical court in 1431, Joan referred to herself only as “Jehanne la Pucelle” (“Joan the Maid”) and initially testified that she didn’t know her last name. She later explained that her father was called Jacques d’Arc and her mother Isabelle Romée, adding that in her hometown daughters often took their mothers’ surnames. In medieval France, where family names were neither fixed nor widely used, “Romée” simply designated a person who had made a pilgrimage to Rome or another religiously significant destination; other sources suggest that Joan’s mother went by Isabelle de Vouthon.

2. In modern times, some doctors and scholars have “diagnosed” Joan of Arc with disorders ranging from epilepsy to schizophrenia.

Around the age of 12 or 13, Joan of Arc apparently began hearing voices and experiencing visions, which she interpreted as signs from God. During her trial, she testified that angels and saints first told her merely to attend church and live piously; later, they began instructing her to deliver France from the invading English and establish Charles VII, the uncrowned heir to the French throne, as the country’s rightful king. The Maid asserted that a bright light often accompanied the visions and that she heard the voices more distinctly when bells sounded. Based on these details, some experts have suggested that Joan suffered from one of numerous neurological and psychiatric condition that trigger hallucinations or delusions, including migraines, bipolar disorder and brain lesions, to name just a few. Yet another theory holds that she contracted bovine tuberculosis, which can cause seizures and dementia, from drinking unpasteurized milk and tending cattle as a young girl.

3. While commander of the French army, Joan of Arc didn’t participate in active combat.

Though remembered as a fearless warrior and considered a heroine of the Hundred Years’ War between France and England, Joan never actually fought in battle or killed an opponent. Instead, she would accompany her men as a sort of inspirational mascot, brandishing her banner in place of a weapon. She was also responsible for outlining military strategies, directing troops and proposing diplomatic solutions to the English (all of which they rejected). Despite her distance from the front lines, Joan was wounded at least twice, taking an arrow to the shoulder during her famed Orléans campaign and a crossbow bolt to the thigh during her failed bid to liberate Paris.

4. Joan of Arc had a famously volatile temper.

Once placed in control of the French army, the teenage peasant didn’t hesitate to chew out prestigious knights for swearing, behaving indecently, skipping Mass or dismissing her battle plans; she even accused her noble patrons of spinelessness in their dealings with the English. According to a witnesses at her retrial, Joan once tried to slap a Scottish soldier—the Scots teamed up with France during the Hundred Years’ War—who had eaten stolen meat. She also supposedly drove away the mistresses and prostitutes who traveled with her army at swordpoint, hitting one or two in the process. And personal attacks by the English, who called her rude names and joked that she should return home to her cows, reportedly made Joan’s blood boil. The Maid’s short fuse is evident in transcripts of her court hearings; when a clergyman with a thick regional accent asked what language her voices spoke, for instance, she retorted that they spoke French far better than he did.

5. Contrary to popular belief, Joan of Arc wasn’t burned at the stake for witchcraft—at least not technically.

After falling into enemy hands in 1430, Joan of Arc was tried in the English stronghold of Rouen by an ecclesiastical court. The 70 charges against her ranged from sorcery to horse theft, but by May 1431 they had been whittled down to just 12, most related to her wearing of men’s clothing and claims that God had directly contacted her. Offered life imprisonment in exchange for an admission of guilt, Joan signed a document confessing her alleged sins and promising to change her ways. (It has been speculated that the illiterate Joan never knew what she’d put her name—or, more accurately, her mark of a cross—to.) Several days later, possibly due to threats of violence or **** from her guards, Joan put her male attire back on; she then told the angry judges who visited her cell that her voices had reappeared. It was these two acts that earned Joan a conviction as a “relapsed heretic” and sent her to the stake.

6. From 1434 to 1440, Joan’s brothers passed an imposter off as their sister, claiming she’d escaped execution.

One of several women who posed as Joan in the years following her death, Claude des Armoises resembled the well-known heretic and had supposedly participated in military campaigns while dressed in men’s clothing. She and two of Joan’s brothers, Jean and Pierre, crafted a scheme in which Claude presented herself to the people of Orléans, pretending to have fled her captors and married a knight while living in obscurity. The trio received lavish gifts and traveled from one festive reception to the next until Claude finally admitted their subterfuge to Charles VII, whose ascension Joan had engineered in 1429. Despite their involvement in the deception, Jean and Pierre played key roles in successfully petitioning Pope Callixtus III for Joan’s retrial, having presumably given up the charade of her survival by the 1450s.

7. Joan of Arc inspired the ever-popular bob haircut, which originated in Paris in 1909.

The voices that commanded the teenage Joan to don men’s clothing and expel the English from France also told her to crop her long hair. She wore it in the pageboy style common among knights of her era until guards shaved her head shortly before her execution. In 1909, the Polish-born hairdresser known as Monsieur Antoine—one of Paris’ most sought-after stylists—began cutting his fashionable clients’ tresses in a short “bob,” citing Joan of Arc as his inspiration. The look really caught on in the 1920s, popularized by silent film stars and embraced by the flapper set. While women continue to request bob cuts to this day, another of Antoine’s legendary experiments—dyeing his dog’s hair blue—hasn’t stood the test of time.

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Excellent post!  I didnt know most of that.  I had heard that she may have had some sort of epilepsy thogh.