April 22, 2009 • 20 mins
Joan of Arc was a startling, larger-than-life figure, and she had a very strange trial. Learn why the Joan of Arc trial is so contentious -- along with much more -- in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast
I'm at a Turkey Andy Keener, joined by staff writer
Jane mcgrad Taylor Kansas. Hey, Jane, So, we spend a
lot of time on the podcast talking about ancient civilizations
(00:24):
and societies of the past, and wars and medieval torture
devices and Thomas Jefferson. But something we don't get around
too as often is very important women in history. And
we actually had a listener email us and she wrote,
first off, I'd like to say I love your podcast,
thank you very much. Anyway, I would like to hear
(00:45):
about some more famous women in history. I have a
couple of ideas, but someone who really sticks out to
me that would be fun is Joan of Arc. She's
always so shrouded in mystery and I would really love
to hear your take on it. If you had to
do one, I would definitely see her. And that came
from t Chica and she also said she wanted to
hear about Anny. Luckily, Jane Adams said in her Truth
(01:07):
and a couple of other very exciting women. And not
only are we going to cover Joan of Arc. But
just to give you guys a little sneak peak of
what's coming up down the line, we're gonna be talking
about women in ancient Egypt and Betsy Ross and a
few other surprises. Yeah, and Joan of Arc is going
to be one of the most popular I think. I
think maybe I remember another fan asking for her as well,
(01:29):
but you know, always a popular choice. To give you
some context, she lived from fourteen twelve to fourteen thirty one,
and if you haven't noticed, that's a pretty short amount
of time. She didn't live very long. If you don't
want to do the math real quick, that means she
was only about nineteen when she died, and she that's
when she was put to death for heresy. Yeah, but
that's the end of a very long and complicated life story.
(01:50):
So I think to get everyone started, we'll sort of
set up what's brewing over in Europe and more specifically
in France and England, because Joe was known for leading
the Stage of Orleans, which occurred in fourteen twenty nine,
but as you may remember from one of our earlier podcasts,
the Inquisition started raging much earlier than that, and in
(02:12):
twelve thirty one, uh, they started trying to phase out
heretics from the Catholic Church, and as events transpired, we
had the Hundred Years War startup, and that's where things
got really sticky with the Church and then with France
and England fighting for the throne. And I'm gonna let
Jane give you guys some background on that. So the
Hundred Years War was actually a little bit longer than
(02:33):
there was a hundred and sixteen years that it lasted,
and we lump it together called the Hundred Years War.
It was really a series of conflicts, as you might guess,
it was treaties and broken treaties that lasted for this
period between about thirteen thirty seven and fourteen fifty three
between France and England. It's really sticky issues, really complicated.
But it goes back to actually ten sixty six when William,
(02:56):
who was the Duke of Normandy at the time, defeated
the King of England and took a for England. So
that meant that the King of England held territory in France.
And by the fourteenth century those territories, those French territories,
were still in dispute and things had gotten even stickier
to Jane because people had been inter marrying between France
and England, and so when you talk about uh lineage
(03:20):
and the heir to certain seats, it's really complicated. Yeah.
In thirteen o nine, the King of England's son married
the daughter of the King of France, and the result
of that marriage was Edward the third, I believe, and
so he had a claim to the French throne in
thirteen twenty eight, which happened to be the year that
the French King, Charles the fourth died without a clear air,
(03:41):
so as you can see it is it's a huge mess.
And I fast forward to about fourteen fifteen you have
English King Henry the fifth, and if you've ever read
that Shakespeare one of the best Shakespeare plays, I think
you know a little bit about the Battle of Aaron Court, etcetera,
and how he was very victorious and eventually he invaded
France and got them to sign the Treaty of Tis,
(04:04):
which agreed that Henry would get to the French throne
after the sitting king, Charles the sixth died, So it
seemed like a fair compromise, but it was made a
void when both of them died. Yeah, they both died
in fourteen twenty two. Henry died first and Charles died
a few weeks afterwards. So this complicated the question of
(04:25):
who would get the French throne. Basically you have the
issue of the French people didn't like, they didn't support
the Treaty of Trois, and they supported Charles the seventh
of the king's son to become king. And also was
complicated by the fact that Henry the fifth heir son
was only a baby when he died, so the baby
(04:45):
basically had according to the treaty, the baby was now
king of both England and France, and France was not
happy with this, and so Charles the seventh that Dauphin
he was actually living in exile in Nyon, and that
is where he would meet Joan of ar Ark. And
if we flashed back to Joan, when she was at
the age of thirteen, she started hearing voices, and she
(05:09):
was a peasant girl from very humble, humble origins. I
think she was illiterate, and she prided herself, I think,
on being a good daughter and a good servant to God.
And one day she was working outside and she started
hearing people talking to her and she was able to
identify the voices as coming from St. Michael, St. Margaret
(05:32):
and St. Catherine. And we should know it also that
um I was reading about Joan in the context of
France at this time, that French France was Catholic, but
they were very mystic believers in France, and so they
put a lot of stock into these visions, in these
divine signs. So obviously Joan wouldn't buy into it very quickly,
and she took it to heart. And at first I
(05:54):
don't think the directions were too complicated coming from the voices,
things like be a good daughter, be a eating into
your family, do a good job with your chores, and
there seemed like, you know, good comments sense things that
most of us probably got from watching Sesame Street when
we were younger. But then the voices became a little
bit more I guess, fervent, and the messages were much
(06:15):
more poignant. They started telling her that she needed to
cut her hair short and start wearing men's garb, and
that eventually her calling was that she was going to
get her own military troops and she was going to
help lead the French to victory over the English and
put Charles the seventh on his rifle place on the throne,
And like Jane was saying, people in France bought into
(06:38):
the idea of of mysical visions and dreams. And Jones's
own father started having dreams around this time too that
his daughter was going to run away, so he was
ensuring that his sons were watching her to make sure
she wasn't flaeing from home. But she did. Yeah, she
thought she was hearing signs from God. And God tells
you to leave. You know, you leave, You've cut your hair,
(06:59):
and you get out of dodge. So she left to
seek out Charles the seventh. She arrived at his court
and after a couple of days she was granted permission
to see him. But even then when she was going
into permission, she was there at the court and Charles
the seventh decided to disguise himself, but interestingly, Joan recognized
him immediately, which sort of wants the idea that she
was sent from God, right, And I'm trying to put
(07:21):
myself in charles place and really think about this. Here
is a very young girl who is wearing men's clothes.
She's got short hair. It's very unusual for the times
that a cross dressing girl would come to court and
seek out rather forcefully the Dauphin. It just seems a
little bit um, what's the word I'm looking for? A
little uh? She bizar, you know, who does she think
(07:45):
she has defined me? And so he really wanted to
be able to trust her if she was who she
said she was. And after she located him in a
crowd full of people had never seen him before, maybe
never even seen a likeness of him or what of
him at that age, she told him also a secret
about himself that no one else would know, and supposedly
(08:06):
to this day, we still don't know what that secret is. Yeah,
that's true. Though. Um I read that his story and
speculated at least that the secret that that she said
had to do with his legitimacy. He suspected that he
was an illegitimate child and uh and Joan sort of
put an end to this to this question from divine sources. Well,
if that is in fact the secret that she told
(08:29):
and she was able to put his mind at ease,
then we can understand why he put full trust in
her and gave her her own troops and made her
captain in the French army and she was sent to Orleans,
and before he actually put her on the battlefield, he
wanted to make sure that he wasn't aligning himself with
some sort of sorceress. So he had her questioned by
(08:50):
a panel of clergy and they said she was legit.
She's not a witch. She probably is hearing these voices
from saints and she is sent by God. Yeah. One
curious thing that they during this inquisition, well was initial
questioning of whether she was actually sent from God, was
that they had women actually physically examined her and see
if she was a virgin, and they found that she was,
and so that concluded to them that she couldn't have
(09:12):
been in cohorts with the devil. So by this time,
if you're not a huge fan of Down, hold on
because there's more. And I'm a huge fan because I
think it takes a lot of bravery and guts to
follow through on these voices that you're hearing and to
put yourself through that kind of rigorous examination. I mean,
you really are putting yourself on the line. And can
you imagine what the men in the military must have
(09:33):
thought when a sixteen year old girl was put in
front of them and said that she was going to
be there later. Yeah. One story I read about that
was that soldiers were convinced that she was sent from
God because at one point when she was wounded in battle,
they saw part of her naked body and they weren't
taken by desire or anything, and they thought this was
sort of God, you know, shielding them from sexual advances
(09:55):
on her. And that was a problem that would emerge
later in her life. But the soldier and as a captain,
really she proved that she was a very, very good,
good fighter, and she had the sword that was given
to her, and sort of an Arthur like way, the
voices told her that before she went into battle, there
would be a sword for her hidden behind an altar
(10:18):
of a church, and it would be covered in rust
and carved with five different crosses. And they sent some
people out to go fetch the sword, and sure enough
I was there, and she wiped off the rest and
she was ready for the battlefield and with her miraculous sword.
Doesn't it sound very sore in the stone to you? Yeah,
very it's a very good comparison. So she's out on
the battlefield and she's got her her white flag with
(10:40):
a flour delis and it started in May and it
lasted nine days and she won. It was pretty impressive,
and so Charles a few months later was officially crowned
the King of France. And what's interesting about this point
is that Joan wanted to go on and liberate Paris.
At this point, you know, Charles has got his legitimacy,
(11:02):
but they're still conflict going on and Paris was still
controlled by other forces. Charles was actually against this. He
wanted to stop the violence. He wanted to not push
any further, so he opposed and delayed her her traveling
to France or traveling to Paris to um liberate it.
And his story and speculate that charles is um opposition
(11:23):
actually crippled her chances as success because when Jone did
leave to go do this, she failed. And a few
months after that she actually tried again deliberate the city
of Campienne and it was there that she was captured
in fourteen thirty seve When she was captured, she wasn't
a regular prisoner of war. She had actually made a
couple of enemies along the way, one of whom was
(11:45):
a somewhat powerful man, the Bishop of Beauvais named Pierre Couschamp,
and he was determined that he was going to make
this girl out to be the witch that he suspected
she was, and he wanted her burned at the stake.
He was tired of her. She was, you know, and subordinate.
She was just causing a huge ruckus. And what's more,
(12:06):
if she were convicted for heresy, it would totally discredit
the fact that Charles was on the throne, because he
would have gotten there by some sort of means of
black magic. Almost so this was going to have resounding
ripple effects if he could just prove that she was
a witch. And what's interesting about this trial is that
it was so hard to convict Joan of anything because
(12:29):
she was so incredibly devoted to God and to the
voices that she'd been hearing, and so anytime they tried
to catch her in a heretical statement or telling some
sort of lie, it just kept reflecting back to the
fact that she was she was a girl of God.
She was following him and she was sent to earth
to do his his divine deeds. Kushawn knew what he
was doing, trying to corner her into admitting heresies. But
(12:52):
it's interesting that Joan was so she was, you know, unlearned,
she was illiterate, and yet she was able to give
very good answers. And a lot of historians chalk uh
this trial up to being part of the inquisition. And
like we mentioned in in the podcast about the Spanish Inquisition,
that there were there were different factions of inquisitions going
around around Europe, and when Cohn wanted to bring in
(13:14):
official inquisitors, they're really reluctant. The Grand Inquisitor of the
Faith in Rome wasn't able to come, and so the
bishop had to settle for a sub inquisitor. And even
even him, he was reluctant because there's lots of irregular
irregularities going on in this case. You know, they didn't
want to be involved. She maybe she was a legitimate
we don't know. And so the souther inquisitor only came
(13:35):
after Cochawn like threatened him, which is interesting, And he
only showed up occasionally when he didn't like come to
England for the trial. So if Kashan hadn't already shown
his true colors, he did a little bit later because
he thought that there was a loophole and a law
that he could get John through for cross dressing. Of
(13:55):
all things, here is a girl who has listened to
divine voices and delivered france aunts, and now she's going
to be punished for wearing men's clothes, which was what
the voices had commanded her to do. And furthermore, when
you're on the battlefield surrounded by men, you've got to
dress herself in similar raimond I mean, you're a soldier
at that point. And we should know that there's two
(14:15):
different types of churches that were recognized, um the Church Militant,
which was the Catholic Church on earth that particular incarnation,
and then there was the Church Triumph, which was God's
heavenly church, and the one that Joan ascribed to above
all else was the Church Triumph. But in order to
be a true and devout Catholic, you would have to
(14:38):
ascribe to both and follow the laws of both churches. Yes,
so this was how Cohn was able to sort of
corner her into heresy that she was she filled herself
directly responsible to God himself, rather than going through the
Church on Earth. And Coshn essentially asked, you know, you know,
that cross dressing is a sin, and she tried to say, yes,
I understand that, but it's a very a small detail
(15:00):
looks look at the big picture. But he eventually forced
her into signing a decree that said she would not
wear men's clothes anymore because it was a violation of
the Catholic Church on Earth, the Church militant. But then
when she was in prison awaiting the rest of the
investigation and the trial, some people later testified that all
of her female clothes were stolen and the only ones
(15:21):
left or men's clothes. And she certainly wasn't going to
go around nude because that would be, you know, very
unsafe for her. She needed to protect herself, and so
once she had on the men's clothes, she'd broken the law. Yeah,
actually read there's there was one account I think that
she was actually sexually assaulted in prison, and I think obviously,
even though she wasn't on the battlefield, when she was
on prison during her trial, etcetera, she would want to
(15:42):
stay in men's clothes to protect herself from from this
kind of assault. And so while that may have worked
in offending off sexual advances, it certainly didn't work for
a cushion and that was it. She was set to
be burned at the stake, only nineteen years old, and
she was burned alive. Yeah, and a couple of decades later,
Charles the seventh actually initiated when he got like full power,
(16:05):
he was secure in his power, he initiated proceedings that
the church could, um could liberate her or could clear
her name of heresy, and they did just that. Um.
I think it was just twenty four years after she
was burned at the stake that she was cleared, which
is interesting. And it wasn't until the twentieth century that
she was canonized by the Catholic Church, and it's interesting.
(16:26):
Some people say that that took a long time. Some
people say it's weird that she's a Saine at all, because,
you know, why would God choose aside in this hundred
years war that had to do with the legitimacy of
the throne and everything like that, and these between two
Christian countries as well, Why would God take a side.
It's kind of clear that the Church made her a
(16:46):
saint partly to improve relations with the French government, which
is interesting. And so today she's regarded as the patron
say of France. She's also called that the maid of Arliens,
that's not really Irish, the man of Orleans. And what's
interesting about being burned at the steak This is something
that we have discussed before in our Medieval Torture podcast.
(17:09):
I really I can't let it. I can't let it go.
When you're burned at the steak, you don't actually die
from being burned, just like if you were in a
burning building, you die from smoke inhalation first, and that's
how Joan died, from smoke inhalation. And so they ordered
her body to be burned again, and the after the
second time, her organs were still somewhat intact, so she
(17:31):
was ordered to be burned a third time to completely
finish off her body. So she was burned at the
steak three times. The first time killed her, but they
wanted to, you know, get her all done for good measure.
And then her ashes were meant to be scattered in
a nearby river, but some people suspect that they weren't,
and not too long ago, some ashes were found in
(17:51):
a Praisian apothecary and scientists started wondering, you know, just
just wondering could these be joan of arcs And so
in two thousand six, one French scientist was able to
say that these ashes show evidence that they're from a
young female body, and um, I think it shows evidence
of of bone and muscle tissue from a somewhat young
(18:13):
adult girl. And we don't know definitively whether or not
it's joan of arc but you have to ask yourself
how many women were really burned at the steak at
France during this time exactly. And so they've sipped it
through these ashes, and they've also found what looks like
a femur from a cat. And it would not be
uncommon during medieval times for a cat to be thrown
(18:36):
on a funeral pyre if a witch was being burned
as sort of an appeasement to Satan. But the femer
wasn't burned as badly as the other fragments of bones,
as they think maybe the cat just went walking by afterward.
Dad luck for a cat. But there's also a very
small fragment of cloth that could be linen or some
sort of gown that one would have worn when woman
(18:57):
was being burned at the steak. So there's a lot
of miss stories there whether or not it's Joan. Wait
on now it is it is anyway, So a lot
of interesting years about women in history and the grand
sacrifices that they underwent for a trying to be a
savior and having to dress like a man to do
it and then getting you kicked in the pants for
(19:17):
that one. So and speaking of rolics, I actually recently
wrote about the Shroud of Turin and uh it's fate
during the Middle Ages. It was a really cool, cool
story wrote about it on the blog which you can
find out how stuff works dot com. Um, So if
you missed in history class blog is really cool, you
should check it out. A Candida and I write on
it each once a day we do, and starting every Friday,
(19:38):
we're going to be having conversations with you guys about
our latest podcast, so be sure you check that out.
And we also hope that you will look up this
wonderful article called why was cross dressing the only crime
Joan of arc was convicted of? On how stuff works
dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
(19:59):
Does it how stuff works dot com. Let us know
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stuff works dot com m
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast
I'm at a Turkey Andy Keener, joined by staff writer
Jane mcgrad Taylor Kansas. Hey, Jane, So, we spend a
lot of time on the podcast talking about ancient civilizations
(00:24):
and societies of the past, and wars and medieval torture
devices and Thomas Jefferson. But something we don't get around
too as often is very important women in history. And
we actually had a listener email us and she wrote,
first off, I'd like to say I love your podcast,
thank you very much. Anyway, I would like to hear
(00:45):
about some more famous women in history. I have a
couple of ideas, but someone who really sticks out to
me that would be fun is Joan of Arc. She's
always so shrouded in mystery and I would really love
to hear your take on it. If you had to
do one, I would definitely see her. And that came
from t Chica and she also said she wanted to
hear about Anny. Luckily, Jane Adams said in her Truth
(01:07):
and a couple of other very exciting women. And not
only are we going to cover Joan of Arc. But
just to give you guys a little sneak peak of
what's coming up down the line, we're gonna be talking
about women in ancient Egypt and Betsy Ross and a
few other surprises. Yeah, and Joan of Arc is going
to be one of the most popular I think. I
think maybe I remember another fan asking for her as well,
(01:29):
but you know, always a popular choice. To give you
some context, she lived from fourteen twelve to fourteen thirty one,
and if you haven't noticed, that's a pretty short amount
of time. She didn't live very long. If you don't
want to do the math real quick, that means she
was only about nineteen when she died, and she that's
when she was put to death for heresy. Yeah, but
that's the end of a very long and complicated life story.
(01:50):
So I think to get everyone started, we'll sort of
set up what's brewing over in Europe and more specifically
in France and England, because Joe was known for leading
the Stage of Orleans, which occurred in fourteen twenty nine,
but as you may remember from one of our earlier podcasts,
the Inquisition started raging much earlier than that, and in
(02:12):
twelve thirty one, uh, they started trying to phase out
heretics from the Catholic Church, and as events transpired, we
had the Hundred Years War startup, and that's where things
got really sticky with the Church and then with France
and England fighting for the throne. And I'm gonna let
Jane give you guys some background on that. So the
Hundred Years War was actually a little bit longer than
(02:33):
there was a hundred and sixteen years that it lasted,
and we lump it together called the Hundred Years War.
It was really a series of conflicts, as you might guess,
it was treaties and broken treaties that lasted for this
period between about thirteen thirty seven and fourteen fifty three
between France and England. It's really sticky issues, really complicated.
But it goes back to actually ten sixty six when William,
(02:56):
who was the Duke of Normandy at the time, defeated
the King of England and took a for England. So
that meant that the King of England held territory in France.
And by the fourteenth century those territories, those French territories,
were still in dispute and things had gotten even stickier
to Jane because people had been inter marrying between France
and England, and so when you talk about uh lineage
(03:20):
and the heir to certain seats, it's really complicated. Yeah.
In thirteen o nine, the King of England's son married
the daughter of the King of France, and the result
of that marriage was Edward the third, I believe, and
so he had a claim to the French throne in
thirteen twenty eight, which happened to be the year that
the French King, Charles the fourth died without a clear air,
(03:41):
so as you can see it is it's a huge mess.
And I fast forward to about fourteen fifteen you have
English King Henry the fifth, and if you've ever read
that Shakespeare one of the best Shakespeare plays, I think
you know a little bit about the Battle of Aaron Court, etcetera,
and how he was very victorious and eventually he invaded
France and got them to sign the Treaty of Tis,
(04:04):
which agreed that Henry would get to the French throne
after the sitting king, Charles the sixth died, So it
seemed like a fair compromise, but it was made a
void when both of them died. Yeah, they both died
in fourteen twenty two. Henry died first and Charles died
a few weeks afterwards. So this complicated the question of
(04:25):
who would get the French throne. Basically you have the
issue of the French people didn't like, they didn't support
the Treaty of Trois, and they supported Charles the seventh
of the king's son to become king. And also was
complicated by the fact that Henry the fifth heir son
was only a baby when he died, so the baby
(04:45):
basically had according to the treaty, the baby was now
king of both England and France, and France was not
happy with this, and so Charles the seventh that Dauphin
he was actually living in exile in Nyon, and that
is where he would meet Joan of ar Ark. And
if we flashed back to Joan, when she was at
the age of thirteen, she started hearing voices, and she
(05:09):
was a peasant girl from very humble, humble origins. I
think she was illiterate, and she prided herself, I think,
on being a good daughter and a good servant to God.
And one day she was working outside and she started
hearing people talking to her and she was able to
identify the voices as coming from St. Michael, St. Margaret
(05:32):
and St. Catherine. And we should know it also that
um I was reading about Joan in the context of
France at this time, that French France was Catholic, but
they were very mystic believers in France, and so they
put a lot of stock into these visions, in these
divine signs. So obviously Joan wouldn't buy into it very quickly,
and she took it to heart. And at first I
(05:54):
don't think the directions were too complicated coming from the voices,
things like be a good daughter, be a eating into
your family, do a good job with your chores, and
there seemed like, you know, good comments sense things that
most of us probably got from watching Sesame Street when
we were younger. But then the voices became a little
bit more I guess, fervent, and the messages were much
(06:15):
more poignant. They started telling her that she needed to
cut her hair short and start wearing men's garb, and
that eventually her calling was that she was going to
get her own military troops and she was going to
help lead the French to victory over the English and
put Charles the seventh on his rifle place on the throne,
And like Jane was saying, people in France bought into
(06:38):
the idea of of mysical visions and dreams. And Jones's
own father started having dreams around this time too that
his daughter was going to run away, so he was
ensuring that his sons were watching her to make sure
she wasn't flaeing from home. But she did. Yeah, she
thought she was hearing signs from God. And God tells
you to leave. You know, you leave, You've cut your hair,
(06:59):
and you get out of dodge. So she left to
seek out Charles the seventh. She arrived at his court
and after a couple of days she was granted permission
to see him. But even then when she was going
into permission, she was there at the court and Charles
the seventh decided to disguise himself, but interestingly, Joan recognized
him immediately, which sort of wants the idea that she
was sent from God, right, And I'm trying to put
(07:21):
myself in charles place and really think about this. Here
is a very young girl who is wearing men's clothes.
She's got short hair. It's very unusual for the times
that a cross dressing girl would come to court and
seek out rather forcefully the Dauphin. It just seems a
little bit um, what's the word I'm looking for? A
little uh? She bizar, you know, who does she think
(07:45):
she has defined me? And so he really wanted to
be able to trust her if she was who she
said she was. And after she located him in a
crowd full of people had never seen him before, maybe
never even seen a likeness of him or what of
him at that age, she told him also a secret
about himself that no one else would know, and supposedly
(08:06):
to this day, we still don't know what that secret is. Yeah,
that's true. Though. Um I read that his story and
speculated at least that the secret that that she said
had to do with his legitimacy. He suspected that he
was an illegitimate child and uh and Joan sort of
put an end to this to this question from divine sources. Well,
if that is in fact the secret that she told
(08:29):
and she was able to put his mind at ease,
then we can understand why he put full trust in
her and gave her her own troops and made her
captain in the French army and she was sent to Orleans,
and before he actually put her on the battlefield, he
wanted to make sure that he wasn't aligning himself with
some sort of sorceress. So he had her questioned by
(08:50):
a panel of clergy and they said she was legit.
She's not a witch. She probably is hearing these voices
from saints and she is sent by God. Yeah. One
curious thing that they during this inquisition, well was initial
questioning of whether she was actually sent from God, was
that they had women actually physically examined her and see
if she was a virgin, and they found that she was,
and so that concluded to them that she couldn't have
(09:12):
been in cohorts with the devil. So by this time,
if you're not a huge fan of Down, hold on
because there's more. And I'm a huge fan because I
think it takes a lot of bravery and guts to
follow through on these voices that you're hearing and to
put yourself through that kind of rigorous examination. I mean,
you really are putting yourself on the line. And can
you imagine what the men in the military must have
(09:33):
thought when a sixteen year old girl was put in
front of them and said that she was going to
be there later. Yeah. One story I read about that
was that soldiers were convinced that she was sent from
God because at one point when she was wounded in battle,
they saw part of her naked body and they weren't
taken by desire or anything, and they thought this was
sort of God, you know, shielding them from sexual advances
(09:55):
on her. And that was a problem that would emerge
later in her life. But the soldier and as a captain,
really she proved that she was a very, very good,
good fighter, and she had the sword that was given
to her, and sort of an Arthur like way, the
voices told her that before she went into battle, there
would be a sword for her hidden behind an altar
(10:18):
of a church, and it would be covered in rust
and carved with five different crosses. And they sent some
people out to go fetch the sword, and sure enough
I was there, and she wiped off the rest and
she was ready for the battlefield and with her miraculous sword.
Doesn't it sound very sore in the stone to you? Yeah,
very it's a very good comparison. So she's out on
the battlefield and she's got her her white flag with
(10:40):
a flour delis and it started in May and it
lasted nine days and she won. It was pretty impressive,
and so Charles a few months later was officially crowned
the King of France. And what's interesting about this point
is that Joan wanted to go on and liberate Paris.
At this point, you know, Charles has got his legitimacy,
(11:02):
but they're still conflict going on and Paris was still
controlled by other forces. Charles was actually against this. He
wanted to stop the violence. He wanted to not push
any further, so he opposed and delayed her her traveling
to France or traveling to Paris to um liberate it.
And his story and speculate that charles is um opposition
(11:23):
actually crippled her chances as success because when Jone did
leave to go do this, she failed. And a few
months after that she actually tried again deliberate the city
of Campienne and it was there that she was captured
in fourteen thirty seve When she was captured, she wasn't
a regular prisoner of war. She had actually made a
couple of enemies along the way, one of whom was
(11:45):
a somewhat powerful man, the Bishop of Beauvais named Pierre Couschamp,
and he was determined that he was going to make
this girl out to be the witch that he suspected
she was, and he wanted her burned at the stake.
He was tired of her. She was, you know, and subordinate.
She was just causing a huge ruckus. And what's more,
(12:06):
if she were convicted for heresy, it would totally discredit
the fact that Charles was on the throne, because he
would have gotten there by some sort of means of
black magic. Almost so this was going to have resounding
ripple effects if he could just prove that she was
a witch. And what's interesting about this trial is that
it was so hard to convict Joan of anything because
(12:29):
she was so incredibly devoted to God and to the
voices that she'd been hearing, and so anytime they tried
to catch her in a heretical statement or telling some
sort of lie, it just kept reflecting back to the
fact that she was she was a girl of God.
She was following him and she was sent to earth
to do his his divine deeds. Kushawn knew what he
was doing, trying to corner her into admitting heresies. But
(12:52):
it's interesting that Joan was so she was, you know, unlearned,
she was illiterate, and yet she was able to give
very good answers. And a lot of historians chalk uh
this trial up to being part of the inquisition. And
like we mentioned in in the podcast about the Spanish Inquisition,
that there were there were different factions of inquisitions going
around around Europe, and when Cohn wanted to bring in
(13:14):
official inquisitors, they're really reluctant. The Grand Inquisitor of the
Faith in Rome wasn't able to come, and so the
bishop had to settle for a sub inquisitor. And even
even him, he was reluctant because there's lots of irregular
irregularities going on in this case. You know, they didn't
want to be involved. She maybe she was a legitimate
we don't know. And so the souther inquisitor only came
(13:35):
after Cochawn like threatened him, which is interesting, And he
only showed up occasionally when he didn't like come to
England for the trial. So if Kashan hadn't already shown
his true colors, he did a little bit later because
he thought that there was a loophole and a law
that he could get John through for cross dressing. Of
(13:55):
all things, here is a girl who has listened to
divine voices and delivered france aunts, and now she's going
to be punished for wearing men's clothes, which was what
the voices had commanded her to do. And furthermore, when
you're on the battlefield surrounded by men, you've got to
dress herself in similar raimond I mean, you're a soldier
at that point. And we should know that there's two
(14:15):
different types of churches that were recognized, um the Church Militant,
which was the Catholic Church on earth that particular incarnation,
and then there was the Church Triumph, which was God's
heavenly church, and the one that Joan ascribed to above
all else was the Church Triumph. But in order to
be a true and devout Catholic, you would have to
(14:38):
ascribe to both and follow the laws of both churches. Yes,
so this was how Cohn was able to sort of
corner her into heresy that she was she filled herself
directly responsible to God himself, rather than going through the
Church on Earth. And Coshn essentially asked, you know, you know,
that cross dressing is a sin, and she tried to say, yes,
I understand that, but it's a very a small detail
(15:00):
looks look at the big picture. But he eventually forced
her into signing a decree that said she would not
wear men's clothes anymore because it was a violation of
the Catholic Church on Earth, the Church militant. But then
when she was in prison awaiting the rest of the
investigation and the trial, some people later testified that all
of her female clothes were stolen and the only ones
(15:21):
left or men's clothes. And she certainly wasn't going to
go around nude because that would be, you know, very
unsafe for her. She needed to protect herself, and so
once she had on the men's clothes, she'd broken the law. Yeah,
actually read there's there was one account I think that
she was actually sexually assaulted in prison, and I think obviously,
even though she wasn't on the battlefield, when she was
on prison during her trial, etcetera, she would want to
(15:42):
stay in men's clothes to protect herself from from this
kind of assault. And so while that may have worked
in offending off sexual advances, it certainly didn't work for
a cushion and that was it. She was set to
be burned at the stake, only nineteen years old, and
she was burned alive. Yeah, and a couple of decades later,
Charles the seventh actually initiated when he got like full power,
(16:05):
he was secure in his power, he initiated proceedings that
the church could, um could liberate her or could clear
her name of heresy, and they did just that. Um.
I think it was just twenty four years after she
was burned at the stake that she was cleared, which
is interesting. And it wasn't until the twentieth century that
she was canonized by the Catholic Church, and it's interesting.
(16:26):
Some people say that that took a long time. Some
people say it's weird that she's a Saine at all, because,
you know, why would God choose aside in this hundred
years war that had to do with the legitimacy of
the throne and everything like that, and these between two
Christian countries as well, Why would God take a side.
It's kind of clear that the Church made her a
(16:46):
saint partly to improve relations with the French government, which
is interesting. And so today she's regarded as the patron
say of France. She's also called that the maid of Arliens,
that's not really Irish, the man of Orleans. And what's
interesting about being burned at the steak This is something
that we have discussed before in our Medieval Torture podcast.
(17:09):
I really I can't let it. I can't let it go.
When you're burned at the steak, you don't actually die
from being burned, just like if you were in a
burning building, you die from smoke inhalation first, and that's
how Joan died, from smoke inhalation. And so they ordered
her body to be burned again, and the after the
second time, her organs were still somewhat intact, so she
(17:31):
was ordered to be burned a third time to completely
finish off her body. So she was burned at the
steak three times. The first time killed her, but they
wanted to, you know, get her all done for good measure.
And then her ashes were meant to be scattered in
a nearby river, but some people suspect that they weren't,
and not too long ago, some ashes were found in
(17:51):
a Praisian apothecary and scientists started wondering, you know, just
just wondering could these be joan of arcs And so
in two thousand six, one French scientist was able to
say that these ashes show evidence that they're from a
young female body, and um, I think it shows evidence
of of bone and muscle tissue from a somewhat young
(18:13):
adult girl. And we don't know definitively whether or not
it's joan of arc but you have to ask yourself
how many women were really burned at the steak at
France during this time exactly. And so they've sipped it
through these ashes, and they've also found what looks like
a femur from a cat. And it would not be
uncommon during medieval times for a cat to be thrown
(18:36):
on a funeral pyre if a witch was being burned
as sort of an appeasement to Satan. But the femer
wasn't burned as badly as the other fragments of bones,
as they think maybe the cat just went walking by afterward.
Dad luck for a cat. But there's also a very
small fragment of cloth that could be linen or some
sort of gown that one would have worn when woman
(18:57):
was being burned at the steak. So there's a lot
of miss stories there whether or not it's Joan. Wait
on now it is it is anyway, So a lot
of interesting years about women in history and the grand
sacrifices that they underwent for a trying to be a
savior and having to dress like a man to do
it and then getting you kicked in the pants for
(19:17):
that one. So and speaking of rolics, I actually recently
wrote about the Shroud of Turin and uh it's fate
during the Middle Ages. It was a really cool, cool
story wrote about it on the blog which you can
find out how stuff works dot com. Um, So if
you missed in history class blog is really cool, you
should check it out. A Candida and I write on
it each once a day we do, and starting every Friday,
(19:38):
we're going to be having conversations with you guys about
our latest podcast, so be sure you check that out.
And we also hope that you will look up this
wonderful article called why was cross dressing the only crime
Joan of arc was convicted of? On how stuff works
dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
(19:59):
Does it how stuff works dot com. Let us know
what you think. Send an email to podcast at how
stuff works dot com m
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