Joan of Arc
Le Ditie de Jehanne d’Arc, or The Tale of Joan of Arc, was written by Christine de Pisan in 1429. This was during the Late Middle Ages, and towards the end of the Hundred Years’ War, which the piece focuses on.
The war took place from 1337 to 1453 between the French House of Valois and the British House of Plantagenet over the right to the French throne. King Charles IV of France died in 1328 without any sons or brothers who could serve as immediate heirs. His closest male relative was his sister Isabella’s son, Edward III of England. This claim was rejected by the French, however, both because they did not want an English king, and because they said that Isabella could not pass on a right to the throne to Edward when she was not able to possess it herself.
Instead, it went to Charles IV’s patrilineal cousin, Philip, Count of Valois, who became King Philip VI of France. Philip was the first king from the House of Valois. It had not been expected that Edward’s claim to the throne would be successful, so he let it go. Instead, the spark to war was when disagreements between Edward and Philip caused Philip to confiscate Edward’s lands in France, the duchy of Guyenne. Guyenne belonged to the English crown, but was still a fief of the French crown. England had been wanting independent possession of Guyenne for a while, and the French insult of confiscating it led Edward to reassert his claim to the French throne.
This escalated into the longest military conflict in European history, lasting for 116 years. During this time, both countries’ national identities strongly developed as five generations of kings from the two countries fought over one hundred years’ worth of conflicts. French nationalism first emerged during this time, culminating in the iconizing of Joan of Arc following her role in the war.
In addition to the birth of French nationalism, French women’s rights were also in a precarious position during this time. Already, women in France did not have the right to vote, and often had no say in whether or not they would be married and have children. Then from 1400 onward, more of their rights, including the right to work in certain occupations, the right to work at all, and the right to property, were slowly taken away. Marriage, no matter a woman’s station, was the most important event in a woman’s life.
In this context, the life and work of Christine de Pisan is incredibly unique. Born in 1364 in Venice, Pisan was an author, court writer, moralist, and political thinker, as well as an ardent feminist. After becoming a writer in order to support her family, Pisan’s love ballads began to gather the attention of wealthy patrons in the French court. She continued to draw fame and widespread acclaim for her books and use of patronage during the rocky political climate in which she lived, and eventually earned the title of the first professional woman of letters in Europe.
Her patrons rose in status over time as she became more well-known. She often gifted or dedicated her early works to members of the French royal family, and eventually became a court writer under King Charles VI. Despite her Italian heritage, she was deeply loyal to and affection towards the royal family of France, and strongly identified as a citizen of France. This is apparent in Le Ditie de Jehanne d’Arc, as she writes about the dismay she feels when Charles VII is in exile from France, and the joy she feels when he returns.
Pisan had many other notable works. Her works Le Livre de la cité des dames (The Book of the City of Ladies) and Le Livre des trois vertus (The Treasure of the City of Ladies) remain her most well-known to this day. In them, she first defends women and then advises them. The Book shows the importance of women’s contributions to society throughout history, exclusively through the use of women’s voices. In response to the then-common argument over whether the virtues of men and women differ, she argues that since men and women are both created in God’s image, they both have souls that are capable of embracing God’s goodness. The Treasure was unique for its time in that it offers advice on living in French society in the early 1400s to all women, regardless of class or station, from the peasant’s wife to the princess. In this book, she advises women on how to achieve the virtue that she says all women are, in fact, capable of achieving.
In total, Christine de Pisan published 41 known works, ranging from poetry to prose. She had strong political opinions, and did not shy away from sharing them. She once scorned the King of England when she called her son away from his court because she didn’t like the King’s actions. Her works later inspired modern and contemporary feminist scholars, such as Simone de Beauvoir.
Le Ditie de Jehanne d’Arc was Pisan’s last published work. It was written after a decade-long period of literary inactivity during which she is assumed to have spent in the Dominican Convent of Poissy, due to the Armagnac-Burgundian Civil War (1407-1435) and the English occupation of Paris in the context of the Hundred Years’ War. Le Ditie was written in 1429 soon after Joan of Arc’s military victory over the English, and only days after the coronation of Charles VII. Pisan is believed to have died the next year in 1430, approximately a year before Joan of Arc was arrested, found guilty at trial, and burned at the stake by the English.
Jeanne (or Jehanne) d’Arc, known as Joan of Arc in English, was born in 1412 to poor tenant farmers in Domrémy, France. At this time, France had already been fighting against England for 75 years in the Hundred Years’ War. Joan was illiterate, but inherited a deep love for the Catholic Church and its teachings from her very religious mother. In 1425 at the age of thirteen, she began hearing voices from God and having visions of saints, all telling her that it was her duty to help France drive out England, and to bring the Dauphin Charles of Valois, the future Charles VII, back to France. These saints included Saint Michael, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, and Saint Margaret of Antioch.
In May 1428, Joan was guided by the voices of these saints to travel to Vaucouleurs, the closest stronghold still loyal to the Dauphin. She asked a relative named Durand Lassois to take her there so that she could ask its captain of the garrison, Robert de Baudricourt, to meet the Dauphin. He denied the sixteen-year-old’s request, and Joan returned to Domrémy.
Despite the rejection, Joan returned to Vaucouleurs in January 1429. This time, she started to attract a group of followers who believed her claims of being the prophesied virgin who would save France. Two of her supporters were soldiers of the captain who got her a second meeting with him. At the meeting, she predicted a French loss at the Battle of Rouvray that was taking place at the time. Days later, de Baudricourt heard that the French had, in fact, lost that battle. He then granted Joan access to the Dauphin. She left to meet him at Chinon, dressed in men’s clothes and with newly cut-short hair to disguise her. Her and the six men-in-arms accompanying her travelled for eleven days to reach Chinon.
The Dauphin was skeptical of Joan, and hid himself among his courtiers. Nonetheless, she quickly pointed him out, promised to see him crowned King of France at Reims, and asked for an army to fight the English at Orléans. She is said to have had a private conversation with him during which she recounted the details of a private prayer that he had made to God to save France, which no one else knew the specifics of. Not entirely convinced still, he had prominent theologians question her at Poitiers. During her questioning, she told them that she would not prove herself at Poitiers, but at Orléans. The theologians advised Charles to use her.
Charles gave her several hundred men, and she set off with them for Orléans on April 27, 1429, and arrived two days later. The city had been held by the English for around eighteen months. Between May 4 and 7, the French led a series of assaults against the English. Joan was wounded, but still returned quickly to the front to encourage a final assault. By the middle of June, the French had definitively defeated the English at Orléans, and their perceived invincibility too. The Battle of the Herrings, the final stage of the Siege of Orléans, demonstrated Joan’s military value and earned her the nickname of “The Maid of Orléans.”
Afterwards, Joan urged Charles to hurry to Reims to be crowned King of France. On their way there, they travelled through enemy territory and took hostile villages by force. Charles of Valois was crowned King Charles VII of France on July 17, 1429 in Reims Cathedral.
In the spring of 1430, Charles ordered Joan to confront the Burgundian assault at Compiègne. She was thrown off her horse and captured by the Burgundians. After several months of negotiations during which she was held captive, Joan was traded to the English for 10,000 francs. Charles VII distanced himself from Joan, making no attempt to rescue her or ensure her release. Despite her crimes being against the English army, Joan was turned over to and tried by the church, which charged her with witchcraft, heresy, dressing like a man, and 67 other crimes. She was imprisoned and threatened with torture and death for a year, she signed a confession saying that she never received guidance from God. She was found guilty of heresy by a tribunal on May 29, 1431. She was burned at the stake the next morning in front of 10,000 people, at only nineteen years old.
After Joan’s execution, the Hundred Years’ War lasted for 22 more years. King Charles VII remained king, and ordered an investigation in 1456 that found Joan innocent on all charges and designated her as a martyr. She was declared a national symbol of France by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1803. On April 18, 1909 the Roman Catholic Church beatified her, and on May 16, 1920 it canonized her as a saint.
Despite Joan’s incredible accomplishments and her fame today, Pisan’s writing about Joan of Arc was the only “lyrical, joyous outburst”* written about her while she was still alive. It is highly debated, with some viewing it as pro-Joan of Arc propaganda, and others as political propaganda against Charles VII. Pisan writes about the deep despair and sense of mourning that many of the French felt at the time, and the incredible joy they felt when Joan of Arc emerged victorious. She argues that God chose Joan to defeat the English (mirroring Joan’s own beliefs), and that no person throughout all of history was as great as Joan of Arc.
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