As I mentioned with regard to Theodora and Wu, it is rare to find significant women rulers in world history; it is even rarer to find women who have commanded soldiers into battle! There probably have been others (Lakshmibai, the Rani of Jhansi, 1828-1858), but the one with which I am familiar and by far the most famous has been Joan of Arc (1412?-30 May 1431) aka Sainte Jeanne d'Arc, La Pucelle d'Orléans, The Maid of Orléans.
Without Joan of Arc, it is doubtful whether (1) Charles the dauphin (1403-1461, reigned 1422-1461) would have actually been crowned as King Charles 7 of France and (2) whether the French would have emerged victorious from the Hundred Years' War.
That war, usually dated 1337 to 1453, was really a series of on-again, off-again conflicts between the ruling houses in England and France over contested territory in France and who held the right to occupy the throne of France. The igniting spark was the death, in 1328, of the French king, Charles IV (1294-1328, reigned 1322-1328) who died without any sons or brothers (no direct male heirs for the throne). While that was problem #1, problem #2 was a relatively recent French law that prevented inheritance of the throne by a female or by a male through female lineage. Problem #3 for France was the fact that the nearest male relative of Charles IV was his nephew in England, Edward (1312-1377, reigned 1327-1377). And so, with the death of Charles IV the French dynastic line of Capetian kings ended. Have a look at the genealogy table in Wikipedia to get a better idea of the inheritance problem.
Thus, in the fourteenth century, (1) who was to be the king of France and (2) did English kings, who possessed land in "France" dating back to the Norman Invasion of England in 1066, owe "homage" to the king of France? The Hundred Years' War would resolve those questions. Several interesting things about the war.
- Soon after the war began, the Black Death swept across Europe. Upwards of fifty percent of the population died (and even higher numbers in some places). Between the war and the plague, it's been estimated that France lost more than fifty percent of its population (Paris maybe sixty-seven percent).
- The war was enormously expensive for all involved, especially for the English who had to maintain troops across the English Channel in France.
- The war did lead to the weakening of the nobility as a class in France because of the death rate of those who fought. Surprisingly, while the French king emerged more powerful vis-a-vis his nobles, in England it was the nobility (Parliament) that gained some power at the expense of the English king. The consolidation of power by the king of France resulted in a more centralized state.
- All the battles in the war took place in France, and France lost all the major battles, Crécy, Poitiers, Agincourt, but ended up winning the war.
- While the war started out as a dynastic quibble, it ended up by defining the national characters of England and France as quite different, for example in terms of language and religion.
- The city of Bordeaux fell to the French on 19 October 1453; there were no more hostilities afterwards. The war technically ended with the Treaty of Picquigny (1475) and the king of England renouncing any claim to the throne of France.
- By the end of the war, England had lost all of its possessions in France except for the city of Calais.
- Unrest in England erupted after the war in what has been called the War of the Roses (1455-1487) between the Houses of Lancaster and York.
Now, let's took at Joan's intervention in the conflict.
- Joan was born in probably 1412 to peasant farmers in Domrémy in northeastern France, the Vosges region, a little over twenty-five miles to the southwest of Nancy.
- At the age of thirteen, Joan experienced her first visions that urged her to save France from English domination and to support the future French king Charles 7. By that time, things had gone badly for the French in the war with England. Most of northern France and some of southwestern France were under control of England and the forces of Burgundy, allied with the English. The important cities of Paris, Rouen and Reims (the traditional coronation of French kings) were held by the English.
- At the age of sixteen, Joan traveled to Vaucouleurs, where she tried to get the French commander to take her to see Charles 7 (who was technically not yet the French king because he had been unable to be crowned in Reims). Eventually, Joan was granted an escort to meet Charles.
- Tradition has it that Joan was brought into a hall filled with people, and she went right up to Charles and recognized him as her king, even though she had never seen him before. Maybe that was miracle #2. At the time the French were planning a campaign to try and lift the siege of the city of Orléans, and Joan asked to go along. That was an unusual request, but the French were doing so poorly in the war, that the king said "why not?" Joan equipped herself and set out with the army.
- After several days of battle, the French liberated the city. Joan, despite being wounded by an arrow, played a major inspirational role in the French success.
- The English were not pleased and viewed the peasant girl in armor as an instrument of the Devil.
- The French, led (or co-led) by Joan, followed up this victory by heading up the Loire Valley to try and capture Reims.
- On 16 July 1429 the French recaptured Reims, and on the following day Charles was crowned as King Charles VII. That was a remarkable reversal of French fortunes in the span of just a few months--the few months that Joan was with the army.
- The French assault on Paris failed; Joan was again wounded.
- After a lull in the fighting, in May Joan went to Compiègne in northern France (about forty miles northeast of Paris). On 23 May 1430, she was captured by Burgundians and turned over (sold) to the English.
- Her attempts at escape failed, as did efforts to free her.
- The English put her on trial for heresy. As Bob Dylan would note centuries later in his song about Hurricane Carter, "The trial was a pig-circus, he never had a chance," Joan never had a chance. The trial, which began on 9 January 1431, was rigged and controlled by the English who wanted her dead. (There are actually quite a few historical sources that survive about the trial.)
- Execution by burning was carried out on 30 May 1431 in Rouen. The English burned her three times to make sure that no remains survived and then tossed her ashes into the Seine River.
- In 1456 Pope Callixtus III authorized a reexamination of the original trial and pronounced her innocent and a martyr for the faith.
- She was canonized as a saint by Pope Benedict XV in May 1920.
Almost six hundred years later, it seems pretty clear that the French would probably not have won the war with England without the intervention of Joan of Arc.
Some recommended online resources
- Wikipedia (Jeanne d'Arc)
- Biography.com
- Britannica
- History.com
- Catholic Encyclopedia
- Mark Alpert, Joan of Arc has been a saint for 100 years. Her exploitation continues.
- Lesley Kennedy, Why Was Joan of Arc Burned at the Stake?
- Julien Thery, How Joan of Arc Turned the Tide in the Hundred Years' War
- Solved at last: the burning mystery of Joan of Arc
- For extra credit please suggest to your instructor a relevant website for this unit of the course. Send the title of the site, the URL and a brief explanation why you find the information interesting and applicable to the material being studied in this unit.