Alternative historical interpretations of Joan of Arc
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Joan of Arc facts and trivia covers topics of specialized interest that pertain to the life and legacy of Joan of Arc. For art, literature, and popular culture references see Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc.
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[edit] Trivia
[edit] Portrait
The only surviving image of Joan of Arc that was made during her lifetime is a doodle by Clément de Fauquembergue in the register for the Parlement of Paris. This accompanied the news of her victory at Orléans. She had never been near Paris at that point in her career, so he could not have known what she looked like.
[edit] Fashion
Joan of Arc's short haircut had a profound effect on women's hairstyles in the twentieth century. In 1909, the Paris hairdresser Antoine took Joan of Arc as the inspiration for the bob, which ended centuries of taboo against women who cut their hair. The style became popular in the 1920s and was associated with liberated women. Nearly all subsequent Western hair fashions are designed for women who cut their hair at least occasionally.
[edit] Duel
Joan of Arc inspired a nineteenth century duel between Henri Rochefort and Paul de Cossagnac. The two men disputed a published article about her.
[edit] Asteroid
The asteroid 127 Johanna, discovered by P.M. Henry in 1872, is probably named after Joan of Arc.
[edit] Mexican history
During the Cristero War in 1927, a group of female Cristeros named themselves after Joan of Arc. They obtained money, supplies, and intelligence for the male combatants. They often smuggled weapons into war zones and cared for the wounded. By the end of the war they had 35,000 participants.
[edit] People compared to Joan of Arc
- Ani Pachen, referred to as "The Tibetan Joan of Arc"
- Lalla Fatma N'Soumer, referred to as "The Joan of Arc of Kabylie"
- Sarah Taylor, referred to as "The Tennesee Joan of Arc"
[edit] Relics and sites
The Joan of Arc museum at Chinon, France has a charred bone fragment reputed to belong to Joan of Arc. Its authenticity is unconfirmed and appears to be unlikely, given the circumstances of her death. The English ordered her body burned to ashes and the ashes cast in the Seine river. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has a helmet in its arms and armor collection with a legendary attribution to Joan of Arc. The museum makes no claims that this legend is true but notes that the helmet dates from the right time period.
Several locations associated with Joan of Arc still exist, including the house where she was born at Domrémy-la-Pucelle. The site has been converted to a museum. The adjacent church has undergone extensive alterations since the fifteenth century but still contains a fourteenth century statue of St. Margaret before which Joan of Arc probably prayed. By contrast, the royal castle at Chinon is now a ruin. Little more than the outer wall remains. One wall remains of the great hall where she met Charles VII.
[edit] Alternative historical interpretations
The following interpretations are sometimes advanced to the public but do not gain significant acceptance among academic historians.
[edit] Royal bastard
In 1805 Pierre Caze published his interpretation that Joan of Arc was the illegitimate daughter of the Queen, Isabeau of Bavaria, and Duke Louis of Orléans. According to Caze's reasoning, the queen hid their daughter in the countryside with the d'Arc family. When Joan of Arc met the future King Charles VII she would have given him a private sign that she was his half sister. The coat of arms he later granted her included a sword as a baton of bastardy.
Although this would provide an explanation for how she gained the trust of Charles VII in early 1429, this hypothesis has too many other difficulties to be taken seriously. Foremost among them is that the duke of Orleans died on November 23, 1407. Isabeau of Bavaria delivered a son on November 10, 1407. The likelihood of conceiving a daughter in the interim is exceedingly small. Assuming Joan of Arc was born the following year, she would have been 23 years old at her trial in 1431. She estimated her own age at 19 and all but one of the 115 witnesses at the trial of rehabilitation concurred with that age.
If the sword in Joan of Arc's coat of arms represented a baton of bastardy, then it would be unique in heraldry. It would also mean that Joan of Arc and several witnesses perjured themselves about her birth. In the words of Regine Pernoud and Marie-Veronique Clin, "Yet amateur historians still insist that all these people - as well as Charles VII, the duke of Alençon, Dunois, Bertrand de Poulengy - carried out an intricate plot to disguise Joan's authentic royal parents. This thesis lacks credible documentation."
[edit] Survival
Several impostors claimed to be Joan of Arc after the execution date. The most successful was Claude des Armoises. Claude des Armoises married the knight Robert des Armoises and claimed to be Joan of Arc in 1436. She gained the support of Joan of Arc's brothers. She carried on the charade until 1440, gaining gifts and subsidies. One chronicle states, "In this year there came a young girl who said she was the Maid of France and played her role so well that many were duped by her, and especially the greatest nobles." Some modern authors attempt to revive this claim by asserting that some other victim was substituted for Joan of Arc at the stake. The likelihood of this is extremely thin, since the trial of nullification records sworn testimony from numerous witnesses who were present at the execution and confirmed her identity.
[edit] Speculation about Homosexuality
In 1936 novelist Vita Sackville-West hinted in her work Saint Joan of Arc[citation needed] that Joan of Arc might have been a lesbian in a popular biography. She based this on two facts: Joan of Arc dressed in men's clothing and often slept in the same bed with various young girls. Historical consensus is that Sackville-West misinterpreted period customs. Until the mid-nineteenth century it was normal for heterosexual women to share the same bed when there was a shortage of beds or to discourage the advances of heterosexual men. Some of Joan of Arc's bedmates were actually children: at Orléans she lodged with the duke's treasurer in the room of his eight-year-old daughter. Sackville-West's book remains in print and has spawned several popular variants despite its rejection by the scholarly community.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
[edit] External links
- Heraldica.org Joan of Arc's coat of arms
