jeanne d'arc (english)

7/28/2019 Jeanne D'Arc (English)

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The Name Jeanne d'Arc

In her own words, taken from the trail of condemnation: "In my own country they call me Jeannette;

since I came into France I have been called Jeanne. Of my surname I know nothing.

Jeanne's name is also known as:

English version is Joan of Arc, or St. Joan of Arc the Maid of Orlans

Jeannette - Jeanne La pucelle - La Petite Pucelle - Saint Jeanne d'Arc - Maid of Orlans - Jungfrau von

Orleans - Jehanne d'Arc - Johanna d'Arc - Giovanna d'Arco - Zhanna d'Ark - Juana de Arco - Santa Joana

D'Arc - and Joanie on a Pony [from first world war] - Johanka z'Arku - Johanna van Arkel - Chuana d'Arco

- Xuana d'Arcu - Janna d'Ark - Ivana Orleanska - Joana d'Arc - Johanka z Arku - Johana de Arko - Xoana de

Arco - Ivana Orleanska - Jhanna af rk - Janna dArka - Joanna d'Arc - Joana d'Arc - Ioanna de Arc -

Ioana d'Arc - Giuvanna d'Arcu - Jovanka Orleanka - Jana z Arku - Ivana Orleanska - Jan Dark

In French Jeanne d'Arc; by her contemporaries commonly known as "Jehanne La Pucelle" (Jeanne The

Virgin)

Jeanne, or Jehanne, is a name which belongs like the English John, Johanna etc

Words

Jeanne encouraging her troops: "In God's name, we must fight them! Even if the English hang from the

clouds, yet we shall have them! For God sends us to punish them. Today the gentle Dauphin will have

the greatest victory he has won for a long time! My Voices have told me that the enemy will be ours."

At Vaucoleurs

Asked about her mission she replied: "...I was born for this.", "Nevertheless, before mid-Lent, I must be

with the Dauphin, even if I have to wear my legs down to my knees!"

Asked who her Lord was, she replied: "He is the King of Heaven!", "For even if I had had a hundred

fathers and mothers and were a king's daughter, still would I go!"

Asked when she would like to leave: "Today rather than tomorrow and tomorrow rather than later."

Asked if she was afraid: "I fear nothing for God is with me!"

At Chinon

Jeanne's greeting to Charles at Chinon: "Gentle Dauphin, my name is Jeanne la pucelle. The King of

Heaven has sent me to bring you and your kingdom help."


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At Poitiers

Asked by the priests why God needed soldiers: "In the name of God! The soldiers will fight and God will

give the victory!""In the name of God! I have not come to Poitiers to give signs but take me to Orleans

and I shall show you signs for which I have been sent!"

Asked what language her Voices spoke: "They speak better French than you!"

Asked if she believe in God: "Indeed, yes, better than you do!"

Jeanne reassured the Duke d' Alenon's wife, Thrse, that her husband would not be killed or injured if

he returned to the fight. "I give you my solemn word that no harm will come to your beloved husband.

Madame, have no fear! He shall indeed return to you. As well as he is now, or perhaps even better!"

At Orleans

In the assault on the English fortress of the Augustines: "In god's name! Let us go bravely!"

In the assault on the bridge at Orleans: "Courage! Do not fall back; in a little the place will be yours.

Watch! When the wind blows my banner against the bulwark, you shall take it"

Jeanne's reprimand to Dunois, the Bastard of Orlans: "In God's name! The counsel of our Lord is wiser

and safer than yours. You have thought to deceive me but it is you who are deceived. I bring you better

help than has ever come to any general or town, for the help I bring comes from the King of Heaven!"

"Bastard! Bastard! In God's name! I command you that as soon as you learn of Falstaff's arrival that you

will inform me. For if he passes by without my knowledge, I promise you that I shall have your head cut

off!"

Jeanne's reprimand to her page: "Ah, you bloody boy, you did not tell me that the blood of France wasbeing shed!""Ha! Never did I see French blood flow but my hair did not stand on end!""Gaucourt, you

are indeed a wicked man to prevent these people from departing. Whether you will or no, they shall go

out and will succeed just as well as they did the other day!"

Jeanne's reply to the Captain's request not to fight the next day: "Go back to that council and tell them

this! You have been to your council and I have been to mine. Now, believe me when I say that the

Counsel of God will be accomplished and succeed and that yours will fail!"

Jeanne's refusal to use a charm to heal her wound: "No friend, I cannot. I would rather die than do a

thing which I know to be a sin."

Jeanne encouraging her troops: "Be not afraid! The English will have no more power over you."

Jeanne request for surrender to the English commander Glasdale: "Classidas! Classidas! Yield, yield to

the King of Heaven! You called me harlot, but I have great pity on your soul and for the souls of your

men."


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At Loches

"I shall last a year and a little more."

"Daughter of God, go on, go on, go on! I will be your help. Go on!' When I hear this voice, I feel such

great joy that I wish I could always hear it!"

Before the battle of Patay

Jeanne encouraging her troops: "In God's name, we must fight them! Even if the English hang from the

clouds, yet we shall have them! For God sends us to punish them. Today the gentle Dauphin will have

the greatest victory he has won for a long time! My Voices have told me that the enemy will be ours."

At the town of Troyes

Jeanne addresses Brother Richard: "Take heart and come on! I will not fly away."

At the town of Chalons

Jeanne speaking to a friend from Domremy: "I fear nothing, except treason."

At the town of Bourges

Jeanne speaking to Madame Touroulde: "You touch them!" (meaning the religious items that some

people brought for Jeanne to bless by her touch) "Your touch will do them as much good as mine."

Before the walls of Saint Pirre-Les-Moutiers

Jeanne addressing to her squire: "I am not alone! I have fifty thousand of my own company to fight with

me!"

Compiegne

"By my staff! We are enough! I shall go to see my good friends in Compiegne!"

Reply to the Count of Luxembourg

The Count tried to tempt Jeanne with an offer of freedom. "In God's name, Count, you mock me!

Ransom? How you jest. You have neither the will nor the power to do so! "

"I know well that these English will put me to death, because they think that after I'm dead, they will win

the Kingdom of France. But even if there were hundred thousand more Godons than there are now, still

they will never have the Kingdom!"

Reply to the ecclesiastical judges of Rouen

"It is true that I have wished to escape and I still do! It is lawful for any prisoner to try to escape if he

can."


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"I came from God. There is nothing more for me to do here! Send me back to God, from Whom I came!"

Asked if she was in God's grace: "If I am not, may God put me there, and if I am, may God so keep me! I

should be the saddest creature in the world if I knew I was not in His grace."

Jeanne's warning to Bishop Cauchon: "You say that you are my judge. I do not know if you are! But I tell

you that you must take good care not to judge me wrongly, because you will put yourself in great

danger. I warn you, so that if God punishes you for it, I would have done my duty by telling you!"

Asked why her standard had a place of honor at the coronation: "It had borne the burden; it was only

right that it should have the honor."

Asked if she told her troops that copies of her pennant would be luck, she replied: "What I said was: 'Go

boldly among the English,' and I went among them, too!"

"The poor folk gladly came to me, for I did them no unkindness, but helped them as much as I could."

"Everything I have said or done is in the hands of God. I commit myself to Him! I certify to you that Iwould do or say nothing against the Christian faith."

"Ha! You take great care to put down in your trial everything that is against me, but you will not write

down anything that is for me!"

"I am a good Christian, properly baptized and I will die.., a good Christian."

Asked if God hated the English: "Of the love or hate God may have for the English I know nothing, but I

know well that they will all be driven out of France, except those who will die here."

Asked why she refused to do woman's work: "There are plenty of other women to do it."

Asked how she summoned her voices: "Most sweet Lord, in honor of Your Holy Passion, I implore You, if

You love me, to instruct me in what I am to say to these churchmen. As regards to my clothes, I fully

understand the order by which I accepted them, but I do not know how I am to set them aside. In this,

may it please You to teach me."

Jeanne's reply to the threat of torture: "Truly, if you were to tear me limb from limb and separate my

soul from my body, I would not say anything more. If I did say anything, afterwards I would always

declare that you made me say it by force!"

"And if I were condemned and brought to the place of judgment and I saw the torch lit and the faggotsready, and the executioner ready to kindle the fire, and if I were within the fire, yet I would say nothing

else and I would maintain unto death what I have said in this trial!"

"Through His Saints, God informed me of His great sorrow for the treason that I had committed by

signing the abjuration. To save my life I betrayed Him and in so doing I damned myself!"( In the margin

of his paper the court notary wrote: "Responsio Mortifera" which means, "fatal answer.")


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"My Voices have since told me that I did a great evil in declaring that what I had done was wrong. All

that I said and revoked that Thursday, I did for fear of the fire!"

Is informed of her inpending death

"Alas! Am I to be so horribly and cruelly treated? Alas! That my body, clean and whole, which has never

been corrupted, should this day be consumed and burned to ashes! Ah! I would far rather have my head

chopped off seven times over, than to be burned!"

"Alas! Had I been in the Church prison, to which I submitted myself, and been guarded by the Clergy

instead of my enemies, as I was promised, this misfortune would not have come to me! Ah! I appeal to

God, the Great Judge, for the great injuries done to me!"

"Bishop, I die because of you!"

(Bishop Cauchon strongly protested his guilt.) Jeanne replied: "If you had placed me in the Church's

prison and gave me into the hands of competent and suitable Church guardians, this would not have

happened. That is why I appeal to God for justice against you!"

Last words

"Rouen! Rouen! Must I die here? Ah, Rouen, I fear you will have to suffer for my death!"

"I ask you priests of God, to please say a Mass for my soul's salvation.

I beg all of you standing here to forgive me the harm that I may have done you. Please pray for me."

As soon as Jeanne noticed that the fire had been lit she urgently warned Brother Martin: "Good Brother

Martin, I thank you for comforting me, but you must leave this place.., now."

"My Voices did come from God and everything that I have done was by God's order."

"Hold the crucifix up before my eyes so I may see it until I die."

"Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!"

The exclamation of the English soldier: "God forgive us: we have burned a saint,"

The constable de Richemont reportedly greeted Jeanne with these realistic warrior-wise words:

"Jehanne, ... If you come from God, I do not fear you ... if you come from the Devil, I fear you even less."

He went on to serve at her side in the victory at Patay (18 June 1429).

Jeanne was always reluctant to speak of her voices. She said nothing about them to her confessor, and

constantly refused, at her trial, to be inveigled into descriptions of the appearance of the saints and to

explain how she recognized them. None the less, she told her judges:

"I saw them with these very eyes, as well as I see you."


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May, 1428, she no longer doubted that she was bidden to go to the help of the king, and the voices

became insistent, urging her to present herself to Robert Baudricourt, who commanded for Charles VII

in the neighboring town of Vaucouleurs. This journey she eventually accomplished a month later, but

Baudricourt, a rude and dissolute soldier, treated her and her mission with scant respect, saying to the

cousin who accompanied her:

"Take her home to her father and give her a good whipping."

Orlans was invested (12 October, 1428), and by the close of the year complete defeat seemed

imminent. Jeanne's voices became urgent, and even threatening. It was in vain that she resisted, saying

to them: "I am a poor girl; I do not know how to ride or fight." The voices only reiterated: "It is God who

commands it." Yielding at last, she left Domremy in January, 1429, and again visited Vaucouleurs.

Sword + poze

Instead of the sword the king offered her, she begged that search might be made for an ancient sword

buried, as she averred, behind the altar in the chapel of Ste-Catherine-de-Fierbois.

It was found in the very spot her voices indicated. The blade was so covered in rust it would have been

impossible for her to describe it without having seen it before.

The descendants of Jeanne's brother, Pierre, had in their possession three of her letters and a sword

that she had worn. The letters were saved but Jeanne's sword was lost during the chaos of the

revolutionary period.

She testified at her trial that she never used those arms personally, only displaying her famous banner.

"Jeanne's Voices had told her that there was an ancient sword hidden somewhere behind the altar of St.

Catherine's at Fierbois, and she sent De Metz to get it. The priests knew of no such sword, but a search

was made, and sure enough it was found in that place, buried a little way under the ground.

It had no sheath and was very rusty, but the priests polished it up and sent it to Tours, whither we were

now to come. They also had a sheath of crimson velvet made for it, and the people of Tours equipped it

with another, made of cloth-of-gold. But Jeanne meant to carry this sword always in battle; so she laid

the showy sheaths away and got one made of leather.

It was generally believed that his sword had belonged to Charlemagne, but that was only a matter of

opinion. I wanted to sharpen that old blade, but she said it was not necessary, as she should never kill

anybody, and should carry it only as a symbol of authority." (Joan of Arc Chapter 10, book II)

This sword is one of the best preserved from a find of 15th century swords from the Bordeaux region of

France in the mid-1970's.

Eighty swords were found together in two casks associated with a sunken barge in the Dordogne River,

upstream from Castillon-la-Battaille, and about half-way from that town to the site of the last battle of

the Hundred Years' War which took place on July 18, 1453. [The Battle of Castillon]


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This group of swords most likely represents spoils collected from the battlefield just after that battle and

lost in shipment.

In this famous illustration Jeanne using the flat of the sword to beat a prostitute following the army, one

of a host of such professionals driven out of the camp. She was not at all gentle on these occasions. The

sword, broke it on the back of one of them.

Jeanne claimed that it was not the Sword of Fierbois. But rumors began between the soldiers, that

Jeanne had broken a holly sword made in heaven, course no could repairer it again. The king told her


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later on, that she should have used a stick instead, of this holly relic heaven had send her. Many started

believing that she had lost her power from that on.

Armor + poze

Jeanne's armor

After the inquest at Poitiers, Charles VII commissioned a suit of armor for

Jeanne at the samme time that he set up a military household for her. The

registra of the city hall of Albi, who saw her, testified that Jeanne went

armed in white iron, entirely from head to foot. Moreover, Guy and Andr

de Laval saw her on horseback near Romorantin armed entirely in white,

exept, for the head, a little ax in her hand, seated on a great black

courser.

The accounts of the treasurer Hmon Reguier refer to the purchase of that

suit of armor in April 1429: 100 livres tournois were paid and delivered bythe afforesaid treasure to the master armorer for a complete harness for

the aforesaid Maid. With this harness, Jeanne was equipped in the same

fashion as the men-of-arms of her era.

Jean Chartier reported that she was armed as quickly as possible with a

complete harness such as would have suited a knight who was part of the

arm and born in the kings court. She was equipped, moreover, like

knights of a certain rank: 100 livres tournois was a significant sum.

Helmet

Jeanne made use also of a capeline, a steel hat equipped

with a wide brim, frequently used when scaling

fortifications. But her contemporaries remaked that she

often went about with her head bare, which was hardly

surprising since military commanders of high rank often

wore a simple hood or a hat rather than a helmet.

A piece of a close-helmet that may well have belonged to

Jeanne is the bassinet shallow helmet [1] now displayed in

the Metropolitan Museum in New York. The visor ismissing. Under the bolt where the visor has been attached

to the helm, is a hole hit by an arrowhead. This is a typical

fighting helmet of that period. 1370-1430. A helm like this

weighs over 5 pounds.

It comes from the Dino-Talleyrand-Prigord collection and

was formerly kept as a votive object in the church of Saint-


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Pierre-du-Martroi at Orlans. Bassinets at that time were considered defenses-that is, protections

independent of the rest of a suit of armor.

The sallet, another head protection, was the most common item of armament. It was fitted with a small

movable visor, a slightly accentuated neck cover, and, on the top, a crest that stood out from the rest of

the helmet.

Harness

The term "harness" designated the diverse garments of

war; to be more precise, one spoke about "of the head" or

"of the arm." Every piece was independent, as attested in

the accont books of the armores, from whom pieces were

ordered separately: a leg harness, an arm harness, a

gaunlet, and so on.

Jeanne also wore a military garment of Oriental origin,made of rectangular metal plates (usually of steel)-the

jaseran, which was widely used in fourteenth century.

She also wore a brigandine, an armed vest made of a great

number of small plates of metal joined by rivets, the heads

of which formed a kind of geometric design.

The right arm was protected in a lighter fashion than the

left, so that a sword or lance could be wielded more

freely. The armor of the left arm, by contrast, was folded

back to assist in holding the horses reins.

We know that the first suit of mail-the blanc harnoys made

for her in Tours-had been left be her in the Abbey church of

Saint-Denis after the failure of her attack on Paris, and its

subsequent history is unknown. We are ignorant of what

happen to her second suit of armour.

It has been estimated that the purchase of a complete set of

military equiment corresponded to two years wages for a

man-at-arms.

It took 8 weeks for the Jeanne's armor to be made and 600

years later it still takes 8 week


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Banner + poze

The banner was painted at Tours, while Jeanne was staying

there, before her march to the relief of Orleans. A Scotch

painter named James Power made it. The account for payment,

in the "Comptes" of the Treasurer of War, gives: "A HauvresPoulnoir, paintre, demourant Tours, pour avoir paint et baill

estoffes pour une grand estandart et ung petit pour la Pucelle .

. . 25 livres tournois."

The description of this banner varies in different authors. The

following account is compiled from them. "A white banner,

sprinkled with fleur-de-lys; on the one side, the figure of Our

Lord in Glory, holding the world, and giving His benediction to

a lily, held by one of two Angels who are kneeling on each

side: the words 'Jhesus Maria' at the side; on the other sidethe figure of Our Lady and a shield with the arms of France

supported by two Angels" (de Cagny).

This banner was blessed at the Church of Saint-Sauveur at

Tours (Chronique de la Pucelle and de Cagny). The small

banner or pennon had a representation of the Annunciation.

There was also a third banner round which the priests

assembled daily for service, and on this was depicted the

Crucifixion

Another banner is mentioned by the Greffier de la Rochelle,

which Jeanne is said to have adopted as her own private

pennon. It was made at Poitiers; and represented on a blue

ground a white dove, holding in its beak a scroll, with the

words, " De par le Roy du Ciel."

The banner of Jeanne d'Arc by T.F. Mills. sep. 1998

Jeanne was not canonised until 1920, so there is no question

of her flag being associated with sainthood -- at least not

officially. The white cross and fleur de lis of France areattributed to her and Charles VII. She approached the King

with her vision and plan for liberating France from the English,

and thereafter led her troops in battle with a personal heraldic

standard. She carried it personally and did not actually fight.


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After relieving the siege of Orlans in May 1429 , she carried

her standard at the coronation of King Charles at Reims. She

was apparently carrying it when she was wounded at the St.

Honor gate of Paris in September 1429.

I am not sure how much of this is legend, or if anybody reallyknows what the standard looked like. (I have seen

representations that were almost all white, and others that

contained a lot of colour.) It allegedly contained the words

"Jesus, Maria" and fleurs de lis, and perhaps other religious

motifs like angels.

The white cross (whether or not it was included on her

standard) was intended to be a contradiction of the English

red cross, meaning that England was subject to France and not

vice versa, and the multiple fleurs de lis represented the unity

of the disparate parts of France.

At her trial in 1431, Jeanne described the banner in her own

words:

"I had a banner of which the field was sprinkled with lilies; the

world was painted there, with an angel at each side; it was

white of the white cloth called boccassin; there was written

above it, I believe, 'JHESUS MARIA;' it was fringed with silk."

I don't think any other reliable evidence of the bannersurvives, so it is pretty much up to artistic interpretation.

Some of her relics were allegedly preserved, but what

purported to be her banner was burned during the French

Revolution.

"Mrs. Oliphant" in Jeanne d'Arc (1926) interestingly writes:

"A repetition of this banner, which must have been copied

from age to age, is to be seen now at Tours." (p. 62).

I have found no more recent corroboration that such a bannerexisted, nor a description of it as it allegedly existed in 1926.

Mary Milbank Brown in The Secret History of Jeanne d'Arc

(1962) depicts the crest from the coat of arms of Charles du Lys (1612), which shows a waist-up figure of

Jeanne on the helm with a sword in one hand, and her banner in the other.


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The banner is very different from other depictions in that it is a true vexillum - with at the top a seated

Virgin Mary flanked by two angels, two fleurs de lys above the angels, and three fleurs de lys in the field

below this scene.

Brown claims that the King granted arms to Jeanne's brothers and ennobled them with the name "du

Lys". She writes about the 1612 crest:

"This armorial design ... is important because on it is preserved what may

be regarded as the authentic standard of the Maid, all others having

been legendized to misrepresent her true matriarchical convictions. In

this vexillum the figure of the Great Matriarch, Isis-Maria, sits supremely

alone on the throne, holding in her left hand the vesicular representation

of her organ of generation, and in her right hand the symbol of the fleur-

de-lis which in ancient times was ever the bird. The two fleur-de-lis at the

top of her standard represent figuratively the two breasts; primitively the

ideograph for breast was merely the sign of the Greek cross as tetrardic

footprint of the dove or pigeon, placed over each mammary protuberance.

Immediately below, the two fleur-de-lis are preserved in their ornithic significance as 'angels', that is,

birds in human winged form, kneeling in adoration to the Queen of Heaven. The three fleur-de-lis in the

lower half of the standard, omitted in the other du Lysian coats-of-arms, represent the kingdom of the

Ile-de-France.

The two sections of the banner symbolize the Church of Gaul of Virgin Mary-worship in superior position

to the Kingdom of the Ile-de-France in subservient station, but with both the ecclesial and thronal halves

as one kingdom politically.

The later legendized standards of her proselytizing show God the Father seated upon the throne

supported by two masculine saints replacing Goddess the Mother and her two angels."

Marina Warner in Joan of Arc (1981) implies that all this is nonsense, writing:

"In 1612, a certain Jean du Lys petitioned the king, then Louis XIII, that as the principal branch of the

family of Jeanne d'Arc had died out, he might take over their coat of arms, the lilies of France. He

claimed that he bore the cadet branch's arms, a shield azure with a golden bow, set with three arrows.

This is the first mention anywhere of any such armorial bearings, and when Louis allowed Jean du Lys to

quarter them with lilies, he authenticated in retrospect a coat of arms that was entirely spurious. But

then the claim itself was hollow, since no descendants of Jeanne d'Arcs brothers have ever been tracedby genealogists."

In other descriptions of the banner, it is said to include Jesus and Mary together, and Jesus alone holding

in his hands the world. In short, there does not seem to be a reliable reconstruction of Jeanne's banner

even though her judges at her trial were obsessed with its possible heretical nature and alleged powers

of witchcraft.


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Coat of Arms + poza de sus granted letter

Because of her remarkable actions, Charles VII granted her family

arms and nobility. The arms were: Azure a sword per pale argent

hilted or between a crown in chief and two fleurs-de-lys of the last.

The symbolism of the arms is fairly obvious. She testified at her trial

that she never used those arms personally, only displaying her

banner.

The Arc family seemed to have arms prior to these events, namely:

Azure a bow or in fess, thereon three arrows crossed ..., on a chief

argent a lion passant gules.

Of her three brothers, two had issue: the descendants of Jean adopted the name of Du Lys and used the

arms. Pierre, who became a knight, had two sons: Jean, knight, who left only a daughter, and Jean the

younger, who was briefly chevin of Arras in the 1480s. He returned to France and kept the name of DuLys, but resumed the arms of Arc. His great-grandsons Charles and Luc du Lys, seigneur de Reinemoulin,

petitioned for the right to quarter du Lys and d'Arc, which was granted by Letters Patent of November

25, 1612.

The same letters granted to Charles a crest representing Jeanne d'Arc proper, holding a sword

surmounted by a crown or in one hand and her banner in the other, and the war-cry La Pucelle!.

Luc received a crest of a fleur-de-lys or issuant between two banners as before, with war-cry: Les Lys!.

The special privilege of female transmission of nobility was a fiscal danger: since nobles were exempted

from certain taxes, notably the taille, the number of tax exemptions could unduly increase. As a result,

as part of a reform of the taille in June 1614, the privilege was curtailed.

Those descendants who had already claimed and were enjoying nobility could retain it and transmit it to

their posterity in male line. Those who were not "living nobly" could not claim the privilege anymore.

Women ceased to transmit nobility. The arms were also granted to her family, and it must have taken

place in (Dec 1429). The family was also authorized to adopt the name of Du Lys. It was made in favor of

her parents, her three brothers Jacquemin, Jean and Pierre, and their descendants male and female, in

perpetuity. Thus, in her family, nobility was transmitted by females.

It was confirmed in October 1550, on petition of Robert Le Fournier, baron de Tournebeu, and his

nephew Lucas du Chemin, seigneur du Fron, both descended from a daughter of Pierre du Lys.

jeanne d'arc (english)

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