Burning Issues

Before 1999, I had no interest of Joan of Arc.  Her story seemed so unusual that I felt I could learn little beyond the few paragraphs most textbooks devote to the subject. That changed when I saw the CBS miniseries Joan of Arc. Despite historical errors and conflated characters, the film caught my attention because of the extraordinary acting of Leelee Sobieski, who was the same age as the historical Joan.  Decades earlier my decision to pursue a career in history had been sparked by reading historical fiction; now Sobieski’s performance made me want to know more about Joan.  I decided to learn by teaching. If my years as a professor have taught me anything, it is that teaching and scholarship are intertwined.

To my surprise, the primary sources about Joan were incredibly rich, with the added benefit – and challenge – of being written from different sides and including people often silent in the historical record. They include: her dictated letters and words at trial; chronicles and letters between 1429-1431 that seemed to compete to get the latest news to a larger audience; poems; theological treatises and prophecies; and the nullification proceedings of 1456. During the nullification process, over a hundred witnesses from all ranks of society who had known Joan testified: villagers from her childhood; fellow soldiers and commanders; assessors at the trial; and ordinary men and women from the streets who had met her.

My students, who had usually taken prior medieval history courses, were skeptical but not dismissive of the idea of a girl hearing voices.  Still, they tried to ‘rationalize’ Joan’s experience at the beginning of the class.  Perhaps she was schizophrenic or delusional? After only a few weeks of reading and discussion, it became clear to them that a delusional girl could never have accomplished what she did. While the court of Charles VII may have hoped Joan would serve as a figurehead, she turned out to be so much more.  She took the lead in battle and was wounded at least four times. Ordinary people and military commanders compared her skills on horseback and in matters of war to a captain who had been fighting for twenty to thirty years.  How could a girl so often depicted in films and art as swooning or crying incessantly have accomplished the feats that she did? The biggest problem I confronted was that the more I read about Joan, the less I seemed to know about her.Each successive year brought new questions. As young adults (all older than Joan), they saw things in a different light from that of their middle-aged professor.  They asked questions I had not considered. Gradually, however, a larger picture began to take shape in my mind thanks to my students’ infectious passion for the subject. A religious studies major tabulated attendance patterns for the 1431 trial to see how often different types of people attended, and under what circumstances. The results were astonishing.  Based on the primary and secondary sources she’d read, a psychology major took standardized personality tests as if she were Joan, removing questions that would not have been relevant in the fifteenth century. Another student, who became my research assistant for three years, delved deeply into life in Orléans before Joan arrived to relieve the siege, showing how its townspeople paved the way for her success. These are but a few examples of how my students helped shape my understanding of Joan of Arc.

After I was offered the contract for my recently published book, The Virgin Warrior: The Life and Death of Joan of Arc, I began to work out all the thorny problems that the sources, my students, and I had faced over the years. After finishing the manuscript, I had to deal with a different issue in the spring of 2008, when I again taught the seminar.  How could I manage to evoke the same sparks and sense of wonderment in figuring out a difficult historical puzzle that had inspired me once I felt I finally had the answers?  By giving students access only to small portions of the manuscript, I managed to keep them wanting to know more. Sometimes I had to keep my mouth shut while they wrestled with difficult issues.  But I had underestimated them.  After all, our scholarship is never the last word on any historical subject.  The insights from that last semester before the book was published have given me ideas for my current research.

After spending my last ten years with Joan, I can’t let her go.  So I’ve begun to work on a book project tentatively entitled Joan of Arc, The Church and the Papacy, 1429-1920. The one thing most people ‘know’ is that the Church burned Joan then about 500 years later made her a saint. The truth is far more complex.  Once Joan came to the attention of the king’s court and his churchmen in 1429, she was subjected to scorn, laughter, grueling examination, theological treatises for and against her, and eventually – in many cases – grudging admiration.  From 1429 to 1431, attitudes of churchmen, along with everyone else, depended on which side a person stood. The Church – and churches – played a major role in Joan’s life and ‘afterlife,’ but how she was viewed in her time and beyond has far more to do with politics. Even at the Rouen church trial, the local Dominicans tried to provide Joan with some support, incurring the wrath of the bishop and theologians who collaborated with the English. Two decades later a churchman close to Charles VII suggested an inquiry into that trial, an idea not particularly appealing to a king who had not yet re-conquered all of his territories.  A papal legate pushed the matter in 1452 and Pope Callixtus III ordered the nullification inquiry of 1455-1456.  Although as political in desired outcome as the original trial, the Church found that Joan had been wrongfully condemned twenty-five years earlier. In 1461, Pope Pius II, who had followed Joan’s career with great interest, wrote a largely flattering commentary describing her as ‘that astonishing and marvelous maid.’ Centuries lapsed with little attention paid to Joan until the Bishop of Orléans argued for her beatification in 1869.  In the coming years, I will read the beatification and canonization records in depth, particularly the spirited debates between the Devil’s Advocate and Promotor that made the final result in 1920 anything but a foregone conclusion.

That brings me back to my Joan of Arc seminar. In this and other 400-level courses, I let my students know that I consider them junior colleagues, encouraging them to challenge my opinions. Sharing our research with our students, showing our passion for our work, and teaching advanced courses that are built around it, can create a wonderful sense of learning, shared experience and excitement from which all can benefit. Without that the Virgin Warrior might never have happened.

Larissa Juliet Taylor
Colby College