The Maid of Orleans

I have three Joan of Arc t-shirts. Three. Does that seem excessive? Maybe.

I am thinking of cutting one up and appliquéing Joan to the back of a new Doire designed denim jacket, which I will then embellish by hand sewing beads, sequins and ribbons. It’s one of the things I do to express a different kind of creativity. I have a Bob Dylan jacket and a Joni Mitchell jacket. Strangers stop me on the street to comment on them. They ask where I got them. For friends and relatives I have made among others, a Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club jacket, Klimt’s The Kiss jacket, a Janis Joplin jacket, a Billie Holiday jacket, Marilyn Monroe, Mona Lisa, and Boston Red Sox jacket (no beads or sequins on this one). Maybe it’s time for a Joan jacket.

 

In my office I have two huge posters that feature different artistic renditions of Joan in full armor, in addition to a photograph of a sculpture of Joan by Anne Huntington. I have a photograph of myself walking away from the statue of Joan at the chapel dedicated to her at Notre Dame Cathedral; this last photo taken surreptitiously by my best friend after I lit a votive at the saint’s feet.

 

I have been captivated by the story of Joan of Arc since I was a child. Then, I was in profound awe of her courage and audacity, and sheer magnitude of her deeds. I was deeply saddened by the injustices she endured. In my own childlike way, I admired her dignity and her strength. She stands unique in history as a National hero, saint and woman. There were other women elevated by the Church who also made deep impressions; Mary, the mother of Jesus of course, and Saint Agatha, the patron saint of my neighborhood parish. In that little church, stood a larger than life-sized statue of Saint Agatha, virgin and martyr. She was rendered with long blonde curls, perfectly proportioned, porcelain colored face and long blue and white robes. In her hand she held a curious implement; a two-pronged claw that sat atop a thick metal handle. One day when I was very little, I asked my mother what she was holding in her hand. My mother told me that she held a pair of primitive pliers. Pliers? Was she a carpenter? Or a plumber? Did she make her own jewelry? No. My mother proceeded to tell me that the virgin maiden caught the eye of a public official who lusted after her. He intended to have her but because of her faith, she refused. Her punishment was to face death by public torture. Her breasts were ripped from her body with a pair of pliers. Imagine the impression that made upon me! I was horrified and could not imagine the excruciating pain, even though at that tender age, I did not yet have breasts. As I got older I wondered at the wisdom of her choice and judged virginity to be a small price to pay in exchange for life.

 

I am now teaching a course on religion and film and two of the films on the syllabus treat Joan of Arc as their subject, the 1948 version with Ingrid Bergman and the 1998 film, The Messenger, which depicts what I consider to be, “psycho Joan.” I fear that my students are not as enthralled with her as I. But the Joan films allow me to extend discussion and lectures into areas that might not immediately be self-evident. These include the religious experiences and phenomena of visions, voices and revelations. I include the four elements of mysticism as described by William James in his Varieties of Religious Experience and consider some of the issues of epistemology in general. How do human beings know things? How do we know what we think we know? Can we really know anything? And when knowledge is located in a source claimed to be outside of ourselves, by what criteria do we judge its authenticity? The 1948 movie assumes Joan’s “counsel,” which she identified as Saint Margaret of Antioch, Saint Catherine of Alexandria and Saint Michael, to have been “real.” The 1998 movie calls them into serious question. It suggests that Joan’s voices were products of psychological anomalies, delusions of grandeur, etc. It further suggests that Joan’s voices may not have been divine at all, but rather, demonic. Whether or not we believe Joan’s voices to have been authentic, one thing is clear, she believed that they were and as a result, she succeeded in leading men into victorious battle, ignited a renewed hope for a struggling France, led a king to coronation and secured the love and devotion of millions since her burning at the stake in 1431 at the age of nineteen. Her crimes as determined by her court were heresy, schismatic, sorcery and blasphemy. That she dressed as a man was mentioned in her charges five times. 

 

Joan as subject also allows for an examination of the European persecution of women. My students know that I refuse to refer to that 400 year period as “the witch hunts,” or “the witch trials.” There were no witches. There were just women, the scapegoats for all the sufferings, wars and plagues of medieval Europe. They were the victims of an Inquisitional frenzy and heretic-phobia. I can think of no other time in history that can be characterized by the term gendercide (and no, that isn’t a real word. I just made it up).

 

The hagiography of Joan of Arc presents the opportunity to study the story of a woman who renounced patriarchal authority, who rebelled against the gender role expectations of her time and who stood strong in the face of day after day of interrogation by 47 intimidating Inquisitors. Surely her story, which was constructed through 500 years of interpretation, must be understood as a product of both historical “fact” and human imagination, but the actual transcripts of her trials are available for reading and what emerges from them is a portrait of a young woman of remarkable intelligence, extraordinary conviction and unswerving faith. As I read the transcript, her voice reaches out from the 15th century and reminds me that in every age there were women like Joan; surely not so famous but remarkable women nevertheless, who changed the course of history, who fought side by side with men for freedom, who built nations and cities, and ignited the human spirit if not for 500 years then at least, for their own moment in time.

 

Yes, it’s time for a Joan of Arc jacket.