Revisiting Joan Of Arc
I don't recall ever seeing a link to a Smithsonian Magazine article over at Real Clear Politics before, but this one must have caught someone's eye. (I posted about the revelation that her "relics" were forgeries late last year). The Smithsonian article is a pretty good capsule history of her. Despite the question in the article's title, we probably know more from direct sources about someone of her station than is normal. Her life was amazing well documented, considering that she was born a peasant at a time when only royalty rated historical coverage.
Nearly 600 years after she was burned at the stake, Joan of Arc is still making headlines. This past April, forensic scientists at Raymond Poincaré Hospital in Garches, France, announced in the journal Nature that relics supposedly found beneath her pyre are a forgery. The remains, which included a human rib, were never burned, and instead show evidence of embalming. Using carbon-14 analysis, the researchers dated the fragments to between the third and sixth centuries B.C. They concluded that the relics were taken from an Egyptian mummy, a component, in powdered form, of some medieval pharmaceuticals.
Found in the attic of a Paris apothecary in 1867, the manufactured relics date to a time when history was rediscovering Joan of Arc, and they were probably created to add to the mystique of the French martyr. The scheme may have been effective, since shortly afterward, in 1869, the Catholic Church took the first step toward Joan's 1920 canonization as a saint. The Church, which in 1909 had recognized the relics as likely genuine, accepted the 2007 study's findings. But though this tantalizing fragment of Joan of Arc has been proven a fake, her legend carries on.
Much of what we know about Joan of Arc comes from the transcript of her 1431 trial for heresy—an inquisition that resulted not only in her execution but also assured her immortality as a French heroine and Catholic martyr. In 1455, additional testimony from a posthumous retrial (requested by King Charles VII and Joan's elderly mother, and authorized by Pope Calixtus III) restored Joan's reputation and fleshed out her story. Thanks to these records, Joan's narrative is remarkably complete.
As I said, there is a nice capsule summary of her life - and death. At the end of the article, author Amy Crawford notes that both major parties in the French elections routinely invoke Joan of Arc's name. She has become the very symbol of France.
By Lars Walker, Saturday, 16 June , 2007 @ 9:55 am
I’ve read in a couple places that there’s a possibility that Joan was never, in fact, executed. But it all depends on the questionable nature of medieval sources, and the people who make reference to the theory seem to be generally associated with the occult. So I don’t put a lot of stock in it.