Camp Gagnon - The Saint Who Claimed Heaven Sent Her to War

Episode Date: June 10, 2026

Today, we explore the life of Joan of Arc—from the first time she heard angelic voices to her legendary battles. Welcome to History Camp! 🏕️Shoutout to our sponsors: Mars Men and BlueChew-Visit https://mengotomars.com and get 50% Off FOR LIFE, Free Shipping, and 3 Free Gifts with Code 'CAMP' at Checkout.Want the even WILDER theories?SIGN UP TO THE PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/cw/CampGagnon👕🧢 Shop CAMP Merch: https://camp-rd.com/collections/ufo🎟️ 🎫 Comedy Tour Tickets: https://markgagnonlive.com🎩👽 Daily Dose Of History: https://www.dailytodayinhistory.comTimestamps:0:00 Camp Bulletin + Christos YAPPIN2:00 France vs England Civil War6:44 The Black Death7:52 Joan of Arc’s Childhood10:37 Joan Hears Angelic Voices14:24 Journey to Vaucouleurs18:08 Miracles in Orleans23:42 Coronation of King Charles VII26:11 Capture of Joan of Arc31:13 The Trial & Death of Joan of Arc37:32 Legacy of Joan of Arc43:36 Drop Your Thoughts!#camping #history #podcast #historyfacts #interesting #mystery #saints #saint

In 1431, in the Market Square of a French city, a 19-year-old girl was burned alive. She couldn't read, she couldn't write, she grew up in a village so small that most maps wouldn't even bother showing it. But in the two years before she was killed, she had walked 300 miles through enemy territory, broken a siege that France's best commanders had given up on, crowned France's next king, and made enemies with the most powerful army in Europe. And her name was Joan of Arc. And six centuries later, we still can't fully figure out what is real and what is just the legend.

Was she a mystic, a fanatic, a political weapon, a military symbol, a saint? Or was she just a frightened village girl who believed with this unusual certainty that God had given her something special to do? Well, did we're going to find out how this teen girl shook the foundations of an entire kingdom, how she held her own against some of the most learned theologians in all of France, how she got thrown and chained in a military prison, and finally how she was burned as a convicted heretic, and then later made a saint. Well, if you're fascinated by church history,

this is the episode for you, so sit back, relax, and welcome to History Camp. What's up, people, and welcome back to History Camp. My name is Mark Gagnon, and thank you so much for joining me in my tent where every single week we explore the most interesting, fascinating, controversial stories from all history, from all time forever. Yes, that is what I do here in the tent every single week,

because I try to understand everything that's ever happened. And oh boy, today is a fascinating episode. But before we begin, I just want to say a few things. First off, I want to thank you. Yeah, dude, slash lady, whoever you are. Thanks for tuning in. Every time you click on an episode, you help keep the show going. Literally, you fill my soul up with joy and with perseverance.

And also, you know, you help keep the lights on in the tent. You need help keep the fire burning here at the campsite. Secondly, I just showered, so my hair's a little wet. So this is not like a lot. part of the schick. This is not like a, this is not tied in with the store at all. My hair is just like a little damp. So I just want to call that out up top. Also, speaking of wet, long, beautiful hair, I want to say, give big shout out to Christos, my good palis that sits right over here and he runs a show. He makes it all possible. He's the Greek freak himself. Christos Poppidopados.

How are you? I'm also wet. Chrisos. Wait, hold on. What did you just say? Nothing. Oh, wait, what the? All right. See, this is why I don't let you talk too much. We got a fascinating episode. This is a story that I've sort of like been, told pieces of throughout my entire life growing up Catholic, specifically a Catholic of a, you know, specific type of French flavoring as I was born in Paris. But I never knew the full story. And thanks to my pals, Sophia and Koldip, for putting together a bunch of research on this and helping me understand who Joan of Arc really was, why she's so deified and why her story is so controversial. Because to be honest, like, you just kind of hear about her, I feel like in school, we were like, yeah, Joan of Arc,

like this great woman commander that took over the French army, and you don't really know anything else beyond that, at least not for me. I mean, Creezo, like, what do you know about Joan of Arc, like, top of your head? Hot chicken history? All right, yeah. I mean, hot in the sense that she was a powerful authority figure that commanded all these men. What else is hot? That's a good point.

So, there's actually a lot more to it. And the story begins when Joan was born, around 1412. France had been at war with England for, like, forever. But in this specific extent, it was 75 years. years. And I think it's helpful to kind of understand what that really means. You have entire generations growing up, not only in England, but in France, that have lived their whole lives and had jobs and families and kids and then died without ever seeing a nation without war. There's just constantly been war, and there's never really been long periods of peace,

specifically in this window. And then in 1415, things get worse. You have the battle at Agencourt. This is where King Henry V of England destroyed one of France's largest armies. And that defeat really just, I don't know, kind of made the French sad and probably arrogant, to be honest with you. If I know anything about the French, they were probably like, they didn't even deserve it. Is that are your people, Mark? That's what I'm saying. And I know them better than anyone. And for the record, I'm French Canadian, and they don't even like us. So who gives it, who gives it crap, you know? I'm trying to cuss as much, so I'm going to say crap.

Anyway, this loss that the French dealt with really opened the door for England to push across the entire northern half of the country. But in addition to being attacked from the outside, France was also falling apart from the inside, which is always the story with these things, right? You have like this external battle with an enemy and then internally things are just an absolute mess. So in this case, you have two rival French factions. And you, on one side, you have the Armagnacs who are supporting the French royal heir. And then you have the Burgundians who are supporting, you know, England. And they are locked in a brutal civil war. Now the Burgundians were French nobility from the powerful duchy of burgundy and that's obviously off in the east and they had broken off from

you know the royal cause of the french monarchy after their duke was assassinated in 1419 so as revenge for killing their duke they allied with england right come on guys can we not have a little bit of national loyalty you're just going to break off just because your duke was assassinated anyway so when we say france is fighting england what we really mean is that frances fighting england but also half of France is fighting the other half of France on behalf of England. Does that make sense? So the whole thing's a mess. And then in 1420 came the Treaty of Troche or Troch. My French is not perfect. Okay, so just give me a break here. Now with this treaty, when you normally hear a treaty, you're like, oh, this is a peace treaty. Everything works out. But this treaty is not exactly like that.

So here's what happens. King Charles VI of France, who had long bouts of mental illness and was just also just a mental disaster, had been destabilizing the kingdom for years at this point. And he signed a treaty agreeing that Henry V of England would inherit the French throne. What? So now this means his own son Charles, called the Dauphin, which is the medieval French word for like air to the crown or like the crown prince, was now completely cut out of becoming king. And this is crazy. Like if you're thinking like, oh, that makes no sense. It doesn't.

He's basically just like handing over France to England. Like, it just makes no sense. And the thing is, rumors had already been swirling for the past, you know, a few years, that the Dauphine, Charles, the 7th, wasn't even legitimate to begin with. So the treaty felt like the king was essentially saying that those rumors are true. And he's basically just like, hey, England, it's yours, take the whip. And then in 1422, both Henry V of England and Charles the 6th of France died within like a couple weeks of each other. So now, both the crowns then passed to Henry the Six.

Now, Henry the Six now has a ton of responsibility. He literally just gets inherited like two massive kingdoms that are constantly at war with each other. And he's an infant. Literally less than a year old. And the Dolphine, this is Charles the 7th, still controlled parts of southern France. But his authority was really weak. And his opponents literally would mock him. They would call him the king of Borges or a king of Borges, which this is just a single city,

meaning like this guy couldn't even pretend to rule the whole kingdom. He's just like the king of like one town. And Charles himself was still pretty young. He's in his early 20s and he's not doing great. He's quiet and he's anxious and he doesn't really know what he's doing. He's just going through a lot as young men, you know, tend to do. He's the kind of guy who would like, he literally hid in his own court rather than like face this crisis head on. And due to the rumors that had flown around about him and his legitimacy and also probably because of the treaty that his dad had signed to England,

Charles was notoriously unconvinced of his own right to be the monarch of France. He was extremely insecure about it, and that's going to be important later on. So just remember that. But for now, there's one last thing about this era that I think is helpful to know. Less than 70 years earlier from this time that we're talking about, the Black Death had swept through Europe and killed everyone. Literally, like, a third of the entire continent was just gone in like a generation. And we've talked about the Black Death before on History Camp,

so we're not going to do the entire story. But 70 years later, the effects of it are still everywhere. I mean, we talked about it in a different episode how the Black Death literally reshaped the way medieval Europe even looked at death and life and everything. I mean, Memento Mori, like, came out of this. And so as a result, at this time, you have entire villages that are just empty,

strips of farmland that are just abandoned. Every adult in Europe had grown up hearing stories about wagons of bodies, and they all knew someone in their family line that had died. This was the France that, a young Joan was born into. A kingdom divided, an heir that's disputed, incompetent leadership, civil war,

regular war, foreign power occupying most of her country, and in a small village called Dom Hermie, a poor peasant girl was literally about to talk to God. Now, Dom Remy was a small farming village near a river called Mews, and it sat basically in no-man's land between territories loyal to, you know,

Charles of 7th, the Dolphine, and the Burgundian regions, aka the French that were royal, or the French that were like loyal to England and trying to help England, you know? So as a result, this little town was just like mud and livestock and just like typical medieval French village. Now, during Jones' childhood, Burgundian raids hit the area and at one point even forced her family along with the rest of the village just to like run away. Her father, actually, Jacques di Arc, literally, I mean, of the same name, like Jack of the Ark, was a farmer and like a minor, like village official.

Her mother, Isabel Romay, was a deeply religious Catholic woman and raised her children on the prayers and the practices of medieval French Catholicism. But even by medieval village standards, and trust me, those standards are very religious, Joan stood out. Friends and neighbors remembered her as being exceasing. She was constantly a confession. She was praying all the time. She was more pious than any young child ever. I mean, everyone was just like, that's the most religious kid we've ever seen in our life. Now that said, she wasn't like a weirdo. Like people remembered other things about her outside of like her intense religiosity. Like they said she was very sociables. They said she was very stubborn. She was very strong and comfortable with her work. She joined village festivals and danced around a local tree that her, accusers would later associate with folk beliefs and like beliefs and fairies and stuff like that. But in reality, that was just like a village game or like a ritual that was kind of like maybe

inherited from like a local group that then was blown up to be something completely nefarious when it wasn't. Anyway, Joan never learned how to read or write, which is interesting. Years later at her trial, she described herself in like a funny way. She literally says, I fear no woman in Ho-en and sewing and spinning. It's kind of just like a funny way just to be like, I'm not good at reading or writing, but I can

sew and spin and I'm nice with it. Now, she was most familiar with domestic work farming and really just like a quiet life of just prayer, devotion, going to church, and being just a really solid Catholic. Shout out to you, Joan. And it's a pretty like humble, simple beginning. But

that wasn't all that she would accomplish in her life as we know. Now, she didn't know it yet at this time, but Joan would barely have the chance to grow up Before she'd step into political and military crisis that nobleman and generals and commanders and clergy all around her had spent decades trying to figure out. But first, her life transformed when she was just 13 years old.

She started to hear things. Now, the first time of this happened, according to her later account, it was near her father's garden around like noon, and it was accompanied by this great light, and it startled her. Now, over time, these voices that she was hearing started to identify themselves.

And there were three. The three are Michael, the archangel, Catherine of Alexandria, and Margaret of Antioch. Now, Michael, that's an obvious one, right? Michael's a well-known angel, or specifically an archangel of the Bible. And this is the angel that's literally like in charge of God's army. You've probably seen pictures of Michael like crushing Satan and, you know, driving a sword into him.

He's a badass. And then you have Catherine of Alexandria and Margaret of Antioch. They are both Catholic saints. They were from the early church. They were both versions, scholars, and celebrated for their wisdom, and they both died as martyrs. Now, the message that the voices would tell Joan was pretty simple. The message said, help the Dauphine, help this crowned prince, Charles, the uncrowned heir, and see him crowned the rightful king of France.

Now, modern explanations for the voices have ranged across many different things. Obviously, if you are a devout Catholic at the time or even now, you would say this is obviously a divine conversation with, you know, these beings and specifically with angels, as we see in the Bible, angels come and talk to human beings all the time. This is just what happened there. Now, there's a more skeptical analysis. They would say this is something doing with, you know, schizophrenia or migraines with auditory aura or even tuberculosis meningitis that potentially could do that. But none of these theories fully fit the information that we have about the situation, which makes this so complicated. And the evidence that we have is actually pretty thin in general.

It's mostly Jones' own testimony recorded from a trial that was designed from the start to destroy and discredit her. And also, while this sounds extraordinary to modern ears, in Europe in the 15th century, it wasn't that crazy. Guys don't really talk about what happens as you get older, but you start to notice it. Your energy is lower. Gym recovery takes longer. You're doing the same workouts, eating pretty well, but not getting the same results. And for a while, I just thought, all right, I'm getting older. But for men, testosterone can naturally decline as early as your 30s.

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And for a limited time, the listeners of this program will get 50% off for life, plus free shipping and three free gifts at men go to mars.com. That is men, go to mars.com. And after you purchase, tell them that Mark and Cruces from the campsite sent you. It really helps. Now let's get back to the show. At this point in time, women that claim to have divine visions had influenced kings and advised popes and shaped local politics. The church also didn't completely dismiss this kind of thing, but it also did take it very seriously and even at the time tested it very carefully.

And this is the thing I actually think is helpful to note for the Catholic tradition. When we talk about miracles within the Catholic Church, the church is really always the first one to be like, eh, probably not. The church is highly skeptical when it comes to people claiming that they're talking to God or having some type of divine intervention. And I think oftentimes people are like, oh, the church, like obviously co-signed this. Like most of the times when people go to the church and they're like, hey, I had a divine apparition. Mary appeared to me. I talked to God. Most of those the church says are illegitimate.

Now, here's what makes Joan different. Her voices weren't telling her to enter a convent. They weren't telling her to, like, devote her life to prayer. they weren't telling her to, like, write a theological text. They were telling her to intervene in a war. Now, for mystics in general, specifically mystics that are women, this is very strange. And at first, Joan resisted. She saw how bizarre and crazy this ask was.

And by her own account at trial, she argued with the voices for years. She said, hey, I'm a girl, and I don't know how to fight. And this isn't my place. I'm not of nobility. Like, my dad is like, you know, like the mayor. of my little town. But like, I, I, this is, we're talking about the French kingdom. What am I going to do?

But in early 1429, Joan finally listened to the voices, and she accepted her fate from God. And she was about to start succeeding where experienced nobles and commanders had failed for decades. Now, her first move was to walk to Vacoulet. This is a small garrison town, though, is still loyal to the Dauphine. And she was going to ask its commander, this guy, Robert, the Badra Corps, for an escort. which he refused. But then she came back and then asked again and was like, can I get an escort?

And he refused. And Joan kept coming back and bugging this guy. And then eventually, local support just kind of grew for her. And Badra Kora gave in. Now, whether the locals genuinely believed her or they were just curious about her mission and they had kind of heard about this, and obviously they're all very Catholic, they're like, well, maybe, you know, well, let's see. We don't know exactly why.

But either way, she got her escort. Now from there, she in her escort rode roughly 300 miles through enemy territory, traveling mostly at night to, like, dodge any encounters with the enemy. And she dressed in men's clothing for protection as well as respect, both from enemies and then also from, you know, the men in her escort. And then she arrived at Chinon on March of 1429. And this town was where the Dauphine Charles had actually, you know, like held court. Now he was 26 years old, and he was.

had been struggling as the disputed heir to a broken country for, I don't even know, like a decade. And he's surrounded by advisors that he didn't really trust and was presiding over this tiny little territory and had no legitimacy and was having just the worst time. And then randomly, this young peasant girl from a town 300 miles away, Joan Diak, says, hey, can I talk to the Dauphine? Now, later accounts claim that Charles tried to test Joan by hiding among, amongst the people in his court when she arrived, and that she just picked him out instantly. Now, the details of this are debated, but what matters is, I think, probably more simple. Whatever Joan said to him in their private conversation that day, and neither Charles nor Joan

ever told anyone what that was, she completely convinced him of her intentions and more so just of her divine mission. But before he could act on her claims, he sent her to Potelier. This is a place where church authorities and theologians would meet. And this is where she was grilled by religious scholars for weeks. Now, the historical records here are incomplete, but we do know the conclusion. They determined that there was nothing heretical about what she was saying and nothing that required immediate rejection from the church. So I'm assuming Charles's position was like, okay, this girl's coming to me.

She's going to tell me about how I'm like the rightful heir to the throne, which I love, how she's going to, you know, work with me and, like, liaise with God to, like, give me this. sounds awesome. And I just need to make sure that like this girl's not like crazy and that what she's saying isn't like satanic. So he goes and sends her to literally just like church camp and it was like, hey, go talk to go talk to these people. And they just cross-examiner. And then they're basically just like, hey, she's saying that she wants to help you out and she doesn't seem that crazy. So go ahead. So now after this, you know, little thing, Charles is able to proceed. Now, before Joan ever set foot on a battlefield before any soldier in France ever knew her.

name, she dictated a letter to be sent to the English. And in this letter, she didn't ask the English for anything. She demanded, she told the English regent and his commanders to get out of France, return everything that they had taken, all the money, all the horses, livestock, all the land, to leave it where it is, and get the heck out. And she warned them, if they don't do it, there's going to be hell to pay. That's literally, like, the letter that this, like, young girl was sending to the French without any military experience. And she even signed it. And she even signed, it, Jean Lé Poussel. They literally Joan the maid. Then the first place that she went with her fresh army was the city, Orleans. Now, Orleans had been under English siege since October of 1428.

That's seven months that the English had been surrounding this city and basically like cutting off supplies and trying to like strangle the city. Seven months of this grinding pressure, fortified English positions, tightening around the city, morale collapsing in the walls. And Orleans is extremely important. Now, this is not, obviously, New Orleans where you are talking about, you know, in Louisiana. This is the original Orleans. Now, this is an extremely important place, like geographically at this point in the war. If it fell, the English would have a clear path into all the other territories that are still loyal to, you know, the rightful heir, the Dauphine of France. Many believe that the entire war just hinged on this one city. And if it fell,

it was done. So Joan arrived late in April of 1429 and decided to see the commander. Now, Jean di Denois was known as the bastard of Orleans. He was one of France's most capable military leaders and he was not like going to listen to some random peasant girl being like, hey, I have an idea or take her advice at all on how to protect his city that's been under siege for seven months. Imagine you're him. You've been trying to protect your city for seven months. one of the most powerful militaries in the world at the time is just crushing the walls every single day and then all of a sudden people are like,

hey, someone needs to talk to you and he's like, oh, thank goodness, it's going to be like the Spanish king that's going to help us out or like more military, you know, support. And instead, it's some peasant girl that pulls up and she's like, hey, I have an idea. I mean, it's crazy. Now, according to later sworn testimony,

Joan apparently confronted him aggressively. She told him that God's counsel was wiser than his and that he needed to listen up. And according to the story, he kind of did. The whole military camp transformed under Jones presence. She pushed soldiers towards confession. She had prostitutes removed from, you know, the armies, like, following. She insisted on prayers before every fight.

I witness accounts described her camp as shockingly disciplined. And almost like a moving, like, religious, like, devotional. Like, just, like, the whole thing. changed. Now, whether the soldiers actually believed that she was sent by God or not, they all kind of behaved as if she was. And then she quickly started reorganizing the approach. So on May 4th of 1429, French forces captured Saint-Lu, one of the English fortifications. And then came the assault on the Torrell. This is the heavily defended position controlling the bridge across the river that's right there. But during the fighting, Joan was hit by an arrow between the neck and the shoulder, and she was

carried from the field, had the wound treated, and then she got back in the fight. And then that town of Torrell fell that evening. And the next morning, the English formed up for a battle outside of the remaining positions, and the French waited for hours. And eventually the English just kind of withdrew. And at that moment, the siege of Orleans was over. It was literally like seven months of stalemate ended within nine days of Jones' arrival. Now, here's where we've got to be fully clear. Modern historians are careful about how much credit

actually belongs to Joan personally for this victory, which obviously they are, you know what I mean, can never give credit to a good Catholic woman. But French reinforcements had arrived around

the same time that they had attacked. The English position was already strained to an extent. And as impressive as Joan was, you know, according to modern historians, she wasn't like a Napoleon. She wasn't designing campaigns or making a ton of like

detailed tactical decisions. But what she did do was something different and arguably harder. She pressured cautious commanders that were terrified of making a mistake into action. And the plans were often the generals

and the reason that those plans actually went forward in many cases or, you know, like more broadly speaking, was because of Joan. And then not only that, she also like fortified the morale of the people. Like even if she's just a mascot, the soldiers are like,

oh, wow, this girl's claim that God talked to her and that we're going to win. Like that does something psychologically for them and you get rid of the prostitutes. you know what I mean? That's going to lower your testosterone or maybe it's going to raise your testosterone because it's not getting depleted from you all the time

and they're all of a sudden praying a lot more, they're more focused, they're more zen. I mean, I think, I mean, if nothing else, Joan had something to do with it. So within weeks, French forces moved up to the Lois Valley. This is like the river that's right there. When they start taking back these English held fortresses, one after another,

in like a 10-day offensive that nobody had been planning until Joan kind of like push for it. So at John, Dargo, a stone cannonball struck her helmet and blasted her off, like, onto her back. Like, she just literally got crushed in the head by a cannibal. And then she gets up. And she always gets up. Like, every time she gets hit, she just goes back into battle.

And then came the Battle of Pate. Now, Pate is, you know, where the English were caught before they could set up their famous defensive formation, the one that had made them, like, so unbeatable for so long in open battle for all these years. And without it, they were just. completely disorganized. So the French cavalry came, they tore right through them, and it was one of the worst English defeats that they had in decades, and the French needed it. It was exactly this kind of like morale boost that reminded them what they were capable of and ultimately what they were fighting for. But after that, Joan pushed for something that a lot of the commanders thought was

completely reckless. She said that their next move should be a march on reams. This is the place where French kings had been crowned for centuries, and they were like, we're going to go march straight into Reims, and we're going to take it back, and then we're going to crown the Dauphine, and we're going to make him the rightful king of France, just like that. And Reams is super important. The coronation ceremony had to be there. So without that detail, Charles the seventh's legitimacy as king would just always be incomplete. It would almost loom around everyone with they're like, all right, he's king, but he wasn't crowned where all the kings have been crowned for hundreds of years. So it would have been almost seen like theoretically he was the king. But, you know,

Nobody who matter was going to fully buy his leadership without the proper ritual that's been done for centuries. And that's exactly what Joan's point was. She was like, look, we can talk about the Dauphine or talk about the Burgundy's, whatever. We need to get reams and we need to crown the Dauphine officially as the King of France. And she knew that winning this war wasn't going to just be a matter of military. It was going to be, you know, more than that. It was about people believing and agreeing on who the king actually is supposed to be. And that would be the thing that would ultimately unite France against the English.

and then carry the French kingdom onto victory. So Jones Army marched straight through the contested territory. And what's crazy is that the towns opened their gates for them. So, for example, Trau, the very city where Charles had been disinherited by treaty nine years earlier, even surrendered without a battle. Resistance just weakened all around them. And then on July 17th, 1429, inside Reims Cathedral, Charles was finally crowned King Charles' 7th of France. bells rang all across the city that hadn't seen a coronation in generations.

And Jonah Vark just literally at 17 years old, a 17-year-old peasant girl that led a French army to crowning the new king of France just sat there and wept. Just think about that. Eight months earlier, this was impossible. The territories between Orleans and Reams were, you know, filled with, you know, like a French, I guess, like resistance and English, you know, opponents. The Dauphine was completely disregarded by everyone in Europe as being illegitimate. And now he's literally wearing the crown of France all because a teenage farm girl made it happen.

And then all of a sudden, the people of France had a king. Now, if you're thinking this is just like a happy ending, Joan did what she set out to do. You know, she gets paid handsomely and then she goes back to her village. and then lives, you know, just a quiet life as just, you know, a folk hero, well, you're wrong. Because at this point in Joan's story, things get very dark and, to be honest, very tragic. Because remember, France is still at war. So here's what happens after the coronation. Joan wants to keep going. Joan wants to push towards Paris, the political center of the kingdom, which was still outside of Charles' the 7th's control and wanted to keep pressure on the English and the Burgundians

before they could recover from any of their recent losses, and that's what they did. But the attack on Paris in September of 1429 was a disaster. Joan was wounded again, but this time in the thigh, and after this loss, things started to change. Charles the 7th suddenly wasn't fully behind her anymore, which is crazy to think. Jones' usefulness to him had shifted.

Before that siege at Orleans, she was ignored by everyone. but you know then she was tolerated a strange girl with strange claims who actually might provide like a little morale boost for the guys and then she was actually useful she's like winning and like pushing the armies forward

and like taking back territory so now she can get people to listen to her and then she gets the king crowned but after that with her main objective kind of achieved she became politically complicated to the royal court because here's a problem

Joan became a lie for them. She had a legitimacy that didn't come from them. Jones' authority came directly from God, as she claimed, and she dramatically demonstrated by accomplishing all of the amazing things

that she did, that God was behind her, and that that's where she gets her authority from. And that kind of power is not stable for a monarchy. So Charles I 7th began quietly negotiating with the Burgundians, taking power and decisions

into his own hands, and Jones still, like, kind of in the picture, didn't like these negotiations. She kept on fighting, sometimes without any type of royal authorization, leading raids and campaigns just on her own initiative. And then in May of 1430, at a town called Compienia, a trap basically closed around her. Joan had ridden out to defeat the town from a Burgundian assault when the French retreated back inside the walls,

and the drawbridge was raised up before she could get inside. Now, whether this was an accident or if it was a deliberate, you know, trap to basically hang her out to dry, the historical record doesn't really tell us. Some have argued for centuries that it was a betrayal. Others say it was just chaos and bad timing, wrong place, wrong time kind of thing. Whatever it was, Joan was cut off, just out in the open and was then captured by Burgundian troops. And the Burgundians eventually sold her to the English. Now, remember, the Burgundians are the French, you know, allies to the English. So obviously, they're just going to pass her over to the English. Now, in fairness, there were some diplomatic exchanges and quiet discussions of ransom. Charles the Seven's court wasn't completely silent on this issue, but their efforts were pretty slow and not super serious. No one really came for her in time. Now, the English needed Joan of Arc to be a heretic and a fraud and an instrument of the devil, because it would be the most practical and politically justifiable explanation that they needed to get their revenge. Like the English, you know, at this point, they're Catholic. They recognize that, hey,

this girl says that she's coming from God and it's the same God as us and she's destroying all of our positions and helping the French out. The English need her to be a heretic and to be a Satanist and to be a witch in order to justify their losses. They're like, no, that's witchcraft. That's not God. They don't want to be on the wrong side of God. So the English regent, the Duke of Bedford, knew that if Joan's victories had come from divine authority, then the king that she crowned, the French king, also had divine authority from God, and none of this could be allowed.

But honestly, it wasn't just about King Charles the 7th. The English and their allies had several overlapping motivations to bring Joan down. It would not only delegitimize the French king, it would neutralize Joan as a French sort of morale symbol. It would crush the idea that Joan was sent by God because why would God let her get killed? which funny, look at Jesus.

Anyway, reinforced the authority of all the, you know, properly credentialed clergy over like these like freelance kind of mystics like Joan. And so it'd be like, look, the power and God comes from the church and it goes to the clergy and to the priest, not to like random farm girls. And ideally they needed to do all of these things without accidentally making her a martyr, which to the people would only make her more powerful. Now, this is a very tricky thing. if they just kill her, all of a sudden she's a martyr.

So what do they need to do? They need to discredit her and then kill her. So what do they do? They have a trial. Joan's trial was headed by Pierre Cachon, the bishop of Beauvoir, and Cachon was not a neutral figure. He had been an English ally for years,

educated at the University of Paris, which had taken the English side of the war, and personally invested in the Burgundian faction. So when Joan was captured in his diocese, Kauchon personally lobbied for the right to prosecute her, and he got it. So she was brought to Rouen, the English military headquarters in France in late 1430, and almost right away there were procedural problems. First off, she was held in chains in a military prison, not an ecclesiastical one,

as church law required for a church proceeding. And it was guarded by English soldiers who didn't speak her language at all. then she was denied the spiritual counsel a defendant in a church trial was entitled to and also her request to appeal directly to the pope the highest authority of you know the very church whose court she was now in was denied so all of these things are going against her and they're breaking you know ecclesiastical law from the get-go now the trial opened formally on february 21st 1431 and it was pretty long for a week some of the most learned theologians in france interrogated her and according to the transcripts, she was seriously extraordinary in the answers that she gave. And remember, Joan is illiterate. She was a farmer's daughter who never read a book in her life. And it's not like she was professionally trained in theology or, you know, Greek or Hebrew or knew anything about, you know, French or English common law. She was sitting in chains in a literally like a stone room, surrounded by men who had spent decades studying theology at the most prestigious universities in all of Europe.

and she still gave theological answers that confounded them. They even tried to trap her by asking her these, like, provoking or leading questions. Like, they asked her to swear absolute oaths that would then put her into impossible positions and then make her basically obligated to reveal things about the king that she pledged to keep secret. So she stayed strong. She refused to swear without qualification. Then they came at her with one of the most famous trap questions in the, entire trial. They asked Joan whether she knew at that moment if she was in a state of God's grace.

This is a perfect trap question because if she says yes, then she was claiming to know the state of her own soul. This is a presumptuous theological claim that no humble Catholics should ever make. If she says no, then she was then confessing doubt about her own mission and then putting her own credibility on the line. And her answer, and we have it directly from the trial record, was even better than the setup. She says this, if I am not, may God put me in it. If I am, may God keep me so.

I mean, it's like kind of a perfect answer. You can't really attack it. It's humble and confident at the same time. It defers to God while refusing to fall into either side of the trap. And according to later witnesses, some clerics in the room were like actually impressed. Like a few of them like kind of like sat back and they're like, it's pretty good. And several of them would later testify that they had been deeply uneasy about this entire proceeding from the beginning, but they were just too afraid to say anything openly. In addition to questioning her authority from God, one of the other central things that she was being charged for was, funny enough, wearing men's clothing.

Since cross-dressing was explicitly prohibited in the book of Deuteronomy. So to this, Joan gave an answer that, again, held up under scrutiny. She claimed that she was constantly surrounded by male soldiers. So if she wore woman's clothing, she was making herself vulnerable in ways that wearing men's clothing reduced, which is basically why she did it. She said that she never wore men's clothing outside of military necessity.

And given that, reportedly, attempts had already been made on her as a woman in that prison. She was kind of right. She had made one thing absolutely clear to her accuser. She was not rejecting the church. She was a faithful Catholic. She wanted the sacrament. She wanted to appeal to the Pope.

Her conflict was not with the institution. It was with this particular court in this particular city run by men who she had every reason to distrust. And then on May 24th, 1431, after months of relentless interrogation, Joan was taken to a cemetery and read her death sentence. And there, according to the trial record, she actually recanted. She signed or made her mark on a document called the abjuration, renouncing her claim. about the voices. But the details about this are pretty weird because the court's own notary, this guy, Guillaume Manchin, later testified that the documents that he saw Joan sign was short.

He said that this document was only a few lines. But the document that then appeared in the official record was much longer. He had witnessed what appeared to be a substitution in his opinion. Another witness said that Joan didn't fully understand what she was signing. Remember, she's illiterate. So whatever she signed, it bought her a few more days. And then on May 28th, she then withdrew the recantation. She said that she only signed it out of fear and didn't really understand what it was. And she said that the voices had told her that she had done wrong. And then she said that she was not afraid of the fire. So then she was declared a relapsed heretic. That's someone who had formally renounced their heresy and then returned to it and under

church law. There's only one way forward at this time. And that's death. And so on May 30th, 1431, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake in the Market Square of Ruin. And according to historical records, the square was packed and smoke rose over the city, and by her own request, a Dominican friar held a crucifix high enough that she could see it above the flames. An English soldier who had contributed a bundle of sticks to the fire was seen afterwards crying, and reportedly said that he feared for his own soul. And to her last day, Joan said that the voices had come from God. and nothing, no political charges and ecumenical questioning or false abjuration document could convince her otherwise.

Now, what's crazy is that Joan's story doesn't stop there. 25 years after her death, a new investigation was opened, and the man who commissioned it was none other than Charles O'7th. The very king who hadn't paid her ransom, the king whose efforts to free her had been seen at best as half-hearted. the king who basically allowed her to be captured and killed after, you know, she helped him out so much. Historians believe that he reopened the case for a specific reason. Turns out, he didn't want to rule over a territory that was associated with a convicted heretic. A saint's legacy is considerably more useful, especially when you're trying to consolidate a kingdom. You know, all the things that the English were trying to do to discredit Charles,

all of a sudden Charles needed to, you know, kind of work against that. So the investigation itself was unusually thorough in order to reinstate Joan's legitimacy. Over 100 witnesses testified in honor of Joan. I mean, childhood acquaintances who remembered her dancing at the village tree and soldiers who had ridden into battle behind her white banner and clerics who had questioned her, even officials from the trial itself, including former judges who admitted to coercion and fraud. And of course, Guillain, the notary who had witnessed the document. and substitution. And then in 1456, the original verdict was declared null and void by the Inquisitor general, who concluded that the trial had been basically an illegal process designed to execute an innocent girl on behalf of a secular government. She was canonized in 1920 by Pope Benedict

the 15th, almost five centuries after her death. And the bitter irony of this whole thing, of her being killed for heresy and then made a saint later on, was not going to be, you know, shouldn't be, like, missed in this entire story. But the truth is, though she wasn't made a saint until centuries later, Joan never really went away, or at least who she was and what she represented to her people. In the 19th century, she became the soul of, you know, the French nation. Statues of her went up across France. She was invoked by Republicans and royalists alike.

And then in the early 20th century, the far-right action Francaise adopted her as their icon. a Catholic nationalist warrior. But at almost the exact same moment, secular feminists in, like, England and the United States were, like, you know, proclaiming her as this, like, proto-feminist who defied male authority in, like, war men's clothes. And then the Irish playwright, George Bernard Shaw, in 1923,

provocatively called her the first Protestant and the first nationalist. It's kind of crazy. Like, the Catholics wanted her, nationalists wanted her, like, feminists wanted her, far right wanted her. uh like pacifist soldiers in world war one in the trenches had a devotion to her i mean joan didn't fully belong to any of them and i think people are constantly trying to reinterpret her to fit their

narrative her devotion was always first and foremost to god not to any man or woman or political movement or ideology it was to god and everything she did it seems like based off of you know her accounts and from the trial were in pursuit of that goal of appeasing god and she always made that very clear throughout the entire mission. Like in the letters that she dictated to the English before she rode to Orleans, before she had ever even won a battle, she said this, King of England, render a count to the King of Heaven of your royal blood, return the keys of all the good towns you have taken and violated in France to the maid,

and then signed it, Joan the maid. Not Joan the Saint, not Joan the warrior, just, you know, Joan, a girl from Tom Chamee. And she reportedly said at Chenon when she was first met with skepticism that she had been sent to do this. And that if she couldn't get horses and men to go to war with her, that she would just go on foot alone. And history has shown us that she wasn't kidding. Joan would have stopped at nothing too complete to this mission, even if it killed her, which in many ways it kind of did. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick because I want to tell you a scary story.

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And ladies, if you're listening, send your man the link, turn him into a trophy husband, keep them in the house. You know what I mean? A stay-at-home house husband. That's what you want, right? Give it to him and let him lay it down, all right. No awkward timing, no weird pressure, just the confidence you really want. So, discover your options right now at bluechew.com. And we've got a special deal for the listeners of this program. Yes, if you were hearing my voice right now, when you buy two months of bluechew gold, you're going to get a third free with the promo code Gagnon. That's right. The promo code Gagnon, Gagnon, G-G-N-O-N. Visit at bludew.com for more details and important safety information, and we thank Bluechoo for sponsoring this podcast and making this show possible. Now, let's get back to it. Now, everything Joan of Arc did, here's what I think kind of sticks out the most. It's not, you know, the voices, you know, speaking to angels or saints, not the visions, you know, not the, like, the conquest. It's that 600 years later, with every tool that history and science and theology has, we can't fully explain who she was or why. Like, there's a There's a mystery that's still around all of this.

Like, I think it's easier to understand, like, Caesar or Alexander the Great or Napoleon, but Joan, like, is still kind of in, like, this murky kind of liminal area, right? This is, like, a peasant girl goes 300 miles into a war that she has no business being involved in, breaks a seven-month siege that all these captains couldn't figure out, crowns a king who doesn't even believe in himself, and then gets arrested and betrayed, I think, sits in chains and then goes to court, doesn't get vindicated by the guy she just helped, definitely betrayed by him,

and then out argues the sharpest theologians in France until they literally have to cheat in order to convict her. I mean, the whole thing makes no sense. And every era has tried to claim her, right? Like everyone I said before, churches and feminists and Catholics and Protestants, everyone's trying to, like, wear her as a badge. But the truth is Joan wasn't fighting for France

or, you know, for the church or for the people. she was just in her opinion obeying God. So, you know, that's what her M.O. was. And she did nothing that the voices didn't tell her to do according to her own account. And that's why the story never really resolves. Yes, she was brilliant and she was fearless and she was devout. And as a Catholic, I'm like, she's ours. But at the end of the day, she was a girl who heard voices that only she heard and obeyed only those voices. And, you know, after the saints and, you know, the trial and the king and the fire and everything like that, history is still wondering, what is it exactly that Joan heard and why? And that, ladies and gentlemen, is an abridged history of Joan of Arc.

This is a fun little history camp to kind of turn into a little bit there, you know what I'm saying? As a Catholic, I like to say Joan of Arc is our gal, you know, I ride with Joan of Arc, and she represents us, specifically the French-slash-French-Canadian Catholic Coalition. Do you believe she spoke to God or? Nope. Really? I believe she spoke to Michael the Archangel and two saints that were martyred. Okay.

For her account. Gotcha. But yes. I mean, as a Catholic, I just choose or except on faith. They're like, yeah, this happened. I don't have any other evidence. I've never talked to an angel. But I just, I like the story.

So I say, sure, I believe it. I didn't realize how indestructible she was, getting hit by a cannonball or, and then an arrow in the shoulder and the head. Yeah. Which I thought was like, there's got to be a superhero based on her. And there are several. What we were talking about? Some historians note that her leadership inspired Wonder Woman.

Wow. There's also Officer Joan Dark in Top Ten. Oh. And then several manga and anime characters. Also the miraculous tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir loosely based on Joan of Arc. Now, an interesting detail is this here. And this comes from one of Joan of Arc's. own words from St.john ofart.com. When I was at Tours or at Chinon, I sent to seek a sword

which was in the church of St. Catherine of Fervoir behind the altar, and it was found at once all covered with rust. Now, people say, how did she know the sword was behind the altar? The sword was in the earth, all rusty, and there were upon it five crosses, and I knew it by my voices. I wrote to the prelates of the place that if they please, I should have the sword, and they sent it to me. It was not very deep under the ground behind the altar, as it seems to me, but I do not know exactly whether it was before or behind the altar. After the sword was found, the prelates of the place had it rubbed, and once the rust fell from it without difficulty, there was an arms merchant of Tours who went to seek it, and the prelates of that place gave me a sheath, and those of Tours also with them.

he had two sheaths made for me, one of red velvet, the other of cloth of gold, and I myself had made another one of strong leather, but when I was captured, it was not that sword, which I had. I always wore that sword until I had withdrawn from St. Denis after the assault against Paris. So literally, she gets voices and says, hey, the sword you have to take in a battle is hidden behind the altar of St. Catherine, who was talking to her by her own account. And then she goes into the church of St. Catherine, goes behind the altar, finds the sword, finds the sword and then that's the one that she carries into battle. Now it says here from joan of arc.com,

the story of how Joan found her sword is perhaps the most intriguing connection to the story. According to her own words, the voices instructed her as to the whereabouts behind the altar of St. Catherine. Joan had a great devotion to Catherine, so it's no surprise that the sword came from the church, which was dedicated to her. And the fact that it was found right behind the altar buried is not altogether unusual.

It was common practice in that day for soldiers to leave their swords or armor as an offering of Thanksgiving after battle. legends abound as to who might have left a sword. One is that it belonged to Charles Martel, the grandfather of Charlemagne, who halted the Muslim invasion of Europe. There are two versions of this legend. One is that Charles Martel founded the church of St. Catherine de Farbois, and that he had secretly buried his sword for the next person whom God would choose to find it and save France. The other is that he left it there as an offering after his victory at Tours. I mean, pretty crazy. The sword found at St. Catherine of Fairbue was not her only sword.

she had been given another at Vecule, and another she had taken from a Burgundian soldier. When the judge's questioner about it and the whereabouts of the sword from St. Catherine of Fervois, because they certainly didn't want any relics of Joan of Arc floating around, she refused to provide an answer saying that it did not concern the case. The only information that she would give was that it was lost and that her brothers had the rest of her goods. When pressed about her own offering of swords and armor at St. Denise, she answered that she had not offered the sword from St. Catherine of Fervois.

Crazy. Is that not wild? Yeah. I mean, she's a legend. This is a G, right? And I get why the feminists are trying to take her, but if you want to take Joan of Arc as a feminist, you also have to submit to the will of God. Those are the rules. You can be like, hey, Joan of Arc, rah, ra, she wore pants. That's awesome. But also, go to church, pray a rosary, take the sacrament, get confession.

That's how hilarious. It was charged for wearing men's clothing. Yeah, that is maybe the funniest part of the whole thing. She's like, first off, you're a heretic

listening to the devil. While we're at it, why are you dressed like a good dude? Like the fact that they made it like a Bandit Lake Beckham situation? I think it was more like let's charge her

with being a cross-dresser. Yeah. Yeah. Which is the rule broken. But isn't Bendett Lake Beckham? You've seen that movie. Yeah. She dresses up like a dude?

No. Is that on it? No. I think you're thinking of you're the man. or she's the man with Amanda Bines. That's what I'm thinking of. Just redact that from the record.

We'll cut that. Also, Moulon. I've never seen Moulon. Moulon's got to be based on this. Maybe it didn't come up in the research. I mean, come on, dude. Like a woman that wants to go to battle and dresses like a dude in order to blend in.

I haven't seen Milan in probably 20 years, but there's definitely some overlap. Sure. I mean, Google doesn't think... What does Google know? This is a Protestant, propaganda from Google trying to obscure the Catholic greatness, all right? Anyway, what do you guys think? Shout out to Joan of Arc, first off. If you've never heard of the story, I would love to

know what your thoughts are. If you're a historian and you know more than me, I would love to know if there's anything I missed or overlooked, I don't intend or, you know, mean to do that. So I apologize if I missed anything. I'm not a historian myself, just a comedian with a Wi-Fi connection. Anyway, God bless you all. Thank you so much for tuning into another episode of History Camp. I appreciate you all dearly, and I will see you in the future to talk about the past. Please.