Status Updates From Joan of Arc: A Life From Be...

It took years for Charles to achieve his aim of having the Church that had condemned Joan to admit that the trial had been fraudulent and that Joan should never have been put to death. A lengthy investigation into the proceedings that came to be known as the Trial of Rehabilitation came to an end in 1454 when Joan was finally, publicly cleared of heresy.

Every action Joan took that convinced the French she was a virgin savior sent by God, in turn, convinced the English that she was a powerful witch sent by the devil.

With Joan at their side, it had taken the French just three days to end the seven-month siege of Orléans. Joan had passed her first test and delivered all she had promised and more. Joan had given the people of Orléans hope and raised the spirits of those fighting, inspiring them to show courage fitting to those with God on their side.

At that time it was widely believed that virginity offered proof that a woman could not be a witch as a witch would have lost her virginity during the course of her pact with the devil. This belief left any unmarried woman vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft.

By the time Joan was born in 1412, France had already endured seventy-five years of occupation by the English and was now enthusiastically destroying itself in civil war.

The living incarnation of a centuries-old prophecy that France would be ruined by a woman and saved by a virgin from the marshes of Lorraine.

Joan’s voices were a secret at first, but as the years passed the demands of the voices became more urgent. Not only must Joan live a good life, remain a virgin, and work to please God, but she must also take up arms, rally the French nation to defeat the English occupying army, and put the Dauphin Charles on the French throne.

◾The English knew that Joan had been pierced by an arrow in battle and took her speedy recovery as proof that she was a powerful witch.
◾Every action Joan took that convinced the French she was a virgin savior sent by God, in turn, convinced the English that she was a powerful witch sent by the devil.

◾“No evil is to be found in her, only goodness, humility, virginity, devotion, honesty, and simplicity.”—Findings of the first interrogation of Joan of Arc
◾At that time it was widely believed that virginity offered proof that a woman could not be a witch as a witch would have lost her virginity during the course of her pact with the devil. This belief left any unmarried woman vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft.

◾Must go,” she said, “because it is my Lord’s will.”
◾Joan’s cutting of her hair was both a practical move and symbolic act. In medieval times, young unwed women never cut their hair and wore it loose and uncovered in public as a signal of their availability to potential husbands.
◾“No evil is to be found in her, only goodness, humility, virginity, devotion"

◾Joan of Arc was born in January 1412 to a life of provincial simplicity.
◾The Voices in Joan’s Head “‘Be good,’ it had said, and ‘go to church often.’”
◾The first time Joan heard a voice from God was in the summer of 1425. Joan was in her father’s garden.
◾She realized that she was the chaste virgin of the marshes of Lorraine and it was her destiny to restore France to glory.