Joan+of+Arc

= Joan Of Arc, ﻿Not Guilty! = ==== ﻿ ﻿ By: Jillian Cossu ====

Joan of Arc was wrongfully accused.
 **__﻿Interrogation__**- The "Extortion of a confession from an unwilling respondent and application of a pressure, sometimes mental, sometimes physical to facilitate that avowal" (Sullivan, xii).  **__Clip from the Interrogation over the Voices that Spoke to Joan:__** "Did they have hair?" //"It is a comfort to know that they have."// "Was Saint Michael naked?" //"Do you think God has nothing with which to clothe him?"// "Did Saint Margaret speak English?" //"Why would she speak in English when she is not on the English side?"// //__In Her Own Words__, p. 103-105// //[]//  //__Portraits of A Saint__ "Joan of Arc: Her Voices". Sojourn Photography 1999-2005. Accessed site 10-09-2010.//



**__Draft Argument:__**

Joan of Arc is arguably one of the first influential heroines of all time. Her bravery and courage are admired by virtually every woman that is aware of her accomplishments. She was far beyond her time in the way she stood up for herself and her country. She accomplished more than any man during the course of the Hundred Years' War. It is unfortunate that in the fifteenth century women were not given the credit they so deserved. Joan of Arc was a simple woman from a small city in eastern France called Domremy. She is responsible for reversing the course of the Hundred Years’ War and kept France from becoming a colony of the English. Joan of Arc, therefore, deserves the title of a hero. She is truly the Saint, the Maiden, and the Soldier that so many claim her to be. **__<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;">Dramatic Scenes from the 1999 Movie "Joan of Arc" __** Starring LeeLee Sobieski   Music By: "Now We Are Free" From Gladiator Soundtrack

media type="youtube" key="dg2K68vLiXg?fs=1" height="385" width="480" align="center"

<span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: center;">__**<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Revised ﻿ Argument:**__ **__<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">﻿ __** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">My argument is that Joan of Arc was wrongfully accused at her first trial. There is much evidence that she was not acting as a heretic and by her actions did not intentionally conflict with the established dogma. Furthermore, the notaries that were designated to transcribe the trial were ordered by Bishop Cauchon “ to collect. . . the words and confessions of this Joan, to report them back to us orally or in writing, to set the entire trial in due form, and to edit it in writing” (Sullivan, xiv). You see, during this time period the notaries were required to “make certain acts of discrimination” (Sullivan, xvi). Also, the educated clerics were well trained in controlling the interrogation while Joan of Arc was a peasant girl with little education. It is also said that during the Middle Ages, when the Germanic law took precedence over the Roman law in a legal situation judges relied upon judgments from God instead of investigation to establish innocence and guilt in most cases (Sullivan, xx). <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">

**__<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Heresy: __**
Joan of Arc was brought to trial in Rouen in the year 1431. The Maid was tried for Heresy. According to the online Merriam-Webster Dictionary, Heresy is the “adherence to a religious opinion contrary to church dogma”. You see, when Edward III of England claimed the French throne in 1337 and started the Hundred Years’ War, France and England were in conflict over French territory for quite some time to come. There were several skirmishes over the French territory of Aquitaine. When England finally gained control of this territory the French were set on getting it back. After the Treaty of Troyes was signed Charles VI of France and Henry V of England both died and Charles VII declared himself the rightful heir of the throne. However, the French would not accept Charles VII without being crowned in the cathedral in Reims which was English territory at the time. The English then broke the Treaty of Troyes by invading France. Over the course of 1427-1432 Charles VII and the Duke of Burgundy had also engaged in a private war which exhausted the Armagnac military and central France returned to Anarchy (LovetoKnow, Classic Enclycopedia). Without a legitimate ruler to France or established government, there could have not been any established Dogma for the French territory at the time. Therefore, Joan of Arc cannot be tried as a Heretic. The English Catholic Church had no authority over the established religion in the territory of what was France at the time. **__<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Interrogation: __** The New American Webster Dictionary states that the meaning of “question” is “an interrogation; an inquiry; a subject under discussion; a motion to be voted upon”. The word “question” is Latin for questio which is the act of seeking truth. According to Karen Sullivan, “interrogation” is the “extortion of a confession from an unwilling respondent” (xiii). In the early Middle Ages the monks were the ones who filled the ranks of the intellectuals. That being said, the monastery was dominant in society (Sullivan, xviii-xix). All of Joan’s judges and their assistants were graduates from the University of Paris. This put Joan at a great disadvantage during her interrogation as she was just a peasant girl from Domremy, France with little education. The clerics which interrogated her were very established in the study of theology and canon law. They knew how to seek the “truth” in the religious and philosophical sense of the word. To Socrates, “wisdom is to be found in the other to whom they appeal, and that wisdom is to be elicited from this other only through such an act of questioning” (Sullivan, xi). In questioning Joan, they had to “verify their suspicions that she held heterodox views” and judged her on her responses (Sullivan, xv). The judges knew very well that through their questions, they were advancing their claims and when judging and accusing her responses they were condemning not only what she said but also “what she believed” (xv). These judges from the University of Paris were especially educated to investigate through confession and were specialized in the role to prosecute against heresy in Northern France (Sullivan, xxi). The notaries who transcribed the interrogations followed the teachings of an inquisitor named Bernard Gui. In doing so, they left out certain dialogue and only concerned themselves with the material “that seem best to express the truth” (Sullivan, xvi). Therefore, it is important to be familiar with the role the notaries played in transcribing what is read. The clerics or notaries were also well versed in controlling the direction of the questioning. It was the clerics who introduced certain topics to address. They also probably used vocabulary which was unfamiliar to Joan. It is also vital to remember that during the Middle Ages when Germanic Law took precedence over Roman Law in a legal situation judges relied upon judgments from God rather than from direct investigation to establish innocence or guilt in most cases (Sullivan, xx). Furthermore, while reading Joan’s interrogation it is very important to take into consideration how much influence the Catholic Church had on society during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. = **__<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Voices: __** =

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Joan wouldn’t identify the voices she heard at first. Then on February 22, 1431 Joan “refused to specify ‘under what form the voice appeared to her’” (Sullivan, 27). She went under an extensive interrogation and after being asked several times for several days did she then volunteer that the voices came from God. Not only did she confess the voices were from God but she also confessed that the “faces of the voices were crowned with opulent and precious crowns, and that she had had comfort from Saint Michael” (Sullivan, 29). By Joan adding that last bit of information about St. Michael, she was going against the rules of interrogation that specified she only speak specifically in response to the question. Finally, on March 28, 1431 she told the interrogators that “she believed, as firmly as she believes that Our Lord Jesus Christ suffered death for us” the voices were in fact “Saint Michael, Saint Gabriel, Saint Catherine, and Saint Margaret” (Sullivan, 32). The difference between her refusal to confess the voices in the beginning of the trial and then later her spontaneous confession to specific saints may have actually resulted from the clerics’ constant questioning. However, you can’t dismiss her confession of the saints as a result of the constant questioning by the clerics. You have to remember that it was Joan herself that offered this bit of information; that she heard “a voice” and shifted to “voices”. (Sullivan, 30). The priest named Pierre Bouchier, the physician Guillaume de La Chambre, and the usher Jean Massieu all confirmed that Joan did in fact call upon Saint Michael as she faced the stake to which she would burn, “as if she were in the habit of appealing to this angel” (Sullivan, 25). Some historians have questioned whether Joan was sane or not, however, if this were the case then the historian would have to question the sanity of her entire generation (A.S., 417).

According to Dyan Elliott, over the course of the high and later Middle Ages, canon and civil law acted in unison to limit female influence, forcing women “out of the political arena” (26). It is important to note that during the later Middle Ages, around the same time that Joan claimed to hear voices, female mysticism was on the rise in religious life. It makes one wonder whether this rise in mysticism was a direct result of their limited authority in religious and political matters. Or it is easy to conclude that during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries saintliness became more of a personal experience and so led directly to supernatural observances. In particular, it was women that became prominent with these supernatural sightings. In France during the time of the Great Schism, there were a few female visionaries who prophesied their visions to the king thus paving the way for Joan’s own actions a couple years later. It makes one wonder whether these female mystics felt this was the only way they had any influence over any decisions made for a kingdom, almost like their way of getting themselves involved with the current issues which affected them at hand. However, even if these female mystics attracted admiration from the common people they also managed to attract distrust among the church. Caroline Walker Bynum reflects on female mysticism during the late Middle Ages and notes that “Women’s religious role … had come to seem utterly different from man’s religious role as priest, preacher, and leader by virtue of clerical office. And because it was so different, it titillated-and was both encouraged and feared” (Sullivan, 22).

**__<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Article Analysis of Sources: __**
<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Elliott, Dyan. "Seeing Double: John Gerson, the Discernment of Spirits, and Joan of Arc."University of Chicago Press. 107.1 (2002): 26-54. <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Sullivan, Karen. “Introduction”. Interrogation of Joan of Arc. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1999. xii-xxvii. <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">

**__<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #7b097b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">﻿ <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #7b097b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 150%;">﻿ <span style="color: #7b097b; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Sources for Joan of Arc: __** <span style="color: #7b097b; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">1.) Elliott, Dyan, "Seeing Double: John Gerson, the Discernment of Spirits, and Joan of Arc", The American Historical Review, vol. 107, no. 1, (The University of Chicago Press, Feb. 2002), 26-54. <span style="color: #7b097b; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #7b097b; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">[|] []

<span style="color: #7b097b; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">2.) Sullivan, Karen.The Interrogation of Joan of Arc. University of Minnesota Press: 1999. <span style="color: #7b097b; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #7b097b; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">[|] [|Link to book here]

<span style="color: #7b097b; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**3.) The Trial of Joan of Arc**, translated and introduced by Daniel Hobbins, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2005 <span style="color: #7b097b; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> [|Link to the Trial Here]

**__<span style="color: #7b097b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Additional Sources: __** <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">A.S. //The British Medical Journal//, V **__<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">//﻿// __**<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">ol. 2, No. 4211 (BMJ Publishing: Sep. 20, 1941), p. 417 <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">[]

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Freeman, James A. “Joan of Arc: Soldier, Saint, Symbol-of What?”. Journal of Popular Culture. Issue 4 vol. 41 (Aug 2008): 601-634. <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">[|] [|Joan of Arc Article Soldier, Saint, Symbol of What.pdf] Jankowski, Theodora A. “Women in Power in the Early Modern Drama”. __The Power beside the Throne.__ (University of Illinois Press: 1992), P. 80-98. [|Link to Google Book here]

Charles VII of France. LovetoKnow. Classic Encyclopedia.11th edition. 1911. Web. October 8, 2010.

[]

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> **__<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">For a Good Laugh-Reflects the logic of the Midieval Times: __** <span style="color: #7b097b; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;"> media type="youtube" key="zrzMhU_4m-g?fs=1" height="306" width="511" align="center"