Our tour guide doubled as a journalist in the off-season. I hesitate to repeat his comment out of fear that mere mention of it generates on-line chatter about his outlandish theory, no matter how wrong it was. However, I trust intelligent readers to act responsibly, rejecting speculation for the sake of scholarship…
It happened on the way to Rouen on a warm June day. How subtly our guide slipped in his comment that “some say Joan of Arc may not have been a she but rather a he, a son, in the same family.” Wait…Joan of Arc, a man?
For any reader unfamiliar with her, Joan of Arc is a French national heroine from the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453), the on-again-off-again series of campaigns fought by English kings over hereditary and economic territorial claims in France. Fifteenth century France was in political shambles: a strong French family in opposition to a weak French king whose military suffered repeated losses to an invading English army. Enter Joan of Arc – a teenage girl who, inspired by divine command, led the royal French army to victory in key battles that secured the king’s throne and turned the tide against the English. She did so wearing male clothing and a suit of armor, a big no-no for women in her era. In the end, the French won and the English lost, and Joan of Arc was tried and burned at the stake for heresy.
How violated I felt by the guide’s comment!
First, that he had recklessly impregnated his unsuspecting audience with sensationalist conjectures, completely neglecting to mention accepted historical teachings as balance.
Second, that he apparently could not fathom a female being instrumental in French history. When I questioned his sources, he reiterated only the possibility that Joan of Arc had been male.
Never, in all of my years of reading about Joan since 3rd grade, had I ever heard such a statement. Neither, to my knowledge, has any biographer considered the notion that Joan of Arc was male. Even today’s questioners of Joan’s “cross-dressing” and sexual orientation still acknowledge her as being female. The nearest I have found to anything remotely dissociating Joan from being female was a 2009 article suggesting that she had a condition known as complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS), in which the external female parts are present but the internal organs, such as a uterus, are not.
Twice Joan was examined and found to be a virgin with female parts – once by friend and once by foe. None of the political, medical, religious, and sexual perspectives held by today’s readers say otherwise.
In an age of cut-and-paste blogging and misinformation, I, for one, take up the challenge to be as historically accurate as possible. I challenge others to do the same.
TIPS:
famous historical trials from umkc law school: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/ftrials2printable.htm
umkc page specifically for Joan of Arc selected links: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/fTrials/joanofarclinks.html
simulated trial format adapted for the classroom: https://www.sfu.ca/content/dam/sfu/education/cels/pdfs/JoanOfArc.pdf
History Is My Travel Bag 