User:James F. Perry/Draft
Nota Bene - the following is a draft page for CZ articles which I am working on - a personal Sandbox, if you will. Please do not delete! James F. Perry 09:22, 3 June 2007 (CDT)
Joan's voices and visions
The subject of the nature and origin of the voices and visions which Joan of Arc experienced has been of intense interest not only to her contemporaries, but to scholars, religious figures, and students of history all the way down to modern times.
Religious figure
Saint
May 8, 1869: formal proceedings leading to Joan's canonization begun with a petition to Rome by Felix Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans
1909: Beatification of Joan by Pope Pius X
In 1920, the Roman Catholic Church completed the process of canonization of Joan of Arc when Pope Benedict XV formally declared her to be a Saint of the Church.
Heretic / witch
In her own day, the question of Joan's voices and visions was addressed through the perspective of religion, with the main question being the origin of her experiences. Many, including the English who captured her, were of no doubt that the experiences had their source in the work of the Devil and that Joan, in refusing to renounce them, was a heretic.
Feminist icon
The image of a strong female leader has proved irresistable to modern-day feminists.
The triggering incident which led to Joan's being burnt at the stake was her donning of male attire while in prison. As a result, she has become a hero to many in the LGBT community for her seeming challenge to gender role stereotypes.
- Question: Did God order you to wear a man's dress?
- Joan: The dress is a small, nay, the least thing. I did not put on man's dress by the advice of any man whatsoever; I did not put it on, nor did I do aught, but by the command of God.
- Question: Did this commmand to assume male attire seem lawful to you?
- Joan: Everything I have done is at God's command; and if He had ordered me to assume a different habit, I should have done it, because it would have been his command.
National heroine / war leader
Although the term was not in use at the time, Joan has become one of the prototypes of a national liberation struggle leader. As such, she has been evoked iin support of such causes through the years in many different countries. In particular, she was applealed to as an inspirational figure in both the first and second World Wars, sometimes on both sides of the struggle.
Psychoanalytic case study
Among the scientific, or naturalistic explanations of Joan's experiences, are many of a psychological nature, as for example, that she was a schizophrenic, or hysteric, or suffering side effects of anorexia.
Religious reformer
Joan's experiences, exhibiting as they do, a direct communication with the Divine, thus by-passing the extablished hierarchy of the Church, have led to her not only being suspect by those operating within that extablished order, but being cited as an example of a precurser of the Protestant Reformation. This in spite of the fact that she, during her career, once wrote a letter condemming the Hussites, who were considered a pre-Protestant grouping.
see G.B. Shaw's Preface to his play Saint Joan
Political prisoner
The Trial of Joan of Arc raises several questions of great relevance to modern civil libertarians, including:
- right to remain silent
- right to a trial by one's peers
- right of judicial appeal
- no torture or the threat thereof
- no secret trials
- right to legal counsel and representatiøn
- improper police proceedures (the surreptitous spying on Joan during confession)
see The Right to Remain Silent . . .' by Henry Ansgar Kelly in Speculum 68 (1993), p 992-1020