Joan of Arc and Spirituality (The New Middle Ages) [1st ed. 2003] 9781349731534, 9781137069542, 1349731536

Table of contents :
Cover
Title
Copyright
Contents
Table of Illustrations
Joan of Arc and Spirituality
Part 1 Joan's Own Spirituality
1. The Mortal Body as Divine Proof: A Spiritual-Physical Blazon of Joan of Arc
2. The Virgin Mary and the "Voices" of Joan of Arc
3. Saint Joan and Confession: Internal and External Forum
4. Joan of Arc and Lex Privata: A Spirit of Freedom in the Law
5. Joan of Arc's Call to Crusade
Part 2 Clerical Perceptions of Joan's Spirituality in Her Own Time
6. Jeanne and the Clergy
7. Gerson Judging Women of Spirit: From Female Mystics to Joan of Arc
8. A Reconsideration of Jean Gerson's Attitude toward Joan of Arc in Light of His Views on Popular Devotion
9. Jean Gerson, the Shulammite, and the Maid
Part 3 Joan's Secular Contemporaries
10. Christine de Pizan's Ditie de]ehanne d'Arc: History, Feminism, and God's Grace
11. En l'honneur de Ia Pucelle: Ritualizing Joan the Maid in Fifteenth-Century Orlèans
Part 4 Joan as Model
12. The Princess and the Maid of Orleans: Sculpting Spirituality during the July Monarchy
13. Le Triomphe de l'humilité: Therésè of Lisieux and "la nouvelle Jeanne"
14. Force or Fragility? Simone Weiland Two Faces of Joan of Arc
15. She Gets Inside your Head: Joan of Arc and Contemporary Women's Spirituality
Contributors

Citation preview

THE NEW MIDDLE AGES BONNIE WHEELER, Series Editor The New Middle Ages presents transdisciplinary studies of medieval cultures. It includes both scholarly monographs and essay collections.

PUBLISHED BY PALGRAVE: Women in the Medieval Islamic l#rld: Power, Patronage, and Piety edited by Gavin R. G. Hambly The Ethics of Nature in the Middle Ages: On Boceacdo's Poetaphysics by Gregory B. Stone Presence and Presentation: !#men in the Chinese Literati Tradition by Sherry]. Mou T1ze Lost Love Letters if Heloise and Abelard: Perceptions of Dialogue in Twelfth-Century France by Constant]. Mews Understanding Scholastic Thought with Foucault by Philipp W Rosemann For Her Good Estate: The Life if Elizabeth de Burgh by Frances A. Underhill Constructions of Widowhood and Virginity in the Middle Ages edited by Cindy L. Carlson and Angela Jane Weisl Motherhood and Mothering in Anglo-Saxon England by Mary Dockray-Miller Listening to Heloise: The Voice if a Twelfth- Century Woman edited by Bonnie Wheeler The Postcolonial Middle Ages edited by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen Chaucer's Pardoner and Gender Theory by Robert S. Sturges

Crossing the Bridge: Comparative Essays on Medieval European and Heian japanese !#men Writers edited by Barbara Stevenson and Cynthia Ho Engaging Words: The Culture of Reading in the Later Middle Ages by Laurel Amtower Robes and Honor: The Medieval World Investiture edited by Stewart Gordon

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Representing Rape in Medieval and Early Modern Literature edited by Elizabeth Robertson and Christine M. Rose Same Sex Love and Desire Among Women in the Middle Ages edited by Francesca Canade Sautman and Pamela Sheingorn Sight and Embodiment in the Middle Ages: Ocular Desires by Suzannah Biernoff Listen Daughter: The Speculum virginum and the Formation of Religious !#men in the Middle Ages edited by Constant]. Mews Science, the Singular, and the Question Theology by Richard A. Lee,Jr.

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Gender in Debate from the Early Middle Ages to the Renaissance edited by Thelma S. Fenster and Clare A. Lees

Malory's Morte Darthur: Remaking Arthurian Tradition by Catherine Batt The Vernacular Spirit: Essays on Medieval Religious Literature edited by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Duncan Robertson, and Nancy Warren Popular Piety and Art in the Late Middle Ages: Image Worship and Idolatry in England 135{}-1500 by Kathleen Kamerick Absent Narratives, Manuscript Textuality, and Literary Structure in Late Medieval England by Elizabeth Scala Creating Community with Food and Drink in Merovingian Gaul by Bonnie Effi-os Representations of Early Byzantine Empresses: Image and Empire by Anne McClanan Encountering Medieval Textiles and Dress edited by Desiree G. Koslin and Janet Snyder Eleanor ofAquitaine: Lord and Lady edited by Bonnie Wheeler and John Carmi Parsons

Isabel La Cat6lica, Queen of Castile edited by David A. Boruchoff Homoeroticism and Chivalry: Discourses of Male Same-Sex Desire in the Fourteenth Century by Richard Zeikowitz Portraits of Medieval Women: Family, Marriage, and Politics in England 1225-1350 by Linda E. Mitchell Eloquent Virgins: From Thecla to Joan of Arc by Maud Burnett Mcinerney The Persistence of Medievalism: Narrative Adventures in Contemporary Culture by Angela Jane Weisl Capetian Women edited by Kathleen Nolan Joan ofArc and Spirituality edited by Ann Astell and Bonnie Wheeler The Texture of Society: Medieval Women in the Southern Low Countries edited by Ellen E. Kittell and Mary A. Suydam

JOAN OF ARC AND SPIRITUALITY Edited by Ann WAs tell and Bonnie Ulheeler

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jOAN OF ARC AND SPIRITUALITY

©Ann W. Astell and Bonnie Wheeler, 2003 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2003 978-1-4039-6222-5 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. First published 2003 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN™ 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin's Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-73153-4 ISBN 978-1-137-06954-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-137-06954-2 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data joan of Arc and spirituality/edited by Ann W. Astell and Bonnie Wheeler. p.cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. joan, of Arc, Saint, 1412-1431.2. Spirituality-France-HistoryTo 1500. 3. Christian women saints-France-Biography. I. Astell. Ann W. II. Wheeler, Bonnie, 1944DC103.J629 2003 282'.092-dc21

2003050576

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: December, 2003 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Transferred to Digital Printing 2011

CONTENTS Vll

Table of Illustrations Joan of Arc and Spirituality Ann WAs tell and Bonnie Wheeler

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Part 1 Joan's Own Spirituality 1. The Mortal Body as Divine Proof: A Spiritual-Physical Blazon of Joan of Arc Nadia Margolis 2. The Virgin Mary and the "Voices" ofJoan of Arc Ann WAstell 3. Saint Joan and Confession: Internal and External Forum Henry Ansgar Kelly 4. Joan of Arc and Lex Privata: A Spirit of Freedom in the Law Jane Marie Pinzino 5. Joan of Arc's Call to Crusade Kelly De Vries

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Part 2 Clerical Perceptions of Joan's Spirituality in Her Own Time 6. Jeanne and the Clergy George H. Tavard 7. Gerson Judging Women of Spirit: From Female Mystics to Joan ofArc Deborah Fraioli 8. A Reconsideration of Jean Gerson's Attitude toward Joan of Arc in Light of His Views on Popular Devotion Yelena Mazour-Matusevich 9. Jean Gerson, the Shulammite, and the Maid Brian Patrick McGuire

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CONTENTS

Part 3 Joan's Secular Contemporaries 10. Christine de Pizan's Ditie de]ehanne d'Arc: History, Feminism, and God's Grace Heather M. Arden 11. En l'honneur de Ia Pucelle: Ritualizing Joan the Maid in Fifteenth-Century Orleans Vicki L. Hamblin

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Part 4 Joan as Model 12. The Princess and the Maid of Orleans: Sculpting Spirituality during the July Monarchy Nora M. Heimann 13. Le Triomphe de l'humilite: Therese of Lisieux and "la nouvelle Jeanne" Denise L. Despres 14. Force or Fragility? Simone Weiland Two Faces of Joan of Arc Ann Pirruccello 15. She Gets Inside your Head: Joan of Arc and Contemporary Women's Spirituality Anne Llewellyn Barstow

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Contributors

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TABLE OF ILLUSTRATIONS

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Our Lady ofBermont. Courtesy of Jean Frisk, Marian Library, University of Dayton Albrechtsaltar, Stiftsmuseum, Klosterneuberg, Austria. Courtesy of the Curator, Stiftsmuseum Shrine Madonna, Erzbischi:ifliches Domand Dii:izesanmuseum, Vienna. Courtesy of the Erzbischi:ifliches Dom- and Dii:izesanmuseum Stained-glass window, Basilica at Domremy. Courtesy of Jean Frisk, Marian Library, University of Dayton Ary Scheffer, Princess Marie d'Orleans in her Studio, ca. 1838. Oil on fabric. The Cleveland Museum of Art. Photo courtesy of the Shepherd Gallery, New York Marie d'Orleans,Joan ofArc in Prayer, ca. 1834-36, cast in 1840, bronze, Orleans: Hotel Groslot (former Hotel de Ville). Photo courtesy of Nora M. Heimann Edme-Etienne-Franyois Gois.fils,Joan of Arc in Battle, ca. 1801-04, Orleans: Place Dauphine. Photo courtesy of Nora M. Heimann Photograph of Saint Therese as Joan of Arc. Reproduced with the permission of the Office Central de Lisieux

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olitics, piety, and militancy are often intermingled. We observe this in our own time (often to our pain),just as we note it in figures from the past. This intermingling is one of the more unusual and widely noted characteristics of Joan of Arc (1412?-31). Joan of Arc is an unusual saint. Canonized in 1920 as a virgin, she died in 1431 as a condemned heretic. Uneducated and youthful, she obeyed "voices" that counseled her to pursue an unprecedented militant vocation. This collection explores multiple facets of Joan's prayerful life. Two-thirds of our chapters consider Joan in her own time. Her various trial documents provide a rich and tantalizing range of evidence about ways in which Joan understood her spiritual life as well as ways in which it was understood by others. Joan also figures in lively late medieval debates about spiritual discernment and about the expression and control of popular religion, and the middle chapters consider these matters. The later chapters merely hint at the broad spectrum of postmedieval receptions of La Pucelle by women writers, artists, and saints, while the final chapter presents responses by contemporary women who find Joan a force in their own lives. Taken together, these essays offer new perspectives on the heroism of Joan's original way of sanctity. How can we see the spiritual in the militant Joan of Arc? What forms of piety have been provoked by reflecting on the Maid of Orleans, who died as a condemned heretic? Though her condemnation in 1431 was retracted in the nullification trial of 1455-56, Joan was not elevated to the status of saint in the Roman Catholic tradition until 1920. Over the long centuries between, Joan's own virtue and piety were treated variously-sometimes dismissed with contempt, sometimes accepted with reverence. Her canonization in the aftermath ofWorld War I was institutionally masked as a reward for her virginity rather than her valor, her martyrdom, or even her status as a "confessor" or "doctor", as many believe her to be. 1 Joan

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herself did not consider her vaunted and oft-tested virginity a virtue or a vocation-it was a temporary necessity rather than a necessarily permanent condition. Most who prize Joan regret this backhanded slap of sanctity, and some hope that other categories of sanctity might be added to her current status. This book continues in the tradition which recognizes that Joan transcends a merely nationalist agenda and has become a global figure of heroic sanctity. Joan shaped her life, mission, and goals at the direction of her "heavenly voices"-the archangel Michael, Saint Margaret, and Saint Catherine. She saw her life as animated by her spirituality: a just war, for her as for all crusaders, was a form of prayer.Yet, as George Tavard reminds us, "it is not easy to place Jeanne la Pucelle in one of the classical schools of spirituality." 2 As the essays in this volume show, there are multiple facets of Joan's prayerful life. We are aware above all of her inward looking in her attention to her spiritual voices; over and over she voices her desire to mold her actions on the basis of her divinely inspired mission. She thus embodies and symbolizes the active consequences of living out (and out of) profound religious faith.

* Inspired by Anne Barstow's survey questions (found in chapter 15 of this volume), we decided that it would be fitting for us as coeditors of this volume to enter into that dialogue by making a brief, personal statement about the importance of Joan of Arc within our own lives. At this point, therefore, our separate voices must be heard. Bonnie writes: I had no interest in Joan of Arc when I was a girl. I thought she was either crazed or fictional or both, and she was certainly on the wrong side of all my secular, democratic, antiwar sentiments. I first became curious about Joan when I began to study seriously the roles of Jean Gerson and Christine de Pizan in the querelle des dames. Though it remains an imaginative speculation, I was intrigued by the question of whether there might be any causal relation between Gerson's death on July 12, 1429 and Christine's composition of the Ditie de]ehanne d'Arc, which she dated July 31, 1429. I wondered whether the proximity of her partisan Gerson's death to Joan's success in Orleans and in leading Charles to his coronation on July 17 of that year inspired Christine to compose her final tribute to female heroism. These two powerful intellectuals helped shape contemporary responses to Joan; they propelled one strain of instant mythologizing that validated her

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status as warrior heroine in biblical and classical traditions. In any case, the intersection of the dates in July is portentous. Only then did I read Joan's trial records. As we all know, those documents are staggering-in all senses. I was entirely swept away by them. In these documents we hear the piercingly clear voice of a young woman whose spirit and psyche are being probed by men who are largely convinced that she is a menace to spiritual and worldly authority. I was startled by Joan's confessional habits of self-examination and her respect for clerical authority, revealed in her initial willingness when on trial to probe her own conscience, to expose her anxieties as well as proclaim her piety. I now read voraciously about Joan and frequently teach a course on Joan to undergraduates, all of whom are older than was Joan when she was burned at the stake (for Ann's and my and other syllabi, see the pedagogy pages on the International Joan ofArc Society's website at http:/ /www.smu.edu/ijas). For me, Joan's spirituality is like the unmentionable elephant-in-theroom: it is impossible to avoid, utterly undeniable, yet inexplicable. Her faith been represented, admitted, and denied in several contradictory fashions. Some of us as scholars are embarrassed by the simple beliefs of the subjects we study; others of us yearn for faith that seems unattainable. Others condescend to or are embarrassed by persons of faith. I am troubled by an academic tendency to dismiss Joan's spirituality as adolescent fantasy since this strikes me as both sexist and ageist. Who is to say that a teenaged girl doesn't have a fully mature spiritual self-understanding? Mystics and maniacs may be closely allied but they are not necessarily identical. Wonderful colleagues, including those whose work is found in this volume (and especially my brilliant coeditor Ann Astell), have generously taught me about Joan, and she fascinates me as Augustine always has: I live inside the questions she provokes if not the answers she provides. As I read and think about Joan, I encounter the limits of my spiritual horizons. Her own intense devotional life sustained her as it sustains others. If I can't quite find her anyplace else, I can't get her out of my head. Ann writes: Like many of Barstow's respondents, I was first drawn to Saint Joan as a teenaged girl. I read The Lark, shortly after viewing a made-for-television movie about Joan ofArc, starring Genevieve Bujold. My identification with Joan was so strong and immediate that I wrote a declamation, based on Joan's speeches to her judges at Rouen, and delivered it onstage before the student body atJeffersonJunior High, playing Joan's part, my hair cut short. A pious and serious girl raised on a farm in Wisconsin, I identified easily with Joan's rural, peasant origins and love of nature. Like her, I could hear

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the church bells ringing the Angelus from across the fields. The sound of their ringing mingled with my adolescent yearning to discover my own calling in life. Joan's short life, intensely lived, confirmed my urgent sense, already as a youth, that each one is granted only a few years on earth, that each day is precious, and that we are not allowed to waste the little time we have; rather, we are obliged to spend it doing good, in keeping with our vocation. Unlike many of the women in Barstow's survey, I have always seen Joan as a saint and a martyr; it is precisely the heroic, religious quality of her spirituality that attracted me as a youth and that still draws me to her. A saint of ardent love and intense prayer, she heard God's call, and she obeyed, come what may, even after the voices fell silent. She let God use her in the world; she withheld nothing from him, neither action nor suffering. For Joan, a radical instrumentality-the lonely fulfillment of her missionbecame a unique way of holiness that assimilated her to Mary and Jesus. What amazes me more today than ever is the spiritual discernment, the charity, and the moral courage that enabled Joan to accept a vocation that was without precedent for a woman-one that exposed her to severe trials, that tested her faith, and that required of her great purity of soul and body. Accepting her vocation, she accepted also her martyrdom, for she knew what her "yes" would cost her. When I became a Schoenstatt Sister of Mary twenty-five years ago, I was happy to discover in the pages of the founding document of the Schoenstatt Movement a reference to Saint Joan of Arc. Speaking at a minor seminary on October 18, 1914, to a group of boys who were soon to be drafted as soldiers in World War I, Fr. Joseph Kentenich ( + 1968) compared the little Schoenstatt Shrine, which was originally dedicated to Saint Michael the Archangel, to the Shrine of Saint Catherine of Fierbois, where the sword of Saint Joan was discovered. Addressing the boys as Saint Michael had once called to Joan of Arc, Fr. Kentenich urged them to take up the spiritual armor of prayer and practice virtue and to place their lives bravely at the service of the Mother of God. As I write these lines, the newspapers are again filled with reports of war. When Bonnie and I began to envision this collection, we could not have foreseen these developments, which suggest a new relevance ofJoan's story for contemporary spirituality. Some will follow Joan as soldiers, some as protesters against war, but no one can rightly claim Saint Joan as a guide who does not act in obedience to the inner voice of conscience, which commands us all. One thing, I think, is sure: the lonely courage of Joan of Arc means that no one who simply follows the crowd can be said to follow her. Joan's discipleship is different.

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Notes 1. See the work of Henry Ansgar Kelly, especially "The Right to Remain Silent: Before and Mter Joan of Arc;' Speculum 68 (1993): 992-1026, and "Joan of Arc's Last Trial: The Attack of the Devil's Advocates," Fresh Verdicts on Joan ifArc, ed. Bonnie Wheeler and Charles T. Wood (New York, Garland, 1996), pp. 205-36. 2. George H. Tavard, "The Spirituality of Saint Joan," in joan if Arc at the University, ed. Mary Elizabeth Tallon (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1997), p. 56 (43-58].

PART ONE JOAN'S OWN SPIRITUALITY

CHAPTER 1 THE MORTAL BODY AS DIVINE PROOF: A SPIRITUAL-PHYSICAL BLAZON OF JOAN OF ARC Nadia Margolis

In this chapter, joan's mortal body is presented as a key facet of her spiritual persona in her cultural reception history, first in terms of a sacramental anatomy linking her to Christ as savior, then in relation to the jleur-de-lis as co-icon sacred to France, and finally as prophetic agent.

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Prologue: "Corps pour corps"

n around March 22, 1429,Joan dictated a challenge, as part of her famous "Letter to the English," urging them to surrender peacefully or suffer dire consequences: "Roy d' Angleterre, se ainsi ne le faictes, je sui chef de guerre, et en quelque lieu que j'actandray voz gens en France, [... ] si ne vuellent obeir,je les feray tous occire;je sui cy envoiee par Dieu, leRoy du Ciel, corps pour corps, pour vous bouter hors de toute France" 1 [King of England, if you do not do so, I am commander of the armies, and wherever I meet your men in France, [... ] should they wish not to obey, I shall have them all killed, every last one,Jor I am sent here by God, King