Summary:
Joan of Arc earned her sainthood through her leadership of French patriots against the English occupation of France, for which she would pay with her life. This testament to Joan of Arc's life examines four aspects of her personality that made her an inspiration to the French people: courage and strength, honesty, skill and expertise, and willingness to take risks.
Joan of Arc is a Saint who lived from the year 1412 until the 30th of May 1431. Joan was a heroine and hailed from France. Joan of Arc received much attention due to her apparent visions that God provided her with, warning of events to come and showing her the divine path to victory as she had been chosen to prevail by God himself. Joan lived for a short time during the period of the Hundred Years' War in France when England attempted to conquer all of France. The war encompassed the years between 1337-1453, over a century of battle. Joan led the French patriots against the English occupation of France, and her fellow collaborators believed that she had been chosen by God to lead their cause. Whether or not this was true will remain a question for the ages, but one thing is known, that is the fact that Joan of Arc was absolutely a leader, and if she made the people believe in something that was merely a façade, then so be it. The history shows that it was successful, it would take 22 years after Joan's death but the French would eventually repel the English invaders. Joan provided the French patriots with their most favourable ally, hope. Joan told her soldiers that she had seen visions and these visions and voices told her what to do and when to do it in order to win the day. The resistance was victorious due to Joan's visions and the resistance developed a strong belief in these visions. The struggle for the French throne and control of France is complicated during this time period and the loyalties of the French citizenry is very much blurred and uncertain. There was a great deal of division and loyalty towards the English occupation within France and maintaining a strong, defiant and organized military repose to the English invasion was not easily accomplished. While other French leaders before her had used Procrustean measures to ensure compliance, Joan of Arc was more of a natural leader and used her spirituality to ensure victories in battle. Joan of Arc is truly a remarkable character in the history of the world, and it is fascinating to envision a woman way ahead of her time exhibiting amazing feats of heroism and behaving in such a liberated manner hundreds of years before women were even granted permission to vote. This testament to Joan of Arc's accomplishments and short but eventful life will highlight the following qualities Joan possessed: 1) Courage and Strength, 2) Honesty, 3) Skill, expertise, intelligence 4) Risk taking.
Joan of Arc exhibited signs of courage and strength so often during her short life that it is hard to believe that she was such a young person. Joan approached King Charles VII, yet uncrowned to ask permission to fight against the English oppressors when most others of her age, and almost assuredly all women of her age were for the most part accepting the English occupation of their country and giving in to their fate. Joan fought in many battles, often leading the charge. Joan was wounded alongside her soldiers in battle more than once. Joan had no education nor experience in battle yet she voluntarily threw herself in harm's way to defend her freedom and country. Joan's battle hardiness is not her only proof of courage, her devotion to her country and her willingness to be so different than other women of her time period are steadfast evidence of this quality also. A woman in medieval times who stood up to not only common men, but also to King's and armies is extraordinary and although she was given the opportunity to comply at the end of her life, her convictions, strength and above all else, her courage prevailed and she stayed course even though she was to be assassinated for heresy for her statements in regards to visions from God. Joan very easily could have saved her own life by denouncing her stories of visions, yet she maintained those reports to be true and in return was burned at the stake. This illustrates great courage and great strength.
Joan of Arc's religious convictions cannot be questioned. Joan's piety towards her principles are beyond reproach and serve as proof of her character. Joan's honesty towards her ideals in Christianity are evident in her refusal to denounce statements that she had been contacted by God to help free her country from the occupying military forces from England. When faced with a pyre of flames set to engulf her, Joan stood her ground and her scrupulously honest ethics in regards to her own religious beliefs prevailed and she chose to maintain her faith in God and die at the hands of her oppressors instead of recanting her earlier statements in regards to her alleged heresy.
It is almost trivializing the obvious by discussing Joan of Arc's God blessed skill, expertise and intelligence. There is no logical explanation for Joan's abilities on the field of battle. No one, except those that have been there can speak of the incredible horrors and depravities that the senses of the combatants of war are exposed to on such a grand and monumental scale during actual battle action. Normal people will see the first morbid sight before them and freeze in terror, and perhaps run screaming from the field. Imagine then, the experiences of Joan of Arc, a teenaged girl watching these types of events unfurl around her. Take into consideration the factor that Joan had no military training and the fact that physical strength was a huge obstacle for her when fighting bigger, stronger, professional male soldiers with much experience in the art of swordsmanship and slaying of soldiers of opposing armies. Just the swords used in Medieval times alone weighed many pounds and must have been almost debilitating and exhausting enough to carry on horseback over many miles much less to swing and cut into steel armour and bone and more so when the same is swinging a sword back at you. It is both frightening and awe inspiring to envision a teenage female in a time when women were kept in servitude to men and held as possessions by their husbands on a battlefield with the option of leaving, voluntarily staying and actively participating, and winning hand to hand battles with men stronger and more accustomed to the homicidal tasks at hand. Envision Joan of Arc staring into the eyes of a young English soldier riding at full gallop towards her on a horse, sword at ready and the cold look of someone fully intent on taking her young life, even though she has never laid eyes upon him before. You can imagine her thinking to herself, Why is he going to kill me, he doesn't know me? I know I must kill or be killed right now and for what? Can I actually do it? Will my sword merely bounce off him, and infuriate him to want to kill me more? Can I try talking to him instead, maybe then he won't kill me? A quick glance to the left as she hears a scream of unimaginable pain from a good friend with whom she laughed and spoke with the previous night, watching his head roll off the end of an opponents sword onto the ground to be galloped over by a horse and crushed into an unrecognizable lump pushed into the mud by a hoof, both eyes dislodged from their sockets and dangling by their cords still open and staring wide open in absolute terror back at her. The torso still perched upon his horse, now headless and spurting blood, revealing a jagged, ripped cut and hole where her friends head once sat, now squirming around in the saddle as if alive in the stirrups, but not yet realizing that he is dead and without a head writhes in it's final death throes. Joan is at that instant bathed in her own friends warm blood and it temporarily blinds her as it covers her entirely. She opens her eyes slightly to see the wide open, glaring maniacal eyes of the oncoming soldier hell bent on doing the same thing to her. Joan ducks under his sword and he kicks her hard in her face with his steel armoured shoe, jarring all her teeth loose, and knocking her from her horse without the ability to breathe, and unable to focus her eyes due to her dizziness and her friends warm blood covering her from head to toe. Joan shrieks in absolute horror and suddenly realizes she is dead already and might as well fight because her end is inevitable as was her friends whose brains she wears on her armoured breast plate. Joan cannot feel anything now, her sword has been knocked from her hand during the fall from her horse, she runs back towards where she fell to retrieve her sword and is knocked to the ground by the flying torso of her friend tossed loose from the saddle by his horse as it frantically tries to jar the lifeless body from its back to stop the seemingly endless mess of blood spilled all over its head and back. She is now face first in a puddle of what she thinks is mud, but soon realizes that the massive puddle is actually comprised of warm steaming stomachs, spleens, arms, legs, blood and guts. How much time has gone by? A minute, two, maybe three? Her heart feels like it will come through her chest, her eyes are now the size of saucers, every sense in her body is at full alert, she feels like she will explode and time seems to stop completely and everything around her is in slow motion, she hears a high pitched whining in her ears like someone is blowing a whistle in her head, she can see a figure coming towards her, she knows this is the person who is going to kill her, yet she feels like she cannot move, frozen by terror, the blow to the head, the shock of the events around her when suddenly something overcomes her, this is what separates the dead from the alive, it is what made Joan of Arc, Joan of Arc, Skill, expertise and intelligence. Joan is now on auto pilot, she quickly grabs her sword, and with everything she can muster and with great hate and all the emotion of the previous moments swings her sword at the oncoming horseman, striking his arm holding the sword and completely severing his arm at the shoulder, the armoured plate still on the arm falling to the ground with the hand still clutching the sword that almost ended Joan's life. The one armed man, now on the ground screaming for his life and in complete agony after having his arm dismembered looks at Joan, and their eyes meet, two strangers now adversaries locked in a life or death battle. Joan's skill, expertise and intelligence now completely take over, she knows she must do this quickly, as he will soon get up, or one of his allies will come by and take her out. Joan slices the sword as hard as she can at the soldiers throat and decapitates him in an instant, the head rolls from his body and more blood is spilled and Joan is now completely bathed in blood, the headless body tightens up, the remaining hand clenches for the final time, even as the head stops rolling, and Joan vomits all over the pile of what once was humanity and before she can think a moment longer, the whole episode begins anew. This is the reality of the world of Joan of Arc, it is easy to sugar coat what Joan of Arc was, to picture a pretty young girl in the prime of her life atop her horse in clean uniform striding victoriously into captured forts and preaching the word of God, but the reality was far worse than that, and in order to survive in her reality Joan of Arc was absolutely a genius at the arts of Battle skills, expertise and in raw intelligence. Joan had no experience to fall back on nor did she have formal training, yet she had the wherewithal and intelligence to convince King Charles VII to allow her to lead an army and God given skill and expertise to survive in a horrible, ruthless mans world of blood and guts.
Joan of Arc was a master risk taker, she showed this ability from the very beginning. Joan manipulated an opportunity to see King Charles VII, and took full advantage of the opportunity by winning the Kings' blessing to lead an army against the English. At this point in history, a woman didn't merely hold court with the King and attempt to pull a fast one on him and expect to live. These Kings were merciless and would have thought nothing of beheading Joan if he felt she was a heretic or trying to fool him somehow. This shows great daring and risk taking ability. In battle, Joan relied heavily on her visions and took action as she felt her visions told her to. This would work in Joan's favour as her ability to take risks would pay off for her time and again. Joan took a risk every time she entered a battle, she accepted this willingly, she took further risks with strategy time and again, and this also worked out on every occasion as she won battle after battle. Joan of Arc would be known as a master risk taker, but also a master of risk vs. good judgement as things always worked out for her.
In closing, Joan of Arc was an amazing human being and a pioneer for women's rights long before the term even existed. Joan was indeed a Saint in that she helped to free France from English occupation, she solidified French resistance fighters and set the country on a course that would see it free of the influence of England 22 years after her death. The portrayal of Joan of Arc has been candy covered for centuries now, the fact remains that as previously illustrated Joan of Arc's life was a horrible, ruthless and terrifying reality. Joan was probably hallucinating and having awful nightmares when she saw visions due to the tremendous stress placed on her and the effects of post traumatic stress disorder she had to have been experiencing. Regardless, Joan of Arc is an inspiration to all, even today as it cannot be disputed that she was very brave indeed and possessed all the qualities of courage, strength, honesty, skill, expertise, intelligence, and risk taking. Joan may very well have seen visions, there is proof of that in her success ratio after having visions. Joan led several successful campaigns after having visions, and this is indisputable. The more likely scientific reality though is explainable in the description of what a battle would have been like for Joan of Arc, a fact that no one can dispute. This was a terrible time in human history, and these events really occurred to real people, and it would be hard to imagine for one second a teenaged girl living through this and remaining normal. Joan of Arc most likely welcomed death at the stake after she had seen the realities of war at far too young an age.
