Thousands of words have been expended in the attempt to explain what Joan called her “voices,” everything from schizophrenia to the effects of moldy wheat, but explanations of her voices that might satisfy a modern reader are irrelevant. Joan believed that God conveyed his will to her by means of external voices. Whatever the source or nature of Joan’s voices, the only thing that matters in her story is that she and her enemies did what they did because of them. Her voices sent her to the aid of Charles VII. And her voices sent her to the stake.
Joan was about 13 years old the first time she heard the voices, according to her testimony at her trial in 1431:
. . . the first time I was very fearful. And came this voice, about the hour of noon, in the summer-time, in my father’s garden. . . I heard the voice on the right-hand side, towards the church; and rarely do I hear it without a brightness.
At first the voices told Joan to be a good girl. Later they began to tell her that she must “go into France.” Although Lorraine later became a French province, in Joan’s day it was considered a separate country.
As far as anyone knows, Joan told no one about her voices until she was ready to embark on her mission. The fact that she didn’t immediately tell a priest about them would be held against her later. In most popular versions of Joan’s story, the voices are identified as belonging to the archangel Michael and Saints Catherine and Margaret only, but Joan also attributed the voices to Saint Agnes, Saint Louis, Charlemagne, and the angel Gabriel. Some historians speculate that until her judges subjected her to intense questioning, Joan had only a vague idea of who was speaking to her. Her only certainty was that they were from God.
Joan’s voices did not have the effect of separating her from village or family life. More than 20 years after her death, witnesses testified to Joan’s ability to make friends and maintain relationships. She left home against her parents’ wishes but made up with them by means of letters. In July 1429, father, mother, and several villagers made the 93-mile journey from Domremy to Reims to witness Joan’s triumph at the coronation of Charles VII. The greatest reward she received from King Charles VII for her services benefited not herself, but the inhabitants of Domremy and Greux: in July 1429, the king granted the villagers freedom from taxation “in perpetuity,” a privilege that endured for 360 years before being terminated by the antimonarchists of the French Revolution.
Joan’s extended family included an uncle who was a roofer and another who was a priest. She was close to her cousins and to her many godparents. The first person she told about her divine mission was Durand Laxart, the husband of one of her cousins. She referred to him as her “uncle.” It was Lax-art who escorted Joan to Vaucouleurs and looked after her interests while she was there.
Joan’s life in Domremy followed the pattern of any peasant girl. Her mother was her chief teacher, instructing her in spinning, sewing, and other household skills. Although frequently referred to as a “shepherdess,” both in her lifetime
And later, Joan made it clear at her trial that minding animals had not been her chief function while she still lived at home. She was proud of her mastery of women’s work. From her mother, Joan learned to recite the Pater Noster, the Ave Maria, and the Credo, but not the alphabet. According to her own statement, when she left home in 1429 she didn’t know “A from B.” Her signature on surviving letters shows that she did learn to write her name, and she may have learned to read during her lengthy captivity in the home of John of Luxembourg. During her trial in 1431, she asked to take a transcript back to her cell.
As atypical as many of Joan’s actions were, she could not have traveled far without a male escort. Laxart accompanied her to Vaucouleurs on her first attempt to gain the governor’s help in 1428, and again in 1429. When she grew impatient of waiting for official approval, Laxart was even prepared to take her to the king’s court at Chinon.
World History
