Episode 4 Joan of Arc: Believed, followed, condemned, executed, sanctified

Guided by visions she believed came from God, she rose from obscurity to military leadership, influenced royal legitimacy, and altered the course of French history. This episode explores the historical context that made her possible, the authority of the medieval Church, the nature of belief and prophecy, and the extraordinary personal conviction that carried her from battlefield victories to trial and execution. Joan’s life raises enduring questions about faith, identity, power, and the cost of unwavering belief.

Episode Show Notes:

• Historical context of the Hundred Years’ War
• Joan of Arc’s early visions and religious experiences
• The role of prophecy and belief in medieval society
• The authority of the Catholic Church in medieval Europe
• Joan’s rise to military leadership despite no formal training
• The Siege of Orléans and its significance
• Political tensions between the French, English, and Burgundians
• Joan’s capture, trial, and execution
• The trial transcripts and their historical importance
• Joan of Arc’s posthumous exoneration and canonization
• Cultural portrayals of Joan of Arc in film and literature
• Mark Twain’s historical novel on Joan of Arc

Episode Timestamps:

• 00:00 – Introduction and recap of previous episode
• 01:23 – Introduction of Joan of Arc
• 03:00 – Early visions and historical context
• 05:55 – Overview of Joan of Arc’s life and significance
• 08:33 – Role of the Church and medieval society
• 10:00 – Joan’s journey to the French court
• 14:00 – Prophecy and recognition by the Dauphin
• 17:00 – Military leadership and the Siege of Orléans
• 22:00 – Capture and political betrayal
• 24:00 – Trial for heresy and interrogation
• 27:00 – Recantation, reversal, and execution
• 30:00 – Legacy, sainthood, and historical interpretation
• 35:00 – Cultural portrayals and Mark Twain’s account
• 38:55 – Closing reflections and final thoughts

About the Podcast:
Hosted by Kevin Carney and Emanuel Petrescu, two curious minds exploring ideas, culture, and everything in between. Curious Pundits is a conversational podcast where each episode starts with a topic that caught our attention and unfolds into thoughtful, unscripted discussion. We follow curiosity wherever it leads, across disciplines, opinions, and perspectives, without pretending to have all the answers.

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People:

• Joan of Arc
• Emanuel Petrescu
• Kevin Carney
• Simon Bolivar
• Joseph Campbell
• Saint Catherine
• Jean de Metz
• La Hire
• Bishop Cauchon
• Henry V of England
• Henry VIII of England
• Napoleon Bonaparte
• Winston Churchill
• Mark Twain
• Luc Besson
• Mila Jovovich
• Dustin Hoffman
• Leelee Sobieski
• Peter Strauss

Places:

• France
• England
• Burgundy / Burgundian territory
• Orleans
• Chinon
• Reims
• Reims Cathedral
• Domrémy
• Lorraine
• Loire Valley

Organizations / Institutions:

• Catholic Church
• Western Church
• Eastern Church
• United Nations (as a comparison)
• Historical Events / Periods:
• Hundred Years’ War
• Battle of Agincourt
• Protestant Reformation
• Great Schism

Books / Literary Works:

• The Hero’s Journey
• Henry V (play)
• The Birth of Britain
• My Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc

Films:

• The Messenger (1999)
• Religious Concepts / Titles (as referenced):
• Saint

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Emanuel: Hi everyone, and welcome to yet another episode of the Curious Pundits podcast.
My name is Emmanuel…
[00:00:07] Kevin: My name is Kevin.
[00:00:10] Emanuel: Today, we’re going to continue where we left off last time, which is talking about a character, a person, an individual who made a significant impact in history.
But before we jump right in and pass the virtual microphone to Kevin, who’s going to be the host of today’s show I want to remind everyone and ask everyone to go to curiouspundits.com and to subscribe to our podcast, follow us, like us on the platforms that you are listening to podcasts, and help us grow.
And we promise you that we’re going to make this one of the most interesting podcast out there.
So, without further ado, I’m going to pass along the virtual [00:01:00] microphone to Kevin.
Last time we talked about Simon Bolivar and Kevin shared a couple of interesting facts, history. And for those of you not familiar with Simon Bolivar, we highly encourage you to go and listen to that episode.
You can do that at curiouspundits.com.
Who are we talking about today Kevin?
[00:01:23] Kevin: Joan of Arc
[00:01:26] Emanuel: Joan of Arc
[00:01:27] Kevin: I have this…
[00:01:27] Emanuel: Saint.
[00:01:29] Kevin: I might even call it weird fascination with people who are able to, or who have in the past pulled off the absolute most audacious stuff, and I know that we’ve used the reference of Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey, of which of which step one is always The Call to Adventure, and sometimes people feel a Call to Adventure which is just insane.
And yet they feel a compulsion [00:02:00] to go do it.
And for what it’s worth, I’m going to reveal something in the next few seconds.
Originally I wanted to call this segment Crazy People who Changed the World, but then I decided the word crazy is kind of loaded and it carries connotations for people, so it was changed to the When the Call to Adventure is Beyond Belief.
But to fall back on the concept of crazy people changing the world, I don’t know of any character in history who personifies that concept more than Joan of Arc.
When she was a young child she started having blown audio visual hallucinations.
If she was to show up today, she might be locked up as a schizophrenic, [00:03:00] who potentially could cause harm to herself and others.
And what I find is so interesting about Joan of Arc is, she was not the divinely inspired deliverer of France in spite of her of her hallucinations, she was the divinely inspired deliverer of France because of them.
She lived in an era where that was considered to be a thing.
So these visions… and that’s why she’s fascinated me ever since I learned the details of her story.
Last week I had a list of things in my head that I wanted to talk about in terms of Simon Bolivar, but I forgot some of them.
So this week I actually wrote up a bullet list to make sure I don’t miss any of what I think are the important points.
[00:03:50] Emanuel: I have notebook here and always taking notes.
Now, the fact that I can’t read my handwriting, that’s a topic for another conversation. But you go through the exercise and take [00:04:00] notes and at least you look smart and interested.
[00:04:04] Kevin: Yeah. Yeah. Well she’s a very fascinating character.
So as I mentioned at the last part of the last episode closing, she was born about 70 years into what is called the Hundred Year War.
So everybody that she knew had grown up in an environment where this war was going on around them, constantly.
Like she literally didn’t know anybody that didn’t have a prior experience.
And as I mentioned a few minutes ago, the voices in her head, and the hallucinations that showed up to give her instructions… that started when she was kid.
I don’t remember how old, but she was 9 or 10.
And these hallucinations identified themselves as St. Catherine and I forget who the other one was.
[00:05:00] And they were bringing her messages from God.
And these messages were just insane. Go to the king, he will give you an army, you will drive the English out of France.
She’s like 10, right?
[00:05:14] Emanuel: Maybe this is a good time to actually talk, even for 30 seconds about John of Arc.
For many of our listeners who might not be so familiar, I’m thinking, I’m hoping that there’s people listening from all over the world, and we in the Western society, whatever that might mean, might know.
But I’m pretty sure there’s many people around the world that are not familiar with Joan of Arc.
So if, even if it’s like for 30 seconds, give some context on who she is. Now she’s a saint… but of course in the Catholic Church.
[00:05:55] Kevin: Even during the course of her life that was [00:06:00] not necessarily guaranteed.
The course of her fairly short life took some some really bizarre twists and turns.
[00:06:09] Emanuel: Don’t give up any spoilers, but just a brief introduction who she was, when did she live, and what was her influence essentially.
[00:06:23] Kevin: She was born in the early 14 hundreds. I’d have to look up the exact year.
And to give some perspective, people are aware of the Shakespear play Henry V, and Henry going to France and the battle of Agincourt.
Like those events happened shortly before she was born. Well, like not like all of them, but the battle of Agincourt was a little bit prior to her being born.
And her place in history, in terms of the long scope of history, is she seems to be the [00:07:00] first person to have articulated that there was such a thing as France.
When she when she was born, what we now call France was occupied by three separate groups of people. She was born in quote unquote French territory, at least that’s how she thought of it.
There were Burgundians who were also French, but they were on the side of the English, and then there were the English.
So these three groups of people are… well, I guess the I guess the English and the Burgundians were kind of frenemies. They were good friends at some at some points and they had conflict at others.
But when they were good friends, they were aligned against the French and you know, all this geopolitical give and take of middle age society.
[00:07:42] Emanuel: Here I’d like to make an important note that even in this, let’s call it some groups, there are major smaller subgroups as well, that made a significant impact on the outcome of what we call today, Europe and the nations of Europe, and [00:08:00] even in France, those territory.
It’ll be fair to say more controlled by the French or by the English, because there are different groups essentially that will may or may not, you know, refer to themselves as others might wish and probably the Italian states are more of a good example, and that’s an interesting episode at a later date.
Back to you and to Joan of Arc.
[00:08:33] Kevin: She was born into a society that was very heavily influenced by the Church.
The Protestant Reformation hadn’t happened yet, so there was just… the great schism between the Western church and the Eastern church had happened, so she was part of the Western church, who had their ceremonies in Latin and all that good stuff.
But the church was basically [00:09:00] the mediator in disputes, what we would call between nations. They were the closest thing to a United Nations that existed in medieval Europe.
They had a lot of authority and they had a lot of influence.
So probably the dominant influences in her life was the people around her and the authority of the church.
She was was considered to be incredibly pious by the local parish priest.
Who was totally impressed with her when she was a little kid.
[00:09:32] Emanuel: The United Nation doesn’t have… not even 10% of the authority that the church had back in those days.
[00:09:41] Kevin: Not even close… so… the first… in my mind, truly significant event is at the age of 15 she finally capitulates to her voices and she’s like… “OK, I’m on it”.
So she essentially runs [00:10:00] away from home, which probably wasn’t as big a deal for her as it would be for someone today.
She made her way to where the local feudal Lord lives.
Presented herself to him, and gave him her story.
God has sent me. You need to send me to…
she did she did not acknowledge the King as the King because he had not been coronated yet, so her mind he was the dauphine, he would become the king after he was coronated…
so you will assign me an honor guard, they will escort me to the King, he will give me an army, and I will drive the English out of France.
Now again, she’s 15.
So the story is this guy had her beaten and sent back to her father.
Which you know, it was the 14 hundreds, that’s not such an odd response?
The next thing which I think is significant, is her father then [00:11:00] decided that she needed to be married on, he arranged a marriage.
Now she’s sixteen.
[00:11:06] Emanuel: He
[00:11:06] Kevin: arranged a marriage to someone in the local village and she didn’t want to do it.
So at the so at the age of sixteen she goes to the local magistrate to petition to be released from this commitment that her father made.
And it was a proper hearing, in what we call a court although they although they probably called it something different.
And the most interesting thing about this hearing in my mind is that there’s transcript.
And the reason the reason that’s significant is the printing press hadn’t been invented yet, so there was no industry making paper to fuel the industry of printed materials because that entire economic ecosystem hadn’t happened.
So paper paper was really expensive, and documents were really expensive because every document was written out by somebody by hand.
So they only [00:12:00] wrote down that they thought was really important.
So the fact that there’s a written transcript of her hearing about “I don’t want to marry this guy”, I think is significant because they thought it was important enough to write down.
Like she really impressed the magistrate, who basically said, “okay, you don’t have to marry this guy”.
And then later, after she got out of the wedding, she goes back to Sir Robert, the local lord, gives him the same pitch as last year, and this time he buys it.
He’s like okay, this guy… Jean de Metz will be he will be your… the leader the group.
He will take you to Chinon, where the dauphine has his court, and you will have your opportunity to present your case to the King.
There’s a number of things that are [00:13:00] significant here, most of which is… on her second attempt he accepted her story.
Now, there’s another significant piece here that I don’t think anyone knows the details of exactly how it happened, and who first proposed the idea, but there was this prophecy of the maid of Lorraine who would show up and save everybody.
Well, she was from Lorraine, she was a maid.
So she stepped into that prophecy and then kind of assumed that role.
And I’ve seen speculation that it was Sir Robert’s idea and I’ve seen speculation that it was her idea.
And I’ve seen claims that she knew she wasn’t the maid, but it fit the prophecy, and I’ve seen claims that she probably thought she was.
So we really don’t know.
But when the… When the word that the maid of Loraine was on her way, [00:14:00] word spread through France because people knew of this prophecy.
So by the time she arrived in Chinon, they were expecting her.
A significant piece here is because they were travelling through Burgundian territory, they had to travel at night, and to reduce the odds of her being recognized, she dressed in male clothing.
And this turns out to be an important piece later on in the story, because that was against the rules of medieval society. Girls were not allowed to dress like men, men were not allowed to dress like girls and she broke that rule.
For what I think is a pretty good reason.
So a part of the prophacy was that she would she would know the King on sight without knowing the King.
So when she was arriving at court, they decided to test that.
So the King changed cothes with somebody [00:15:00] else, somebody else sat on the throne and the King was just wandering around hall, and she picked him out of the crowd.
So people thought this is significant, it fulfills the prophecy.
Maybe she is the maid of Lorraine.
Nobody knows what conversation happened between Joan and the King, but they spent a couple hours off by themselves in this great hall, just having a chat about whatever.
At the end of which the King announced, she seems like the real deal.
I’m going to have the church check her out, and if they come along and say she’s the real deal, I’m going to give her an army.
She is then handed over to the church and there’s a very senior guy, Bishop Cauchon who becomes like an incredibly important person in this story.
He oversees the process of the church verifying that she is in fact a messenger [00:16:00] from God, and she’s not speaking on behalf of the devil.
Those are the two options.
Either she’s a genuine messenger from God, or she’s speaking a message from the devil and was trying to fool us all.
So they sent her to a… they called it a university, but we would probably call it a seminary.
And she was examined by the learned people, and it lasted some number of months after which they gave her a clean bill of health.
She’s the real deal. She’s a messenger from God. Give her an army.
Then she goes back to Chinon and the King gives her an army like he said he would.
Back then armies were very different.
The modern concept of centralized command and control hadn’t been invented yet.
An army belonged to a feudal Lord, and the feudal lords would kind of agree amongst themselves what [00:17:00] they would do, but if someone changed their mind, his entire army would change their mind with him.
So it was kind of like….
[00:17:09] Emanuel: Game of thrones.
[00:17:12] Kevin: Well, not quite as bad as Game of Thrones because these are all people who are loyal to the King, and one of the more significant ones is a guy named La Hire.
So he’s a feudal lord, he’s got army.
Joan is basically promoted into the position of feudal Lord by virtue of being given an army.
The problem is that the historic seat of where Kings of France are coronated is down a road where there is… I think it was English, not Burgundian, but there but there is an English occupation of the village of Orleans.
So they have to dislodge the English [00:18:00] at Orleans in order to get through to be able to go to, I think the town was Reims, where the Kings are coronated.
And La Hire actually wrote that even though…
[00:18:11] Emanuel: Reims Cathedral, yes.
[00:18:14] Kevin: Even though she was a 16-year-old peasant girl, she seemed to know what to do with an army. Like she seemed to have a good sense of military tactics and strategy in spite of the despite the fact that she had absolutely no training or background in it whatsoever.
So they’re at Orleans and they see can see the English.
They need to dislodge them so that they can continue, and apparently her and La Hire had a big fight about the people the in city.
Refrigeration hadn’t been invented yet.
So the way that people in the middle ages had fresh food is that they would take animals with them, and then when they wanted to eat one, then they would [00:19:00] slaughter it, butcher it, and eat it.
So the army is traveling with all of the provisions necessary…
[00:19:07] Emanuel: That was true up until probably 40 to 60 years ago, and it’s still true in many places of the world.
[00:19:15] Kevin: Absolutely.
[00:19:17] Emanuel: Now.
[00:19:17] Kevin: A lot of the modern conveniences we take for granted, we often don’t realize how modern they are.
The fight was over…. were they going to surrender some of their animals to feed the people of Orleans, or not?
And she’s like, yes. And he’s like, no.
We have a military objective, not a human aid objective.
And apparently she pulls rank.
She says I realize that you are taking orders from the King, I’m taking orders from God. These people will be fed.
And apparently she carried the day in that argument, and and they did.
But the other part of the [00:20:00] story that in my mind gets really interesting is, yes it was the fifteenth century, and yes warfare by modern standards was pretty primative, but people did not just willingly sacrifice their lives for the greater good.
You could have a battle of like 5,000 people on each side, and in aggregate the number of dead might be 400, 600 maybe.
People didn’t just rush into the line of fire as a regular course of events. And it’s reported by some of the English who were up on the castle looking down that French people did that for her.
And the casualties on the French side were, by medieval standards, off the charts. Apparently like 4,000 French people died in the course of storming the castle.
And the and the English needed some way to explain they were what they were seeing.
This made no sense to them that the [00:21:00] French would do this.
So obvious answer to them is, she’s a witch.
And that’s where she’s a witch, came from.
From the battle of Orleans, and from the fact that so many French peasants basically sacrificed their lives in pursuit of this cause.
So anyway, they lift the siege, they feed the people, they move on, they clear the road, and now the King and his entourage can come and be properly coronated, which happens.
And then there’s a whole bunch of give and take for the next couple of years where the French make advances and acquire territory, and the Burgundians do, and the English do, and blah, blah, blah.
And then two years later, at the age of 18, she’s captured by the Burgundians [00:22:00] in what looks like a targeted raid.
They came in fairly quickly, they grabbed her, and they left.
I’ve read speculation that somebody gave her up, somebody said “She’s here now, come and get her”.
And they just came in like a surgical strike, grabbed her, left, didn’t more fully engage the enemy, if you will.
[00:22:29] Emanuel: And most likely that’s what happened.
[00:22:31] Kevin: Most likely, yeah.
So this was in an age when it was common for the aristocracy to be ransomed.
And she’s now been elevated to the aristocracy by virtue of the King.
So she’s expecting to be ransomed. The Burgundians were expecting the French to show up and pay a ransom and blah, blah, blah.
She’s informed that she’s [00:23:00] randomed, and she’s brought out, been she’s been sold to the English, not the French.
And she knows like she got a problem, is gig is up, right?
And then, Bishop Cauchon, the very guy who had her validated as a true messenger of God, is the prosecutor as she’s being tried for witchcraft.
It was quite the turn of events.
And again… the trial… there’s a transcript… and it went on and on and on.
People were very very impressed with her as an individual.
The only question that jumps out at me [right now] and is considered to be a trick question… was the concept of are you in a state of grace?
And there is no right answer. If you say, yes, you are being [00:24:00] presumptuous and therefore you’re not. And if you say no, you’re being honest and therefore you are not.
And her answer is something like… If God has placed me in a state of grace, I pray that he keep me there. And if God has not placed me there, I pray that he place me there.
And the guys who were trying her actually wrote down like, damn that was a good answer.
[00:24:24] Emanuel: Like Christ did. With most… with all of his answers, whenever they will try to catch him with something.
[00:24:33] Kevin: Apparently she withstood this kind of questioning for several days and she kept giving answers that they thought were really good.
And then the thing that I…
[00:24:44] Emanuel: One question though, I’m a little bit confused. The bishop that became a prosecutor for the English, but he was French?
[00:24:56] Kevin: Yeah, he was.
[00:24:58] Emanuel: But he was [00:25:00] hired for…
No, just so that we understand each other because… Well, let’s say that it’s always been like that and it’ll always be. It’s nothing new in the games of politics.
[00:25:17] Kevin: The church in his day was above the geopolitics of the various groups, so you can say he’s switching sides, but I guess technically he was never on any one side.
He’s kind of like a referee of a game, he doesn’t have a vested interest in the game, although of course he did.
He was probably very interested in protecting the church, but when the concept of her being a witch was a legitimate question that needed to be responded to, he’s the appropriate guy to to be the referee, if you will.
Although somehow he became…
[00:25:58] Emanuel: The judge.
[00:25:59] Kevin: [00:26:00] …prosecutor.
[00:26:01] Emanuel: And also you’ve said that, but we need to remind that the English were still Catholic.
[00:26:08] Kevin: Yes. Henry VIII hadn’t happened yet.
So, this is the part that left the greatest impression on me in terms of the strength of her belief.
So, she’s kept in a cell, she’s in prison. She’s not allowed to wear men’s clothes, although they must have left some in her cell because later she emerges wearing men’s clothes.
And you could say that some kind of a trap.
But story is there was a guard who either attempted to assault her or did assault her and may have raped her.
I don’t know to what extent this guard was successful… her defense of [00:27:00] this was to put on the male clothes to make it more difficult for him to achieve exceeds his goal.
So she shows up dressed in male clothes, which obviously she had access to, she couldn’t put them on if they weren’t in her cell.
And this was further evidence of deviant behavior, and blah, blah, blah.
So at some point, she’s taken outside and she’s shown the platform on which she is going to be burned alive in a couple days, unless she recants, and like anybody would, she folds.
She falls to her knees, she says okay, I don’t want that, I’m willing to recant.
They draw up the document and she basically swears that she’s not a divine messenger of God, she was the voice of the devil, and, you know, blah, blah, blah.
She give them what they want in exchange for not being burned alive.
And then a couple days later, [00:28:00] she changes in mind.
It’s like no, I need to recant that confession because it’s not true and being burned alive, to her, was the path of least resistance.
She actually consciously chose to be burned alive, rather than, in her mind, deny the validity of her visions.
[00:28:25] Emanuel: Like many the saints and most of the martyrs in Christianity. And one of the arguments that many Christians make is that most of the apostles, all of them except John, died in horrible pain for Christ.
And to get his message out there… consciously and [00:29:00] willingly, they embrace death.
[00:29:03] Kevin: Same here.
It was that last detail that triggered my interest in her.
Just to provide a little bit of background, like how did I even learn what she did?
So all my life, I’ve known the name, but I knew nothing about her.
I was living in a house on a cul-de-sac, and at the end of the street there was this elderly gentlemen who died and they had estate sale.
For three days there’s constant traffic in and out and finally, when the traffic died down, I went down there to see what stuff might be left at the estate sale, and I bought a book for 25 cents called The Birth of Britain, written by Winston Churchill.
And there was a little four page chapter called Joan of Arc.
And I read the story and I learned about that last bit about how she changed her mind.
And I’m like wow, that’s wild.
So off to the library, get a few books, start reading about Joan of Arc, and the more I learned, the wilder it [00:30:00] got.
Her devotion to her voices is… I don’t even know what the right word is… unparalleled in human history?
Well, not really, other people have had similar devotions, but steadfast, unwavering – except for that one incident where she looked at the platform they were going to burn her on and said, yeah, yeah, I’m doing that.
But then when she changed her mind I thought… the degree of conviction and her beliefs and values are almost incomprehensible to me.
I hope this doesn’t make anybody think less of me, when but when you start melting the lead because you’re going to pour on or in me, I’ll confess.
You don’t need to actually bring the lead near me, I’m willing to confess right now because I know what you’re going to do.
And she was like no, I [00:31:00] would rather be burned alive than live with this… afront against God.
It’s just bizarre. In my mind.
[00:31:13] Emanuel: Have you seen the movie Kevin?
[00:31:15] Kevin: There’s multiple movies and most of them are terrible.
[00:31:19] Emanuel: No, the one from 97. I think I know… it’s by again, I’m resisting not to Google anything, so I’m relying on my memory, which is maybe a good thing, maybe a bad thing. But it’s produced and directed by Luc Besson. I know Mila Jovovich plays her.
[00:31:35] Kevin: That’s a bad one. That’s called The Messenger.
That one is…
[00:31:38] Emanuel: Dustin Hoffman, I think he is in that movie as well.
[00:31:43] Kevin: Yeah so, Luc Besson, whom I really like by the way, directed The Messenger.
They just deviate from actual history too many times for my liking.
Like in The Messenger, there’s a scene where her mother is killed when an English [00:32:00] soldier basically pins her to a door with his sword.
That never happened.
Her mother outlived her.
In fact, her mother lived long enough for her to become a saint.
Her mother knew she became a saint because she lived for a few decades after the events.
The best one…. I don’t know the title, it’s probably just called Joan of Arc, but the one that actually follows the historical record… it stars Leelee Sobieski as Jon of Arc and Peter Strauss as La Hire.
That’s the one to watch.
That one is actually… it follows history… or the recordings of history.
The Messenger does not.
[00:32:42] Emanuel: I’ve seen that one as well, yeah.
[00:32:44] Kevin: Yeah. And interestingly……
[00:32:44] Emanuel: I remember that one as well.
[00:32:46] Kevin: So I’ve read numerous books of Jon of Arc, and if anybody wants to learn the story, I’m going to say… bizarrely, the most historically accurate book about Joan of Arc I’ve read that’s not [00:33:00] a, shall we say boring history book…
… was written by Mark Twain.
That just blew me away. It’s like Mark Twain wrote a book on Joan or Arc?
Apparently he spent 14 years researching it, he went to France, he visited the Loire Valley.
He dug up as much original source material as he could, and he only made one change to the actual historical events, and that’s he invented a narrator.
The full title was like My Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, or something like that.
And the narrator was a fictional character.
He was a childhood friend of hers, and then at some point he entered the church, learned the read and write, became a scribe, and because he could write, he was one of the scribes at her trial.
So he’s fictional, but everything else follows the historical record and it’s well written.
[00:33:56] Emanuel: We are very complex individuals in [00:34:00] ourselves, and we are known for little of who we are. Right?
When you think Mark Twain, you don’t think of that.
When even, Churchill, you probably… everybody knows him as being the prime minister who fought… succeeded, but then, you know, everybody forgot whatever else that he did, and including Mark Twain.
And there’s so many people that have done great work, have written great books, not in their areas of expertise.
I just want to make that point because that’s an aspect that I didn’t know, but contrary to you, I was not surprised by it, because we know that Mark Twain was a very complex character, a great author, but I think there’s… [00:35:00] it’s worth studying.
Maybe that’s a topic for another episode similar to these ones… characters, Mark Twain.
[00:35:08] Kevin: Yeah, writer who are obsessed with certain topics.
I consider that I have a weird obsession with this historical character because her story is just absolutely stranger than fiction.
My obsession pales by comparison to Mark Twain’s, like he spent spent 14 years of his life researching her.
[00:35:26] Emanuel: And went there and, you know, travel and all those things, right?
[00:35:30] Kevin: I just read a few books, right?
[00:35:33] Emanuel: I think you shared how it all ends, but maybe do a proper ending of Joan of Arc’s story.
[00:35:47] Kevin: I don’t know how long it was after her death that the church decided that they made a mistake, but at some point they decided they made a mistake and that she not [00:36:00] only was the voice of God, but… I think…
You’re going to have to correct me on this detail… but I think that a prerequisite to being a saint is have to find three miracles.
[00:36:14] Emanuel: Yes.
[00:36:14] Kevin: Is it three?
[00:36:16] Emanuel: In the Catholic church, I think so, yeah.
[00:36:19] Kevin: So they went back and they identified things in her life that they felt qualified as miracles, they found three of them, so she was elevated to Saint status.
And she was completely exonerated, by this time she was dead, obviously, it’s of no direct benefit to her.
Oh, and then, and this blew me away, right?
So at the at the coronation or after the coronation, the King basically said, you did this, what do you want?
And she said, I would like the village of Domrémy, which is where she’s from, to be free of taxation.
And the King;’s like no, what [00:37:00] do YOU want?
And she’s like, thtat’s what I want.
And they were free of taxation for the next 300 years.
They didn’t… the residents of  Domrémy, didn’t pay any taxes until Napoleon Bonaparte reversed that decision.
That’s what she wanted.
[00:37:20] Emanuel: I don’t want to open any conversation on that topic right now, but we’re getting close to ending today’s episode.
That was amazing, and that spawned a couple of ideas of some new episodes on that topic.
You said the transcriptions are available, I’m assuming they’re free to access them from the internet.
Maybe we’ll drop some links in the show descriptions.
[00:37:48] Kevin: Well, they’re written in medieval French.
I imagine people have translated them.
For what it’s worth, I’ve never actually read the transcriptions, because again they’re written in medieval [00:38:00] French.
[00:38:00] Emanuel: Of course it’s…
[00:38:02] Kevin: it’s just significant.that they exist.
[00:38:05] Emanuel: I’m assuming they’re not as complex as one might think. Probably a couple of pages at most. Right.
[00:38:10] Kevin: Oh, not the trial. Maybe the hearing about the wedding was short, but the trial went on and on and on.
[00:38:19] Emanuel: I would say that’s interesting and probably Mark Twain have started working on at least the transcription, if not have done it completely.
[00:38:29] Kevin: Presumably he learned to speak and read medieval French.
[00:38:35] Emanuel: Or find somebody that did.
[00:38:37] Kevin: Or find somebody.
[00:38:40] Emanuel: If you are willing to travel and spend all that time, energy, money, and everything else, you’ll probably go that extra mile as well.
This was an interesting episode…. thank you for…
[00:38:53] Kevin: Can I share one more detail?
[00:38:55] Emanuel: Oh, please.
[00:38:55] Kevin: I can’t believe this didn’t make it onto on the list?
So why did people believe her?
The [00:39:00] answer is that she would say things that turned out to be true.
And there’s one specific detail that stuck my mind.
So Sir Robert and I forget his last name, he gave her an honor guard and the knight who led the honor guard who essentially became aid her aide-de-camp for the rest of her short life.
He was a guy named Jean de Metz, and at some point they’re on the road to Chinon and Joan sends him on a side mission.
Go this village, find the abandoned church, in the back room near the fireplace, you’ll find the sword that actually belonged to St. Catherine, and bring it to me.
And he’s like oh Jesus, this is a waste of time. Right?
But apparently everything she described was accurate.
This is a historical record, including a little bit buried under the ground in front of the fireplace was this old rusty sword.
So he [00:40:00] brought it back and he was like, oh my God, I can’t believe she could know these details. She must be the must be the real deal.
Apparently this happened with some regularity that’s and that’s how people around her came believe that she was the real deal.
[00:40:13] Emanuel: Occam’s razor tells us that the most simplest explanation tends to be… is most often the true one. So why not?
Thank you so much for listening to us.
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[00:41:07] Kevin: Yes, absolutely.
[00:41:07] Emanuel: That being said… …the next step…
[00:41:09] Kevin: And for those of you who listened to my rant, I want thank you for listening to my rant.
[00:41:14] Emanuel: That’s why I suggested having this because I like to listen to your rants, Kevin.
[00:41:19] Kevin: Thank you.
[00:41:20] Emanuel: So that being said, until the next episode, this is a Emaneul.
[00:41:25] Kevin: This is Kevin.
[00:41:27] Emanuel: We’re the curious pundits. See you next time.