Cool Zone Media.
Hello, and welcome to Cool People Did Cool Stuff. You're a weekly reminder that sometimes you can listen to visions in your head, put on armor, and change the world. I'm your host, Martha Kiljoy, and my guest today is Molly Conger, host of Weird Little Guys, also on Cool Zone Media, comes out every Thursday. How are you.
I'm doing great. I can't wait to find out how these visions work out. I know, and I think, you know, I think it will be much harder to do that today. People really frown on it.
It's true. I almost and then there was like, oh no, there's enough with Joan of Arc. Eventually I might do this whole episode about there's a bunch of these women mystics at this time, who like, in order to have any kind of influence over their own lives, are like, I'm a mystic, I've been sent by God, and they I think they believe it right, But like there's all of these ways that people learn to I don't know, take charge of their own life. Like she's a commoner
from encircled town in a civil war. Like she's not set up for history books.
You know, nobody's gonna listen to Joan, but they might listen to.
God exactly much like we listen to our producer Sophie Hi. Sophie Hi, and we all say hi to Rory are audio engineer, Hi, Rory Hi, Rory Hi Ri. And our theme music was written for Spyon Woman. And this is part two of a two parter about John of Arc. You probably figured that out from the title. Otherwise, Hello, and welcome to the very first episode of Cool People Did Cool stuff You've ever listened to? And good luck.
This is a solid jumping end point if you don't care about context.
Yeah, I'm trying so hard. I've been like trying to watch movies out of order, the kind of movies that people watch out of order, right, like Marvel movies or whatever.
Oh you mean, like the movies out of sequence like in the Sea. I think you meant like like starting in the middle of the movie.
Oh no, no, no, no, but like like movies, like like a normal person can sit down and watch Aliens without watching Alien right, No, I gotta surf in the beginning. Yeah, I absolutely do too, And I'm trying to break myself of it, but it keeps not working. I keep being like, oh, I'm gonna do this, and then I'm like, Nope, I gotta go back.
No, I need the context, I need the chronology. When I started writing a story, I start with a little timeline. I'm like, okay, well, when the guy was born, it's probably the beginning of the time. Like, no, it's not I need to go I need to go back.
Oh, I'm gonna love your podcast, yep, and uh okay. So, speaking of movies, there's this movie from the nineties I really like. It's called The Anchoris either. Have you ever seen The Anchoris?
No? But I know it doesn't end well for an anchorus.
It depends on their what they want. But you know, so you've heard of anchorites. That was gonna be my follow up question.
There's the they're usually like nuns or friars, right, like holy people. People have a holy order, a religious order, who are walled into their cell and they just live out their days in prayer. Yep, in their tiny little prayer jail.
Yeah. But it's like voluntary, right.
Right, It is a calling that this is a very pious act, that you are removing yourself from the world.
Yeah, And so that's why I'm like, I don't want to say it doesn't end well for them, because it's like they did what they wanted.
They do die in there though, Yeah.
But you know what happens to us, not in a self.
I'm just wondering how the poop gets out.
I think there's a bucket. There's like a slot where a food goes in and out and stuff, and like people come up and talk to you and things. You know.
Oh, you can receive visitors. That's good.
Yeah, Well, if you want watch a movie about it, there's a movie called The Anchors. Anchorites were holy people medieval Europe who would have themselves bricked into rooms and churches in order to read and write and pray without World Aid distractions. The first English language book written by a woman that we know about is called Revelations of Divine Love and it was written by an Anchorite named Julian of No Which and I am not yet enough of a weird theology nerd to have any fucking clue
what that book is about. I've tried. I do not know what it is about. But in the nineties movie, the plot is that there's this woman and she really doesn't want to get married, so she becomes an anchorite one of.
The best ways to not have to get a husband.
And so this is kind of one of the core of my argument this week. Women denied power other power in Patriarchal's medieval society exerted some power over their life through magic, whether they're the magical underground of poisoners, or whether through like anchortes or mystics with visions like our young Jeanette, and I don't think this makes their belief in magic less sincere. The obsession with virginity and Christianity is like buy and Lord really bad, right. This has
not done us a lot of favors. But God told me I can't fuck is a pretty good way to exert some control over your marital state.
That's a get out a fuck free car baby.
Yep. Absolutely so. When Jeanette was thirteen, which is the legal age of marriage for girls at the time, I say, as if it's supposed to be like shocking, but that's like roughly what Red State people want at this point anyway.
So it's legal in Tennessee, isn't it.
Yeah? I think so. Probably her parents start setting her up for marriage, but she started having visions and as soon as she started having visions, she promised the angels that were visiting her that she would keep her virginity for quote, as long as it should please God, like until they told her otherwise.
I mean, it's good to keep your options open. Like the angel could come back, the message could change.
I know, you meet the right guyer girl like you know.
And you can't break a promise to an angel.
No, be a really bad idea.
You're not supposed to do that.
Yeah, so the wedding's off. She has been saved by the ominous voice at the corner of her vision, accompanied by a brightness. She described it. Soon Saint Michael, the archangel, told her that she would lead an army and aid of the true King of France. It is uncertain. I am uncertain as to whether or not she would have already have heard this rumor this like, Hey, you know, a virgin's gonna come and lead the armies of France or whatever.
Don't know, right, Like, people are obviously hearing about it because some of these other mystics are showing up to audition for it. But like when is sort of far flung village where people can't read, Like, are they receiving these rumors.
The rumors are absolutely getting there. I just don't know the chronology here. She absolutely knows these rumors before she goes right.
Right, but are but are the influencing the early days of the visions? I guess we don't know.
Right exactly, That's what I don't. I don't know. Someone might know soon. Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret, which is a perfectly good name for a saint. We're soon talking to her about all of this as well.
In the visions. Yeah, in visions, Okay, she's not receiving visitors.
No. By the time she was sixteen, England was preparing a further assault into what was left of France, and the visions became more insistent. They're like, hey, what are you doing. You gotta get on this, like you're gonna lead an army. We gotta guess. So done. They told her to go to France, and they told her to go to this specific captain named Robert with a whole long French last name, at a nearby fort who would
help her get to the default. So she talked to her uncle, well like cousin, one of her parents cousins about taking her to this forts and like next town over or something. She finds Robert and the voices tell her which guy is her guy? Right, She's like, oh no, that's Robert, which is a trick she pulls later too. It's like one of her. She does a couple things that are like like most like miracles of saints are kind of like magic tricky, right, and this is an
example of one of them. She's like, oh no, that's Robert, that's my guy.
She is she cold reading?
Yeah, she's either very good at cold reading or getting visions that help her be very good at cold reading whatever. You know.
Again, that isn't that how magic works?
Yeah. She walks up and she's like, Hi, God told me you should take me to the king, who will give me command of all of his troops and I will lead them to victory and he will be crowned King of France. And she's like a little girl, she's sixteen yem yeah, And Robert's like, go home, kid, and then cuffs her, which I think means slaps her across the face. So she goes home. Soon she doesn't have a home because the war. Her family is evacuated to a nearby walled city. The war continues to go badly.
The city of Orleans was under siege by the winter of fourteen twenty eight to fourteen twenty nine, and English propaganda is that the Deafont is actually a bastard and that is a bo it had him by someone else. And by now the defallt is starting to be like, oh shit, maybe that's true. Maybe that's why I'm losing every battle, because if I was really king, I would just win, right, Like.
That's why I don't have God's favor.
Yeah, yeah, And so he's thinking about going into exile. He's I mean, he's a fucking coward, right like that. This just comes up again and again he's like, oh, I should run away, and Yolanda is like furious that he's a piece of shit coward. He's married her daughter, and Jeanette our young Joan of Arc is having visions two to three times a week telling her to get the fuck to France and lift the siege of Orleon.
And one of the things that comes up is that there's like a bunch of times where she kind of like knows some stuff about battles that she's cold reading, but there's no way she would know right, because the news couldn't have reached by the time that she was saying certain things to somebody will have to walk there. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So she goes back to Robert. She goes back to that town, hangs out for a couple of weeks and like builds up friends in the town, and then goes to Robert and begs her case and he refuses her again. But at this point p pople in the town are starting to believe her and one of two things, and I actually think both things happen at the same time. First, public opinion in the town is overwhelmingly like, come on, Robert, bring the virgin mystic to the king so that she
can save France. Isn't that your fucking job here? Second, Robert's lord and friend is Yolanda's son, and Yolanda had been sending messengers out being like find us the prophesied maid, please, we need our prophesies made hello.
So it's not a surprise to him that the fulfillment of the prophecy could show up, right.
I just picture them like, hello, are you even trying?
Robert? So Robert on January twenty ninth, fourteen twenty nine, decides to test Joan. Johan is going to get tested so many times.
Oh God doesn't like you when you do that.
Oh really, Okay.
We're not supposed to doubt the prophecy when it is told to you, like there's this is not in the actual Bible, it's in more of the acker full stories.
Okay.
But when Mary goes to the midwife and says, you know, like I'm about to do virgin birth up in here, right, and the midwife is like, yeah, that's bullshit, and so she you know, performs in an examination as a midwife would do on a pregnant woman. And so when she reaches her hand in there to check to say, like, you're not a virgin, I can tell her hand blackens and withers away because she doubted.
Oh shit, yeah.
They shouldn't let that one in. That's a good one.
Yeah, well that's just going to happen to Joan. But that's not the first test. Because people treat religion kind of like a science at this point. Right, They're like, look, we know a lot of people are faking it. We need to figure out who's faking it who's not, you know, And they've got some ideas about how that's done. There's actually this whole thing about how for a little while, the Catholics weren't into burning witches and all the Protestants
were because Catholics didn't believe in witchcraft. That was just superstitious nonsense.
I mean, it's right in the Bible that if you believe in the power of Christ, like witchcraft can't get you. Yeah, okay, like you're safe, it's fine. And so a priest shows up to make sure that she's not possessed. Like the whole thing that they're trying to do is make sure that these are not demonic but angelic you know visions. Yeah, you definitely got to check that first.
Yeah, And so of course they run a very you know, classic test, which is a priest shows up and she kneels in front of the priest and doesn't like bursts
into flames. So clearly not demonic a plus. And so she's off and the whole village comes together to help her get ready for her journey, and there's all these arguments about why she wears men's clothes, and there's all these people trying to be like, nah, it's because of this, now, it's because of that, you know, whether or not she had agency and her decision around men's clothes, right, I distrust most of the way that most historians talk about
the choice of crossing gender lines in old timey world. But they ask her what clothes she wants, and she says she wants men's clothes for the journey, after all, men's clothes are more practical, and she sleeping in the company of men, and she had to keep up appearances as a virgin, so she can't be seen as like, she can't be like Red as a slut.
She can't look enticing, right.
Yeah, And that seems to be an overall agreement. It's like, well, she wore a dress, she would have gotten raped, but so she wore pants and then she wasn't raped. Is like not just the subtext, but the regular text of a lot of her next chunk of her life. It's not that she disguised herself as a man. Everyone knew who she was, but she's taking on man as a gender role and not trying to pass this was and wasn't socially acceptable. And that's this part is necessarily interesting
to me. It's really messy.
It's because it's more like iconography than gender performance, right, Like she is going to battle, and that is I don't know, that is a certain kind of performance. But she's not pretending to be a man.
Well okay, so she's not pretending to be a man, but she is. She's not yet in armor or anything, right, she's just in traveling clothes. So she's dressing as a boy pretty much. And she cuts her hair into a bowl cut, which I'm officially neutral on, and they give her a sword, which I'm officially positive about. Everyone should have a sword. This podcast is brought to you by a big sword or small sword. This isn't even an ad transition. I just want everyone to have a sword.
You'll know I'm a millionaire when I start a charity of swords for trans people. Anyway. Yeah, no, the iconography thing, it's like it's it's true, right, It's like it is more of a social role, you know. And later she's gonna get burned at the stake for wearing men's clothes, but all the people in the village are like, well, yeah, you can be like riding a horse and shit, so of course you're gonna fucking dress in men's clothes, you know,
because it like is and isn't socially acceptable. At the same time, there's not a like monolithic view of gender ever any time in history, it's my argument.
And I imagine we know less too about how poor people were living and how they were performing gender. Like obviously, in court we know a lot about the way people performed roles in the way they dressed, and what fashion was and what the culture was. But I don't know that we know what people were doing in the village.
We know a lot less, and often sometimes when we do know, it's through things like her court transcripts. You know, so they had to cross enemy territory in order to do this, right, because she's like kind of in a little island, and for eleven days because they had to walk everywhere in order to reach the court of the Daufont. And when she gets there and so this is like already kind of miraculous that she makes it there, frankly, and the court is divided about how to handle her,
and it's just divided in general. You have Yolanda and her faction and they're trying to sway the Daufall one way, and then you have this other faction that's like, no, you're right be a coward and fuck all these women, they're meaningless. Why would you talk to them? You know?
The invitation of Joan of Arc to court was basically a power play by Yolanda, but the defont granted her an audience in the end, and as another test, he like didn't hang out on his throne, but was in the crowd and she had to pick him out and she does, and there's like people argue about how she did this, you know, could have been divine revelation. I bet that wasn't that hard. No, yeah, I had a really big nose.
But also the behaviors in court are so ingrained in these people that even if everyone's pretending he's not the king, there's there's body language. Yeah you know which guy is the king?
Yeah. So she finds the king and it's like holy shit. And then she supposedly whispered to him a secret that only he and God would have known about. Oh and historians speculate on what the secret was. The most likely thing is that she was like, I know, you're the true son of your father and the true heir of the throne or whatever, like something he wanted to hear, you know.
Right, like a total big secret that you couldn't just make up.
Yeah, it also could have been something fantastical, miraculous, but she's good at reading people. This is a big part of it.
No, they love to reveal the revelations after the secret has been proven true, so you could reverse engineer, like the Yeah, the third revelation of the of the apparition of Our Lady of Fatima was revealed. This is stupid. Our Lady of Fatima was a Marian apparition that appeared to these children. It was supposedly gave the children three revelations, and the first two revelations were revealed, and the third one was a secret. It's okay. Drove a lot of
people insane. It caused a lot of problems. And then after the attempted assassination of the pope in the eighties, they were like, oh yeah, wow, she predicted that.
Yeah, totally, Like that's cheating, that's cheating. Yeah, you can't, you can't backwards it. But this works on the king. The King is sold, he turns like one eighty. He's like down in the dumps. He's like, I'm going to die in exile and I'm not the real king and I'm a bastard and all I got to do is live in a fancy, rich court and be in charge for a long time. This sucks.
He just needed someone to believe in him.
And here is a virgin sent by God and the king turns the fuck around. He goes from despair and pondering exile to being like, hell, yeah, I got an army. Let's fucking go down to visit these advertisers. Just see what they have on sale, take advantage of all of the sweet sweet deals available through advertising from these ads.
Hopefully it's a horse so we don't have to walk to the next battle.
Yeah, and her back, and now it's time for more trials of Joan of Arc. The next one they put her through is they take her to field and they give her a lance and a horse and are like, hey, you any good with this? And she was like, yeah, I'm pretty good at it, and they were like sick great. Which is actually kind of interesting because she didn't grow
up knowing how to ride a horse. She had about two or three weeks in that town to learn, like everything she was learning, like, she's genuinely fucking special.
You know, I believe you could figure out how to ride a horse. It's not like really that complicated, but using a lance, that's I imagine that's a more specialized skill that you can't just pick up by looking at it.
Yeah, like I have, I have complicated feelings about the nature of divinity, but like she's genuinely something special, you know. I mean, or she was incredibly middle she like barely did it. I mean I don't think she like showed up and was like, I'm the best. I don't even need a training montage, you know. But like she proved herself competent, Like how low were the expectations? Yeah, who
fucking knows. And then they had the women of the house to a physical exam to confirm her virginity, and she passed this test as well.
They should have done that before the horse thing.
I know, right, that's the thing is, I'm like, she just rode on a horse for eleven days, like, but this test was supervised by Ulanda. I suspect she's passed it no matter what.
We got a finger on this skin.
Yeah. Then they send her for another test, a theological test, and they put her in front of a bunch of theologians, and she's really bratty with them. They're like asking her like do you believe in God? And she's like, yeah, better than you do.
Eh yeah, Like oh, you can read a book while I'm talking to God.
That's that's pretty much her vibe. Like she's like, hello, Saint fucking Michael, the archangel has told me to do this shit. Are you gonna get out of my fucking way or what again?
With less cussing, like I don't need to be able to read.
Yeah. They found her to be sent by God and not the devil, so she has proven herself to be a virgin sent by God who can wield a lance. So they're like, all right, go lift the siege of or Leon. Yeah, no big, here's a suit of armor. You can design your own standard. She designed some shit with Jesus on a throne holding the hand of an angel with a Florida lee, and.
That's a little busy for a flag. Honestly, I'm not to criticize she's doing her best, but it is an all right stance.
I mean like that they were like those days, the flags were more like what can we fucking cram onto this? You know, there's a lot of flags that still have the weird like, and now here's a drawing and she'd been given a sword on her first eleven days. I can't remember I included that. Now she gets like a fucking magic sword.
Okay.
There's a couple versions of this story. The one in the history book is like, there's a blessed relic that is buried behind the altar of a church that has been brought back from the Crusades. And then if you read like a Catholic saint hagiography whatever, it'll be like no one knew the sword was there. And she's like, oh, let me go get this sword from this place. I've never been real quick. God told me there's a sword here,
you know. So she pulls up an ancient sword, and now she has a fucking magic sword.
That goes pretty hard. I choose to believe that.
I yeah, I like it. It works for me. And she gets a personal retinue, including two of her brothers who have been sent for and I think that's really sweet. It's actually a whole family affair going on. She's like, you know, it's like always the stories where the kid goes off to go save the kingdom and you like never hear from the family again.
But like her family believed in her.
I like that they really did. Her parents are going to come up later in the story too, Oh good. Yeah, and she's pretty sure that she's about to die. Well yeah, she tells the king, I will last a year no longer, Like this is not the kind of adventure you survive. The siege of Orleon was a nasty thing, like sieges are, because they're where you starve people to death. It had been going on for six months. The English had tried a regular assault, but they've been repulsed, and so they
were just trying to starve everyone out. Only the eastern gate of the city was under control of the defenders, and so the only supplies getting in or on horseback through like small groups of smugglers on horseback. And this isn't like one of three or four gates. There's like a fuck ton of gates in the city. It's been a while looking at a map of this. So there's like one spot that the English aren't able to like set up a little fort outside of right, So people
are starving. This little trickle of smugglers isn't enough. I want to read the fiction of the smuggler. I like these like small stories, right, because like I.
Want to know all these little guys on the side.
Yeah, that'll be your spin off show, the not shitty weird guys of history, you know, just the.
Guy in the background of the photos.
Yeah, totally. On the day of the Herrings, the Defenders had tried to hijack supplies intended for the Siegers, but despite outnumbering the English, they lost. There's a lot of despite outnumbering the English, the French lost during this stage of the war. It's kind of their vibe.
They're having a rough go.
Yeah. While this new army that Yolando is gathering was over in nearby Blua, and so this is where Joan went with her retinue in her banner. She is not the overall military commander of this operation, and that is for the best because she doesn't know shit about shit. This is her first battle.
I mean, I think even with God in your ear, your first time is just hard.
Yep. There's a man named the Bastard of Orleon, okay, and he is the overall commander. And he's the bastard son of the Duke of Orleon, who's still alive, but he's been in a prison in England ever since the fucking we shoot you full of arrows mud Pit adventure. And the Bastard of Orleans was a sensible and popular commander and he's actually he's pretty cool. Later he's gonna like and we'll get to it. And in terms of strategy and overall command, he is the one who won
this battle. But he would not have without Joan. And that was the part that surprised me, not because I like, don't in her, but because like she's presented as a fucking mascot. You know, this is a winnable battle. The French had slightly more troops in the English. Probably English historians like to be like, we were totally outnumbered, and the French historians are like, no, it was our side who was outnumbered. I can't do a French accent. I'm sorry everyone, I'm not sorry.
Probably better that we don't.
Yeah, but the English had a series of forts built around the city of Orleans, and they also had the morale and they like and they're not starving, Yeah, they're not starving. Well, the people in the city are starving and they're going to show up at like some of the later battles. But their early battles. They're like, hey, we're just some starving people. Later, hundreds of militia from
the city are going to help. But England has been steamrolling France and so they're actually overconfident and they don't really have enough people to sustain this siege. They're like, ah, couple thousand people. The French have basically fucking given up. They're French. Their flag is a white flag. Isn't there some joke around that?
Oh?
Yeah, So the relief army set off from Blue and they rolled out like it was a holy crusade. There's priests walking in front of the army the whole road to Orleon. She forbade swearing and pillaging, and she sent away the sex workers who the camp followers.
Oh, the boys probably hated that.
Yeah, she was popular among the soldiers, and I'm surprised. They're like, what our three favorite things about war you have taken away from us?
But the only thing that makes walking to war bearable.
Yeah, And Joan was like, all right, we have an army, let's attack them from the north in a very straightforward manner until they are all dead. And this is like pretty much her entire life for military strategy. She later gets a little bit cannier.
Just go straight into it.
Yeah, God's on my side.
Yeah.
The Bastard of Orleon is like, whoops, instead of doing your plan, I took us to the wrong side of the river figure plan. Sorry, I guess we have to do the smart thing where we attack one fort.
That's so tactful of him to not hurt her feel I know, he was very nice about it, like, don't tell her her plans bad.
Yeah, And they attacked one of the forts and they won, and in large part they won, and I spent a while reading about it. But whatever, a sudden change in the wind changed the way that like boats were moving on the river, and shit, right.
Well God did that.
That's what the Bastard of Orlean believes. And he's like, oh, Joan of Arc, who's not of Arc yet, Joan has brought about divine intervention and we've won. So at this point in the story, I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, she's a mascot's great. I love her, but you know, whatever, you know, And they take this fort temporarily, they managed to resupply the city. They ride into town and everyone in Orleon knows who Joan is at this point, and they treat her like a saint five hundred years too early.
And Joan of Arc climbs up on the battlements and shouts at the English basically like go away or God will drive you out. And the English are like, yeah, we're we're gonna like rape you, and shit, they're not nice. They said a lot of not nice stuff to her. And then the battle continued over the coming days, and then Joan of Arc, Okay, all of our tactical ideas
at this point are just shit. Most of them are like, let's gather up all the people and then attack them with our people until we beat all their people and then we win.
I mean that's kind of how Cellos.
Yeah, and the Master of Oorleon is like ignoring her. But what Joan of Arc did which won the battle, and this battle is pivotal to winning the war. Although later she's gonna like actually do commander shit. She offers morale in really extreme ways. In war, the single worst thing is a route, right, like in a medieval fight. Honestly, a lot of modern fights, most people don't die when both sides are like peeppew hit you with a sword.
You know, that's the that's how war sounds. And most people die when people give up and start running away, and then you just shoot them all in the back, or if it's the Middle Ages, you ride them down with your cavalry and hit them in the back with swords.
And that's just such a big distraction if you have to turn around. Yeah, you know, you're not focusing on the battle, guys.
Yeah, come on. The French army is on the verge of a route trying to take this fort. And then they like kind of look over and they're like, man, there is a seventeen year old girl with a sword in the middle of this battle with a banner with God on it. Who the fuck are we to run?
She's not running. God is with us. And they turn from a route to a victory, which is really fucking rare and war and she is genuinely in the front lines, riding with a lance, Like I feel so bad keeping like and then I underestimated her, But it's because everything I read felt like it was like the little quick versions of her story, you know, Yeah, I feel like.
There are of service level understanding I have of her as a historical figure is very mascot like.
Yeah, but she is in the front lines, riding with a lance, stabbing English people, and shit, I mean that's very solid. At one point, she takes an arrow quote above the breast and fights on, doesn't take it out, just keeps fighting on while crying. She's just like pouring tears as she's crying, and she's like killing motherfuckers with
a sword. So the French their morale would flag, and then they'd look over and see this fucking crazy visionary lady with an arrow in her chest, hacking away with a sword with a banner with God on it, and they're like, all right, will you probably do this?
I mean I feel like that would be very motivational for me.
Yeah, like fuck it, I'll follow her.
Yeah yeah.
And what's wild to think about? I know, I kind of brought this up earlier. This is why France is the country that exists, because they believed in themselves. Because Joan of Arc did this exact specific thing, at this time, we might not have had the French Revolution, which fundamentally changes the idea of how government works everywhere in the world, not entirely for the better, but the like knock on effects of this like blow my mind, you know, the
like butterfly flapping its wings. Effects of this battle.
Just goes to show you just do that weird thing. Yeah, lean into it, go all the way. Who knows.
Yeah. And the English had went from making fun of Joan of Arc and now they are terrified of Joan of Arc. They're like, the enemy has a fucking witch. There is a sorceress attacking us, and we are all going to die. The English are now outnumbered, the siege is effectively broken. The like militia come out from the city and join in the battles, and the English tears
down all their remaining forts. But instead of fucking off, they like array themselves for battle, I mean like, I will give it one less go fuck it, you know. And the French army comes out of the city to face them. But it's Sunday, uh oh, and Joan of Arc is like, look, if they attack us, we can fight, and if they don't, we can't. And people are all like pissed, right, but they do it, and for hours the two armies stare at each other down and then
the English turned tail and left. This is her first like tactical thing she has done that saves probably a couple thousand people's lives, you know. And she is seventeen years old. So orly On is free. The bastard and the maid go back to the defause court.
He did not expect them to go back.
No, no, like, And all the military advisers are like, all right, stay at home, King, we'll begin a counter offensive, but you stay here and stay safe. And Joan is like, well, the voice has told me that you should go on a perilous journey with the army to be crowned in a more proper place, the city of Ron's and the Dafaun's like, all right, fuck it, you're my angel, sent by God. Let's go. Voices in your head said we should do it. You brought me orle On. We're gonna do it.
I mean, so far, so good. You might as well lean in.
Yeah. He rallied his new and growing army. A bunch of people switch sides after the victory of Orleon, basically being like, oh, thank god, the Dafahnt isn't a coward. We left because he was a piece of shit coward, you know. And they marched out and they were claimed a walled town from the English. Joan led the way herself up scaling ladders banner in hand with the troops.
After her, she wore like a you know those like medieval helmets that you'll see that have like kind of like the wide brim that go all the way around. Oh yeah, those are scaling walls helmets.
That makes sense because they're shooting arrows down at you. Yeah, so it's like protecting your neck and shoulders, I guess.
Yeah. And what's cool is we have, like we probably don't have much of her stuff that's like totally authentic. We probably have one of her helmets, not a not a wide helmet, but a little pointy French helmet.
You really can't trust the Catholic Church on stuff like that, you know what I mean? Like if every if every splinter of the cross were real, it would have been three hundred feet long.
I know, well almost Like fortunately, right, Like she's not a saint for like four hundred years.
Right, right, So they weren't. Like selling fake relics was like I mean, after selling poison for husbands, fake relics was a huge industry.
Oh yeah, same people are doing it too. You're like, ah, fuck, I accidentally gave my husband a splinter of the true cross. I meant to gave him arsenic.
Yeah, like Saint Margaret had seventy six fingers, because that's how many bones we have.
Yeah, as Margaret's, we got a lot of fingers. So she takes this town banner in hand. Troops come up after her. She's scaling the well. I don't know if she's the first up, but she's like leading the way. And at this point she's now an experienced military commander. I think the bastard isn't coming with him at this point, he like he survives and later he's gonna like lead a rebellion against Charles the Seventh once Charles the Seventh proves he sucks, but like.
He's like really busy, like keeping his dad's house. Yeah, right, he's got to go home door leon and do orleon stuff.
Yeah. And the tactics that she offers starts winning more and more battles. And all of her tactics still rely on like don't fuck around, let's just attack, let's do decisive action, right, but she starts being smart about it. And at one point the English shows up with reinforcements with a ton of longbowmen, right, and this usually doesn't go well for the French. At jones insistence, the French army avoids another let's all die in the mud by
immediately sending cavalry. Like everyone wants say, all right, ready, we got to get set up for battle. We got to do the thing. And she's like, go.
Now, don't just stand there like a target.
You are attacking now. And they storm up and they slaughter the longbowmen before they have time to like set up their like pikes into the ground to keep you know, horses from attacking and shit.
And they're heavy, Like it's like you have to get in your little spa instead of your big heavy bow. Yeah, so if you don't, just don't let them get on top of you. Get in there smart.
Yeah. This battle, the Battle of Patay, even more than the Battle of Orleon, is what changed the face of this war. The one hundred year War turns on Joan of Arc as the commander ordering this attack, and two thousand English soldiers lay dead, and the English courage failed, and the French fighting spirit is renewed. This does not end the war. The war's going to drag on for
a long ass time longer. But this is like, this is one of the most important decisive battles of the entire thing that turns it around.
I mean, once you've been at it for a century, I feel like if things are picking up the pace a little bit, that's dramatic.
Yeah, totally. And the king kept wanting to chicken out of this war, march to go get crowned, but every time Joan forces him to keep going. They should go up at towns under Burgundian control and we'll just be like, hey, come out, I'm your king, be French again. And most of the time they're like, yeah, all right, that sounds all right.
If they hadn't invented nationalism yet, so they're just I mean they could take it or leave it.
Yeah, no, totally. So they make it to Ron's Charles the seventh is crowned more properly, and Joan's parents are there.
Ah, how did they How did they get there?
They cross fucking enemy territory with like a bunch of soldiers. I assume there's a whole delegation.
How did they know to even go? Like did someone send them a letter?
Yeah? I assume so they probably they probably set people right. They were like, oh, go get Joan of ARC's parents. You know, And as the king was crowned, Joan of Arcs stood at his side holding her banner.
That's kind of a big deal, I.
Know, but not as a big deal as his ads selling the products with Kooper on Go.
God told me that you have to buy the products.
That's right, and we're back.
Yeah.
No, it's a huge fucking deal, right, And this is like going to change the way that people end up talking about her later, like after she's burned at the steak and he kind of like has to well, we'll get to it later. But yeah, she's right there, like standing beside him, and this is like a wild thing, right, It's like, this isn't like old Viking times where lots of women fought, you know, this is like true civilized France, Catholic Land. And the coronation re establishes Charles the seventh
as the rightful heir to France. And now the war isn't who's the rightful heir. Now the war is let's kick out the invading English, who were not living up to the Burgundian promises of populism in Paris every Christmas. The French royalty had always feasted the commoners, but the English occupiers were like, why would we give stuff to poor people? That doesn't make any sense?
Not a popular choice.
Yeah, and so the English are like, oh shit, we better get our fucking our infant guy Henry the six coronated in Ron's two, but they couldn't book the venue because of the military occupation of the other side.
And how old is their baby king?
Oh, I don't know. In the end, he gets like he's like ten soon, but I think right now he's a baby. I'm not he's not in charge.
Well yeah, I would just in terms of like being sentient. So he's just like a baby guy.
Yeah, yeah, he's the fucking mascot. So they do it in Paris and this isn't as big of you think Paris is a bigger deal because it's the capital and they do it like fucking Notre Dame, right, But Ron's is where like a old Louis guy got coronated, and that's like who they're all claiming to be the rightful heir of and shit, you know.
Right, you want to sort of claim the lineage.
Yeah, and when they do this, they piss off the Parisians because they they do this coronation in a really English fashion, which is to say, they didn't give fresh food to the commoners. Instead, there was like some food for the commoners and it had been cooked like Thursday. I don't know what day of the coronation was, but I know the food had been cooked Thursday, and it was like several days later. And it backfired. People of Paris were like, oh, y'all are English as hell? What the fuck?
Really, at least do our customs. If you're gonna pretend to be the king of France, like, at least do it in a French way.
Yeah, and give us some fucking decent food. This is supposed to be like our day, right.
There should be snacks.
And this gets that one of the most interesting, messiest lessons from medieval history, which is that monarchy and nobility were often kinder to commoners than like the non noble rich like the bourgeoisie. Right, like fuck a king, fuck a monarchy. But the rule by the wealthy that replaced
royalty is not progress. And in the fourteen hundreds England was slightly more like middle class in bourgeois and this is the most obviously two two hundred years later in the English Civil War, where like the rich kick out the king and then are all a bunch of Puritan assholes and like genocide the Irish and all this shit. But like it's just this really interesting thing about how nobles are better at populism than rich people are as I guess what I would say, you know.
Because it's sort of this paternalistic relationship.
Yeah, it was not good.
Yeah, no, I mean, but it is if they have this sort of.
Like that's my dad, He'll take care of me.
I mean, they don't take they don't take great care of them, but it's like these are our people. We've been ordained by God to care for the land and the people or whatever.
Yeah, totally. It's like the difference between like I'm going to take care of my sheep that I want to like take advantage of versus like, ah, I got enough sheep, they'll fucking do whatever they want and maybe they'll all get eaten by wolves. Who gives a shit. It's like I don't want to be a sheep in either one of those stories, you.
Know, right right, you die at the end regardless.
Yeah, yeah, it's not good. You get it. And things get messier after all this new coronation shit, after his coronation. Charles the Seventh is like, hey, let's call for a truce in peace talks and this sounds nice, right, Like that's usually the vibe try to end civil wars. But Joe of Arc is like, no fucking attack Paris. What the fuck are you talking about? And this is the first time he doesn't listen to her, and it goes badly. The other side is like, oh, yeah, totally, let's do
peace talks. That's totally what we're about. And so they sign this like several week truce and they like use that time to get thousands more nights across the English channel to reinforce Paris.
That's sneaky, that's not.
Honorable, I know. And so eventually the English are like, nah, just kidding, fuck you, we were never gonna do peace, and so Charles the Seventh marches on Paris. But now Paris is defended as fuck. Paris is the largest city in the western part of Europe, and it's you know, the most fortified, and there's hundreds of thousands. It's like bad right, let them dig in. Yeah, and like it's a Burgundian city overall at this point, and so like
they're not even the people. I mean, the people of Paris are like the underclass is kind of on the side of Charles' seventh, but like the middle class and shit are and it's like it's messy.
Because it's been years at this point, right that they've held this area.
Yeah, And so they have a big ass battle and it is medieval as hell. There's cannonballs and arrows flying everywhere. People are trying to dam up the moat with sticks so they can build a bridge to climb the walls. People are dying everywhere. Joan tries to rally the troops to scare the enemy, but the Perusians are like, they don't see her as an emissary of God or as a scary witch. They're like, you're a provincial loser or Paris.
We don't like people from the countryside. And so they shoot her in the fucking leg when she's trying to do this big like we can do it, guys rallying cry, and it takes her down. Unlike the arrow she takes in the chest, which I think like probably just didn't penetrate all that far, this one takes her out and Yolanda's son dragged her out of the moat she'd fallen into, and they all retreated, and seeing their mystics struck down took the spirit out of the people, and the whole
attack fails. It probably would have failed anyway, and this is the end of her having favor at court.
That's awfully fickle.
Oh, they're super fickle. There's this thing where like again, most of the narratives I've heard around this is like, oh, her straightforward tactics working early on, but when she tries it in pair, she loses, and then she loses again, and you know, as if she's a bad commander. No, she wanted to attack Paris before it was defended.
And that might have worked.
And the other failures that she has I'll get to, but it's because she loses favor. She has shunned, she has shunted out of the limelight. Yolanda is also kind of out of the limelight now because, like Jones, her guy right and Yolanda's main rival, comes more to power, and so they send Joan to try and siege a town that they know she can't in the middle of winter,
barely any soldiers. They are not sending any reinforcements or food or money or anything right, and she fails because she can't do it, and now she's disgraced, and the king he makes her a noble at this point in order to save face, and now she becomes Joan of Arc like now she has a title, and the imprisoned Duke of Orleans somehow sends her red dress covered in rubies, presumably through the Bastard of Orleon, and basically everyone, at least the king is hoping that she's going to hang
up the sword and armor and just shut up and be a lady, right.
Not our girl, Joan. No, absolutely not.
No, She's not going to shut up and be a lady. Despite having like basically no support from the king, she keeps fighting the fucking English. She has her tiny personal retinue, including one brother. I don't know what happened to the other brother, it probably wasn't good. And she has two hundred Italian mercenaries and she just goes around. She's conquering towns and shit, she knows the size of her on
fucking force. She's winning battles. Then she's valiantly defending the retreat of her nights across a drawbridge when the guy in charge of the town ditches her by raising the drawbridge with only her and a few nights outside, and she's surrounded by the English and captured. Oh shit, So she never failed as a military commander. She was abandoned.
That's so sad, I know. And most of the versions of the story of Joan of Arc focused now on like what I try not to just like constantly talk shit on everyone else who's told a story that I'm telling, but I'm like particularly bitter with this particular one. You know,
there's good stories and very smart stories. People want to talk about the theological stuff and things like that, and that's interesting, right, So people focus less on her military career more in her like torture and trial, and I'm going to focus less on those.
I think it's with a lot of stories like this, the learst best kept, most well maintained records that we have are from the court and from the church, and in this case, it was yep, the Church's canonical court, right, so like yep, that's who was writing it down, yep.
And so yeah, like almost everything we have of like direct quotes from her and stuff absolutely comes from court. And it is an interesting court room drama. I would absolutely watch like just the court movie, and it probably exist was a million of Mard movies. I just haven't seen them. But like, so she sold to the English. This does not transport her to England. She's like in just English controlled France, you know. And they put her on trial for heresy, not by the English crown but
by the Catholic Church. Her charges include wearing men's clothes, acting on demonic visions, and saying only God can judge me, not you clerics here on earth, instead of submitting to the church.
Okay, well, this is just truly unfair because we already checked if the visions were demonic, I know, you know what I mean, Like we weren't just acting on her word, like some guys checked. Yeah, like she's already been acquitted of the demon thing.
Yeah, and the trial is a show trial, Yeah, no doubt. It fails to meet even the Catholic Church's standards for inquisitions. This is actually part of why it was like kind of easy ish for the church to later be like no, just kidding, She's totally fine. Is that? Like actually some of the clerics were like, hey, you can't do this, and they were like arrested in shit, you know, so there were some people who tried to like stand up for what they perceived as justice in their inquisition, which
is not a word that has a good record. But then again, that's how people are going to look at the modern prison industrial complex. They'll be like, and then this judge thought that it was like good to put someone in jail for marijuana, and everyone's gonna be like, oh my god, you know, jail arbaric, barbarous. Anyway, at the beginning of the trial, Joan is defiant and well spoken and clever. She has like proved theological shit that she has no way of knowing, right, she doesn't have
any traditional education. And there's a whole thing where demonic visions are embodied, like if Jesus shows up and he's like and he can like touch you and you can like put your finger in that wound, you know, that's the devil.
I don't know that they've been consistent about this over time.
No I am no I every expectation they were not. But in the early fourteen hundreds, this is the way the Catholic Church did it. If it's not embodied as a chance of being proper in divine and slowly as the months wear on, she's beaten down. She's like, oh, Charles is gonna save me. I got him crowned, you know, like it's just a matter of time.
Yeah, Like did you forget your girl?
No, he's a fickle, cowardly fuck. In the end, she signs a document saying she's sorry in exchange for not being killed. She's like, I won't wield weapons or wear men's clothes, and she got life in prison instead of burned at the stake.
Wow, it's a lot like the modern federal court system.
And they left men's clothes in her cell to kind of try and trap her, and she said later that she wore them because she wanted to address as a man when you have mail guards.
Right, this is the same reason as before. Right, It's like this is a safety and practicality consideration, right, And like that's completely possible.
I also think it is completely possible that she preferred to present in mail attire. Right. And then she said that the angels had come and chastised her for for swearing them out of fear, and that you should not act out of fear, and so she would never forswear them again. She would not deny that God had spoken to her, so they burned her at the stake on
May thirtieth, fourteen thirty one. She asked for a cross, and an English soldier made one from a stick and gave it to her, and she held it against her chest. And after she burned her ashes were thrown into the river so they could never become relics.
Which tells me they were thinking, like, not everybody is going to agree with what we did here, right, if you are thinking ahead to making sure there's no finger bones to put in a glass case in the cathedral, Yeah, you know, you might be wrong.
You know, you're the baddie.
You might be wrong.
And part of the reason that this later gets thrown out, this whole case gets thrown out, is because like even though all of almost all the clerics are French, out of like the like hundred or whatever fucking inquisitors, almost all of them are French, they're almost all English aligned, right,
and it is not a neutral trial. And it was like, according to the Church's own doctrine, she should have been tried impartially, you know, send her to Rome, yeah, I mean, or just be like, hell, yeah, you rule, good job. Keep the sword dresses a boy, gender's fake.
God loves everyone, or just like send her back to a little French village and move on.
Yeah, totally like grow up. Yeah. Four years later, the Burgundians made peace with Charles the Seventh and abandoned England. Ten years after that, in fourteen fifty three, the French finally kicked the English out of France, out of everywhere except Klay. And since Joan had been important in getting Charles the Seventh crowned, it was politically important that her
image be rehabilitated. So there was a second trial and she was found innocent, and then in nineteen twenty she was canonized, becoming again I believe, the only Catholic saint who was killed by the Catholic Church. And yeah, I think she's cool.
She got a raw deal, man, She got a raw deal.
She really did. She knew she was gonna right. She was like, I only got a year, you know?
But oh was she right? What was the timeline on that? She?
Actually, I think she did outlast her own prediction because she was seventeen when she said that, and she was nineteen when she died. But she might have been because her trial was dragged on for months. It might have been about a year before she got caught.
She might have been about right.
Yeah, and Charles the Seventh is the big fucker here, right, Like.
He probably could have bargained for her back if he was so inclined.
I know. And there's this whole thing where they like were really specifically worried about, Like there's the whole case is like she's incredibly well guarded this whole time, right, because they're like, fuck, he might come and raid to try and get her free, and he never even tried. There was no chance that that man would have done that, Like, there was no part of his personality that was like I should risk things for people who've risked things for me.
Like, especially because he'd already abandoned her at that point. That's why she got abandoned.
Yeah, absolutely, she hadn't been fucking abandoned. Who fucking knows how the story would go, no idea. And that's how two women changed history by relying on slash, in Yolanda's case, possibly fabricating visions. I'm pretty certain that Joan of Arc genuinely saw what she saw, you know, Oh.
Yeah, no, I believe that, you know, on whatever level these things can be true, but yeah, she was acting out of sincere belief.
Yeah exactly.
Yeah, how did things shake out for Yolando?
Like she lived for another she live on into like the fourteen forties and did a bunch of other political shit. I like, I followed her story a little bit, and I was like, yep, more back and forth of Nobles. I'm good. And the Bastard of Orlean led a revolt against Charles the Seventh when Charles the Seventh tried to like centralize more power and be like, oh, it's the King of friends, I should also be able to like make everyone give do even more for me, And he
was like, I don't like that idea. And I'm the Bastard of Orlean.
See that's why you don't help kings. I know, that's why you don't help kings man.
That really is the moral of this story. Like there is a version where Joan of Arc leads a peasant army and it is like just my happiest dream utopia.
You know, really, God should have sent you out into the countryside instead.
Yeah, absolutely, go lie to the king and get a lot of swords so that people are fighting with more than just like fucking flails from the field. Yeah, I always want to know more about Joan of Arc and now I do, and now we do. I was expecting to be this one of those episodes where I'm like, eh, I think she's fucking cool as hell.
We need another one.
Yeah, just with better be the equivalent of that, like fighting for like Biden or some shit, you.
Know, just sent by God to fight in the streets for Joseph Robin at Biden.
Yeah, God damn it. Anyway, thanks for listening, And if people want to hear about more weird little now, I mean, she's weird, but not in the way that I love that we're having a public reckoning with the fact that weird has more than one meaning, And people are like, no, you can't use weird as a mean word for Republicans because we're all weird, And You're like, did you know that nowns can have multiple definitions or I guess adjectives in this case, I think.
The most succinct explanation I've seen is like, there's difference between like weird aunt energy and weird uncle energy. Right, Like, your weird aunt will let you smoke pot at her house, you're weird uncle. You're not allowed to be alone with.
Yeah, I have faith in some weird uncles having weird on energy, Like exactly, it's gonna take you to the horse races, you know, and like it'll be weird, but everything's safe.
Yeah, Like there are different kinds of weird, Like Joan was definitely a weird little guy, but not like the weird little guys on my show, Right, those guys suck.
Yeah, unless you told the story from the Burgundian point of view.
A real villain.
Yeah, sent by God to fucking stab us all.
It really took care of business on that one.
But yeah, folks should check out your show on Thursdays. And folks should check out my sub stack where I post about lots of stuff.
And pre order your book.
Oh yeah, and pre order my book called The Sapling Cage. It comes out September twenty fourth from Feminist Press. Has lots of stabbing, but probably less death overall because it's a sort of young adultish book. You ever heard of the genre crossover?
Crossover to what?
This is a genre called crossover of books. It's the word for ya, books that everyone knows are actually going to be mostly read by adults.
Oh okay, I get it again.
Yeah, and it changes not only the way they're marketed, but it actually gives you a lot more freedom in terms of how you write them, not in terms of it are being like more gore or whatever, but in terms of like breaking from certain assumptions about ways that certain characters behave and all of these other things. And so The Sapling Cage is a crossover book that people can check.
Out, and they should, they should preorder it.
Yeah, I want to plug that. We're making a lot of progress on the Android AD free version of Cooler Zone Media that's currently only available at Apple, and there's like technical things that are happening that are actually happening, and it should be done soon and then people will be happy and nobody will be mad ever again, right, how's that works?
Yay? Okay? Cool?
Yeah.
Now that I'm a podcaster, people are asking me about that, Sophie, and that is not my business.
I know. Like that's why we have producers, because podcasting is incredibly hard and actually takes a team of people to do it right anyway. But if you want to hear it done right, you can listen to lots of cool Zone Media podcasts, including this very one next week when I talk about more cool People Who Did Cool Stuff. See you next week.
Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts on cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.