Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Cool People Did Cool Stuff. You're
Speaker 2: a weekly reminder that sometimes you can listen to visions
Speaker 2: in your head, put on armor, and change the world.
Speaker 2: I'm your host, Martha Kiljoy, and my guest today is
Speaker 2: Molly Conger, host of Weird Little Guys, also on Cool
Speaker 2: Zone Media, comes out every Thursday. How are you.
Speaker 3: I'm doing great. I can't wait to find out how
Speaker 3: these visions work out. I know, and I think, you know,
Speaker 3: I think it will be much harder to do that today.
Speaker 3: People really frown on it.
Speaker 2: It's true. I almost and then there was like, oh no,
Speaker 2: there's enough with Joan of Arc. Eventually I might do
Speaker 2: this whole episode about there's a bunch of these women
Speaker 2: mystics at this time, who like, in order to have
Speaker 2: any kind of influence over their own lives, are like,
Speaker 2: I'm a mystic, I've been sent by God, and they
Speaker 2: I think they believe it right, But like there's all
Speaker 2: of these ways that people learn to I don't know,
Speaker 2: take charge of their own life. Like she's a commoner
Speaker 2: from encircled town in a civil war. Like she's not
Speaker 2: set up for history books.
Speaker 3: You know, nobody's gonna listen to Joan, but they might
Speaker 3: listen to.
Speaker 2: God exactly much like we listen to our producer Sophie Hi.
Speaker 2: Sophie Hi, and we all say hi to Rory are
Speaker 2: audio engineer, Hi, Rory Hi, Rory Hi Ri. And our
Speaker 2: theme music was written for Spyon Woman. And this is
Speaker 2: part two of a two parter about John of Arc.
Speaker 2: You probably figured that out from the title. Otherwise, Hello,
Speaker 2: and welcome to the very first episode of Cool People
Speaker 2: Did Cool stuff You've ever listened to? And good luck.
Speaker 3: This is a solid jumping end point if you don't
Speaker 3: care about context.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm trying so hard. I've been like trying to
Speaker 2: watch movies out of order, the kind of movies that
Speaker 2: people watch out of order, right, like Marvel movies or whatever.
Speaker 3: Oh you mean, like the movies out of sequence like
Speaker 3: in the Sea. I think you meant like like starting
Speaker 3: in the middle of the movie.
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, no, no, but like like movies, like like
Speaker 2: a normal person can sit down and watch Aliens without
Speaker 2: watching Alien right, No, I gotta surf in the beginning. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I absolutely do too, And I'm trying to break myself
Speaker 2: of it, but it keeps not working. I keep being like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do this, and then I'm like, Nope, I
Speaker 2: gotta go back.
Speaker 3: No, I need the context, I need the chronology. When
Speaker 3: I started writing a story, I start with a little timeline.
Speaker 3: I'm like, okay, well, when the guy was born, it's
Speaker 3: probably the beginning of the time. Like, no, it's not
Speaker 3: I need to go I need to go back.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm gonna love your podcast, yep, and uh okay. So,
Speaker 2: speaking of movies, there's this movie from the nineties I
Speaker 2: really like. It's called The Anchoris either. Have you ever
Speaker 2: seen The Anchoris?
Speaker 3: No? But I know it doesn't end well for an anchorus.
Speaker 2: It depends on their what they want. But you know,
Speaker 2: so you've heard of anchorites. That was gonna be my
Speaker 2: follow up question.
Speaker 3: There's the they're usually like nuns or friars, right, like
Speaker 3: holy people. People have a holy order, a religious order,
Speaker 3: who are walled into their cell and they just live
Speaker 3: out their days in prayer. Yep, in their tiny little
Speaker 3: prayer jail.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But it's like voluntary, right.
Speaker 3: Right, It is a calling that this is a very
Speaker 3: pious act, that you are removing yourself from the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so that's why I'm like, I don't want
Speaker 2: to say it doesn't end well for them, because it's
Speaker 2: like they did what they wanted.
Speaker 3: They do die in there though, Yeah.
Speaker 2: But you know what happens to us, not in a self.
Speaker 3: I'm just wondering how the poop gets out.
Speaker 2: I think there's a bucket. There's like a slot where
Speaker 2: a food goes in and out and stuff, and like
Speaker 2: people come up and talk to you and things. You know.
Speaker 3: Oh, you can receive visitors. That's good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, if you want watch a movie about it,
Speaker 2: there's a movie called The Anchors. Anchorites were holy people
Speaker 2: medieval Europe who would have themselves bricked into rooms and
Speaker 2: churches in order to read and write and pray without
Speaker 2: World Aid distractions. The first English language book written by
Speaker 2: a woman that we know about is called Revelations of
Speaker 2: Divine Love and it was written by an Anchorite named
Speaker 2: Julian of No Which and I am not yet enough
Speaker 2: of a weird theology nerd to have any fucking clue
Speaker 2: what that book is about. I've tried. I do not
Speaker 2: know what it is about. But in the nineties movie,
Speaker 2: the plot is that there's this woman and she really
Speaker 2: doesn't want to get married, so she becomes an anchorite
Speaker 2: one of.
Speaker 3: The best ways to not have to get a husband.
Speaker 2: And so this is kind of one of the core
Speaker 2: of my argument this week. Women denied power other power
Speaker 2: in Patriarchal's medieval society exerted some power over their life
Speaker 2: through magic, whether they're the magical underground of poisoners, or
Speaker 2: whether through like anchortes or mystics with visions like our
Speaker 2: young Jeanette, and I don't think this makes their belief
Speaker 2: in magic less sincere. The obsession with virginity and Christianity
Speaker 2: is like buy and Lord really bad, right. This has
Speaker 2: not done us a lot of favors. But God told
Speaker 2: me I can't fuck is a pretty good way to
Speaker 2: exert some control over your marital state.
Speaker 3: That's a get out a fuck free car baby.
Speaker 2: Yep. Absolutely so. When Jeanette was thirteen, which is the
Speaker 2: legal age of marriage for girls at the time, I say,
Speaker 2: as if it's supposed to be like shocking, but that's
Speaker 2: like roughly what Red State people want at this point anyway.
Speaker 3: So it's legal in Tennessee, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think so. Probably her parents start setting her
Speaker 2: up for marriage, but she started having visions and as
Speaker 2: soon as she started having visions, she promised the angels
Speaker 2: that were visiting her that she would keep her virginity
Speaker 2: for quote, as long as it should please God, like
Speaker 2: until they told her otherwise.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's good to keep your options open. Like
Speaker 3: the angel could come back, the message could change.
Speaker 2: I know, you meet the right guyer girl like you know.
Speaker 3: And you can't break a promise to an angel.
Speaker 2: No, be a really bad idea.
Speaker 3: You're not supposed to do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the wedding's off. She has been saved by
Speaker 2: the ominous voice at the corner of her vision, accompanied
Speaker 2: by a brightness. She described it. Soon Saint Michael, the archangel,
Speaker 2: told her that she would lead an army and aid
Speaker 2: of the true King of France. It is uncertain. I
Speaker 2: am uncertain as to whether or not she would have
Speaker 2: already have heard this rumor this like, Hey, you know,
Speaker 2: a virgin's gonna come and lead the armies of France
Speaker 2: or whatever.
Speaker 3: Don't know, right, Like, people are obviously hearing about it
Speaker 3: because some of these other mystics are showing up to
Speaker 3: audition for it. But like when is sort of far
Speaker 3: flung village where people can't read, Like, are they receiving
Speaker 3: these rumors.
Speaker 2: The rumors are absolutely getting there. I just don't know
Speaker 2: the chronology here. She absolutely knows these rumors before she
Speaker 2: goes right.
Speaker 3: Right, but are but are the influencing the early days
Speaker 3: of the visions? I guess we don't know.
Speaker 2: Right exactly, That's what I don't. I don't know. Someone
Speaker 2: might know soon. Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret, which is
Speaker 2: a perfectly good name for a saint. We're soon talking
Speaker 2: to her about all of this as well.
Speaker 3: In the visions. Yeah, in visions, Okay, she's not receiving visitors.
Speaker 2: No. By the time she was sixteen, England was preparing
Speaker 2: a further assault into what was left of France, and
Speaker 2: the visions became more insistent. They're like, hey, what are
Speaker 2: you doing. You gotta get on this, like you're gonna
Speaker 2: lead an army. We gotta guess. So done. They told
Speaker 2: her to go to France, and they told her to
Speaker 2: go to this specific captain named Robert with a whole
Speaker 2: long French last name, at a nearby fort who would
Speaker 2: help her get to the default. So she talked to
Speaker 2: her uncle, well like cousin, one of her parents cousins
Speaker 2: about taking her to this forts and like next town
Speaker 2: over or something. She finds Robert and the voices tell
Speaker 2: her which guy is her guy? Right, She's like, oh no,
Speaker 2: that's Robert, which is a trick she pulls later too.
Speaker 2: It's like one of her. She does a couple things
Speaker 2: that are like like most like miracles of saints are
Speaker 2: kind of like magic tricky, right, and this is an
Speaker 2: example of one of them. She's like, oh no, that's Robert,
Speaker 2: that's my guy.
Speaker 3: She is she cold reading?
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's either very good at cold reading or getting
Speaker 2: visions that help her be very good at cold reading whatever.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Again, that isn't that how magic works?
Speaker 2: Yeah. She walks up and she's like, Hi, God told
Speaker 2: me you should take me to the king, who will
Speaker 2: give me command of all of his troops and I
Speaker 2: will lead them to victory and he will be crowned
Speaker 2: King of France. And she's like a little girl, she's
Speaker 2: sixteen yem yeah, And Robert's like, go home, kid, and
Speaker 2: then cuffs her, which I think means slaps her across
Speaker 2: the face. So she goes home. Soon she doesn't have
Speaker 2: a home because the war. Her family is evacuated to
Speaker 2: a nearby walled city. The war continues to go badly.
Speaker 2: The city of Orleans was under siege by the winter
Speaker 2: of fourteen twenty eight to fourteen twenty nine, and English
Speaker 2: propaganda is that the Deafont is actually a bastard and
Speaker 2: that is a bo it had him by someone else.
Speaker 2: And by now the defallt is starting to be like,
Speaker 2: oh shit, maybe that's true. Maybe that's why I'm losing
Speaker 2: every battle, because if I was really king, I would
Speaker 2: just win, right, Like.
Speaker 3: That's why I don't have God's favor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And so he's thinking about going into exile.
Speaker 2: He's I mean, he's a fucking coward, right like that.
Speaker 2: This just comes up again and again he's like, oh,
Speaker 2: I should run away, and Yolanda is like furious that
Speaker 2: he's a piece of shit coward. He's married her daughter,
Speaker 2: and Jeanette our young Joan of Arc is having visions
Speaker 2: two to three times a week telling her to get
Speaker 2: the fuck to France and lift the siege of Orleon.
Speaker 2: And one of the things that comes up is that
Speaker 2: there's like a bunch of times where she kind of
Speaker 2: like knows some stuff about battles that she's cold reading,
Speaker 2: but there's no way she would know right, because the
Speaker 2: news couldn't have reached by the time that she was
Speaker 2: saying certain things to somebody will have to walk there. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: So she goes back to Robert. She goes back to
Speaker 2: that town, hangs out for a couple of weeks and
Speaker 2: like builds up friends in the town, and then goes
Speaker 2: to Robert and begs her case and he refuses her again.
Speaker 2: But at this point p pople in the town are
Speaker 2: starting to believe her and one of two things, and
Speaker 2: I actually think both things happen at the same time. First,
Speaker 2: public opinion in the town is overwhelmingly like, come on, Robert,
Speaker 2: bring the virgin mystic to the king so that she
Speaker 2: can save France. Isn't that your fucking job here? Second,
Speaker 2: Robert's lord and friend is Yolanda's son, and Yolanda had
Speaker 2: been sending messengers out being like find us the prophesied maid, please,
Speaker 2: we need our prophesies made hello.
Speaker 3: So it's not a surprise to him that the fulfillment
Speaker 3: of the prophecy could show up, right.
Speaker 1: I just picture them like, hello, are you even trying?
Speaker 2: Robert? So Robert on January twenty ninth, fourteen twenty nine,
Speaker 2: decides to test Joan. Johan is going to get tested
Speaker 2: so many times.
Speaker 3: Oh God doesn't like you when you do that.
Speaker 2: Oh really, Okay.
Speaker 3: We're not supposed to doubt the prophecy when it is
Speaker 3: told to you, like there's this is not in the
Speaker 3: actual Bible, it's in more of the acker full stories.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: But when Mary goes to the midwife and says, you know,
Speaker 3: like I'm about to do virgin birth up in here, right,
Speaker 3: and the midwife is like, yeah, that's bullshit, and so
Speaker 3: she you know, performs in an examination as a midwife
Speaker 3: would do on a pregnant woman. And so when she
Speaker 3: reaches her hand in there to check to say, like,
Speaker 3: you're not a virgin, I can tell her hand blackens
Speaker 3: and withers away because she doubted.
Speaker 2: Oh shit, yeah.
Speaker 3: They shouldn't let that one in. That's a good one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's just going to happen to Joan. But
Speaker 2: that's not the first test. Because people treat religion kind
Speaker 2: of like a science at this point. Right, They're like, look,
Speaker 2: we know a lot of people are faking it. We
Speaker 2: need to figure out who's faking it who's not, you know,
Speaker 2: And they've got some ideas about how that's done. There's
Speaker 2: actually this whole thing about how for a little while,
Speaker 2: the Catholics weren't into burning witches and all the Protestants
Speaker 2: were because Catholics didn't believe in witchcraft. That was just
Speaker 2: superstitious nonsense.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's right in the Bible that if you
Speaker 3: believe in the power of Christ, like witchcraft can't get you. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: like you're safe, it's fine. And so a priest shows
Speaker 3: up to make sure that she's not possessed. Like the
Speaker 3: whole thing that they're trying to do is make sure
Speaker 3: that these are not demonic but angelic you know visions. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you definitely got to check that first.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so of course they run a very you know,
Speaker 2: classic test, which is a priest shows up and she
Speaker 2: kneels in front of the priest and doesn't like bursts
Speaker 2: into flames. So clearly not demonic a plus. And so
Speaker 2: she's off and the whole village comes together to help
Speaker 2: her get ready for her journey, and there's all these
Speaker 2: arguments about why she wears men's clothes, and there's all
Speaker 2: these people trying to be like, nah, it's because of this, now,
Speaker 2: it's because of that, you know, whether or not she
Speaker 2: had agency and her decision around men's clothes, right, I
Speaker 2: distrust most of the way that most historians talk about
Speaker 2: the choice of crossing gender lines in old timey world.
Speaker 2: But they ask her what clothes she wants, and she
Speaker 2: says she wants men's clothes for the journey, after all,
Speaker 2: men's clothes are more practical, and she sleeping in the
Speaker 2: company of men, and she had to keep up appearances
Speaker 2: as a virgin, so she can't be seen as like,
Speaker 2: she can't be like Red as a slut.
Speaker 3: She can't look enticing, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that seems to be an overall agreement. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: she wore a dress, she would have gotten raped, but
Speaker 2: so she wore pants and then she wasn't raped. Is
Speaker 2: like not just the subtext, but the regular text of
Speaker 2: a lot of her next chunk of her life. It's
Speaker 2: not that she disguised herself as a man. Everyone knew
Speaker 2: who she was, but she's taking on man as a
Speaker 2: gender role and not trying to pass this was and
Speaker 2: wasn't socially acceptable. And that's this part is necessarily interesting
Speaker 2: to me. It's really messy.
Speaker 3: It's because it's more like iconography than gender performance, right,
Speaker 3: Like she is going to battle, and that is I
Speaker 3: don't know, that is a certain kind of performance. But
Speaker 3: she's not pretending to be a man.
Speaker 2: Well okay, so she's not pretending to be a man,
Speaker 2: but she is. She's not yet in armor or anything, right,
Speaker 2: she's just in traveling clothes. So she's dressing as a
Speaker 2: boy pretty much. And she cuts her hair into a
Speaker 2: bowl cut, which I'm officially neutral on, and they give
Speaker 2: her a sword, which I'm officially positive about. Everyone should
Speaker 2: have a sword. This podcast is brought to you by
Speaker 2: a big sword or small sword. This isn't even an
Speaker 2: ad transition. I just want everyone to have a sword.
Speaker 2: You'll know I'm a millionaire when I start a charity
Speaker 2: of swords for trans people. Anyway. Yeah, no, the iconography thing,
Speaker 2: it's like it's it's true, right, It's like it is
Speaker 2: more of a social role, you know. And later she's
Speaker 2: gonna get burned at the stake for wearing men's clothes,
Speaker 2: but all the people in the village are like, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: you can be like riding a horse and shit, so
Speaker 2: of course you're gonna fucking dress in men's clothes, you know,
Speaker 2: because it like is and isn't socially acceptable. At the
Speaker 2: same time, there's not a like monolithic view of gender
Speaker 2: ever any time in history, it's my argument.
Speaker 3: And I imagine we know less too about how poor
Speaker 3: people were living and how they were performing gender. Like obviously,
Speaker 3: in court we know a lot about the way people
Speaker 3: performed roles in the way they dressed, and what fashion
Speaker 3: was and what the culture was. But I don't know
Speaker 3: that we know what people were doing in the village.
Speaker 2: We know a lot less, and often sometimes when we
Speaker 2: do know, it's through things like her court transcripts. You know,
Speaker 2: so they had to cross enemy territory in order to
Speaker 2: do this, right, because she's like kind of in a
Speaker 2: little island, and for eleven days because they had to
Speaker 2: walk everywhere in order to reach the court of the Daufont.
Speaker 2: And when she gets there and so this is like
Speaker 2: already kind of miraculous that she makes it there, frankly,
Speaker 2: and the court is divided about how to handle her,
Speaker 2: and it's just divided in general. You have Yolanda and
Speaker 2: her faction and they're trying to sway the Daufall one way,
Speaker 2: and then you have this other faction that's like, no,
Speaker 2: you're right be a coward and fuck all these women,
Speaker 2: they're meaningless. Why would you talk to them? You know?
Speaker 2: The invitation of Joan of Arc to court was basically
Speaker 2: a power play by Yolanda, but the defont granted her
Speaker 2: an audience in the end, and as another test, he
Speaker 2: like didn't hang out on his throne, but was in
Speaker 2: the crowd and she had to pick him out and
Speaker 2: she does, and there's like people argue about how she
Speaker 2: did this, you know, could have been divine revelation. I
Speaker 2: bet that wasn't that hard. No, yeah, I had a
Speaker 2: really big nose.
Speaker 3: But also the behaviors in court are so ingrained in
Speaker 3: these people that even if everyone's pretending he's not the king,
Speaker 3: there's there's body language. Yeah you know which guy is
Speaker 3: the king?
Speaker 2: Yeah. So she finds the king and it's like holy shit.
Speaker 2: And then she supposedly whispered to him a secret that
Speaker 2: only he and God would have known about. Oh and
Speaker 2: historians speculate on what the secret was. The most likely
Speaker 2: thing is that she was like, I know, you're the
Speaker 2: true son of your father and the true heir of
Speaker 2: the throne or whatever, like something he wanted to hear,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: Right, like a total big secret that you couldn't just
Speaker 3: make up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it also could have been something fantastical, miraculous, but
Speaker 2: she's good at reading people. This is a big part
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 3: No, they love to reveal the revelations after the secret
Speaker 3: has been proven true, so you could reverse engineer, like
Speaker 3: the Yeah, the third revelation of the of the apparition
Speaker 3: of Our Lady of Fatima was revealed. This is stupid.
Speaker 3: Our Lady of Fatima was a Marian apparition that appeared
Speaker 3: to these children. It was supposedly gave the children three revelations,
Speaker 3: and the first two revelations were revealed, and the third
Speaker 3: one was a secret. It's okay. Drove a lot of
Speaker 3: people insane. It caused a lot of problems. And then
Speaker 3: after the attempted assassination of the pope in the eighties,
Speaker 3: they were like, oh yeah, wow, she predicted that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, Like that's cheating, that's cheating. Yeah, you can't,
Speaker 2: you can't backwards it. But this works on the king.
Speaker 2: The King is sold, he turns like one eighty. He's
Speaker 2: like down in the dumps. He's like, I'm going to
Speaker 2: die in exile and I'm not the real king and
Speaker 2: I'm a bastard and all I got to do is
Speaker 2: live in a fancy, rich court and be in charge
Speaker 2: for a long time. This sucks.
Speaker 3: He just needed someone to believe in him.
Speaker 2: And here is a virgin sent by God and the
Speaker 2: king turns the fuck around. He goes from despair and
Speaker 2: pondering exile to being like, hell, yeah, I got an army.
Speaker 2: Let's fucking go down to visit these advertisers. Just see
Speaker 2: what they have on sale, take advantage of all of
Speaker 2: the sweet sweet deals available through advertising from these ads.
Speaker 3: Hopefully it's a horse so we don't have to walk
Speaker 3: to the next battle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and her back, and now it's time for more
Speaker 2: trials of Joan of Arc. The next one they put
Speaker 2: her through is they take her to field and they
Speaker 2: give her a lance and a horse and are like, hey,
Speaker 2: you any good with this? And she was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm pretty good at it, and they were like sick great.
Speaker 2: Which is actually kind of interesting because she didn't grow
Speaker 2: up knowing how to ride a horse. She had about
Speaker 2: two or three weeks in that town to learn, like
Speaker 2: everything she was learning, like, she's genuinely fucking special.
Speaker 3: You know, I believe you could figure out how to
Speaker 3: ride a horse. It's not like really that complicated, but
Speaker 3: using a lance, that's I imagine that's a more specialized
Speaker 3: skill that you can't just pick up by looking at it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like I have, I have complicated feelings about the
Speaker 2: nature of divinity, but like she's genuinely something special, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, or she was incredibly middle she like barely
Speaker 2: did it. I mean I don't think she like showed
Speaker 2: up and was like, I'm the best. I don't even
Speaker 2: need a training montage, you know. But like she proved
Speaker 2: herself competent, Like how low were the expectations? Yeah, who
Speaker 2: fucking knows. And then they had the women of the
Speaker 2: house to a physical exam to confirm her virginity, and
Speaker 2: she passed this test as well.
Speaker 3: They should have done that before the horse thing.
Speaker 2: I know, right, that's the thing is, I'm like, she
Speaker 2: just rode on a horse for eleven days, like, but
Speaker 2: this test was supervised by Ulanda. I suspect she's passed
Speaker 2: it no matter what.
Speaker 3: We got a finger on this skin.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Then they send her for another test, a theological test,
Speaker 2: and they put her in front of a bunch of theologians,
Speaker 2: and she's really bratty with them. They're like asking her
Speaker 2: like do you believe in God? And she's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: better than you do.
Speaker 3: Eh yeah, Like oh, you can read a book while
Speaker 3: I'm talking to God.
Speaker 2: That's that's pretty much her vibe. Like she's like, hello,
Speaker 2: Saint fucking Michael, the archangel has told me to do
Speaker 2: this shit. Are you gonna get out of my fucking
Speaker 2: way or what again?
Speaker 3: With less cussing, like I don't need to be able
Speaker 3: to read.
Speaker 2: Yeah. They found her to be sent by God and
Speaker 2: not the devil, so she has proven herself to be
Speaker 2: a virgin sent by God who can wield a lance.
Speaker 2: So they're like, all right, go lift the siege of
Speaker 2: or Leon. Yeah, no big, here's a suit of armor.
Speaker 2: You can design your own standard. She designed some shit
Speaker 2: with Jesus on a throne holding the hand of an
Speaker 2: angel with a Florida lee, and.
Speaker 3: That's a little busy for a flag. Honestly, I'm not
Speaker 3: to criticize she's doing her best, but it is an
Speaker 3: all right stance.
Speaker 2: I mean like that they were like those days, the
Speaker 2: flags were more like what can we fucking cram onto this?
Speaker 2: You know, there's a lot of flags that still have
Speaker 2: the weird like, and now here's a drawing and she'd
Speaker 2: been given a sword on her first eleven days. I
Speaker 2: can't remember I included that. Now she gets like a
Speaker 2: fucking magic sword.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: There's a couple versions of this story. The one in
Speaker 2: the history book is like, there's a blessed relic that
Speaker 2: is buried behind the altar of a church that has
Speaker 2: been brought back from the Crusades. And then if you
Speaker 2: read like a Catholic saint hagiography whatever, it'll be like
Speaker 2: no one knew the sword was there. And she's like, oh,
Speaker 2: let me go get this sword from this place. I've
Speaker 2: never been real quick. God told me there's a sword here,
Speaker 2: you know. So she pulls up an ancient sword, and
Speaker 2: now she has a fucking magic sword.
Speaker 3: That goes pretty hard. I choose to believe that.
Speaker 2: I yeah, I like it. It works for me. And
Speaker 2: she gets a personal retinue, including two of her brothers
Speaker 2: who have been sent for and I think that's really sweet.
Speaker 2: It's actually a whole family affair going on. She's like,
Speaker 2: you know, it's like always the stories where the kid
Speaker 2: goes off to go save the kingdom and you like
Speaker 2: never hear from the family again.
Speaker 3: But like her family believed in her.
Speaker 2: I like that they really did. Her parents are going
Speaker 2: to come up later in the story too, Oh good. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and she's pretty sure that she's about to die. Well yeah,
Speaker 2: she tells the king, I will last a year no longer,
Speaker 2: Like this is not the kind of adventure you survive.
Speaker 2: The siege of Orleon was a nasty thing, like sieges are,
Speaker 2: because they're where you starve people to death. It had
Speaker 2: been going on for six months. The English had tried
Speaker 2: a regular assault, but they've been repulsed, and so they
Speaker 2: were just trying to starve everyone out. Only the eastern
Speaker 2: gate of the city was under control of the defenders,
Speaker 2: and so the only supplies getting in or on horseback
Speaker 2: through like small groups of smugglers on horseback. And this
Speaker 2: isn't like one of three or four gates. There's like
Speaker 2: a fuck ton of gates in the city. It's been
Speaker 2: a while looking at a map of this. So there's
Speaker 2: like one spot that the English aren't able to like
Speaker 2: set up a little fort outside of right, So people
Speaker 2: are starving. This little trickle of smugglers isn't enough. I
Speaker 2: want to read the fiction of the smuggler. I like
Speaker 2: these like small stories, right, because like I.
Speaker 3: Want to know all these little guys on the side.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that'll be your spin off show, the not shitty
Speaker 2: weird guys of history, you know, just the.
Speaker 3: Guy in the background of the photos.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. On the day of the Herrings, the Defenders
Speaker 2: had tried to hijack supplies intended for the Siegers, but
Speaker 2: despite outnumbering the English, they lost. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: despite outnumbering the English, the French lost during this stage
Speaker 2: of the war. It's kind of their vibe.
Speaker 3: They're having a rough go.
Speaker 2: Yeah. While this new army that Yolando is gathering was
Speaker 2: over in nearby Blua, and so this is where Joan
Speaker 2: went with her retinue in her banner. She is not
Speaker 2: the overall military commander of this operation, and that is
Speaker 2: for the best because she doesn't know shit about shit.
Speaker 2: This is her first battle.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think even with God in your ear,
Speaker 3: your first time is just hard.
Speaker 2: Yep. There's a man named the Bastard of Orleon, okay,
Speaker 2: and he is the overall commander. And he's the bastard
Speaker 2: son of the Duke of Orleon, who's still alive, but
Speaker 2: he's been in a prison in England ever since the
Speaker 2: fucking we shoot you full of arrows mud Pit adventure.
Speaker 2: And the Bastard of Orleans was a sensible and popular
Speaker 2: commander and he's actually he's pretty cool. Later he's gonna
Speaker 2: like and we'll get to it. And in terms of
Speaker 2: strategy and overall command, he is the one who won
Speaker 2: this battle. But he would not have without Joan. And
Speaker 2: that was the part that surprised me, not because I like,
Speaker 2: don't in her, but because like she's presented as a
Speaker 2: fucking mascot. You know, this is a winnable battle. The
Speaker 2: French had slightly more troops in the English. Probably English
Speaker 2: historians like to be like, we were totally outnumbered, and
Speaker 2: the French historians are like, no, it was our side
Speaker 2: who was outnumbered. I can't do a French accent. I'm
Speaker 2: sorry everyone, I'm not sorry.
Speaker 3: Probably better that we don't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but the English had a series of forts built
Speaker 2: around the city of Orleans, and they also had the
Speaker 2: morale and they like and they're not starving, Yeah, they're
Speaker 2: not starving. Well, the people in the city are starving
Speaker 2: and they're going to show up at like some of
Speaker 2: the later battles. But their early battles. They're like, hey,
Speaker 2: we're just some starving people. Later, hundreds of militia from
Speaker 2: the city are going to help. But England has been
Speaker 2: steamrolling France and so they're actually overconfident and they don't
Speaker 2: really have enough people to sustain this siege. They're like, ah,
Speaker 2: couple thousand people. The French have basically fucking given up.
Speaker 2: They're French. Their flag is a white flag. Isn't there
Speaker 2: some joke around that?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the relief army set off from Blue and
Speaker 2: they rolled out like it was a holy crusade. There's
Speaker 2: priests walking in front of the army the whole road
Speaker 2: to Orleon. She forbade swearing and pillaging, and she sent
Speaker 2: away the sex workers who the camp followers.
Speaker 3: Oh, the boys probably hated that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she was popular among the soldiers, and I'm surprised.
Speaker 2: They're like, what our three favorite things about war you
Speaker 2: have taken away from us?
Speaker 3: But the only thing that makes walking to war bearable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And Joan was like, all right, we have an army,
Speaker 2: let's attack them from the north in a very straightforward
Speaker 2: manner until they are all dead. And this is like
Speaker 2: pretty much her entire life for military strategy. She later
Speaker 2: gets a little bit cannier.
Speaker 3: Just go straight into it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, God's on my side.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The Bastard of Orleon is like, whoops, instead of doing
Speaker 2: your plan, I took us to the wrong side of
Speaker 2: the river figure plan. Sorry, I guess we have to
Speaker 2: do the smart thing where we attack one fort.
Speaker 3: That's so tactful of him to not hurt her feel
Speaker 3: I know, he was very nice about it, like, don't
Speaker 3: tell her her plans bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And they attacked one of the forts and they won,
Speaker 2: and in large part they won, and I spent a
Speaker 2: while reading about it. But whatever, a sudden change in
Speaker 2: the wind changed the way that like boats were moving
Speaker 2: on the river, and shit, right.
Speaker 3: Well God did that.
Speaker 2: That's what the Bastard of Orlean believes. And he's like, oh,
Speaker 2: Joan of Arc, who's not of Arc yet, Joan has
Speaker 2: brought about divine intervention and we've won. So at this
Speaker 2: point in the story, I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, she's
Speaker 2: a mascot's great. I love her, but you know, whatever,
Speaker 2: you know, And they take this fort temporarily, they managed
Speaker 2: to resupply the city. They ride into town and everyone
Speaker 2: in Orleon knows who Joan is at this point, and
Speaker 2: they treat her like a saint five hundred years too early.
Speaker 2: And Joan of Arc climbs up on the battlements and
Speaker 2: shouts at the English basically like go away or God
Speaker 2: will drive you out. And the English are like, yeah,
Speaker 2: we're we're gonna like rape you, and shit, they're not nice.
Speaker 2: They said a lot of not nice stuff to her.
Speaker 2: And then the battle continued over the coming days, and
Speaker 2: then Joan of Arc, Okay, all of our tactical ideas
Speaker 2: at this point are just shit. Most of them are like,
Speaker 2: let's gather up all the people and then attack them
Speaker 2: with our people until we beat all their people and
Speaker 2: then we win.
Speaker 3: I mean that's kind of how Cellos.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the Master of Oorleon is like ignoring her.
Speaker 2: But what Joan of Arc did which won the battle,
Speaker 2: and this battle is pivotal to winning the war. Although
Speaker 2: later she's gonna like actually do commander shit. She offers
Speaker 2: morale in really extreme ways. In war, the single worst
Speaker 2: thing is a route, right, like in a medieval fight. Honestly,
Speaker 2: a lot of modern fights, most people don't die when
Speaker 2: both sides are like peeppew hit you with a sword.
Speaker 2: You know, that's the that's how war sounds. And most
Speaker 2: people die when people give up and start running away,
Speaker 2: and then you just shoot them all in the back,
Speaker 2: or if it's the Middle Ages, you ride them down
Speaker 2: with your cavalry and hit them in the back with swords.
Speaker 3: And that's just such a big distraction if you have
Speaker 3: to turn around. Yeah, you know, you're not focusing on
Speaker 3: the battle, guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, come on. The French army is on the verge
Speaker 2: of a route trying to take this fort. And then
Speaker 2: they like kind of look over and they're like, man,
Speaker 2: there is a seventeen year old girl with a sword
Speaker 2: in the middle of this battle with a banner with
Speaker 2: God on it. Who the fuck are we to run?
Speaker 2: She's not running. God is with us. And they turn
Speaker 2: from a route to a victory, which is really fucking
Speaker 2: rare and war and she is genuinely in the front lines,
Speaker 2: riding with a lance, Like I feel so bad keeping
Speaker 2: like and then I underestimated her, But it's because everything
Speaker 2: I read felt like it was like the little quick
Speaker 2: versions of her story, you know, Yeah, I feel like.
Speaker 3: There are of service level understanding I have of her
Speaker 3: as a historical figure is very mascot like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but she is in the front lines, riding with
Speaker 2: a lance, stabbing English people, and shit, I mean that's
Speaker 2: very solid. At one point, she takes an arrow quote
Speaker 2: above the breast and fights on, doesn't take it out,
Speaker 2: just keeps fighting on while crying. She's just like pouring
Speaker 2: tears as she's crying, and she's like killing motherfuckers with
Speaker 2: a sword. So the French their morale would flag, and
Speaker 2: then they'd look over and see this fucking crazy visionary
Speaker 2: lady with an arrow in her chest, hacking away with
Speaker 2: a sword with a banner with God on it, and
Speaker 2: they're like, all right, will you probably do this?
Speaker 3: I mean I feel like that would be very motivational
Speaker 3: for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like fuck it, I'll follow her.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: And what's wild to think about? I know, I kind
Speaker 2: of brought this up earlier. This is why France is
Speaker 2: the country that exists, because they believed in themselves. Because
Speaker 2: Joan of Arc did this exact specific thing, at this time,
Speaker 2: we might not have had the French Revolution, which fundamentally
Speaker 2: changes the idea of how government works everywhere in the world,
Speaker 2: not entirely for the better, but the like knock on
Speaker 2: effects of this like blow my mind, you know, the
Speaker 2: like butterfly flapping its wings. Effects of this battle.
Speaker 3: Just goes to show you just do that weird thing. Yeah,
Speaker 3: lean into it, go all the way. Who knows.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And the English had went from making fun of
Speaker 2: Joan of Arc and now they are terrified of Joan
Speaker 2: of Arc. They're like, the enemy has a fucking witch.
Speaker 2: There is a sorceress attacking us, and we are all
Speaker 2: going to die. The English are now outnumbered, the siege
Speaker 2: is effectively broken. The like militia come out from the
Speaker 2: city and join in the battles, and the English tears
Speaker 2: down all their remaining forts. But instead of fucking off,
Speaker 2: they like array themselves for battle, I mean like, I
Speaker 2: will give it one less go fuck it, you know.
Speaker 2: And the French army comes out of the city to
Speaker 2: face them. But it's Sunday, uh oh, and Joan of
Speaker 2: Arc is like, look, if they attack us, we can fight,
Speaker 2: and if they don't, we can't. And people are all
Speaker 2: like pissed, right, but they do it, and for hours
Speaker 2: the two armies stare at each other down and then
Speaker 2: the English turned tail and left. This is her first
Speaker 2: like tactical thing she has done that saves probably a
Speaker 2: couple thousand people's lives, you know. And she is seventeen
Speaker 2: years old. So orly On is free. The bastard and
Speaker 2: the maid go back to the defause court.
Speaker 3: He did not expect them to go back.
Speaker 2: No, no, like, And all the military advisers are like,
Speaker 2: all right, stay at home, King, we'll begin a counter offensive,
Speaker 2: but you stay here and stay safe. And Joan is like, well,
Speaker 2: the voice has told me that you should go on
Speaker 2: a perilous journey with the army to be crowned in
Speaker 2: a more proper place, the city of Ron's and the
Speaker 2: Dafaun's like, all right, fuck it, you're my angel, sent
Speaker 2: by God. Let's go. Voices in your head said we
Speaker 2: should do it. You brought me orle On. We're gonna
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 3: I mean, so far, so good. You might as well
Speaker 3: lean in.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He rallied his new and growing army. A bunch
Speaker 2: of people switch sides after the victory of Orleon, basically
Speaker 2: being like, oh, thank god, the Dafahnt isn't a coward.
Speaker 2: We left because he was a piece of shit coward,
Speaker 2: you know. And they marched out and they were claimed
Speaker 2: a walled town from the English. Joan led the way
Speaker 2: herself up scaling ladders banner in hand with the troops.
Speaker 2: After her, she wore like a you know those like
Speaker 2: medieval helmets that you'll see that have like kind of
Speaker 2: like the wide brim that go all the way around.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, those are scaling walls helmets.
Speaker 3: That makes sense because they're shooting arrows down at you. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so it's like protecting your neck and shoulders, I guess.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And what's cool is we have, like we probably
Speaker 2: don't have much of her stuff that's like totally authentic.
Speaker 2: We probably have one of her helmets, not a not
Speaker 2: a wide helmet, but a little pointy French helmet.
Speaker 3: You really can't trust the Catholic Church on stuff like that,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean? Like if every if every
Speaker 3: splinter of the cross were real, it would have been
Speaker 3: three hundred feet long.
Speaker 2: I know, well almost Like fortunately, right, Like she's not
Speaker 2: a saint for like four hundred years.
Speaker 3: Right, right, So they weren't. Like selling fake relics was
Speaker 3: like I mean, after selling poison for husbands, fake relics
Speaker 3: was a huge industry.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, same people are doing it too. You're like, ah, fuck,
Speaker 2: I accidentally gave my husband a splinter of the true cross.
Speaker 2: I meant to gave him arsenic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like Saint Margaret had seventy six fingers, because that's
Speaker 3: how many bones we have.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as Margaret's, we got a lot of fingers. So
Speaker 2: she takes this town banner in hand. Troops come up
Speaker 2: after her. She's scaling the well. I don't know if
Speaker 2: she's the first up, but she's like leading the way.
Speaker 2: And at this point she's now an experienced military commander.
Speaker 2: I think the bastard isn't coming with him at this point,
Speaker 2: he like he survives and later he's gonna like lead
Speaker 2: a rebellion against Charles the Seventh once Charles the Seventh
Speaker 2: proves he sucks, but like.
Speaker 3: He's like really busy, like keeping his dad's house. Yeah, right,
Speaker 3: he's got to go home door leon and do orleon stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And the tactics that she offers starts winning more
Speaker 2: and more battles. And all of her tactics still rely
Speaker 2: on like don't fuck around, let's just attack, let's do
Speaker 2: decisive action, right, but she starts being smart about it.
Speaker 2: And at one point the English shows up with reinforcements
Speaker 2: with a ton of longbowmen, right, and this usually doesn't
Speaker 2: go well for the French. At jones insistence, the French
Speaker 2: army avoids another let's all die in the mud by
Speaker 2: immediately sending cavalry. Like everyone wants say, all right, ready,
Speaker 2: we got to get set up for battle. We got
Speaker 2: to do the thing. And she's like, go.
Speaker 3: Now, don't just stand there like a target.
Speaker 2: You are attacking now. And they storm up and they
Speaker 2: slaughter the longbowmen before they have time to like set
Speaker 2: up their like pikes into the ground to keep you know,
Speaker 2: horses from attacking and shit.
Speaker 3: And they're heavy, Like it's like you have to get
Speaker 3: in your little spa instead of your big heavy bow. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so if you don't, just don't let them get on
Speaker 3: top of you. Get in there smart.
Speaker 2: Yeah. This battle, the Battle of Patay, even more than
Speaker 2: the Battle of Orleon, is what changed the face of
Speaker 2: this war. The one hundred year War turns on Joan
Speaker 2: of Arc as the commander ordering this attack, and two
Speaker 2: thousand English soldiers lay dead, and the English courage failed,
Speaker 2: and the French fighting spirit is renewed. This does not
Speaker 2: end the war. The war's going to drag on for
Speaker 2: a long ass time longer. But this is like, this
Speaker 2: is one of the most important decisive battles of the
Speaker 2: entire thing that turns it around.
Speaker 3: I mean, once you've been at it for a century,
Speaker 3: I feel like if things are picking up the pace
Speaker 3: a little bit, that's dramatic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. And the king kept wanting to chicken out
Speaker 2: of this war, march to go get crowned, but every
Speaker 2: time Joan forces him to keep going. They should go
Speaker 2: up at towns under Burgundian control and we'll just be like, hey,
Speaker 2: come out, I'm your king, be French again. And most
Speaker 2: of the time they're like, yeah, all right, that sounds
Speaker 2: all right.
Speaker 3: If they hadn't invented nationalism yet, so they're just I
Speaker 3: mean they could take it or leave it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, totally. So they make it to Ron's Charles
Speaker 2: the seventh is crowned more properly, and Joan's parents are there.
Speaker 3: Ah, how did they How did they get there?
Speaker 2: They cross fucking enemy territory with like a bunch of soldiers.
Speaker 2: I assume there's a whole delegation.
Speaker 3: How did they know to even go? Like did someone
Speaker 3: send them a letter?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I assume so they probably they probably set people right.
Speaker 2: They were like, oh, go get Joan of ARC's parents.
Speaker 2: You know, And as the king was crowned, Joan of
Speaker 2: Arcs stood at his side holding her banner.
Speaker 3: That's kind of a big deal, I.
Speaker 2: Know, but not as a big deal as his ads
Speaker 2: selling the products with Kooper on Go.
Speaker 3: God told me that you have to buy the products.
Speaker 2: That's right, and we're back.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, it's a huge fucking deal, right, And this is
Speaker 2: like going to change the way that people end up
Speaker 2: talking about her later, like after she's burned at the
Speaker 2: steak and he kind of like has to well, we'll
Speaker 2: get to it later. But yeah, she's right there, like
Speaker 2: standing beside him, and this is like a wild thing, right,
Speaker 2: It's like, this isn't like old Viking times where lots
Speaker 2: of women fought, you know, this is like true civilized France,
Speaker 2: Catholic Land. And the coronation re establishes Charles the seventh
Speaker 2: as the rightful heir to France. And now the war
Speaker 2: isn't who's the rightful heir. Now the war is let's
Speaker 2: kick out the invading English, who were not living up
Speaker 2: to the Burgundian promises of populism in Paris every Christmas.
Speaker 2: The French royalty had always feasted the commoners, but the
Speaker 2: English occupiers were like, why would we give stuff to
Speaker 2: poor people? That doesn't make any sense?
Speaker 3: Not a popular choice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so the English are like, oh shit, we
Speaker 2: better get our fucking our infant guy Henry the six
Speaker 2: coronated in Ron's two, but they couldn't book the venue
Speaker 2: because of the military occupation of the other side.
Speaker 3: And how old is their baby king?
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know. In the end, he gets like
Speaker 2: he's like ten soon, but I think right now he's
Speaker 2: a baby. I'm not he's not in charge.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, I would just in terms of like being sentient.
Speaker 3: So he's just like a baby guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he's the fucking mascot. So they do it
Speaker 2: in Paris and this isn't as big of you think
Speaker 2: Paris is a bigger deal because it's the capital and
Speaker 2: they do it like fucking Notre Dame, right, But Ron's
Speaker 2: is where like a old Louis guy got coronated, and
Speaker 2: that's like who they're all claiming to be the rightful
Speaker 2: heir of and shit, you know.
Speaker 3: Right, you want to sort of claim the lineage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and when they do this, they piss off the
Speaker 2: Parisians because they they do this coronation in a really
Speaker 2: English fashion, which is to say, they didn't give fresh
Speaker 2: food to the commoners. Instead, there was like some food
Speaker 2: for the commoners and it had been cooked like Thursday.
Speaker 2: I don't know what day of the coronation was, but
Speaker 2: I know the food had been cooked Thursday, and it
Speaker 2: was like several days later. And it backfired. People of
Speaker 2: Paris were like, oh, y'all are English as hell? What
Speaker 2: the fuck?
Speaker 3: Really, at least do our customs. If you're gonna pretend
Speaker 3: to be the king of France, like, at least do
Speaker 3: it in a French way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and give us some fucking decent food. This is
Speaker 2: supposed to be like our day, right.
Speaker 3: There should be snacks.
Speaker 2: And this gets that one of the most interesting, messiest
Speaker 2: lessons from medieval history, which is that monarchy and nobility
Speaker 2: were often kinder to commoners than like the non noble
Speaker 2: rich like the bourgeoisie. Right, like fuck a king, fuck
Speaker 2: a monarchy. But the rule by the wealthy that replaced
Speaker 2: royalty is not progress. And in the fourteen hundreds England
Speaker 2: was slightly more like middle class in bourgeois and this
Speaker 2: is the most obviously two two hundred years later in
Speaker 2: the English Civil War, where like the rich kick out
Speaker 2: the king and then are all a bunch of Puritan
Speaker 2: assholes and like genocide the Irish and all this shit.
Speaker 2: But like it's just this really interesting thing about how
Speaker 2: nobles are better at populism than rich people are as
Speaker 2: I guess what I would say, you know.
Speaker 3: Because it's sort of this paternalistic relationship.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was not good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I mean, but it is if they have
Speaker 3: this sort of.
Speaker 2: Like that's my dad, He'll take care of me.
Speaker 3: I mean, they don't take they don't take great care
Speaker 3: of them, but it's like these are our people. We've
Speaker 3: been ordained by God to care for the land and
Speaker 3: the people or whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. It's like the difference between like I'm going
Speaker 2: to take care of my sheep that I want to
Speaker 2: like take advantage of versus like, ah, I got enough sheep,
Speaker 2: they'll fucking do whatever they want and maybe they'll all
Speaker 2: get eaten by wolves. Who gives a shit. It's like
Speaker 2: I don't want to be a sheep in either one
Speaker 2: of those stories, you.
Speaker 3: Know, right right, you die at the end regardless.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's not good. You get it. And things
Speaker 2: get messier after all this new coronation shit, after his coronation.
Speaker 2: Charles the Seventh is like, hey, let's call for a
Speaker 2: truce in peace talks and this sounds nice, right, Like
Speaker 2: that's usually the vibe try to end civil wars. But
Speaker 2: Joe of Arc is like, no fucking attack Paris. What
Speaker 2: the fuck are you talking about? And this is the
Speaker 2: first time he doesn't listen to her, and it goes badly.
Speaker 2: The other side is like, oh, yeah, totally, let's do
Speaker 2: peace talks. That's totally what we're about. And so they
Speaker 2: sign this like several week truce and they like use
Speaker 2: that time to get thousands more nights across the English
Speaker 2: channel to reinforce Paris.
Speaker 3: That's sneaky, that's not.
Speaker 2: Honorable, I know. And so eventually the English are like, nah,
Speaker 2: just kidding, fuck you, we were never gonna do peace,
Speaker 2: and so Charles the Seventh marches on Paris. But now
Speaker 2: Paris is defended as fuck. Paris is the largest city
Speaker 2: in the western part of Europe, and it's you know,
Speaker 2: the most fortified, and there's hundreds of thousands. It's like
Speaker 2: bad right, let them dig in. Yeah, and like it's
Speaker 2: a Burgundian city overall at this point, and so like
Speaker 2: they're not even the people. I mean, the people of
Speaker 2: Paris are like the underclass is kind of on the
Speaker 2: side of Charles' seventh, but like the middle class and
Speaker 2: shit are and it's like it's messy.
Speaker 3: Because it's been years at this point, right that they've
Speaker 3: held this area.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so they have a big ass battle and
Speaker 2: it is medieval as hell. There's cannonballs and arrows flying everywhere.
Speaker 2: People are trying to dam up the moat with sticks
Speaker 2: so they can build a bridge to climb the walls.
Speaker 2: People are dying everywhere. Joan tries to rally the troops
Speaker 2: to scare the enemy, but the Perusians are like, they
Speaker 2: don't see her as an emissary of God or as
Speaker 2: a scary witch. They're like, you're a provincial loser or Paris.
Speaker 2: We don't like people from the countryside. And so they
Speaker 2: shoot her in the fucking leg when she's trying to
Speaker 2: do this big like we can do it, guys rallying cry,
Speaker 2: and it takes her down. Unlike the arrow she takes
Speaker 2: in the chest, which I think like probably just didn't
Speaker 2: penetrate all that far, this one takes her out and
Speaker 2: Yolanda's son dragged her out of the moat she'd fallen into,
Speaker 2: and they all retreated, and seeing their mystics struck down
Speaker 2: took the spirit out of the people, and the whole
Speaker 2: attack fails. It probably would have failed anyway, and this
Speaker 2: is the end of her having favor at court.
Speaker 3: That's awfully fickle.
Speaker 2: Oh, they're super fickle. There's this thing where like again,
Speaker 2: most of the narratives I've heard around this is like, oh,
Speaker 2: her straightforward tactics working early on, but when she tries
Speaker 2: it in pair, she loses, and then she loses again,
Speaker 2: and you know, as if she's a bad commander. No,
Speaker 2: she wanted to attack Paris before it was defended.
Speaker 3: And that might have worked.
Speaker 2: And the other failures that she has I'll get to,
Speaker 2: but it's because she loses favor. She has shunned, she
Speaker 2: has shunted out of the limelight. Yolanda is also kind
Speaker 2: of out of the limelight now because, like Jones, her
Speaker 2: guy right and Yolanda's main rival, comes more to power,
Speaker 2: and so they send Joan to try and siege a
Speaker 2: town that they know she can't in the middle of winter,
Speaker 2: barely any soldiers. They are not sending any reinforcements or
Speaker 2: food or money or anything right, and she fails because
Speaker 2: she can't do it, and now she's disgraced, and the
Speaker 2: king he makes her a noble at this point in
Speaker 2: order to save face, and now she becomes Joan of
Speaker 2: Arc like now she has a title, and the imprisoned
Speaker 2: Duke of Orleans somehow sends her red dress covered in rubies,
Speaker 2: presumably through the Bastard of Orleon, and basically everyone, at
Speaker 2: least the king is hoping that she's going to hang
Speaker 2: up the sword and armor and just shut up and
Speaker 2: be a lady, right.
Speaker 3: Not our girl, Joan. No, absolutely not.
Speaker 2: No, She's not going to shut up and be a lady.
Speaker 2: Despite having like basically no support from the king, she
Speaker 2: keeps fighting the fucking English. She has her tiny personal retinue,
Speaker 2: including one brother. I don't know what happened to the
Speaker 2: other brother, it probably wasn't good. And she has two
Speaker 2: hundred Italian mercenaries and she just goes around. She's conquering
Speaker 2: towns and shit, she knows the size of her on
Speaker 2: fucking force. She's winning battles. Then she's valiantly defending the
Speaker 2: retreat of her nights across a drawbridge when the guy
Speaker 2: in charge of the town ditches her by raising the
Speaker 2: drawbridge with only her and a few nights outside, and
Speaker 2: she's surrounded by the English and captured. Oh shit, So
Speaker 2: she never failed as a military commander. She was abandoned.
Speaker 2: That's so sad, I know. And most of the versions
Speaker 2: of the story of Joan of Arc focused now on
Speaker 2: like what I try not to just like constantly talk
Speaker 2: shit on everyone else who's told a story that I'm telling,
Speaker 2: but I'm like particularly bitter with this particular one. You know,
Speaker 2: there's good stories and very smart stories. People want to
Speaker 2: talk about the theological stuff and things like that, and
Speaker 2: that's interesting, right, So people focus less on her military
Speaker 2: career more in her like torture and trial, and I'm
Speaker 2: going to focus less on those.
Speaker 3: I think it's with a lot of stories like this,
Speaker 3: the learst best kept, most well maintained records that we
Speaker 3: have are from the court and from the church, and
Speaker 3: in this case, it was yep, the Church's canonical court, right,
Speaker 3: so like yep, that's who was writing it down, yep.
Speaker 2: And so yeah, like almost everything we have of like
Speaker 2: direct quotes from her and stuff absolutely comes from court.
Speaker 2: And it is an interesting court room drama. I would
Speaker 2: absolutely watch like just the court movie, and it probably
Speaker 2: exist was a million of Mard movies. I just haven't
Speaker 2: seen them. But like, so she sold to the English.
Speaker 2: This does not transport her to England. She's like in
Speaker 2: just English controlled France, you know. And they put her
Speaker 2: on trial for heresy, not by the English crown but
Speaker 2: by the Catholic Church. Her charges include wearing men's clothes,
Speaker 2: acting on demonic visions, and saying only God can judge me,
Speaker 2: not you clerics here on earth, instead of submitting to
Speaker 2: the church.
Speaker 3: Okay, well, this is just truly unfair because we already
Speaker 3: checked if the visions were demonic, I know, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean, Like we weren't just acting on her word,
Speaker 3: like some guys checked. Yeah, like she's already been acquitted
Speaker 3: of the demon thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the trial is a show trial, Yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 2: It fails to meet even the Catholic Church's standards for inquisitions.
Speaker 2: This is actually part of why it was like kind
Speaker 2: of easy ish for the church to later be like no,
Speaker 2: just kidding, She's totally fine. Is that? Like actually some
Speaker 2: of the clerics were like, hey, you can't do this,
Speaker 2: and they were like arrested in shit, you know, so
Speaker 2: there were some people who tried to like stand up
Speaker 2: for what they perceived as justice in their inquisition, which
Speaker 2: is not a word that has a good record. But
Speaker 2: then again, that's how people are going to look at
Speaker 2: the modern prison industrial complex. They'll be like, and then
Speaker 2: this judge thought that it was like good to put
Speaker 2: someone in jail for marijuana, and everyone's gonna be like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, you know, jail arbaric, barbarous. Anyway, at
Speaker 2: the beginning of the trial, Joan is defiant and well
Speaker 2: spoken and clever. She has like proved theological shit that
Speaker 2: she has no way of knowing, right, she doesn't have
Speaker 2: any traditional education. And there's a whole thing where demonic
Speaker 2: visions are embodied, like if Jesus shows up and he's
Speaker 2: like and he can like touch you and you can
Speaker 2: like put your finger in that wound, you know, that's
Speaker 2: the devil.
Speaker 3: I don't know that they've been consistent about this over time.
Speaker 2: No I am no I every expectation they were not.
Speaker 2: But in the early fourteen hundreds, this is the way
Speaker 2: the Catholic Church did it. If it's not embodied as
Speaker 2: a chance of being proper in divine and slowly as
Speaker 2: the months wear on, she's beaten down. She's like, oh,
Speaker 2: Charles is gonna save me. I got him crowned, you know,
Speaker 2: like it's just a matter of time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like did you forget your girl?
Speaker 2: No, he's a fickle, cowardly fuck. In the end, she
Speaker 2: signs a document saying she's sorry in exchange for not
Speaker 2: being killed. She's like, I won't wield weapons or wear
Speaker 2: men's clothes, and she got life in prison instead of
Speaker 2: burned at the stake.
Speaker 3: Wow, it's a lot like the modern federal court system.
Speaker 2: And they left men's clothes in her cell to kind
Speaker 2: of try and trap her, and she said later that
Speaker 2: she wore them because she wanted to address as a
Speaker 2: man when you have mail guards.
Speaker 3: Right, this is the same reason as before. Right, It's
Speaker 3: like this is a safety and practicality consideration, right, And
Speaker 3: like that's completely possible.
Speaker 2: I also think it is completely possible that she preferred
Speaker 2: to present in mail attire. Right. And then she said
Speaker 2: that the angels had come and chastised her for for
Speaker 2: swearing them out of fear, and that you should not
Speaker 2: act out of fear, and so she would never forswear
Speaker 2: them again. She would not deny that God had spoken
Speaker 2: to her, so they burned her at the stake on
Speaker 2: May thirtieth, fourteen thirty one. She asked for a cross,
Speaker 2: and an English soldier made one from a stick and
Speaker 2: gave it to her, and she held it against her chest.
Speaker 2: And after she burned her ashes were thrown into the
Speaker 2: river so they could never become relics.
Speaker 3: Which tells me they were thinking, like, not everybody is
Speaker 3: going to agree with what we did here, right, if
Speaker 3: you are thinking ahead to making sure there's no finger
Speaker 3: bones to put in a glass case in the cathedral, Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, you might be wrong.
Speaker 2: You know, you're the baddie.
Speaker 3: You might be wrong.
Speaker 2: And part of the reason that this later gets thrown out,
Speaker 2: this whole case gets thrown out, is because like even
Speaker 2: though all of almost all the clerics are French, out
Speaker 2: of like the like hundred or whatever fucking inquisitors, almost
Speaker 2: all of them are French, they're almost all English aligned, right,
Speaker 2: and it is not a neutral trial. And it was like,
Speaker 2: according to the Church's own doctrine, she should have been
Speaker 2: tried impartially, you know, send her to Rome, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: or just be like, hell, yeah, you rule, good job.
Speaker 2: Keep the sword dresses a boy, gender's fake.
Speaker 3: God loves everyone, or just like send her back to
Speaker 3: a little French village and move on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally like grow up. Yeah. Four years later, the
Speaker 2: Burgundians made peace with Charles the Seventh and abandoned England.
Speaker 2: Ten years after that, in fourteen fifty three, the French
Speaker 2: finally kicked the English out of France, out of everywhere
Speaker 2: except Klay. And since Joan had been important in getting
Speaker 2: Charles the Seventh crowned, it was politically important that her
Speaker 2: image be rehabilitated. So there was a second trial and
Speaker 2: she was found innocent, and then in nineteen twenty she
Speaker 2: was canonized, becoming again I believe, the only Catholic saint
Speaker 2: who was killed by the Catholic Church. And yeah, I
Speaker 2: think she's cool.
Speaker 3: She got a raw deal, man, She got a raw deal.
Speaker 2: She really did. She knew she was gonna right. She
Speaker 2: was like, I only got a year, you know?
Speaker 3: But oh was she right? What was the timeline on that? She?
Speaker 2: Actually, I think she did outlast her own prediction because
Speaker 2: she was seventeen when she said that, and she was
Speaker 2: nineteen when she died. But she might have been because
Speaker 2: her trial was dragged on for months. It might have
Speaker 2: been about a year before she got caught.
Speaker 3: She might have been about right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Charles the Seventh is the big fucker here, right, Like.
Speaker 3: He probably could have bargained for her back if he
Speaker 3: was so inclined.
Speaker 2: I know. And there's this whole thing where they like
Speaker 2: were really specifically worried about, Like there's the whole case
Speaker 2: is like she's incredibly well guarded this whole time, right,
Speaker 2: because they're like, fuck, he might come and raid to
Speaker 2: try and get her free, and he never even tried.
Speaker 2: There was no chance that that man would have done that, Like,
Speaker 2: there was no part of his personality that was like
Speaker 2: I should risk things for people who've risked things for me.
Speaker 3: Like, especially because he'd already abandoned her at that point.
Speaker 3: That's why she got abandoned.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, she hadn't been fucking abandoned. Who fucking knows
Speaker 2: how the story would go, no idea. And that's how
Speaker 2: two women changed history by relying on slash, in Yolanda's case,
Speaker 2: possibly fabricating visions. I'm pretty certain that Joan of Arc
Speaker 2: genuinely saw what she saw, you know, Oh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I believe that, you know, on whatever level
Speaker 3: these things can be true, but yeah, she was acting
Speaker 3: out of sincere belief.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, how did things shake out for Yolando?
Speaker 2: Like she lived for another she live on into like
Speaker 2: the fourteen forties and did a bunch of other political shit.
Speaker 2: I like, I followed her story a little bit, and
Speaker 2: I was like, yep, more back and forth of Nobles.
Speaker 2: I'm good. And the Bastard of Orlean led a revolt
Speaker 2: against Charles the Seventh when Charles the Seventh tried to
Speaker 2: like centralize more power and be like, oh, it's the
Speaker 2: King of friends, I should also be able to like
Speaker 2: make everyone give do even more for me, And he
Speaker 2: was like, I don't like that idea. And I'm the
Speaker 2: Bastard of Orlean.
Speaker 3: See that's why you don't help kings. I know, that's
Speaker 3: why you don't help kings man.
Speaker 2: That really is the moral of this story. Like there
Speaker 2: is a version where Joan of Arc leads a peasant
Speaker 2: army and it is like just my happiest dream utopia.
Speaker 3: You know, really, God should have sent you out into
Speaker 3: the countryside instead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, go lie to the king and get a
Speaker 2: lot of swords so that people are fighting with more
Speaker 2: than just like fucking flails from the field. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: always want to know more about Joan of Arc and
Speaker 2: now I do, and now we do. I was expecting
Speaker 2: to be this one of those episodes where I'm like, eh,
Speaker 2: I think she's fucking cool as hell.
Speaker 3: We need another one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just with better be the equivalent of that, like
Speaker 2: fighting for like Biden or some shit, you.
Speaker 3: Know, just sent by God to fight in the streets
Speaker 3: for Joseph Robin at Biden.
Speaker 2: Yeah, God damn it. Anyway, thanks for listening, And if
Speaker 2: people want to hear about more weird little now, I mean,
Speaker 2: she's weird, but not in the way that I love
Speaker 2: that we're having a public reckoning with the fact that
Speaker 2: weird has more than one meaning, And people are like, no,
Speaker 2: you can't use weird as a mean word for Republicans
Speaker 2: because we're all weird, And You're like, did you know
Speaker 2: that nowns can have multiple definitions or I guess adjectives
Speaker 2: in this case, I think.
Speaker 3: The most succinct explanation I've seen is like, there's difference
Speaker 3: between like weird aunt energy and weird uncle energy. Right, Like,
Speaker 3: your weird aunt will let you smoke pot at her house,
Speaker 3: you're weird uncle. You're not allowed to be alone with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have faith in some weird uncles having weird
Speaker 2: on energy, Like exactly, it's gonna take you to the
Speaker 2: horse races, you know, and like it'll be weird, but
Speaker 2: everything's safe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like there are different kinds of weird, Like Joan
Speaker 3: was definitely a weird little guy, but not like the
Speaker 3: weird little guys on my show, Right, those guys suck.
Speaker 2: Yeah, unless you told the story from the Burgundian point
Speaker 2: of view.
Speaker 3: A real villain.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sent by God to fucking stab us all.
Speaker 3: It really took care of business on that one.
Speaker 2: But yeah, folks should check out your show on Thursdays.
Speaker 2: And folks should check out my sub stack where I
Speaker 2: post about lots of stuff.
Speaker 3: And pre order your book.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and pre order my book called The Sapling Cage.
Speaker 2: It comes out September twenty fourth from Feminist Press. Has
Speaker 2: lots of stabbing, but probably less death overall because it's
Speaker 2: a sort of young adultish book. You ever heard of
Speaker 2: the genre crossover?
Speaker 3: Crossover to what?
Speaker 2: This is a genre called crossover of books. It's the
Speaker 2: word for ya, books that everyone knows are actually going
Speaker 2: to be mostly read by adults.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, I get it again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it changes not only the way they're marketed,
Speaker 2: but it actually gives you a lot more freedom in
Speaker 2: terms of how you write them, not in terms of
Speaker 2: it are being like more gore or whatever, but in
Speaker 2: terms of like breaking from certain assumptions about ways that
Speaker 2: certain characters behave and all of these other things. And
Speaker 2: so The Sapling Cage is a crossover book that people
Speaker 2: can check.
Speaker 3: Out, and they should, they should preorder it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to plug that. We're making a lot
Speaker 1: of progress on the Android AD free version of Cooler
Speaker 1: Zone Media that's currently only available at Apple, and there's
Speaker 1: like technical things that are happening that are actually happening,
Speaker 1: and it should be done soon and then people will
Speaker 1: be happy and nobody will be mad ever again, right,
Speaker 1: how's that works?
Speaker 3: Yay? Okay? Cool?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Now that I'm a podcaster, people are asking me about that, Sophie,
Speaker 3: and that is not my business.
Speaker 2: I know. Like that's why we have producers, because podcasting
Speaker 2: is incredibly hard and actually takes a team of people
Speaker 2: to do it right anyway. But if you want to
Speaker 2: hear it done right, you can listen to lots of
Speaker 2: cool Zone Media podcasts, including this very one next week
Speaker 2: when I talk about more cool People Who Did Cool Stuff.
Speaker 2: See you next week.
Speaker 1: Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media. For more podcasts on cool Zone Media,
Speaker 1: visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out
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Speaker 1: your podcasts.