Joan of Arc by Regine Pernoud

Author:Regine Pernoud [Pernoud, Regine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780812812602
Publisher: Scarborough House
Published: 1994-04-15T04:00:00+00:00

COMMENTARY

The exposition of military events takes, in the nature of things, more room in this chapter that in any other. For the sake of the reader who wishes to follow up points which we could not here treat in detail, here is a short bibliography.

On the military events in general:

Ed. Perroy, La Guerre de Cent Ans. Paris 1945.

Calmette et Deprez, La France et l’Angleterre en conflit. In Histoire

Générale published under the direction of G. Glotz, Vol. VIII.

Paris 1937.

On the military events of the year 1430 in particular:

A. Bossuat, Perrinet Gressart et François de Surrienne, Agents de

l’Angleterre. Paris 1936.

On the Compiègne episode:

P. Champion, Guillaume de Flavy. Paris 1906.

J. M. Mestre, Guillaume de Flavy, n’a pas trahi Jeanne d’Arc.

On Joan’s letters:

C. de Maleissye, Les Lettres de Jehanne d’Arc. Paris 1911.

In addition, of course, reference can be made to the diverse histories of Joan of Arc, the most reliable from the historical point of view still being Hanotaux’s (1911); P. H. Dunand’s, the most thorough, in three volumes (1899). There is also the excellent little résumé written by J. Calmette for the Que sais-je? series, Jeanne d’Arc, No. 211 of that collection.

A word must be said here touching the claim that the arms granted to Joan and her family contain “proof” of her “bastardy”. (Though why, in that case, they were granted to the whole family is not clear. Is it claimed that her brothers were also Isabeau of Bavaria’s bastards?) It is claimed that if Joan was permitted to display fleurs-de-lys on her arms, that was to affirm that she was of the blood royal. This misconception derives from the same ignorance as that which we pointed out in the matter of the “Orleans livery”. The King, on this as on many other occasions, granted the right to bear the royal emblem to those he was particularly anxious to honour because their exploits had been outstandingly glorious. Examples are not far to seek: the arms granted, at the same period and for the same reasons to Gilles de Rais in September 1429, were “fleurs-delys semées en orle” (see the original deed preserved in the Archives nationales and to be seen in the Musée de l’Histoire de France, A.E. 11, 1715).

It is further claimed that the sword which appears on these arms constitutes a “brisure” (bar, bend sinister), the sign indicating bastardy. This is false: in heraldry the sword has never been a “brisure”; it is a “meuble” exactly like the crown, fleurs-de-lys, etc. But every bastard did invariably bear the customary “brisure” on his arms, that is to say the bar of bastardy which can be seen, for example, on the arms of Dunois, Bastard of Orleans. Reference can be made to the principal works on heraldry, among others Remy Mathieu’s Le système heraldique français, Meurgey de Tupigny’s work, and others.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.