Joan of Arc and the Hundred Years War by Deborah A Fraioli (2005)

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.2 (1971), p.165.8.Cited by Jacques Le Goff, Eric Palazzo, Jean-Claude Bonne, Marie-No�lColette, Le sacre royal � l �poque de Saint Louis: d apr�s le manuscrit latin 1246 dela BNF (Paris: Gallimard, 2001), p.156.9.Sergio Bertelli, The King s Body: The Sacred Rituals of Power in Medievaland Early Modern Europe, trans.R.Burr Litchfield (University Park: Pennsylva-nia State University Press, 2001), p.38.10.A.W.Lewis, Royal Succession in Capetian France: Studies on Familial Orderand the State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), cited by RichardA.Jackson, Vive le Roi! A History of the French Coronation from Charles V toCharles X (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984), p.70.11.Joseph R.Strayer, France: The Holy Land, the Chosen People, and theMost Christian King, in Medieval Statecraft and the Perspectives of History: Es-says by Joseph R.Strayer (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), p.307.12.Strayer, France, p.313.CHAPTER 5THE WAR AND JOANOF ARCThere is scant evidence to reveal what Joan of Arc understood about thebroad conflict known as the Hundred Years War.But since she came tobelieve herself divinely appointed, not so as to dedicate herself to a lifeof prayer, or to offer prophetic advice to royalty, for which there wereample precedents for women, but to conduct a political and military mis-sion in the kingdom of France, that evidence is of genuine importance.Therefore, after providing the fundamental background, this chapter doesnot ask the conventional questions about who Joan of Arc was and whatshe did, but rather what she knew and understood about the war and herown position in it.In the year 1412, when Joan of Arc was born in Domr�my, on theeastern frontier of the French monarchy, France and England were in theseventy-fifth year of the Hundred Years War.Forty-one years still re-mained in the war.Few historians would admit that nationalism as yetexisted, but the conflict that had begun as both a dispute over Aquitaineand a dynastic quarrel for the crown of France had, perhaps from thesheer duration of the struggle, been altered, for some, into an essentiallynationalistic war.French patriotism had certainly been aroused, althoughthe sentiment would lack for a name in French until the end of the cen-tury.Instead, the focus of pride in one s country was the king.Two kings named Charles had most recently succeeded each other asrulers of France.The first, Charles V (1364 1380), after an unfavorablestart, had become a powerful ruler.The second, Charles VI (1380 1422),began his reign with a disastrous minority (interim rule for a minor), butwhen conditions might have improved, he was struck with mental ill-56 JOAN OF ARC AND THE HUNDRED YEARS WARness, and competition for the reins of power led to civil war.There wasas yet no thought of the rule of a third Charles.Two older princes, Louis,duke of Guyenne, and John, duke of Touraine, stood to inherit the crownbefore the nine-year-old Charles, count of Ponthieu and future CharlesVII.The last stabilizing influence disappeared from the realm in 1404with the death of Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy, the mad king sbrother.Hatred between the opposing factions in the civil war escalatedafter the murder of Louis of Orleans in 1407.Louis cousin and rival, Johnthe Fearless, the new duke of Burgundy, confessed to the crime, but hispolitical career nevertheless survived through an arrogant self-defensebrought before the Parisians, which few, if any, must have believed.At the time of Joan of Arc s birth, the civil war between the Arma-gnacs and Burgundians, which then influenced all politics in France, pro-duced the strangest episode yet in the Hundred Years War.The rivalfactions were locked in conflict so bitterly that they forgot England wasthe mortal enemy of France, and each side took a turn negotiating withthe English on its own behalf.Each faction believed that alliance withEngland might be the deciding factor in their struggle for power againstone another.The duke of Burgundy was the first to approach Henry IV,offering his daughter s hand in marriage.The Armagnacs, on the otherhand, agreed to grant to England important territories then under theircontrol, despite the growing sense at the time that kings could not alien-ate (that is, detach or separate) any part of the realm.In this case,though, the king was indisposed because of his illness [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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