Joan of Arc, part I: Childhood

Joan of Arc (1412-1431) is one of the most fascinating historical figures.

Short Biography
Jeanne d’Arc was a peasant girl who became a national heroine and the patron saint of France. At a crucial period of the Hundred Years’War, she led the French resistance to English invaders and turned the tide of the war. A mystic visionary, Jeanne was ultimately captured and imprisoned by the English and condemned by an ecclesiastical court to be burned at the stake in 1431.

She was 19 years old.
Joan d’Arc.info

Jeanne of Arc was born in Domrémy, a small village in northeastern France, around 1412.

She had three older brothers Jacquemin, Jean and Pierre, and one younger sister Catherine, who died in childbirth (the scene in the movie The Messenger is historically inaccurate).

More info on Joan of Arc’s family tree can be found at Joan d’Arc.info. (Interesting note – this web site has been around since 1997!)

Although Joan died childless, her siblings have living descendants.

A Orléans, Clotilde Forgeot d’Arc incarnera Jeanne aux fêtes johanniques
L’adolescente de 15 ans figurera Jeanne d’Arc lors de 593e édition des fêtes johanniques, qui se déroulera du 29 avril au 8 mai 2022 à Orléans (Loiret).

In Orléans, Clotilde Forgeot d’Arc will play Joan at the Johannine festivals
The 15-year-old teenager will feature Joan of Arc during the 593rd edition of the Johannine festivals, which will take place from April 29 to May 8, 2022 in Orléans
le Parisien

Clotilde Forgeot d’Arc doit incarner la Pucelle d’Orléans lors des fêtes johanniques prévues à Orléans du 29 avril au 8 mai prochain. Si la lycéenne de 15 ans a été choisie pour ses qualités personnelles, c’est aussi une descendante de Pierre d’Arc, le frère de Jeanne, qui va être en selle.

Clotilde Forgeot d’Arc is to play the Maid of Orléans during the Johannine festivals planned in Orléans from April 29 to May 8. If the 15-year-old high school student was chosen for her personal qualities, she is also a descendant of Pierre d’Arc, Jeanne’s brother, who will be in the saddle.
le Parisien

Leading up to the 15th Century

William Rosen, in his excellent book The Third Horseman: Climate Change and the Great Famine of the 14th Century, describes the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) that occurred between the 9th and 14th centuries.

Western Europe, Scandinavia, the British Isles, Iceland and Greenland experienced temperatures 2° C higher than our current toasty-warm world. This led to a lot of secondary effects:

the Norseman exploring, pillaging, and conquering large sections of Scandinavia, British Isles, and Europe, from Kiev to Sicily to Normandy to Greenland. This made everybody nervous. There was a consolidation of political regions.
the growing season was extended by several weeks, and a lot of marginal land became available for agriculture
because of the shortened life spans, many of the people making big geo-political decisions were very young, often in their 20’s. One exception was King Edward I, who live to 68, and made up for his lack of youthful judgment impairments with epic cruelty and dishonesty. He would come to be known after his death as ‘Scottorum malleus’ – the Hammer of the Scots (and possibly a British venereal disease).
with the increased food supply, the population swelled, but most people still lived on a thin margin.

Mr. Rosen describes the intense research that climatologists have undertaken to explain this phenomena. Ice cores, tree rings, carbon 14 analysis, and lots more. Mr. Rosen admits to the complexity and uncertainty associated with this analysis, but the conclusion seems to be a change in the northern hemisphere’s Atlantic currents.

When the currents readjusted in the early 14th century, it got cold. One in ten Europeans died from famine or political instability during the eight year period from 1314-1321.

These events led to the shaping of Joan of Arc’s world: the Hundred Years War, Britain’s lust for conquest and the Black Death, and a small but powerful number of traitorous opportunistic Frenchmen who wished to appease the Brits.

Domrémy

Domrémy is a small rural town in north east France.

Domrémy and Greux were exempted from taxes “forever” by Charles VII in 1429. It was the sole request made of the king by Joan of Arc when Charles asked her how he could show her his appreciation for seeing him crowned: Joan felt that taxes burdened the villagers. Moreover, he wished to do a good deed for her success in fighting the English during the Hundred Years’ War. Taxes were imposed upon Domrémy and Greux again during the French Revolution: the residents have paid taxes since.
Wikipedia

Joan of Arc’s Childhood as told by Mark Twain

In Mark Twain’s fictionalized account of the life of Joan of Arc, Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc (Wikipedia article), Joan’s story is told through a fictionalized childhood friend:

LOUIS DE CONTE

This is the year 1492. I am eighty-two years of age…. I, THE SIEUR LOUIS DE CONTE, was born in Neufchateau, on the 6th of January, 1410; that is to say, exactly two years before Joan of Arc was born in Domremy.
Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc

Louis begins his tale by telling of the children playing by a fairy tree outside the village.

Now from time immemorial all children reared in Domremy were called the Children of the Tree….

Always, from the remotest times, when the children joined hands and danced around the Fairy Tree they sang a song which was the Tree’s song, the song of L’Arbre fee de Bourlemont.
Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc

The Fairy Tree

The tree and the tree’s community of fairies were the children’s protectors and they lived in harmony for hundreds, perhaps a thousand years. But the local priest would have none of that (it competed with the dominance of the Catholic Church), and held a ceremony to banish the fairies.

Some legends suggest it may have been a dwarf beech, which has a beautifully supernatural and pagan look.

Joan of Arc, also known as Jeanne d’Arc, was born in Domrémy, a small village in northeastern France, in 1412. There is a legend associated with a fairy tree from her childhood, although it’s important to note that the historical accuracy of such stories can be challenging to verify.

According to the legend, Joan of Arc had a favorite tree, often referred to as the “Fairy Tree” or “Hanging Tree,” where she would reportedly go to pray and seek solace. The tree is said to have been an ancient beech tree located near the village church. Joan claimed to have received visions and messages from saints such as St. Michael, St. Margaret, and St. Catherine, which she believed guided her in her mission to support Charles VII and help him claim the French throne during the Hundred Years’ War.

While the specific details of the fairy tree and Joan’s interactions with it may have been embellished over time, her connection to the tree is often cited as part of the mystical narrative surrounding her life.
Chat GPT

Part of the inquisitors’ case against Joan involved this tree.

In 1431, after inquests in Joan’s native region, the clerics at the trial were acquainted with the existence of a famous beech tree near her village….

The tree represented a useful trump card for Joan’s judges in order to convict her of heresy and eventually burn her at the stake.

Joan’s inquisitors considered the fairies as maligni spiritus, since their conception of the supernatural was binary: it could be either divine (like miracles and angels) or diabolic (like magic or demonic entities).

On the contrary, the inhabitants of Domrémy and its environs had a more syncretic conception of the supernatural, and believed in the existence of a third group of entities, neither angelic nor diabolic: spirits who had been thought to live near certain trees, springs, rocks, and hills since pre-Christian times, benevolent (but dangerous) liminal figures.
Andrea Maraschi, Medievalists.net

Mark Twain wrote a poem of this tree in Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc:

L'ARBRE FEE DE BOURLEMONT / SONG OF THE CHILDREN

Now what has kept your leaves so green,
Arbre Fee de Bourlemont?

The children's tears! They brought each grief,
And you did comfort them and cheer
Their bruised hearts, and steal a tear
That, healed, rose a leaf.

And what has built you up so strong,
Arbre Fee de Bourlemont?

The children's love! They've loved you long
Ten hundred years, in sooth,
They've nourished you with praise and song,
And warmed your heart and kept it young—
A thousand years of youth!

Bide always green in our young hearts,
Arbre Fee de Bourlemont!
And we shall always youthful be,
Not heeding Time his flight;
And when, in exile wand'ring, we
Shall fainting yearn for glimpse of thee,
Oh, rise upon our sight!

Alfred Sherer composed a beautiful piano melody in 2018 based on this poem.

The melody was inspired by the lyrics written by Mark Twain in his book, “Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc” (1896). The melody was composed by Alfred Sherer in 2018, 122 years after Mark Twain had published his book. There is no referenced or published melody in the book.

This song is, in a sense, much more than just a children’s musical rhyme… I believe that Mark Twain, through the lyrics of “Arbre Fee de Bourlemont”, was actually writing about France and that the song expresses the deep feelings that the French people have for their nation.

It is a recurrent theme in the musical La Pucelle (The Maid) which is based on the life of Joan of Arc and is currently in early production.
Alfred Sherer