Mystical Experience as a Feminist Weapon: J oan of Arc by Anne Llewellyn Barstow. Women's use of Mystical Experience to develop an awareness of themselves as individuals. F emale utilization of mystical. Experience as means of being heard in a patriarchal society are the f ocus of this essay.
Original Description:
Original Title
Mystical Experience as a Feminist Weapon Joan of Arc
Mystical Experience as a Feminist Weapon: J oan of Arc by Anne Llewellyn Barstow. Women's use of Mystical Experience to develop an awareness of themselves as individuals. F emale utilization of mystical. Experience as means of being heard in a patriarchal society are the f ocus of this essay.
Mystical Experience as a Feminist Weapon: J oan of Arc by Anne Llewellyn Barstow. Women's use of Mystical Experience to develop an awareness of themselves as individuals. F emale utilization of mystical. Experience as means of being heard in a patriarchal society are the f ocus of this essay.
Mystical Experience as a Feminist Weapon: Joan of Arc
Author(s): Anne Llewellyn Barstow
Source: Women's Studies Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Summer, 1985), pp. 26-29 Published by: The Feminist Press at the City University of New York Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40003571 . Accessed: 08/09/2013 19:49 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. . The Feminist Press at the City University of New York is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Women's Studies Quarterly. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 190.20.2.202 on Sun, 8 Sep 2013 19:49:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Mystical Experience as a Feminist Weapon: J oan of A rc A nne Llewellyn Barstow For years as I worked on the history of women's roles in religion, I avoided the mystics. Trained as a social historian, I considered mystical experience too subjective, too narrowly individualistic, to be usef ul f or historical study. But when my search f or independent women led me repeatedly to f emale mystics, I was f orced to rethink my skepticism about visonary experience. Two issues: women's use of mystical experience- experience, that is, out of reach of male control - to develop an awareness of themselves as individuals; and f emale utili- zation of mystical experience as a means of being heard in a patriarchal society are the f ocus of this essay. A s I have worked with the material, it has seemed to me that mysti- cism was both an integrative and an activating f orce in the lives of some late medieval women, enabling them to see themselves in new roles, to measure themselves against male authority f igures, and to f orge a new awareness of them- selves as individuals in a man's world. My conclusions are more suggestive than exact. Dif f icul- ties of assertaining to what extent a woman's self -concept de- velops without male inf luence, and of using the word f emi- nist f or f if teenth-century materials, raise questions that cannot be answered here. Let me say here that I use the term f em- inist to ref er to autonomous experience, and to action that places a woman in the center, as the motivating agent. I have chosen the f if teenth-century visionary J oan of A rc f or three reasons. The contrast between her lif e bef ore and af ter her revelations is startling: f rom illiterate peasant girl to inspiration f or the French army at a turning point in the Hun- dred Years' War. Second, her comments at her trial about herself and her mystical experiences give us a rare glimpse into the f ormation of a new persona. Most important f or our purposes is the f act that J oan told no one about her visions f or the f irst f our years, not conf essor, parents, f riends, thus not allowing herself to be inf luenced or coopted. A nd af ter becoming f amous, she still relied on no one, priests nor brothers nor military allies. It is this independence that lets us glimpse autonomous f emale experience. Hearing Voices Whether J oan shaped her personality around her visions or her visions around her personality- we cannot argue the nature of mysticism here- suf f ice it to say that J oan, who had no connections to the world of power, parlayed her claim of a private channel to the spirit world into lasting na- tional f ame. She overcame handicaps of poverty, class, and gender to become one of France's chief heroes. I will draw on J oan's own words at her trial,1 will place her role in the context of other prophetic women of her time, and will mention contemporary responses to her, mainly Christine de Pisan's. But f irst one should ask why J oan has not been much written about by f eminist historians.2 I sus- pect that her "voices" are the problem, f or in our day, per- sons who hear voices are considered mad. Yet they were the central experience of her lif e; we cannot study her without coming to terms with them. J oan began hearing a voice when she was thirteen. Later she conf irmed that the voice was really three voices, that she not only heard but saw and even touched them, that they were, in f act, Saints Cather- ine and Margaret, and the archangel Michael. J oan claimed that she saw them every day, sometimes three times a day, sometimes more. They appeared to her in the woods, in church, in battle, in the courtroom, in her cell where her guards made so much noise that she could not f ollow what the voices were saying to her. She of ten heard them when bells were ringing, and when they did not ring, she missed them; she asked the church warden at Domremy to ring the bells more of ten, and when she had joined the army she requested the chaplains to ring the bells f or half an hour on end. Her neighbors reported that of ten when she was in the f ields and heard the bells, she would drop to her knees.3 They assumed she was saying her prayers, but J oan was in f act listening f or her voices; she had become dependent on them. The voices ordered her to go the king of France, to put on male clothing, to f ind a sword hidden behind an altar, to Engraving depicting Saint Margaret, by M. Husz, 1486. 26 Women's Studies Quarterly XIII:2 (Summer 1985) This content downloaded from 190.20.2.202 on Sun, 8 Sep 2013 19:49:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions announce a French def eat on the day it occurred a hundred miles away, to drive the English out of France.4 She argued with her voices, disobeyed them, and when threatened with death by f ire, denied them. A nd three days later, af f irmed them again, thereby sealing her death.5 J oan had transf ormed herself at their instruction. She had ceased dancing, ref used an engagement, pledged her vir- ginity to her mission. She cut her hair short like a man's, learned to ride horseback, to wear armor, to use a sword. Yet despite this transvestism she maintained a f emale iden- tity, renaming herself J eanne La Pucelle, J oan the Maid.6 From her voices J oan received that powerf ul charismatic gif t, a perf ect belief in herself . Bef ore she had lef t her home province she told her f irst admirers that No one (else) in the world . . . can recover the kingdom of France; there is no succor to be expected save f rom me. . .because my Lord wills that I should do it.7 Even when she stood in chains bef ore her judges, she warned them that they condemned her at their peril, f or she was sent by God. Perhaps the best glimpse we have of J oan's use of her mystical powers to make herself heard in the world of men comes f rom Count Dunois. Dunois recollected that she came to the king af ter the victory at Orleans, urging him, as al- ways, to push on, to attack again. The king asked her to de- scribe her ''counsel." Blushing, J oan had replied that When I am vexed that f aith is not readily placed in what I wish to say in God's Name, I retire alone, and pray to God .... I hear a Voice which says to me: "Daughter of God! go on! go on! go on! I will be thy Help: go on!" A nd when I hear this Voice, I have great joy. I would I could always hear it thus. Dunois f inished by commenting that "in repeating to us the language of her Voice, she was- strange to say!- in a mar- vellous rapture, raising her eyes to Heaven."8 By identif ying herself with three important saints, taking on the intriguing persona of a young maid in armor, and proving clairvoyance, a peasant girl had won the backing of the king and leading nobles, and the enthusiastic support of the French army and people. Is there a message f rom J oan's story f or women today struggling to be heard in a man's world? I will examine several relevant f actors. Tradition of Female Visionaries First of f , J oan did not create the role of f emale prophet. A mong women who challenged the church with their visions bef ore her, Prous Boneta believed that she carried the Holy Spirit within herself . A nother ecclesiastical critic, Guglielma of Milan, also claimed that she was the incarnation of the Holy Spirit and that in order f or the church to be saved, the pope and the cardinals must be women.9 Political prophets were numerous, some of them lay and most of them f emale. A s early as the 1270s, the French king Philip III had called on several clairvoyant lay women, per- sons who could tell things past and f uture and probe secret matters while leading a good lif e. But a generation later, when Philip IV turned f or advice to a beguine (a woman in an independent, lay community), she was accused of at- tempted murder, interrogated while the soles of her f eet were burned, and imprisoned.10 A pparently it was saf er to have a reputation f or the occult in the thirteenth century than in the f ourteenth, but in light of J oan's f ate, better in the f our- teenth than in the f ollowing century. Whatever the hazards, the number of French f emale vi- sionaries who concerned themselves with politics increased in the late f ourteenth century. A widow, Constance de Rabastens, had visions in which Christ appeared, encourag- ing her to preach and to urge the French nobility to stand against the English. For her ef f orts, in 1385 Constance was taken in chains to the inquisitor of Toulouse, f orbidden to publish her visions, and imprisoned. We know nothing more of her f ate.11 The widow J eanne-Marie de Maille became a recluse in a hermitage beside a Franciscan monastery at Tours. Despite her hermit's lif e she took deep interest in the political troubles of the day, spending long hours in private conversation with King Charles VI when he visited Tours.12 Luckier than some prophets, J eanne-Marie ended her days peacef ully in her hermitage in Tours, perhaps because she was protected by the Franciscans with whom she lived. A more dramatic and disturbing case is that of Marie Ro- bine, a peasant woman who came on pilgrimage to A vignon in 1387, seeking healing f or an illness.13 Miraculously cured, she settled as a recluse in a cemetery and began to have visions that became increasingly pessimistic and apocalyptic. In a f inal vision Marie saw a vast amount of ar- mor, and f earing that she was intended to wear it, protested that she could not be a warrior. She was assured that the ar- mor was not f or her "but that a maiden who should come af terwards should bear these arms and deliver the kingdom of France f rom the enemy." People came to believe that J oan was the maiden of whom Marie prophesied. It is important to see how the actions of these women had established an accepted, even expected role f or spiritually gif ted women. J oan was of course aware that there was a ready-made role f or her to step into and that as a f emale prophet she was not unique. What is not clear is whether she understood the risk involved. In J oan's own time the well- known visionary nun St. Colette also received the conf idence of the nobility, being consulted f or over f orty years by the mother of the Duke of Burgundy and employed during the papal Schism as negotiator with the antipope. But while Colette received the cooperation and respect of the church, proving the wisdom of submitting one's visions to one's con- f essors and of joining an order,14 J oan the laywoman was betrayed by French clerics in the pay of the English. A nother lay f emale prophet contemporary with J oan, a woman whom she clearly looked upon as a competitor and whom she tried to vanquish f rom the scene, was Catherine de la Rochelle, a visionary who met J oan in the f all of 1429. Catherine's apparition, ua white lady dressed in cloth-of - gold," had instructed her to go to the towns loyal to Charles and to demand the people's silver and treasure; if any held out, she would have the gif t of knowing and of discovering the treasure (the adept's gif t of f inding lost or concealed ob- jects). With this wealth she would hire soldiers f or J oan. J oan's reply to this of f er of help must be read in her own words: "I told Catherine that she should return to her hus- band, look af ter her home, and bring up her children.15 There was no room in J oan's mission f or a second miracle worker. There certainly wasn't room f or a married woman, a woman who had not bothered to dedicate her virginity to the success of her mission. J oan of course checked with her voice, who conf irmed her Women's Studies Quarterly XIII: 2 (Summer 1985) 27 This content downloaded from 190.20.2.202 on Sun, 8 Sep 2013 19:49:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Title page of the History of J oan of A rc, by J ean Hordal, prof essor at the Law School of the University of Pont-a-Mousson, published 1612. Engraving by Leonard Gaultier. opinion by declaring that Catherine's mission was "mere f olly and nothing else." J oan promptly wrote this piece of inf or- mation to the king, and reminded him of it again when she next saw him. For once not content with her heavenly counsel, J oan car- ried out her own test of Catherine's authenticity as a diviner; she would sleep with Catherine in her bed one night, in or- der to see the "white lady" herself . Unable to stay awake the f irst night, J oan was told that she had missed her. Un- daunted, J oan took a nap the next day and tried again. That night, although J oan kept the vigil, she saw nothing, proof enough that Catherine was a f raud. But J oan paid a price f or rejecting Catherine as an ally, f or the rival mystic later ac- cused J oan to the inquisition, perhaps in order to save herself . A bout J oan's attitude toward another f emale mystic, Pieronne, unf ortunately we know nothing. The young Bre- ton visionary met J oan when both women took commun- ion together on Christmas Day, 1429. 16 Pieronne main- tained that God of ten appeared to her in human f orm and talked to her as one f riend does to another; that the last time she had seen him he was wearing a long white robe with a red tunic underneath, that whenever the precious body of Our Lord was consecrated she would see uthe great and se- cret wonders of Our Lord God."17 This vision was declared blasphemous, and, ref using to recant of her claim that she f requently saw God in this way, Pieronne was condemned by French inquisitors and burned at the stake. That Pieronne had proclaimed J oan good and her actions the will of God, cannot have helped J oan's case. While it is dif f icult to separate the theological f rom the po- litical motives in Pieronne's trial, the theological point was made that talking with God and seeing his wonders was heresy. What the church would not tolerate, in Pieronne's case as in J oan's, was the individual's claim to special com- munication with the divine. Thus, while J oan was by f ar the most f amous visionary of her age, she was not unique. The long line of prophets and visionaries whom we have considered are mainly the French, and only the f emale, representatives of a European phenom- enon. It is readily understandable that late medieval religion produced more f emale mystics than male, considering that women were barred f rom the increasingly powerf ul priest- hood. Since the twelf th century, when the doctrine of tran- substantiation empowered priests to perf orm the eucharistic miracle, men had available to them a ready-made, institu- tionally guaranteed role as miracle worker. A nd yet, women were as caught up as men in the intense, emotional religious revival of the high Middle A ges. Their response to this more powerf ul priesthood, which they could not join, was an un- precedented outpouring of visions, prophecies, and healings, in which they saw themselves as f ully worthy of the highest calling. We have seen that women envisioned themselves or other f emales as saviors or messiahs, as advisors to kings and popes, even as priests and cardinals, or as the holder of the papal of f ice itself . Given this tradition, it is not surprising that J oan believed that the Lord spoke to her, singling her out f or a mission which no one else could perf orm, that she f elt herself called to advise the Dauphin, to lead his army, to stand beside him when he was crowned. Even her claim that her voices called her "Daughter of God" seems almost nor- mal and everyday in comparison to the visions of Prous Boneta. J oan as Charismatic Leader Further evidence that women could be seen as powerf ul heroes comes f rom Christine de Pisan, the f oremost woman writer in France. Writing immediately af ter the crowning of King Charles, Christine penned a resounding war poem in celebration of J oan's victory at Orleans.18 A s early as 1399 Christine had entered into a public debate on the cause of women; as J oan Kelly has pointed out, Christine produced the f irst known f eminist statement.19 She was well prepared to praise J oan as a woman, and did so with spirit and ironic humor. Comparing J oan to Moses, J oshua, Gideon, Hec- tor, and A chilles, she claims that J oan's f ame should be greater than theirs because she is only "a little girl of sixteen." J oan has accomplished more even than Esther, J udith, and Deborah, f or although God perf ormed miracles through these women, he accomplished a greater mission, the sav- ing of France, through this Maid, a mere "Pucellette." Christine glories that a woman has led the army to vic- tory, boasting that "never did anyone see greater strength, even in hundreds or thousands of men!" But Christine also praises J oan in traditional f eminine terms, claiming that she 28 Women's Studies Quarterly XIII: 2 (Summer 1985) This content downloaded from 190.20.2.202 on Sun, 8 Sep 2013 19:49:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions not only ucasts the rebels down" but "f eeds France with the sweet, nourishing milk of peace." Here we encounter J oan the androgyne, the little maid who smites Goliath, "a woman - a simple shepherdess- braver than any man ever was in Rome." Christine's poem is but the f irst of many liter- ary attempts to encompass in one image of J oan both the masculine, invincible warrior and the diminutive but potent young maid. The attempt f ails, as it always must, given the limits of our concepts of masculine and f eminine, but Christine's J oan does not slip into childishness, cloying in- nocence, nor passivity as do many later literary portraits of the Maid. Her J oan is an exciting hero, more than a match f or any man, on the battlef ield or in mythology. This glimpse of J oan, less than three months af ter she stepped into history at Orleans, goes f ar toward document- ing how she could have seen herself as a magical leader. Her contemporaries accepted her as such; not only common people but, in this case, a sophisticated woman who had lived her lif e in court circles. Rich and poor alike were pre- pared to accept one divinely chosen, miraculously led per- son as the answer to their crisis. Moving into the ready-made role of f emale prophet and magic worker, J oan seized with both hands the possibilities in her time and place to be a charismatic leader. That the role required f inally that she be burned at the stake tells us more about the politics and religion of the ruling class than it does about J oan. Their condemnation of J oan as heretic and witch of f ers much material on late medieval f ear of Statuary carved by J oseph-A ndre A llar at the Bois Chenu basilica showing J oan (kneeling) listening to her voices: Saint Catherine, Saint Michael, and Saint Margaret. power in women, material that I analyze at length in my book on J oan.20 Her story is thus an important document in women's history, both as an example of a woman using inner experience to establish her authority in the world of men, and as a warning of the price she may have to pay. NOTES 1. The basic collectionof materials on J oan is J ules Quicherat, Proces de Condamnationet de Rehabilitationde J eanne d'A rc (Paris: Renouard, 1841-49). The best French editionof the trial is Pierre Tisset and Yvonne Lanhers, Proces de Condamnation de J eanne d'A rc (Paris: Klincksieck, 1960). The English translation quoted f rom is T. Douglas Murray. J eanne d'A rc, Maid of Orleans (New York: McClure, Phillips & Co.. 1902). 2. Consider f or example the interesting but f lawed study by Marina Warner, J oan of A rc: The Image of Female Heroism (New York: Knopf , 1981). Warner's study is imaginative but lacks suf f icient knowledge of two subjects essential to understanding J oan, the inquisition and medieval mys- ticism. See my review of Warner's book inA mericanHistorical Review (A pril 1982): 437-38. 3. Murray. J eanne d'A rc, pp. 62, 64, 16. 22, 306; 149-50, 215, 218, 220-21, 240. 4. Ibid., pp. 10, 12-13, 28-29, 74-75. 5. Ibid., pp. 130-32, 137-38. 6. Ibid., p. 12. 7. Ibid., p. 223. 8. Ibid., pp. 238-39. 9. On Guglielma, see Marjorie Reeves. J oachim of Fiore and the Prophetic Future (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), p. 50, and n. 68; Stephen E. Wessley, 'The Thirteenth-Century Guglielmites: Salvation Through Women," inMedieval Women, ed. Derek Baker (Oxf ord: Basil Blackwell, 1978), 289-303. OnProus Boneta, Essays inMedieval Lif e and Thought Presented to A ustinP. Evans (New York: Columbia University Press. 1955). pp. 3-30. 10. E. W. McDonnell, Beguines and Beghards inMedieval Culture (New York: OctagonBooks, 1969), pp. 330-32 and 450-52, with the Latinand French texts. 11. The material on Constance de Rabastens is taken f rom A ndre Vauchez, "Les Soeurs de J eanne," Le Monde 6, J anuary 1980: 15. It is based ona Catalanversionof Constance's conf essions edited by Noel Valois. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid. See also Noel Valois, "J eanne d'A rc et la Prophetie de Marie Robine," Melanges Paul Fabre (Paris, 1902), based onMarie's unedited Livre des Visions et des Revelations, and on the reported words of Master J ean Erault at J oan's retrial (cf . Murray, J eanne d'A rc, pp. 269-70). 14. Vita Sanctae Coletae (1381-1447), ed. Yves Cozauxet al. (Leiden: Brill. 1982), pp. 141-43; New Catholic Encyclopedia 3. Two more f amous women, the nuns Catherine of Siena and Bridget of Sweden, received prophetic visions that they addressed to popes, kings, and the nobility of Europe. Bridget became a saint in 1391 and Catherine in 1461, indicating the advantages, both inthis lif e and the next, of membership inanorder. 15. Murray, J eanne d'A rc, pp. 52-53. 16. A ParisianJ ournal, 1405-49, by the Bourgeois of Paris, trans. J . Shirley (Oxf ord. 1968), pp. 253-54. 17. Ibid., pp. 265. 18. Christine de Pisan, Ditie de J ehanne DA rc, ed. and trans. A ngus J . Kennedy and Kenneth Varty (Oxf ord: Society f or the Study of Medie- val Languages and Literature, 1977). For anexcellent discussionof the Ditie, see Deborah Fraioli, "The Literary Image of J oanof A rc: Prior Inf luences," Speculum, 56, no. 4 (October 1981): 811-30. 19. J oan Kelly, "Early Feminist Theory and the 'Querelle des Femmes,' 1400-1789," Signs: J ournal of WomeninCulture and Society 8. no. 1 (A u- tumn 1982): 4-28. 20. A nne L. Barstow, J oan of A rc: Heretic, Mystic, Shaman (Lewiston, N.Y.: EdwinMellenPress, 1985). A nne Llewellyn Barstow is A ssociate Prof essor of History at SUNY/College at Old Westbury. Her book, J oan of A rc: Heretic, Mystic, Shaman, is being published this year. She is now starting research on the issue of the gender of the vic- tims in the European witchcraf t persecutions. Women's Studies Quarterly XIII: 2 (Summer 1985) 29 This content downloaded from 190.20.2.202 on Sun, 8 Sep 2013 19:49:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
The Crest-Wave of Evolution A Course of Lectures in History, Given To The Graduates' Class in The Raja-Yoga College, Point Loma, in The College-Year 1918-19 by Morris, Kenneth, 1879-1937
Juan Francisco Salazar - Sarah Pink - Andrew Irving - Johannes Sjöberg (Eds.) - Anthropologies and Futures - Researching Emerging and Uncertain Worlds-Bloomsbury Publishing (2017)