 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
   |
1
2
3
4
5
6
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
1431, Joan of Arc, pp. 260-265 On the eve of the Holy Sacrament this year, May 30th in the year '31, a sermon was preached in Rouen in the presence of my lady Jeanne, known as the Maid, who had been captured before Compiègne. She was standing on a platform so that everyone could see her clearly, dressed in men's clothes. There she was told what great and disastrous evils had through her come upon Christendom, especially the kingdom of France, as everyone knows, and how she had attacked Paris with fire and sword on the day of Our Lady's holy nativity; also what great and terrible sins she had done and caused others to do. How at Senlis and other places she had caused simple folk to commit idolatry, since through her false hypocrisy they had followed her as if she were a holy maiden, because she told them that the glorious archangel St. Michael, St. Catherine, St. Margaret, and many other saints, appeared to her frequently and talked to her as one friend does to another; not by revelation as God has sometimes spoken to those he loves, but bodily, by mouth, as a friend speaks to a friend. She said she was about seventeen; that she was not ashamed that in spite of her father, mother, relations and friends she often used to go to a beautiful well in the Lorraine country - the fairies' and Our Lord's good well, she called it. All the local people used to go there to be cured when they had fevers. This Jeanne, the Maid, often went there, and there, underneath a big tree which shaded the spring, she saw St. Catherine and St. Margaret appear to her. They told her that she was to go to a certain captain, whom they named; she went to him without asking her father or her mother's permission. This captain gave her men's clothes and armour, girded a sword about her, and gave her an esquire and four servants. Thus equipped, she was mounted on a good horse and went to the King of France. She told him that she had come to him by God's command, that she would make him the greatest lord in the world, that it was ordered that all who disobeyed her should be killed without mercy; that St. Michael and many angels had given her a very rich crown for him, and there was a sword in the ground for him too, but she would not give it him till his fighting was done. And she rode with the King every day, amongst very many men-at-arms, no woman with her, wearing men's clothing, points, and armour, and carrying a great stick in her hand. If any of her men did anything wrong, she would wallop them hard with this stick, like a very brutal woman. She says that she is certain she will be in Paradise when her days are done. She says she is completely certain that it is St. Michael and St. Catherine and St. Margaret who speak to her often, whenever she wishes, that she has very often seen them wearing gold crowns on their heads, that everything she does is at God's command and, what is more, that she knows a great deal of what is going to happen. She has several times received the precious sacrament of the altar wearing armour, dressed like a man, her hair cut round, scalloped hood, tunic, scarlet hose tied with dozens of points-certain great lords and ladies reproved her for the mockery of her dress, telling her that she showed little respect to Our Lord, receiving him in such clothes, and she a woman. She answered at once that nothing could make her alter her dress, that she would rather die than stop wearing men's clothes, no matter who might forbid it; that she would produce thunder and other marvels if she liked; that someone had once tried to molest her physically, but she had jumped from the top of a high tower without hurting herself at all. In several places she had men and women killed, both in battle and in deliberate revenge, for she had anyone who did not obey her letters killed immediately without pity whenever she could. She said and affirmed that she never did anything except at God's command, as given to her frequently by the archangel St. Michael, by St. Catherine, and by St. Margaret, who made her do these things - not as Our Lord did to Moses on Mount Sinai, but themselves, personally, told her secret things that were to come; that they had ordered and did order everything that she did, her clothes and everything else. Such and worse were my lady Jeanne's false errors. They were all declared to her in front of the people, who were horrified when they heard these great errors against our faith which she held and still did hold. For, however clearly her great crimes and errors were shown her, she never faltered or was ashamed; but replied boldly to all the articles enumerated before her like one wholly given over to Satan. This was quite obvious, for she saw the clerks of the University of Paris humbly begging her to repent and recant of her dreadful error and all would be forgiven her through penance, or else she would be burned before - all the people and her soul damned to hell. They showed her the writ and the place where the fire would be built to burn her straightaway if she did not recant. When she realized that they meant what they said, she asked for mercy; she recanted with her lips and her clothes were changed, she was dressed like a woman. But no sooner did she see herself like that than she fell again into her former error and wanted to have her men's clothing back. She was at once unanimously condemned to death and was tied to a stake on the platform (which was built of plaster) and the fire lit under her. She was soon dead and her clothes all burned. Then the fire was raked back and her naked body shown to all the people and all the secrets that could or should belong to a woman, to take away any doubts from people's minds. When they had stared long enough at her dead body bound to the stake, the executioner got a big fire going again round her poor carcass, which was soon burned up, both flesh and bone reduced to ashes. There were many people there and in other places who said that she was martyred, and for her true lord. Others said that she was not, and that he who had supported her so long had done wrong. Such things people said, but whatever good or whatever evil she did, she was burned that day. In this week the worst, cruellest most pitiless of all the Armagnac commanders was taken. He was called La Hire because of his wickedness. He was captured by poor soldiers and put in the castle of Dourdan. On St. Martin's in summer there was a general procession to St. Martin des Champs, where a friar of the order of St. Dominic, inquisitor of the faith and master of theology, preached a sermon recalling once again everything that Jeanne, the Maid, had done. He said that she had said that her parents were very poor people, that she had gone about dressed as a man when she was about fourteen years old, that after that her father and mother would have liked to kill her if they could have done so without guilt, and that she had therefore left them, in the devil's company, and had ever since been a murderer of Christian people, full of blood and fire, till at last she was burned. He also said that she had recanted and been given four years in prison on bread and water, but that she never did a day of it but had herself waited on in prison like a lady. There, the devil and two others appeared to her, that is, St. Michael, St. Margaret, and St. Catherine, as she called them. He - that is, the devil or devils in the shape of these three saints - was very much afraid of losing her and said to her: 'Wretched creature, to change your dress for fear of death! Don't be afraid, we will protect you from them all.' So she then immediately threw her things off and put the old ones on again that she used to wear on horseback, which she had pushed into the straw of her bed. She trusted this devil completely and told him she was sorry she had ever agreed to change. When the University or those about her saw this and realized her obstinacy, she was handed over to lay justice to die. Seeing herself at the point of death, Jeanne called on those devils who appeared to her as saints, but not one of them appeared again after she was condemned, invoke them how she might. Then she changed her mind, but it was too late. He also said in his sermon that there were four of them, of whom three had been captured: this Maid and Pieronne and her companion and another who is with the Armagnacs called Catherine of La Rochelle. This woman said that when the precious body of Our Lord is consecrated she used to see the great and secret wonders of Our Lord God. All these four poor women, he said, had been under the direction of Brother Richard the Franciscan, to whose sermons at the Innocents and elsewhere all Paris had flocked, for he was their confessor. He said too that on Christmas day in the town of Jargeau he had given the body of Our Lord three times to this my lady Jeanne, the Maid, which was very wrong of him, and twice that day to Pieronne - witness their confessions, and certain people who were present when he gave them the precious sacrament. On mid-August day 1431 a baker in the Rue-St. Honoré baked a large batch of bread with excellent flour, which, when it was well and thoroughly done, was the colour of cinders. This caused a lot of talk in Paris; most people said it meant that something dreadful was going to happen; others said it was a miracle because the bread had been baked on the day of Our Lady's Assumption. All Paris was amazed at this extraordinary happening, and everyone had his own theory as to its cause. The baker was apprehended, and his flour too, and the Provost of Paris had some of it baked. It was as well and carefully made as possible and when done it looked just as unpleasant as the first lot, or even worse. The authorities considered the matter and decided to inspect the corn. They could see nothing wrong with it and had some of it ground and baked. It turned out just the same again. There were some merchants there who understood corn; they said that they had been in certain countries where they had eaten bread like that more than once, especially in some districts of Burgundy, that it was very good and pleasant to eat and that it was caused by a plant which often grows in with the corn called cow-wheat. This was quite correct, but it did not calm the people of Paris; there was not a lad but had a bit begged from his mother, to show his friends what a colour it was. 1432, Daily Life, pp. 277-278 The fall of Chartres made bread very dear in Paris; a lot of good bread had come from there till then. Not only that, but the weather was bitterly cold and there were constant gales, so that what little fruit was left on the trees was all blown down by this cold and fierce wind. Also it froze hard every morning and this extreme cold lasted until after the Translation of St. Nicholas in May. You would not have got fifty almonds off a hundred trees; nor plums, no fruit at all, everything blown down and spoilt, not a solitary nut left by the severe morning frosts. Nor was there anything much in the way of greenstuff and what there was only old beet tops which had begun to sprout again - two or three people could easily eat a blanc's worth of this - or cabbages. Cheese was so dear that one very small one still sweating cost three or four blancs. You got only five eggs for two blancs. 1432, Nunnery, p. 181 At the end of August the abbess of St. Antoine and some of her nuns were put in prison. They were accused of having agreed with a nephew of this abbess, who made himself out to be a true friend to Paris, to betray the town by the Porte St. Antoine. The gate-keepers were to be killed first and then everyone in the town without exception; this was generally known after their arrest. The epidemic continued unchecked in Paris; it attacked the Duchess of Bedford, wife of the Regent of France, sister of the Duke of Burgundy, by name Anne, the most delightful of all the great ladies then in France, for she was good and beautiful, and of a beautiful age too, being only twenty-eight when she died. The Parisians loved her. She died in the Hotel de Bourbon near the Louvre on 13 November, two hours after midnight between the Thursday and the Friday, and with her died most of the hope that Paris had, but this had to be endured. She was buried next Saturday at the Célestins, and her heart at the Augustins. All the St. Germain people were present at her burial, also the priests of the Fraternity of Citizens, each in a black stole, carrying a burning candle. They sang as they went; as the body was being lowered into the grave the English sang most movingly by themselves in the fashion of their own country. When the thieves infesting the countryside heard that the negotiations had come to nothing and that the Duchess was dead, their madness turned to frenzy - no heathens, no maddened wolves ever did worse things to Christians than these men did to honest working people and honest merchants. Every single week they would come two or three times up to the gates of Paris and would do such dreadful things as to kidnap monks, nuns, priests, women, little children, old men, sixty or eighty years old, and not one ever escaped out of their hands except by paying a heavy ransom, or by dying. Nor was there one lord, not one, who made even the least opposition to them. 1435, Court, pp. 294-295 On Maundy Thursday, when they sell salt pork, which was 14th April, the Duke of Burgundy arrived in Paris, bringing with him a noble company of lords and ladies, also his wife the Duchess and a fine son that he had had by her in marriage. He also brought three very good-looking youngsters not born in marriage and one beautiful little girl. The oldest was not more than ten or thereabouts. He kept Easter in Paris and held a plenary court open to all comers. Next day the University spoke before him on the subject of peace. On the Tuesday he had very fine obsequies celebrated at the Célestins for the late Duchess of Bedford, his sister, who was buried there. He made there a very rich offering of money and of lights; every priest who cared to go there had a mass. On the Wednesday women of noble and citizen rank in Paris went and begged the Duchess very movingly that she should take the kingdom's peace under her own protection. She gave them a kind and sweet answer, saying, 'My dear friends, it is one of the things that I most long for in this world and that I beg of my lord both night and day, because I can see how greatly it is needed; and I know for certain that my lord is more than willing to risk both his goods and his body for it.' They thanked her very much, took leave, and departed. Next Thursday, 21st April, the Duke and his wife left Paris in order to be at Arras, at the conference, on July 1st. The Queen of France, Isabelle, wife of the late Charles VI, died in the Hotel St. Pol on Saturday, 24th September 1435 . For three days all who wanted to could go and see the body; then it was arranged as becomes a lady of such rank and kept until 13th October, Thursday, when it was taken to Notre Dame at four in the afternoon. Fourteen bellmen and a hundred torches accompanied it. No women of rank were present except the lady of Bavaria and a few gentlewomen following the body. Sixteen men dressed in black carried it upon their shoulders. The Queen's likeness was very well done; it looked just as if she were lying asleep; she had a royal sceptre in her right hand. Vigils were said for her very solemnly that day; the abbot of St. Geneviève officiated; all the processions of Paris attended. Her body was put aboard a boat on the Seine next day after mass had been said for her and was taken to be buried at St.-Denis-en-France. It was not safe to take it by land because of the Armagnacs, who were still all over the countryside and in the villages near Paris. 1448, Reputation, pp. 366-367 In the last week of April a young woman came to Paris who was said to be the acknowledged mistress of the King of France, clean contrary to all faith and right, and contrary to all loyalty to the good Queen he had married. It was obviously true, for she lived as grandly as any countess or duchess. She often went about with the good Queen of France, not in the least ashamed of her sin; the Queen was deeply grieved in her heart but had to put up with it for the time being. And the King, the better to manifest and proclaim his great sinfulness and dishonour, and hers too, gave her the castle of Beauté, which was the most delightful castle in all the Ile-de-France, the most beautiful and the best situated. She called herself and had herself called, 'Fair Agnes'. The people of Paris did not show her all the reverence that her huge pride - unconcealable pride - demanded, so that when she went away she said that they were low wretches and that, if she had known they would pay her no more respect than that, she would never have set foot in the place - and what a pity that would have been! but not so very dreadful. Thus far Agnes went away, back to her sin as before, on 10th May. Alas, how sad it is when the head of the kingdom sets so bad an example to his people, for if they do the same or worse he will not dare say anything about it, as it says in the proverb, 'Like master, like man'. Such was the lady called Semiramis, the Queen of Babylon, one of the Nine Famous Women, who took her own son for her lover or paramour and, when she realized that her people objected to this, she had a proclamation made throughout her kingdom saying that, if anyone wished to take his mother, daughter, or sister to wife or as his mistress or anything else, she granted leave and permission to do so to all her people without exception; she commanded them to do so. Much sorrow sprang from this in the kingdom of Chaldea; women, girls, and nuns suffered rape and many murders were done because of this law that Semiramis made to cover her own wantonness. When a great lord or lady openly commits great sins it encourages his knights and his people to sin. Certain beggars, thieves, and murderers were now arrested who confessed, by torture or otherwise, that they had stolen children; they had put out the eyes of one, cut off others' legs, of others again the feet, and done many other dreadful things. There were women with these murderers, the better to deceive the fathers and mothers and children. They would stay for three or four days as if they were putting up at some house, then when they saw their chance they would steal these children right in the market-place or the country or wherever it was and martyr them as is described above. At the end of March 1448 some of these people were arrested and they informed against the others. Two of these vagabonds were hanged, one man and one woman, on Wednesday, 23rd April 1449, near the windmill on the way to St.-Denis-en-France. Other vagabonds were arrested who belonged to the same lot as those already imprisoned; they were reported to have set up a king and queen of their own in mockery and it was proved that they had cut off the legs of little children that they had stolen in the villages and elsewhere and put out their eyes and had committed many such murderous deeds in the places where they resorted. There were very large bands of such thieves in Paris and elsewhere. PRINCIPAL SAINTS' DAYS
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Copyright: McMaster University, 2000 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||