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Previous discussions

Because of their length, the previous discussions on this page have been archived. If further archiving is needed, see Misplaced Pages:How to archive a talk page.

Previous discussions:

• Archive 1 (6 August 2003 to 28 November 2005):
• Archive 2 (28 November 2005 to 22 January 2006):
• Archive 3 (22 January 2006 to 14 March 2006):
• Archive 4 (15 March 2006 to 24 March 2006, with a few April 2006 replies tossed in):
• Archive 5:
• Archive 6 (26 May 2006 to 22 Aug 2006):

Current discussions

New Visions section

After a careful look I agreed with several of the criticisms posted above: some changes crept into the text after FA approval that implied a false dichotomy between faith-based and medical interpretations. The scholarship also needed improvement and other concerns deserved attention. I've drafted a new version which (I hope) strikes the right balance with sufficient documentation. It's hard to please everyone on so delicate a matter - I've attempted my best. Regards, Durova 23:07, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I like it. There have been many complaints about the Hoffmann quote, and it still seems like it might be desirable to find a better quote, but I think you've substantially improved the section. --Akhilleus (talk) 05:36, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

For some unknown reason Hoffman's credentials and a qualifying statement had been removed from the article before the complaints arose. Durova 06:03, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

As an atheist, I find this section to be mostly balanced, but needing just a little more work. While I do not actually think that a dichotomy between evidentially-based and faith-based arguments is necessarily false, I realise that this is not a mainstream view and that Misplaced Pages thus needn't reflect it. However, perhaps it should at least be mentioned as such, i.e., as a minority view. (Or perhaps it's too tangential to the topic at hand. I'm unsure at the moment.) In general, though, I find the section to have been excellently-written and properly-sourced.

What does strike me as needing attention is the seemingly very speculative treatment of "mental illness" in such sentences as

"Among the specific challenges that potential diagnoses such as epilepsy or schizophrenia face is the slim likelihood that any person with such a disorder could gain favor in the court of Charles VII."

and

"Besides the physical rigor of her military career, which would seem to exclude many medical hypotheses, Joan of Arc displayed none of the intellectual decline that normally accompanies major mental illnesses."

I find it rather unlikely that the court of Charles VII was aware of what we now call temporal lobe epilepsy and its effects. The presence of this particular "disorder" would by no means necessarily have been associated with some sort of general decline in intelligence and is often associated with religious experiences (or experiences which mirror religious experiences in many respects, if you aren't willing to believe that "true" religious experiences can be the product of mere brain activity). It is quite different, and easily distinguished, from schizophrenia, for example.

Note that I've placed "disorder" in quotes: I am actually a proponent of various aspects of the anti-psychiatry movement; I consider the terms "disorder", "delusion", "mental illness", et cetera to be unscientific in that they imply that we currently somehow scientifically know of some "fundamental order" of some ideal, "healthy" mind-- an allegation that is, at best, unproven and, at worst, (and in my personal opinion), provably wrong. However, as someone with a naturalistic worldview, I think that the section should at least mention some current naturalistic hypotheses about the origins of Jeanne D'Arc's visions, such as the aforementioned temporal lobe epilepsy, alongside the views of those who would hold that science and faith needn't exclude one another. Nothing about "madness" or "insanity" is necessary, as calling D'Arc mad is unfair and entirely unscientific-- but a link to a scientific term, like "temporal lobe epilepsy", presented as a possible explanation of her visions, wouldn't be unhelpful, regardless of your belief (I hope).

One more thing: I have no problem at all with the Hoffmann quote. It's perfectly fine to keep all the information that's already here; I just think there should be a more-specific treatment of the opposing views. I'll do a little research on some opposing modern medical hypotheses about this and cite them.

Again, in general, this is quite a well-written section, and very well-sourced. The presentation of evidence here is quite commendable. It's just that this still seems a bit dismissive of the "number of more recent scholars attempted to explain Joan of Arc's visions in psychiatric or neurological terms" in that it doesn't really characterise their views very specifically other than in saying that " characteristic symptoms conflict with other known facts of Joan of Arc's life", without saying what symptoms conflict with what facts of her life. For example: it is certainly true that "it would seem unlikely that widespread tuberculosis, a serious disease, was present in this 'patient' whose life-style and activities would surely have been impossible had such a serious disease been present", but tuberculosis is certainly not the only possible cause of temporal lobe epilepsy or other abnormal temporal-lobe activity, which would not necessarily preclude either military success or intelligence. I don't think that including a link to, and concise description of, temporal lobe epilepsy (for example) would be dismissive of, or unfair to, a faith-based view of the origin of D'Arc's visions if both views are fairly and accurately represented in the same section.

Warm regards,

Tastyummy 05:44, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for a very thoughtful piece of feedback. When I revised the section I considered adding more about temporal lobe epilepsy in particular. Part of the reason I didn't was the shortage of peer reviewed papers that specicifically related that condition to Joan of Arc. While there's been a fair amount written in medical popularizations, there has also been a good deal written for a general readership on other "diagnoses" - I recently read a medical website about migraine headaches that calmly assured readers that Joan of Arc suffered from migraines (based on what evidence, I wonder - the only ailment testified in her trial records seems to have been a single case of food poisoning). From my reading on temporal lobe epilepsy, a majority of cases include other physically debilitating symptoms: grand mal seizures in 60% of cases, repetitive automatic movements such as lip smacking and hand rubbing in 40% - 80% of cases. Unfortunately it would violate WP:NOR to assert that in the article without some accompanying expert evaluation that specifically links this to Joan of Arc in particular. The general objections, if specified, would probably be similar to the temporal lobe tuberculoma hypothesis (which is better sourced).

Also, the comment about intellectual decline specifically relates to psychiatric as opposed to neurological conditions, so that paragraph excludes epilepsy by definition. This goes more in the direction of schizophrenia, which (whatever you may think of schizophrenia) the psychiatric community associates with disorganized mental processes. For whatever value posthumous diagnoses may have, some scholars have equated Charles VI's madness with schizophrenia.

One difficulty that hovers around this section is the lax scholarly standard that applies to posthumous attempts at diagnosis in general: it would violate WP:NOR to state this explicitly, but I ought to confess my own bias that such attributions are often no more than armchair speculations by historians who themselves have no formal medical or psychological training and do not consult anyone who does have the appropriate qualifications. Peer review standards in history journals (as opposed to medical journals) do not expect that degree of rigor on this topic, which unfortunately means many poorly supported hypotheses get repeated uncritically to the general public. Durova 20:01, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Wow, excellent. I tried to mediate this section over a year ago. There was a true impasse as neither side would budge from either a religious perspective or a scientific viewpoint. The section now entertains a scientific explanation for the visions without unbending insistence. Wonderful!

I think this article needs to be renominated for front page status. Too bad May is over seven months away. Wjbean

I've done just a little more tweaking to the section. Regarding the opening post to this thread, what had happened between FA approval and the fix was that the section had been altered to imply that the flaws in medical and psychological explanations meant Joan of Arc's visions were literally true. This violated NPOV and does not necessarily follow: there is also good reason to doubt the accuracy of the original documents. Durova 04:35, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

This section just seems to get better with each editing pass. While not being argumentative the section does afford varying opinions of Joan's visions without declaring any one of them "the truth." This is diplomatic perfection. No stand is thrust forward as fact, yet the section retains NPOV and accuracy. Marvelous. Wjbean

A good idea?

I borrowed the quote box idea from Pericles where it seems to work well. The translation is my own effort, although a source reference for the French original would be appropriate. I could do perhaps three or four from Joan of Arc's letters and distribute them through the article. Do people like this? Durova 11:25, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

That might be a good addition to the article. You would need to cite which letter each quote is from, the date, and perhaps a little of the context in order to give people an idea of what each quote refers to, or who the letter was written to. Could all of that be fit into one of these boxes? CF18000 17:14, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Pericles addresses those concerns with external links. What I hope to do here, if Wikimarkup allows, is to footnote the quote boxes. I have two other specific examples in mind: her 25 June 1429 letter to the citizens of Tournai where she reports her successes in the Loire valley and her letter to the citizens of Reims of 5 August 1429 where she states her misgivings about a truce with Burgundy. I plan to insert these as near as possible to the article's description of relevant events. The short excerpts would offer glimpses of her personality and her use of words. Durova 17:55, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm still figuring out how to footnote athese excerpts. Here are my other translations. Durova 19:03, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

The boxes and footnotes look good. CF18000 23:03, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Name change

Posting the results of my Google search:

• "Joan of Arc" 4.2 million returns
• "Jeanne d'Arc" 3.4 million returns
• "Jeanne la Pucelle" 84 thousand returns

Since the third entry is dwarfed by the other two and the matter is already footnoted, I'm cutting the third version. Durova 02:27, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I have found the third to be in the majority the older one's source are, and or course french.--Dryzen 14:54, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Additional background

Perhaps the background section deserves one more paragraph to explain some details that could confuse a typical reader:

• Joan of Arc's career was part of the Hundred Years' War which had begun in 1337 as a succession dispute to the French throne with intermittent periods of relative peace. Nearly all of the fighting had taken place in France.

• Both England and France remained Catholic countries throughout the war. England became Protestant the following century during the reign of Henry VIII.

• Although the English nobility had spoken Norman French as a first language for several centuries after the Norman Conquest, this was no longer the case in Joan of Arc's era. The English language had gained ascendancy in England during the fourteenth century.

I'd like to keep this brief because the Background is already rather long. Durova 18:39, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Featured article review

I'm submitting this for featured article review to seek additional opinions about fairness and NPOV balance. Please join the discussion at the link above. Durova 18:16, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Links

CC80 removed the following with a claim that the site plagiarized other websites:

• Jeanne-darc.dk Various materials including a complete English tranlsation of the rehabilitation trial transcript.

So far as I am aware, this is the only website that reproduces the entire T. Douglas Murray 1903 translation of the nullification trial record. The Virginia Frohlick site reprints selected excerpts (and unfortunately does not disclose the translator or translation date). Currently the article references Ms. Frohlick's excerpts at http://www.stjoan-center.com and if I interpret the site descriptions correctly, this matter is the crux of the dispute. Right now it seems best to leave both sites in the links section. Ultimately it would be preferable to switch the citations to the more complete version.

The reference change would need to be made thoroughly: actually checking each citation for quotes and exact wording, then updating the access date on each associated footnote. I specify this because some editor tried to change over the condemnation trial links in April but didn't follow through appropriately. The article wound up referencing two different versions of the same document and the altered footnotes still provided no-longer-relevant page citations and access dates. Direct quotes in the article text were no longer accurate either. I had spent a good deal of time last winter consolidating citations from different editors onto one consistent translation. To do this right is a tedious task, but attention to detail is essential if this article is to have any real value as a reference tool.

Please post a follow-up below if I've overlooked some relevant issue. Durova 22:01, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

British vs. US spelling

I changed offense and defense to offence and defence respectively. My edit summary said: It was 15th century France at war with England, so US spelling is inappropriate. Akhilleus has described this justification as "ridiculous". I find myself in disagreement. WP prefers localised spelling variants be used in relevant contexts. Where the context is general, the spelling used by the original author should prevail. My point remains: Joan was put to death by the English, during their war with France. Surely English spelling is appropriate here, of all places, and US spelling is out of place. JackofOz 03:30, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Manual_of_Style#National_varieties_of_English says "Articles that focus on a topic specific to a particular English-speaking country should generally conform to the usage and spelling of that country." I wasn't aware of this particular guideline when I reversed your edit, and I apologize for calling your justification "ridiculous."

I appreciate the gracious withdrawal. JackofOz 07:20, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

However, I disagree with your argument. I don't think that this article's connection to the U.K. is strong enough to change to British spelling; if the logic is that the spelling should reflect the geographic and cultural circumstances most closely connected to the subject, shouldn't the article be written in Medieval French, or Elizabethan English?

Well, if a war against an invading English army isn't a strong connection to the UK, I don't know what would be. But OK, I'll humour you for a while. The first thing to be noted is that your choices don't include an American option. But if we did use US spelling, by your argument it wouldn't be modern day US spelling, but the spelling used in the US at the time closest to Joan of Arc's time. There was no US in Joan's time, so maybe our lexicographer colleagues can enlighten us as to when the first recognised US variants of English spelling were first noted. Maybe somewhere around 1776, perhaps? How relevant would that be. JackofOz 07:20, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Mostly I disagree with the change simply because the article has been using US spellings for some time, including "offense", "defense", "honor", "tricolor", and so on. It achieved FA status and was featured on the main page using US spellings. Why change it now? --Akhilleus (talk) 04:38, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

That is an argument for never changing anything at all, and setting the article in stone for all eternity. Featured Articles are definitely of high quality, but they are not beyond improvement. There are lots of articles on Misplaced Pages that have been a certain way for a long time, and then one fine day they get changed, for the better, because someone comes along who has never seen the article before, and brings a fresh perspective to it. That's what WP is all about. JackofOz 07:20, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

The Misplaced Pages guideline for national spellings doesn't extend beyond places where English is spoken as a first language, nor is there any precedent for using archaic idioms editorially in history articles. Durova 13:53, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Akhilleus and Durova. Take, for example, the case of World War II. In articles about Nazi Germany, should we use British spellings up to 1941, and either American or British afterwards? The Misplaced Pages guideline is there, in my opinion, because of the assumption that most readers and editors of Britain-related articles are British, and that most readers and editors of American-related articles are American. No one can deny that Joan of Arc is connected with England, but Joan of Arc is not a "UK article", so spelling should be governed by the more basic rule: respect the spelling decisions of the first editor. Lesgles (talk) 04:03, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was Speedy no move. Duja 12:33, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Joan of Arc → Jeanne d'Arc — Joan of Arc is only common in the anglosphere, but Jeanne d'Arc is more common overall, and is the more original word _→AzaToth 17:13, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Survey

Add  * '''Support'''  or  * '''Oppose'''  on a new line followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion using ~~~~.

• Oppose. Use English. --Akhilleus (talk) 17:15, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose While I know Jeanne d'Arc is also her name, Joan of Arc is far more commonly seen, such as movie titles, character names, and even text books say Joan of Arc. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 17:24, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. This is the English version of Misplaced Pages. The title should reflect what is admittedly the more common name in English. Robotman1974 17:34, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. Only common in the "anglosphere"? Where is English Misplaced Pages if not in the anglosphere? Perhaps this move should be presented to the sinosphere, lusitanosphere, or croatosphere first instead. (And why "Jeanne?" According to this picture, she spelled her own name Jehanne.) —  AjaxSmack  17:46, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose as per Robotman. Olessi 18:57, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose stable English name appropriate. See, e.g., Saint Petersburg and not Sankt-Peterburg. WP:SNOW this debate please. - CrazyRussian talk/email 19:35, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Second the call for WP:SNOW. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:45, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
  • WP:SNOW sounds good to me. The only reason I haven't implemented the suggestion is because I'm also the principal editor to this page so I'm recusing myself. Durova 03:27, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
  • But it's 13 to 0... --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 06:20, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose if someone is extremely well known in English by a particular name (like Joan of Arc, Charlemagne), that's the name we should use. But WP:UE is irrelevant, it's WP:NAME that applies here. Angus McLellan (Talk) 19:54, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
  • For which Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (use English) is the rationale. Septentrionalis 22:56, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. Per article footnote 1, talk archives, and Joan_of_Arc_facts_and_trivia#Name the modern French version of her name isn't really more accurate than the English version. Durova 22:48, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose Most widely recognized form; but Durova's comment pushes this over into the silly. Septentrionalis 22:56, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose This is the English language Misplaced Pages, so the most recognised English term should be used. As a side note, I recently participated in a similar discussion on French Wikipédia, and that had no consensus. --Kyoko 23:00, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose: use the English title where one exists. Jonathunder 23:19, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
• Pile-on Oppose Jeanne d'Arc, while probably the most common French version, is far from the established name. ~ trialsanderrors 07:07, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose If this were the French Misplaced Pages, we would call her Jeanne. As this is the English Misplaced Pages, let's use the English spelling. I can't imagine an English speaker looking her up as Jeanne.Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim 02:38, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

Add any additional comments:

• Would it be acceptable to say in the article intro "Joan of Arc, better known as Jeanne d'Arc in Francophone regions,... "? There is also no mention of her other nickname, the "Maid of Orleans" (admittedly more common in French than in English). --Kyoko 15:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

This is the second time the issue of how to present her name has come up on the current edition of this talk page and the archives include quite a few other discussions. The current entry at Joan of Arc facts and trivia doesn't even explain this fully. For four of the six centuries since she lived she was better known in France as la Pucelle. That's how she referred to herself in correspondence. Some scholars such as Régine Pernoud consider this her surname although it might be more appropriate to call it a title. Joan of Arc's condemnation trial testimony states that, so far as she knew, she had no surname. Yet a royal grant of nobility from 29 December 1429 gives her and her entire family the right to use the surname du Lys. That name appears in few other records. Shakespeare calls her Joan la Pucelle. Maid of Orleans is a more recent nickname, used by Voltaire in 1756 and popularized by Friedrich Schiller in 1801. Schiller's play inspired numerous imitations and adaptations throughout the nineteenth century. The first appearance of anything that resembles Jeanne d'Arc is in the Latin records of her rehabilitation trial from the 1450s, which disregarded the condemnation trial record's testimony about her lack of a surname and local surname inheritance customs. That reference remained obscure until Jules Etienne Joseph Quicherat popularized it in the 1840s. Quicherat's overall standards as a scholar were superb and his books remain standard reference works to the present day, yet he probably goofed in his title: if it were appropriate to spell the surname d'Arc rather than Darc, then the Latin records would have translated this as de Arco. It's also somewhat arbitrary that he chose to refer to her by this particular surname. Names were a relatively fluid concept in fifteenth century France and I doubt that any of her contemporaries would understand the fuss we make about establishing some definitive or "authentic" version.

To summarize, anyone who studies art or literature about Joan of Arc from the nineteenth century or earlier will encounter a variety of names for her, most of which don't resemble either the modern French or the modern English forms. Durova 18:04, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Indicate Date of Birth

It seems to me important that Joan's date of birth be included in the section under "Childhood". The "when" seems to be an important, basic piece of information that belongs here. When I tried to add it initially it was deleted because there is no firm evidence to support a particular date of birth. When I added it again with a reference to this uncertainty and a citation, it was deleted because the citation was already in the article. I still maintain information on her date of birth belongs in this section, and that a citation should be included because of the uncertainty involved. Just because we don't know with certainty the year she was born is not a good argument to leave it out entirely, in my opinion. Tbilb 16:16, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that we really don't know her date of birth. We can make a good guess about the year: she was probably born sometime in 1412 — at her trial in 1431, Joan said she was "nineteen or thereabout". Legend has her date of birth as January 6, but this date is suspect. In that very religious period, someone who claimed to be guided by heavenly voices would not heasitate to make hay out of a birthday that fell on the feast of the Epiphany. But Joan did not do this, so we can be fairly certain her birthday wasn't January 6. But that still leaves 364 other possible dates of birth... assuming we have the year right.  — AnnaKucsma   (Talk to me!) 17:15, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there's a need to express her birthdate, even as an estimate, in the section about her childhood. The article already states it twice: in the opening line and in the saint box.

The reason to express it there is to include the reasoning for 1412, and to make comprehension of the section easier. Septentrionalis 13:29, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

The reasoning is already expressed in greater depth in the footnote that accompanies the first line. In theory I've no objection to moving some of that content out of the footnote and into the article text. However, in practice this article used to have a consistent problem with editors who added January 6 to the birthdate. Most of them seemed to have a passing acquaintance with the topic and probably edited in good faith, which is understandable since the January 6 date gets repeated uncritically in many popular references and many people outside the Catholic tradition don't recognize the hagiographic symbolism. My worry is that some well-meaning editor would stop at the first line, think I can make this better, and add that date without reading past the introduction. Because frankly that's what used to happen until I tweaked the opening lines several times. The current solution has worked for several months. Now that I've said my bit, go ahead and try what you think is best. I could give this six weeks or so to see whether another solution succeeds. Durova 20:41, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

One thing I do wonder is whether it would be better to change her birthdate from 1412 to c. 1412. Given the quality of the evidence about her age, an estimated birth year seems more appropriate. Durova 04:26, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Concur. Septentrionalis 13:29, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay, changing. Durova 20:41, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Forensic investigation

(moved from original location) Sorry to interrupt this, i was wondering about how scientists where looking at the remains of supposed her body, is there any latest news on that whether or not it would likely be hers? thanks

According to the news reports from February the study should have concluded in August. I've run a search every two weeks since then and seen nothing yet. Note that this type of analysis cannot conclude for certain whether the remains are hers because they have no other DNA sample for comparison. The study can only exclude some possibilities, such as if the bone came from a man. Durova 15:12, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Ya'know, I was wondering about this, too. I wonder why we haven't heard about this in so long: given the interest in Joan of Arc, there would be interest in the outcome of the testing.  — AnnaKucsma   (Talk to me!) 16:02, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

As soon as the results go public they'll get added to the article. Durova 02:59, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Interesting conversation at another site

The discussion no longer exists in the current version but here's an archive that contains some interesting cricicisms of the current article. Some of the inferences drawn there are mistaken. For instance, one editor speculates that the facts in this article were written by committee (actually about 85% of the citations were added by one editor). The comments about the Background section, however, are interesting and I'm curious what other editors have to say. Compare to the online Columbia Encyclopedia and (for those who have access) the Britannica article. Most short biographies of Joan of Arc provide so little context that they appear to make the contradictory assertions that Joan of Arc fought for, was captured by, and was killed by "the French." When I prepared this article for WP:FA consideration I did my best to highlight the most relevant facts the geopolitics of her era that a modern nonspecialist would be unlikely to already know (or to find with suitable ease at related Misplaced Pages articles). Welcoming comments in light of the discussion at the other site. Durova 21:05, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Request

 Im doing a project on joan of arc for my french class. I need some new information for my project. Anyone with any information plz help. I will delete this.

Try the external links at the bottom of the article and the entries on the bibliography page. This article has plenty of footnotes. If you find a section that interests you, go down to the footnote and read the source. Durova 14:26, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Cross-dressing revert

Voln (Talk | contribs) chose to revert my category entry that Joan of Arc, for the purposes of joining the military forces of France, dressed as a man. There was also evidence at her trial that she dressed as a man, it is thought to protect herself from her jailers. There is a category of women in a similar situation. It is called "Category:Female wartime crossdressers". Is Voln exercising a NPOV? Has Voln read the caution for people who think they own an article, to be found at WP:OWN. So I'm going to put it back, and if reverted again, will have to bring in somebody to settle this nonsense. Joan of Arc belongs to the world. JohnClarknew 18:40, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Verifiability is what matters. Joan was indeed accused of being a cross-dresser, a crime under canon law per Deuteronomy 22:5, but she denied it, claiming she wore male clothing as a disguise. This is discussed at length by her biographers - e.g. Beaune, pp 151–160 & 300ff. Joan was not definitely a cross-dresser, so categorising her that way seems inappropriate. Angus McLellan (Talk) 18:53, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Joan never claimed to be wearing male clothing as a disguise, that was an assertion made by her contemporaries attempting to explain and come to terms with her cross dressing in a positive light. In the Rouen trial records Joan claims she wore the clothing under the command of God, and later in the private examinations even suggested she wore it because she wanted to. The idea of Joan claiming she wore the clothing under the command of God fits in with her defiance during the trial, and her rejection of the Church Militant as an authority to tell her what to do. I suggest you read the complete translation of the public and private examinations during this trial. See Craig Taylors 'Joan of Arc: The Pucelle', which contains a lot of relevant primary material. The biographies on Joan are well known to be questionable in their academic content, and really cannot be taken as totally reliable on their information. 80.41.87.32 20:17, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

All of the above has been debunked repeatedly by recognized experts such as Pernoud. The source you've cited for this old discredited version is a book that hasn't even been published yet (the distributor, Palgrave, gives a date of January 2007). How could you know what's in it? Voln 20:51, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm assuming you're talking about 'Joan of Arc: The Pucelle', which is the first full translation of many of the documents regarding Joan of Arc, and has been in print in Britain since 2006. My main point is that biographies of Joan that are often celebrated contain extremely questionable information and often misinterpret the sources. Obviously I have not read every biography on Joan, but I have read enough to know that they are often written by people of limited indepth knowledge. The trial of condemnation records (both the surviving fragments of the original French, and the official Latin copies) are the only know primary source of Joan discussing her reasons for wearing male clothing herself, and therefore should be the basis of academic opinion on it, despite the obvious and well documented flaws of the records. In the records, dated Monday 28 May 1431 it states "Asked why she had taken this male clothing, and who had induced her to wear it, she answered that she had taken it of her own free will, and that she preferred this male clothing to that of a woman." Joan never once said during her trial that she wore male clothing as a disguise. I know that some people would suggest that this record has been doctored, and I know it is usually not verbatim etc etc, but there would be no reason for the judges of the Rouen trial to doctor her final answer on male clothing in. If you support the view that the judges were acting under political or partisan motives to secure a guilty sentence, it would have been far more damning for them to leave Joan's previous explanation (that she was wearing male clothing under the command of God) as her recognized excuse. This excuse was a rejection of the Church Militant and was a heresy. Besides, if Joan wore male clothing as a disguise, then it wasn't very convincing was it? Previous female saints who dressed as men were viewed as men, thus validating the disguise. Joan was never viewed as a man, always a woman wearing male clothing. 80.47.138.222 21:19, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

All of the above is wrong. The Condemnation transcript is not the only source concerning Joan of Arc's motives for wearing male clothing. The witnesses at the Rehabilitation trial provided many quotations from her on the subject, as do many chronicles and the like. The motive was not "disguise", but rather the usage of this clothing as a defense against rape since the hosen and doublet could be tied together to make it difficult for her guards to pull the hosen off. The book you keep citing is, based on your description, dredging up a very old set of misconceptions which have already been debunked ad nauseam by recognized experts. Misplaced Pages articles are supposed to represent the verdict of recognized experts, not discredited theories. This should be the end of this discussion. Voln 21:45, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

"She said also that it was altogether necessary to change her women's clothes for men's" (Barrett's version of the transcript at p. 45). That seems like relevant primary material. Angus McLellan (Talk) 21:02, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Opening of Trial revert

Voln chose to revert my previous edits on the opening of the trial and the lack of diffamtio during the preparatory trial stage of the Rouen trial 1431. This information is both relevant and cited by reputable sources and verifiable, there is absolutely no need to delete this information. Likewise, there is no citation for the assertion that Joan of Arc was denied legal representation and this is acknowledged by many academics studying Joan of Arc's trial as a fallacy. I have left this in for the time being (as I do not want to get into an editing and revert war) but I would appreciate a comment on the matter. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.47.138.222 (talk • contribs) 21:42, 3 December 2006 (UTC).

1. Quicherat I, p. 240, trans. Durova.

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