Alternative historical interpretations of Joan of Arc

There are a number of revisionist theories about Joan of Arc which contradict the established account of her life. These include the theory that she was in fact guilty of the witchcraft for which she was condemned; that bones and other alleged relics come from her; that she escaped death at the stake and lived out her life in secret.

The following interpretations are sometimes advanced to the public but have not gained significant acceptance among academic historians.

For avowedly fictional representations of Joan in art, literature, and popular culture see Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc.

In 1819, Pierre Caze published La Vérité sur Jeanne d’Arc, which argued that Joan of Arc was the illegitimate daughter of the Queen, Isabeau of Bavaria, and Duke Louis of Orléans. According to Caze's reasoning, the queen hid their daughter in the countryside with the d'Arc family. When Joan of Arc met the future King Charles VII she would have given him a private sign that she was his half sister. It has been theorized that the coat of arms he later granted her included a sword as a baton of bastardy.

Although this would provide an explanation for how she gained the trust of Charles VII in early 1429, this hypothesis has too many other difficulties to be taken seriously. Foremost among them is that the duke of Orleans died on November 23, 1407. Isabeau of Bavaria delivered a son on November 10, 1407. The likelihood of conceiving a daughter in the interim is exceedingly small. Assuming Joan of Arc was born the following year, she would have been 23 years old at her trial in 1431. She estimated her own age at 19 and all but one of the 115 witnesses at the trial of rehabilitation concurred with that age.

Furthermore, if the sword in Joan of Arc's coat of arms represented a baton of bastardy, then it would be unique in heraldry; it is inconsistent with the laws of heraldry that a sword party per pale (see "Coat of Arms of Jeanne d'Arc") be considered a sign of illegitimacy. It would also mean that Joan of Arc and several witnesses perjured themselves about her birth. In the words of Regine Pernoud and Marie-Veronique Clin, "Yet amateur historians still insist that all these people - as well as Charles VII, the duke of Alençon, Dunois, Bertrand de Poulengy - carried out an intricate plot to disguise Joan's authentic royal parents. This thesis lacks credible documentation."

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