Joan: The Mysterious Life of the Heretic Who Became a Saint Read Online Free PDF Page B

and fortress remained loyal to the dauphin. The French locations named for him are too numerous to list: one has only to think of the Boulevard Saint-Michel in Paris and the colossal baroque statue (a few steps from the Seine, at the Place Saint-Michel) depicting Michael with a sword, vanquishing the dragon of sin—an image drawn from Revelation. Up to the end of the nineteenth century, France kept Saint Michael’s Day (September 29) as a great religious feast and holiday. Such a heroic spiritual figure was known to Joan from childhood, when she lived in the duchy of Bar, whose patron saint was Michael; at least forty-six churches in neighboring dioceses were dedicated to him.

    D EVOTION TO C ATHERINE of Alexandria was widespread in medieval Europe, although she was not mentioned anywhere before the ninth century. During the violent persecution of Christians under the Roman emperor Maximinus from 235 to 238, so the legend went, eighteen-year-old Catherine approached the tyrant, condemned his cruelty, and confounded his belief in Roman polytheism by her impressive intellectual discourse. Unable to contradict her logical arguments, Maximinus had her tortured and imprisoned. Catherine, however, was not to be stopped: even in chains she succeeded in converting jailers, other prisoners, and even the emperor’s wife, who came to visit her. Livid with rage, the emperor had Catherine beheaded after more dreadful tortures.
    As told for six centuries, this was a dramatic and edifying story, but it turned out to be wildly fictitious, and in 1969 Catherine of Alexandria was quietly removed from the Catholic Church’s official roll of saints (along with others, such as Christopher and Barbara). The existence of early martyrs is well documented in secular and sacred writings, and the story of Catherine represents a type of heroic Christian during the first three centuries after Jesus; indeed, she stands for countless anonymous believers who died for their faith. But as told, the story is apocryphal.
    The legend of Catherine was, however, dear to the hearts of medieval Christians, who found their own religious truth in accounts of her life and death. Many chapels were dedicated to Catherine in Europe, and statues of her were found throughout France. Joan’s sister was named Catherine, and a church dedicated to the saint sat in nearby Maxey. On Saint Catherine’s feast day each year, work was prohibited and families gathered for worship.
    Set before the devout as a model of Christian heroism, Catherine was also the subject of many French sermons and poems. She was the primary patroness of young girls and of students who had to debate learned colleagues and professors; in other words, Catherine was just the sort of heroine Joan herself would have taken for model and intercessor, a saint whose name and reputation had been close to her since childhood and to whom she would naturally turn during the harrowing year of her imprisonment and interrogation—the circumstances when she first identified Catherine’s among the voices she heard.
    Margaret of Antioch was equally popular at the time, singled out for special devotion in the region where Joan was born and raised. Like Catherine of Alexandria, Margaret was supposed to have lived at the time of the early Christian persecutions. When she converted to Christianity and consecrated her virginity to God, she was disowned by her pagan father. A Roman prefect then saw the beautiful teenage Margaret tending sheep and tried to seduce her. When she refused him, he publicly denounced her as a Christian, and after numerous tortures she too was beheaded. She became the special patroness of falsely accused people, and her statue had a prominent place in Joan’s parish church. Margaret was precisely the kind of young, courageous virgin whose fidelity unto death would have comforted Joan during her interrogations.
    Michael, Catherine and Margaret: widely venerated, they were especially close figures