Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast I'm at a Turkey Andy Keener, joined by staff writer Jane mcgrad Taylor Kansas. Hey, Jane, So, we spend a lot of time on the podcast talking about ancient civilizations and societies of the past, and wars and medieval torture devices and Thomas Jefferson. But something we don't get around too as often is very important women in history. And we actually had a listener email us and she wrote, first off, I'd like to say I love your podcast, thank you very much. Anyway, I would like to hear about some more famous women in history. I have a couple of ideas, but someone who really sticks out to me that would be fun is Joan of Arc. She's always so shrouded in mystery and I would really love to hear your take on it. If you had to do one, I would definitely see her. And that came from t Chica and she also said she wanted to hear about Anny. Luckily, Jane Adams said in her Truth and a couple of other very exciting women. And not only are we going to cover Joan of Arc. But just to give you guys a little sneak peak of what's coming up down the line, we're gonna be talking about women in ancient Egypt and Betsy Ross and a few other surprises. Yeah, and Joan of Arc is going to be one of the most popular I think. I think maybe I remember another fan asking for her as well, but you know, always a popular choice. To give you some context, she lived from fourteen twelve to fourteen thirty one, and if you haven't noticed, that's a pretty short amount of time. She didn't live very long. If you don't want to do the math real quick, that means she was only about nineteen when she died, and she that's when she was put to death for heresy. Yeah, but that's the end of a very long and complicated life story. So I think to get everyone started, we'll sort of set up what's brewing over in Europe and more specifically in France and England, because Joe was known for leading the Stage of Orleans, which occurred in fourteen twenty nine, but as you may remember from one of our earlier podcasts, the Inquisition started raging much earlier than that, and in twelve thirty one, uh, they started trying to phase out heretics from the Catholic Church, and as events transpired, we had the Hundred Years War startup, and that's where things got really sticky with the Church and then with France and England fighting for the throne. And I'm gonna let Jane give you guys some background on that. So the Hundred Years War was actually a little bit longer than there was a hundred and sixteen years that it lasted, and we lump it together called the Hundred Years War. It was really a series of conflicts, as you might guess, it was treaties and broken treaties that lasted for this period between about thirteen thirty seven and fourteen fifty three between France and England. It's really sticky issues, really complicated. But it goes back to actually ten sixty six when William, who was the Duke of Normandy at the time, defeated the King of England and took a for England. So that meant that the King of England held territory in France. And by the fourteenth century those territories, those French territories, were still in dispute and things had gotten even stickier to Jane because people had been inter marrying between France and England, and so when you talk about uh lineage and the heir to certain seats, it's really complicated. Yeah. In thirteen o nine, the King of England's son married the daughter of the King of France, and the result of that marriage was Edward the third, I believe, and so he had a claim to the French throne in thirteen twenty eight, which happened to be the year that the French King, Charles the fourth died without a clear air, so as you can see it is it's a huge mess. And I fast forward to about fourteen fifteen you have English King Henry the fifth, and if you've ever read that Shakespeare one of the best Shakespeare plays, I think you know a little bit about the Battle of Aaron Court, etcetera, and how he was very victorious and eventually he invaded France and got them to sign the Treaty of Tis, which agreed that Henry would get to the French throne after the sitting king, Charles the sixth died, So it seemed like a fair compromise, but it was made a void when both of them died. Yeah, they both died in fourteen twenty two. Henry died first and Charles died a few weeks afterwards. So this complicated the question of who would get the French throne. Basically you have the issue of the French people didn't like, they didn't support the Treaty of Trois, and they supported Charles the seventh of the king's son to become king. And also was complicated by the fact that Henry the fifth heir son was only a baby when he died, so the baby basically had according to the treaty, the baby was now king of both England and France, and France was not happy with this, and so Charles the seventh that Dauphin he was actually living in exile in Nyon, and that is where he would meet Joan of ar Ark. And if we flashed back to Joan, when she was at the age of thirteen, she started hearing voices, and she was a peasant girl from very humble, humble origins. I think she was illiterate, and she prided herself, I think, on being a good daughter and a good servant to God. And one day she was working outside and she started hearing people talking to her and she was able to identify the voices as coming from St. Michael, St. Margaret and St. Catherine. And we should know it also that um I was reading about Joan in the context of France at this time, that French France was Catholic, but they were very mystic believers in France, and so they put a lot of stock into these visions, in these divine signs. So obviously Joan wouldn't buy into it very quickly, and she took it to heart. And at first I don't think the directions were too complicated coming from the voices, things like be a good daughter, be a eating into your family, do a good job with your chores, and there seemed like, you know, good comments sense things that most of us probably got from watching Sesame Street when we were younger. But then the voices became a little bit more I guess, fervent, and the messages were much more poignant. They started telling her that she needed to cut her hair short and start wearing men's garb, and that eventually her calling was that she was going to get her own military troops and she was going to help lead the French to victory over the English and put Charles the seventh on his rifle place on the throne, And like Jane was saying, people in France bought into the idea of of mysical visions and dreams. And Jones's own father started having dreams around this time too that his daughter was going to run away, so he was ensuring that his sons were watching her to make sure she wasn't flaeing from home. But she did. Yeah, she thought she was hearing signs from God. And God tells you to leave. You know, you leave, You've cut your hair, and you get out of dodge. So she left to seek out Charles the seventh. She arrived at his court and after a couple of days she was granted permission to see him. But even then when she was going into permission, she was there at the court and Charles the seventh decided to disguise himself, but interestingly, Joan recognized him immediately, which sort of wants the idea that she was sent from God, right, And I'm trying to put myself in charles place and really think about this. Here is a very young girl who is wearing men's clothes. She's got short hair. It's very unusual for the times that a cross dressing girl would come to court and seek out rather forcefully the Dauphin. It just seems a little bit um, what's the word I'm looking for? A little uh? She bizar, you know, who does she think she has defined me? And so he really wanted to be able to trust her if she was who she said she was. And after she located him in a crowd full of people had never seen him before, maybe never even seen a likeness of him or what of him at that age, she told him also a secret about himself that no one else would know, and supposedly to this day, we still don't know what that secret is. Yeah, that's true. Though. Um I read that his story and speculated at least that the secret that that she said had to do with his legitimacy. He suspected that he was an illegitimate child and uh and Joan sort of put an end to this to this question from divine sources. Well, if that is in fact the secret that she told and she was able to put his mind at ease, then we can understand why he put full trust in her and gave her her own troops and made her captain in the French army and she was sent to Orleans, and before he actually put her on the battlefield, he wanted to make sure that he wasn't aligning himself with some sort of sorceress. So he had her questioned by a panel of clergy and they said she was legit. She's not a witch. She probably is hearing these voices from saints and she is sent by God. Yeah. One curious thing that they during this inquisition, well was initial questioning of whether she was actually sent from God, was that they had women actually physically examined her and see if she was a virgin, and they found that she was, and so that concluded to them that she couldn't have been in cohorts with the devil. So by this time, if you're not a huge fan of Down, hold on because there's more. And I'm a huge fan because I think it takes a lot of bravery and guts to follow through on these voices that you're hearing and to put yourself through that kind of rigorous examination. I mean, you really are putting yourself on the line. And can you imagine what the men in the military must have thought when a sixteen year old girl was put in front of them and said that she was going to be there later. Yeah. One story I read about that was that soldiers were convinced that she was sent from God because at one point when she was wounded in battle, they saw part of her naked body and they weren't taken by desire or anything, and they thought this was sort of God, you know, shielding them from sexual advances on her. And that was a problem that would emerge later in her life. But the soldier and as a captain, really she proved that she was a very, very good, good fighter, and she had the sword that was given to her, and sort of an Arthur like way, the voices told her that before she went into battle, there would be a sword for her hidden behind an altar of a church, and it would be covered in rust and carved with five different crosses. And they sent some people out to go fetch the sword, and sure enough I was there, and she wiped off the rest and she was ready for the battlefield and with her miraculous sword. Doesn't it sound very sore in the stone to you? Yeah, very it's a very good comparison. So she's out on the battlefield and she's got her her white flag with a flour delis and it started in May and it lasted nine days and she won. It was pretty impressive, and so Charles a few months later was officially crowned the King of France. And what's interesting about this point is that Joan wanted to go on and liberate Paris. At this point, you know, Charles has got his legitimacy, but they're still conflict going on and Paris was still controlled by other forces. Charles was actually against this. He wanted to stop the violence. He wanted to not push any further, so he opposed and delayed her her traveling to France or traveling to Paris to um liberate it. And his story and speculate that charles is um opposition actually crippled her chances as success because when Jone did leave to go do this, she failed. And a few months after that she actually tried again deliberate the city of Campienne and it was there that she was captured in fourteen thirty seve When she was captured, she wasn't a regular prisoner of war. She had actually made a couple of enemies along the way, one of whom was a somewhat powerful man, the Bishop of Beauvais named Pierre Couschamp, and he was determined that he was going to make this girl out to be the witch that he suspected she was, and he wanted her burned at the stake. He was tired of her. She was, you know, and subordinate. She was just causing a huge ruckus. And what's more, if she were convicted for heresy, it would totally discredit the fact that Charles was on the throne, because he would have gotten there by some sort of means of black magic. Almost so this was going to have resounding ripple effects if he could just prove that she was a witch. And what's interesting about this trial is that it was so hard to convict Joan of anything because she was so incredibly devoted to God and to the voices that she'd been hearing, and so anytime they tried to catch her in a heretical statement or telling some sort of lie, it just kept reflecting back to the fact that she was she was a girl of God. She was following him and she was sent to earth to do his his divine deeds. Kushawn knew what he was doing, trying to corner her into admitting heresies. But it's interesting that Joan was so she was, you know, unlearned, she was illiterate, and yet she was able to give very good answers. And a lot of historians chalk uh this trial up to being part of the inquisition. And like we mentioned in in the podcast about the Spanish Inquisition, that there were there were different factions of inquisitions going around around Europe, and when Cohn wanted to bring in official inquisitors, they're really reluctant. The Grand Inquisitor of the Faith in Rome wasn't able to come, and so the bishop had to settle for a sub inquisitor. And even even him, he was reluctant because there's lots of irregular irregularities going on in this case. You know, they didn't want to be involved. She maybe she was a legitimate we don't know. And so the souther inquisitor only came after Cochawn like threatened him, which is interesting, And he only showed up occasionally when he didn't like come to England for the trial. So if Kashan hadn't already shown his true colors, he did a little bit later because he thought that there was a loophole and a law that he could get John through for cross dressing. Of all things, here is a girl who has listened to divine voices and delivered france aunts, and now she's going to be punished for wearing men's clothes, which was what the voices had commanded her to do. And furthermore, when you're on the battlefield surrounded by men, you've got to dress herself in similar raimond I mean, you're a soldier at that point. And we should know that there's two different types of churches that were recognized, um the Church Militant, which was the Catholic Church on earth that particular incarnation, and then there was the Church Triumph, which was God's heavenly church, and the one that Joan ascribed to above all else was the Church Triumph. But in order to be a true and devout Catholic, you would have to ascribe to both and follow the laws of both churches. Yes, so this was how Cohn was able to sort of corner her into heresy that she was she filled herself directly responsible to God himself, rather than going through the Church on Earth. And Coshn essentially asked, you know, you know, that cross dressing is a sin, and she tried to say, yes, I understand that, but it's a very a small detail looks look at the big picture. But he eventually forced her into signing a decree that said she would not wear men's clothes anymore because it was a violation of the Catholic Church on Earth, the Church militant. But then when she was in prison awaiting the rest of the investigation and the trial, some people later testified that all of her female clothes were stolen and the only ones left or men's clothes. And she certainly wasn't going to go around nude because that would be, you know, very unsafe for her. She needed to protect herself, and so once she had on the men's clothes, she'd broken the law. Yeah, actually read there's there was one account I think that she was actually sexually assaulted in prison, and I think obviously, even though she wasn't on the battlefield, when she was on prison during her trial, etcetera, she would want to stay in men's clothes to protect herself from from this kind of assault. And so while that may have worked in offending off sexual advances, it certainly didn't work for a cushion and that was it. She was set to be burned at the stake, only nineteen years old, and she was burned alive. Yeah, and a couple of decades later, Charles the seventh actually initiated when he got like full power, he was secure in his power, he initiated proceedings that the church could, um could liberate her or could clear her name of heresy, and they did just that. Um. I think it was just twenty four years after she was burned at the stake that she was cleared, which is interesting. And it wasn't until the twentieth century that she was canonized by the Catholic Church, and it's interesting. Some people say that that took a long time. Some people say it's weird that she's a Saine at all, because, you know, why would God choose aside in this hundred years war that had to do with the legitimacy of the throne and everything like that, and these between two Christian countries as well, Why would God take a side. It's kind of clear that the Church made her a saint partly to improve relations with the French government, which is interesting. And so today she's regarded as the patron say of France. She's also called that the maid of Arliens, that's not really Irish, the man of Orleans. And what's interesting about being burned at the steak This is something that we have discussed before in our Medieval Torture podcast. I really I can't let it. I can't let it go. When you're burned at the steak, you don't actually die from being burned, just like if you were in a burning building, you die from smoke inhalation first, and that's how Joan died, from smoke inhalation. And so they ordered her body to be burned again, and the after the second time, her organs were still somewhat intact, so she was ordered to be burned a third time to completely finish off her body. So she was burned at the steak three times. The first time killed her, but they wanted to, you know, get her all done for good measure. And then her ashes were meant to be scattered in a nearby river, but some people suspect that they weren't, and not too long ago, some ashes were found in a Praisian apothecary and scientists started wondering, you know, just just wondering could these be joan of arcs And so in two thousand six, one French scientist was able to say that these ashes show evidence that they're from a young female body, and um, I think it shows evidence of of bone and muscle tissue from a somewhat young adult girl. And we don't know definitively whether or not it's joan of arc but you have to ask yourself how many women were really burned at the steak at France during this time exactly. And so they've sipped it through these ashes, and they've also found what looks like a femur from a cat. And it would not be uncommon during medieval times for a cat to be thrown on a funeral pyre if a witch was being burned as sort of an appeasement to Satan. But the femer wasn't burned as badly as the other fragments of bones, as they think maybe the cat just went walking by afterward. Dad luck for a cat. But there's also a very small fragment of cloth that could be linen or some sort of gown that one would have worn when woman was being burned at the steak. So there's a lot of miss stories there whether or not it's Joan. Wait on now it is it is anyway, So a lot of interesting years about women in history and the grand sacrifices that they underwent for a trying to be a savior and having to dress like a man to do it and then getting you kicked in the pants for that one. So and speaking of rolics, I actually recently wrote about the Shroud of Turin and uh it's fate during the Middle Ages. It was a really cool, cool story wrote about it on the blog which you can find out how stuff works dot com. Um, So if you missed in history class blog is really cool, you should check it out. A Candida and I write on it each once a day we do, and starting every Friday, we're going to be having conversations with you guys about our latest podcast, so be sure you check that out. And we also hope that you will look up this wonderful article called why was cross dressing the only crime Joan of arc was convicted of? On how stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think. Send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com m

Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast I'm at a Turkey Andy Keener, joined by staff writer Jane mcgrad Taylor Kansas. Hey, Jane, So, we spend a lot of time on the podcast talking about ancient civilizations and societies of the past, and wars and medieval torture devices and Thomas Jefferson. But something we don't get around too as often is very important women in history. And we actually had a listener email us and she wrote, first off, I'd like to say I love your podcast, thank you very much. Anyway, I would like to hear about some more famous women in history. I have a couple of ideas, but someone who really sticks out to me that would be fun is Joan of Arc. She's always so shrouded in mystery and I would really love to hear your take on it. If you had to do one, I would definitely see her. And that came from t Chica and she also said she wanted to hear about Anny. Luckily, Jane Adams said in her Truth and a couple of other very exciting women. And not only are we going to cover Joan of Arc. But just to give you guys a little sneak peak of what's coming up down the line, we're gonna be talking about women in ancient Egypt and Betsy Ross and a few other surprises. Yeah, and Joan of Arc is going to be one of the most popular I think. I think maybe I remember another fan asking for her as well, but you know, always a popular choice. To give you some context, she lived from fourteen twelve to fourteen thirty one, and if you haven't noticed, that's a pretty short amount of time. She didn't live very long. If you don't want to do the math real quick, that means she was only about nineteen when she died, and she that's when she was put to death for heresy. Yeah, but that's the end of a very long and complicated life story. So I think to get everyone started, we'll sort of set up what's brewing over in Europe and more specifically in France and England, because Joe was known for leading the Stage of Orleans, which occurred in fourteen twenty nine, but as you may remember from one of our earlier podcasts, the Inquisition started raging much earlier than that, and in twelve thirty one, uh, they started trying to phase out heretics from the Catholic Church, and as events transpired, we had the Hundred Years War startup, and that's where things got really sticky with the Church and then with France and England fighting for the throne. And I'm gonna let Jane give you guys some background on that. So the Hundred Years War was actually a little bit longer than there was a hundred and sixteen years that it lasted, and we lump it together called the Hundred Years War. It was really a series of conflicts, as you might guess, it was treaties and broken treaties that lasted for this period between about thirteen thirty seven and fourteen fifty three between France and England. It's really sticky issues, really complicated. But it goes back to actually ten sixty six when William, who was the Duke of Normandy at the time, defeated the King of England and took a for England. So that meant that the King of England held territory in France. And by the fourteenth century those territories, those French territories, were still in dispute and things had gotten even stickier to Jane because people had been inter marrying between France and England, and so when you talk about uh lineage and the heir to certain seats, it's really complicated. Yeah. In thirteen o nine, the King of England's son married the daughter of the King of France, and the result of that marriage was Edward the third, I believe, and so he had a claim to the French throne in thirteen twenty eight, which happened to be the year that the French King, Charles the fourth died without a clear air, so as you can see it is it's a huge mess. And I fast forward to about fourteen fifteen you have English King Henry the fifth, and if you've ever read that Shakespeare one of the best Shakespeare plays, I think you know a little bit about the Battle of Aaron Court, etcetera, and how he was very victorious and eventually he invaded France and got them to sign the Treaty of Tis, which agreed that Henry would get to the French throne after the sitting king, Charles the sixth died, So it seemed like a fair compromise, but it was made a void when both of them died. Yeah, they both died in fourteen twenty two. Henry died first and Charles died a few weeks afterwards. So this complicated the question of who would get the French throne. Basically you have the issue of the French people didn't like, they didn't support the Treaty of Trois, and they supported Charles the seventh of the king's son to become king. And also was complicated by the fact that Henry the fifth heir son was only a baby when he died, so the baby basically had according to the treaty, the baby was now king of both England and France, and France was not happy with this, and so Charles the seventh that Dauphin he was actually living in exile in Nyon, and that is where he would meet Joan of ar Ark. And if we flashed back to Joan, when she was at the age of thirteen, she started hearing voices, and she was a peasant girl from very humble, humble origins. I think she was illiterate, and she prided herself, I think, on being a good daughter and a good servant to God. And one day she was working outside and she started hearing people talking to her and she was able to identify the voices as coming from St. Michael, St. Margaret and St. Catherine. And we should know it also that um I was reading about Joan in the context of France at this time, that French France was Catholic, but they were very mystic believers in France, and so they put a lot of stock into these visions, in these divine signs. So obviously Joan wouldn't buy into it very quickly, and she took it to heart. And at first I don't think the directions were too complicated coming from the voices, things like be a good daughter, be a eating into your family, do a good job with your chores, and there seemed like, you know, good comments sense things that most of us probably got from watching Sesame Street when we were younger. But then the voices became a little bit more I guess, fervent, and the messages were much more poignant. They started telling her that she needed to cut her hair short and start wearing men's garb, and that eventually her calling was that she was going to get her own military troops and she was going to help lead the French to victory over the English and put Charles the seventh on his rifle place on the throne, And like Jane was saying, people in France bought into the idea of of mysical visions and dreams. And Jones's own father started having dreams around this time too that his daughter was going to run away, so he was ensuring that his sons were watching her to make sure she wasn't flaeing from home. But she did. Yeah, she thought she was hearing signs from God. And God tells you to leave. You know, you leave, You've cut your hair, and you get out of dodge. So she left to seek out Charles the seventh. She arrived at his court and after a couple of days she was granted permission to see him. But even then when she was going into permission, she was there at the court and Charles the seventh decided to disguise himself, but interestingly, Joan recognized him immediately, which sort of wants the idea that she was sent from God, right, And I'm trying to put myself in charles place and really think about this. Here is a very young girl who is wearing men's clothes. She's got short hair. It's very unusual for the times that a cross dressing girl would come to court and seek out rather forcefully the Dauphin. It just seems a little bit um, what's the word I'm looking for? A little uh? She bizar, you know, who does she think she has defined me? And so he really wanted to be able to trust her if she was who she said she was. And after she located him in a crowd full of people had never seen him before, maybe never even seen a likeness of him or what of him at that age, she told him also a secret about himself that no one else would know, and supposedly to this day, we still don't know what that secret is. Yeah, that's true. Though. Um I read that his story and speculated at least that the secret that that she said had to do with his legitimacy. He suspected that he was an illegitimate child and uh and Joan sort of put an end to this to this question from divine sources. Well, if that is in fact the secret that she told and she was able to put his mind at ease, then we can understand why he put full trust in her and gave her her own troops and made her captain in the French army and she was sent to Orleans, and before he actually put her on the battlefield, he wanted to make sure that he wasn't aligning himself with some sort of sorceress. So he had her questioned by a panel of clergy and they said she was legit. She's not a witch. She probably is hearing these voices from saints and she is sent by God. Yeah. One curious thing that they during this inquisition, well was initial questioning of whether she was actually sent from God, was that they had women actually physically examined her and see if she was a virgin, and they found that she was, and so that concluded to them that she couldn't have been in cohorts with the devil. So by this time, if you're not a huge fan of Down, hold on because there's more. And I'm a huge fan because I think it takes a lot of bravery and guts to follow through on these voices that you're hearing and to put yourself through that kind of rigorous examination. I mean, you really are putting yourself on the line. And can you imagine what the men in the military must have thought when a sixteen year old girl was put in front of them and said that she was going to be there later. Yeah. One story I read about that was that soldiers were convinced that she was sent from God because at one point when she was wounded in battle, they saw part of her naked body and they weren't taken by desire or anything, and they thought this was sort of God, you know, shielding them from sexual advances on her. And that was a problem that would emerge later in her life. But the soldier and as a captain, really she proved that she was a very, very good, good fighter, and she had the sword that was given to her, and sort of an Arthur like way, the voices told her that before she went into battle, there would be a sword for her hidden behind an altar of a church, and it would be covered in rust and carved with five different crosses. And they sent some people out to go fetch the sword, and sure enough I was there, and she wiped off the rest and she was ready for the battlefield and with her miraculous sword. Doesn't it sound very sore in the stone to you? Yeah, very it's a very good comparison. So she's out on the battlefield and she's got her her white flag with a flour delis and it started in May and it lasted nine days and she won. It was pretty impressive, and so Charles a few months later was officially crowned the King of France. And what's interesting about this point is that Joan wanted to go on and liberate Paris. At this point, you know, Charles has got his legitimacy, but they're still conflict going on and Paris was still controlled by other forces. Charles was actually against this. He wanted to stop the violence. He wanted to not push any further, so he opposed and delayed her her traveling to France or traveling to Paris to um liberate it. And his story and speculate that charles is um opposition actually crippled her chances as success because when Jone did leave to go do this, she failed. And a few months after that she actually tried again deliberate the city of Campienne and it was there that she was captured in fourteen thirty seve When she was captured, she wasn't a regular prisoner of war. She had actually made a couple of enemies along the way, one of whom was a somewhat powerful man, the Bishop of Beauvais named Pierre Couschamp, and he was determined that he was going to make this girl out to be the witch that he suspected she was, and he wanted her burned at the stake. He was tired of her. She was, you know, and subordinate. She was just causing a huge ruckus. And what's more, if she were convicted for heresy, it would totally discredit the fact that Charles was on the throne, because he would have gotten there by some sort of means of black magic. Almost so this was going to have resounding ripple effects if he could just prove that she was a witch. And what's interesting about this trial is that it was so hard to convict Joan of anything because she was so incredibly devoted to God and to the voices that she'd been hearing, and so anytime they tried to catch her in a heretical statement or telling some sort of lie, it just kept reflecting back to the fact that she was she was a girl of God. She was following him and she was sent to earth to do his his divine deeds. Kushawn knew what he was doing, trying to corner her into admitting heresies. But it's interesting that Joan was so she was, you know, unlearned, she was illiterate, and yet she was able to give very good answers. And a lot of historians chalk uh this trial up to being part of the inquisition. And like we mentioned in in the podcast about the Spanish Inquisition, that there were there were different factions of inquisitions going around around Europe, and when Cohn wanted to bring in official inquisitors, they're really reluctant. The Grand Inquisitor of the Faith in Rome wasn't able to come, and so the bishop had to settle for a sub inquisitor. And even even him, he was reluctant because there's lots of irregular irregularities going on in this case. You know, they didn't want to be involved. She maybe she was a legitimate we don't know. And so the souther inquisitor only came after Cochawn like threatened him, which is interesting, And he only showed up occasionally when he didn't like come to England for the trial. So if Kashan hadn't already shown his true colors, he did a little bit later because he thought that there was a loophole and a law that he could get John through for cross dressing. Of all things, here is a girl who has listened to divine voices and delivered france aunts, and now she's going to be punished for wearing men's clothes, which was what the voices had commanded her to do. And furthermore, when you're on the battlefield surrounded by men, you've got to dress herself in similar raimond I mean, you're a soldier at that point. And we should know that there's two different types of churches that were recognized, um the Church Militant, which was the Catholic Church on earth that particular incarnation, and then there was the Church Triumph, which was God's heavenly church, and the one that Joan ascribed to above all else was the Church Triumph. But in order to be a true and devout Catholic, you would have to ascribe to both and follow the laws of both churches. Yes, so this was how Cohn was able to sort of corner her into heresy that she was she filled herself directly responsible to God himself, rather than going through the Church on Earth. And Coshn essentially asked, you know, you know, that cross dressing is a sin, and she tried to say, yes, I understand that, but it's a very a small detail looks look at the big picture. But he eventually forced her into signing a decree that said she would not wear men's clothes anymore because it was a violation of the Catholic Church on Earth, the Church militant. But then when she was in prison awaiting the rest of the investigation and the trial, some people later testified that all of her female clothes were stolen and the only ones left or men's clothes. And she certainly wasn't going to go around nude because that would be, you know, very unsafe for her. She needed to protect herself, and so once she had on the men's clothes, she'd broken the law. Yeah, actually read there's there was one account I think that she was actually sexually assaulted in prison, and I think obviously, even though she wasn't on the battlefield, when she was on prison during her trial, etcetera, she would want to stay in men's clothes to protect herself from from this kind of assault. And so while that may have worked in offending off sexual advances, it certainly didn't work for a cushion and that was it. She was set to be burned at the stake, only nineteen years old, and she was burned alive. Yeah, and a couple of decades later, Charles the seventh actually initiated when he got like full power, he was secure in his power, he initiated proceedings that the church could, um could liberate her or could clear her name of heresy, and they did just that. Um. I think it was just twenty four years after she was burned at the stake that she was cleared, which is interesting. And it wasn't until the twentieth century that she was canonized by the Catholic Church, and it's interesting. Some people say that that took a long time. Some people say it's weird that she's a Saine at all, because, you know, why would God choose aside in this hundred years war that had to do with the legitimacy of the throne and everything like that, and these between two Christian countries as well, Why would God take a side. It's kind of clear that the Church made her a saint partly to improve relations with the French government, which is interesting. And so today she's regarded as the patron say of France. She's also called that the maid of Arliens, that's not really Irish, the man of Orleans. And what's interesting about being burned at the steak This is something that we have discussed before in our Medieval Torture podcast. I really I can't let it. I can't let it go. When you're burned at the steak, you don't actually die from being burned, just like if you were in a burning building, you die from smoke inhalation first, and that's how Joan died, from smoke inhalation. And so they ordered her body to be burned again, and the after the second time, her organs were still somewhat intact, so she was ordered to be burned a third time to completely finish off her body. So she was burned at the steak three times. The first time killed her, but they wanted to, you know, get her all done for good measure. And then her ashes were meant to be scattered in a nearby river, but some people suspect that they weren't, and not too long ago, some ashes were found in a Praisian apothecary and scientists started wondering, you know, just just wondering could these be joan of arcs And so in two thousand six, one French scientist was able to say that these ashes show evidence that they're from a young female body, and um, I think it shows evidence of of bone and muscle tissue from a somewhat young adult girl. And we don't know definitively whether or not it's joan of arc but you have to ask yourself how many women were really burned at the steak at France during this time exactly. And so they've sipped it through these ashes, and they've also found what looks like a femur from a cat. And it would not be uncommon during medieval times for a cat to be thrown on a funeral pyre if a witch was being burned as sort of an appeasement to Satan. But the femer wasn't burned as badly as the other fragments of bones, as they think maybe the cat just went walking by afterward. Dad luck for a cat. But there's also a very small fragment of cloth that could be linen or some sort of gown that one would have worn when woman was being burned at the steak. So there's a lot of miss stories there whether or not it's Joan. Wait on now it is it is anyway, So a lot of interesting years about women in history and the grand sacrifices that they underwent for a trying to be a savior and having to dress like a man to do it and then getting you kicked in the pants for that one. So and speaking of rolics, I actually recently wrote about the Shroud of Turin and uh it's fate during the Middle Ages. It was a really cool, cool story wrote about it on the blog which you can find out how stuff works dot com. Um, So if you missed in history class blog is really cool, you should check it out. A Candida and I write on it each once a day we do, and starting every Friday, we're going to be having conversations with you guys about our latest podcast, so be sure you check that out. And we also hope that you will look up this wonderful article called why was cross dressing the only crime Joan of arc was convicted of? On how stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com. 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