Joan of Arc: The Early Debate (review)

Joan of Arc: The Early Debate. By Deborah A. Fraioli. (Rochester, New York: The Boydell Press. 2000. Pp. x, 235. $75.00.)

So many layers, labels, and legends have been placed on the shoulders of Joan of Arc that it is easy to forget her first steps because of where they led her. Deborah A. Fraioli takes us back to the beginning of Joan's story to ask a basic question: How did Joan persuade the dauphin, his courtiers, and, especially, his theologians that she was indeed sent by God? Fraioli reminds us that the answer to this question is absolutely crucial: if the dauphin had not been convinced of Joan's authenticity, he surely would not have given her an army. To pursue this question, the author pays particular attention to the contemporary practice of discretio spirituum, especially via Jean Gerson's De distinctione verarum visionum a falsis and De probatione spirituum, which influenced the dauphin's investigators.

Fraioli largely confines herself to the documents that followed Joan on the first few months of her journey as her legitimacy was continually tested. As she correctly reminds us, "The medieval fear that Joan was a malignant force in league with the devil is sometimes unconsciously minimized by modern observers, many of whom overemphasize political motives at the expense of religious or quasi-religious ones" (p. 21). She first treats the initial correspondence between royal officials at Chinon and the theologian Jacques Gelu, and then moves on to De quadam puella, which provides the first evidence of Joan's claim to have been sent directly by God without intermediaries--that is, as a prophet, which leads this anonymous author to evaluate her using scriptural evidence concerning prophecy. The brief conclusions drawn from the next inquiry, at Poitiers, reported Joan's assertion that she was sent a Deo without denying or supporting it, but her examiners opened the road to Orléans so she could provide the miracle she promised. Fraioli then treats Joan's Lettre aux Anglais, Gelu's De puella aurelianensi dissertatio (in which he demonstrates a marked change of heart from his initial hesitancy of only a few months before), Christine de Pizan's Ditié de Jehanne d'Arc, De mirabili victoria (which she does not believe came from Gerson), a segment from the Collectarium historiarum probably written by Jean Dupuy, the Burgundian "Reply of a Parisian cleric" refuting De mirabili victoria and laying out the charges ultimately placed against Joan in 1431, and finally thirty-two stanzas from Martin Le Franc's Le champion des dames (which dates from 1442 and detracts from Fraioli's early focus). Five of these documents appear in English translations as helpful appendices.

Fraioli sheds light on the dating, authorship, and transmission of these texts as she places them in their chronological, religious, political, and gendered contexts. Her analyses are sometimes more literary than theological. Nevertheless, she frames interesting questions and makes thoughtful assessments. Even if all of her conclusions are not entirely convincing, she has returned the reader to critical texts worth further, careful investigation.

Christopher M. Bellitto
St. Joseph's Seminary, Dunwoodie

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