Thursday, June 18, 2026

It is the 18th of June 2026. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

 

It was on this day, the 18th of June in 1429, that, amidst the Hundred Years War, the French army defeated the English, leading to the crowning of Charles VII as King of France, and all of this, perhaps, on account of a peasant girl- the soon-to-be both heretic and saint: Joan of Arc.

 

Joan, the son of Jacques D’Arc and Isabelle, was born around 1412. At around 13, she began to have visions of Michael the Archangel, as well as Catherine of Alexandria and Margaret of Antioch- virgin saints and martyrs. She saw it as a divinely inspired cause: to help defeat the English and see Charles crowned. After being rebuffed on a few occasions, she was seen by a theological council at Poitiers. They decided that she was, in fact, a good Catholic and that the visions might be legitimate- there had been a prophecy of an armed virgin that would protect France- and if they permitted her to go to war and they, in fact, won, it would be her vindication. If she weren’t, and they lost, she would die a deserving death.

 

Her arrival at Orleans coincided with the English retreating, and despite being hit with an arrow, she rallied troops to spur a final surge. The troops believed she was divinely ordained, and the theologian Jean Gerson wrote a tract in her defense. She stood next to Charles at his coronation and was feted as a divinely inspired heroine. However, the king decided to use more tact than this revved-up teen had wanted. That and a failed siege at Paris the following year made her footing with both crown and church less sure. She would be captured by the Burgundians, sold to the English, and King Charles seems to have been less than eager to save her.

 

Her trial amongst the English has often been the focal point of her story- over 50 movies and numerous books have told the story of a crooked trial. She couldn’t simply be killed but had to be shown to be a heretic as well- if she was, and if she was responsible for the coronation of King Charles, the English could invalidate his claim. After shenanigans like not providing her with legal counsel and making up evidence, she was asked a theological question: “Are you in a state of Grace?” Ha! Say “yes,” and you have committed the sin of presumption. Say “no,” and you have admitted to being a heretic. Her answer, reportedly shocking the men, was: “If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me.”

 

She would eventually be declared a heretic- in part because she put on male clothes that were put in her cell, and that abomination proved she had relapsed to her old ways. She was put to death in 1431, at around 19 years of age.

 

Charles, seeing that the English had used the trial to invalidate him, redoubled his efforts to rehabilitate her reputation. He had Pope Callixtus hold a trial at Notre Dame- perhaps just as rigged- to declare the English trial as faulty, to declare Joan a martyr, and Charles as the rightful king.

 

The story of Joan’s afterlife is as interesting as her life- she was immediately heralded as a national hero in France while being smeared by the likes of Shakespeare as a witch. The Enlightenment was no fan- Voltaire wrote a popular work decrying her as a loon. Napoleon, however, presented her as a nationalist hero stripped of theological baggage. She was used in World War 1 propaganda for the French and the Americans (really, with Christian symbolism and all), and in 1920, she was canonized by the Pope, and while not named a martyr, was a “virgin who exemplified integrity”.

 

Most images of Joan tell us more about the age in which it was made- but I might suggest Mark Twain’s Joan of Arc- a book he seems to have considered his best. George Bernard Shaw does George Bernard Shaw things (that is, provocative and opposed to the church), but his “Saint Joan” became a hallmark of seeing Joan as… well, a “virgin who exemplified integrity,” which- Shaw and the church agreeing- might tell us something.

 

Today, we remember the heretic saint, heroine, and/or madwoman- Joan of Arc.

 

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and Hebrews 2:

5 It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. 6 But there is a place where someone has testified:

“What is mankind that you are mindful of them,
 a son of man that you care for him?

7 You made them a little lower than the angels;
 you crowned them with glory and honor

8  and put everything under their feet.”

In putting everything under them, God left nothing that is not subject to them. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them. 9 But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

 

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 18th of June 2026, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who assures you it’s both a bad pun, and she wasn’t Noah’s wife… he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who knows there is, in fact, nothing lower than the Angels, at least in the American League- I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.