Cryptotheories about who Joan of Arc really was: a drug addict, a hypnotist, or a royal daughter

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Joan of Arc is a legendary warrior of the fifteenth century. Books have been written about her for centuries, films have been made about her and performances have been staged in different countries, she has been painted, songs are dedicated to her. And until now, people are trying to understand who she is - the girl who managed to save France, when it seemed almost impossible. Some theories about the Maiden of Orleans, although not supported by anything, are very popular among the general public.

Jeanne and her voices

The Catholic Church, following Jeanne herself, believes that the voices she heard belonged to saints. But there are theories and much more mundane. For example, ergot poisoning.

Ergot is a hallucinogenic fungus that lives on rye and wheat. Now the grains affected by ergot are weeded out, making sure that they do not get into the food of people, but in the Middle Ages, Europeans often did not even understand that wheat with ergot was dangerous: after all, no one died from it instantly, poisoning became dangerous with the accumulation of poison in the organism … And the fact that, after eating ergot, people saw demons and brownies with their own eyes - so they believed in spirits then, why was it to be considered a consequence of ergot? Ergot eaters probably died from the intrigues of demons.

However, applying this theory to Jeanne, it is inexplicable that usually people with ergot see something unpleasant, and she seemed to be talking with the saints and heard the singing of angels. In addition, hallucinations haunted Jeanne all her life, could not all the bread that she ate be infected at all?

Jeanne and royal blood

It is hard to believe that even in the dense Middle Ages, even for ideological reasons - the last hope to instill faith in the people and the army - the nobles and the royal family just took and put a young peasant woman at the head of the French troops. Because of this, several alternative theories of the origin of Jeanne have appeared.

If, according to the classical biography, she was the daughter of wealthy farmers, then lovers of cryptotheories are looking for an illegitimate carrier of royal blood in her. According to one version, Jeanne was Charles VII's mother's sister. Allegedly, Queen Isabella of Bavaria preferred to share the bed not with his crazy father, but with the younger brother of King Charles VI. That is why, they say, they believed Jeanne, but that is why Isabella did not love her - after all, she reminded of an old sin and questioned the origin of Charles VIII. Is he from the same father?

Another theory calls Jeanne also the sister of Charles VII, but by her father. The supposedly insane king conceived her from one of the ladies-in-waiting and hence the voices that Jeanne heard - she inherited her father's madness, but she was brought up so patriotic and pious that auditory hallucinations revolved around the fate of France and seemed saints.

Jeanne who survived

During the execution, as is known from the testimonies, Jeanne's face was almost completely hidden - either by a bandage, or by an unsuccessfully pulled cap, which she could not correct due to her tangled hands. This gave many people an insane hope that they did not dare to kill the Orleans maiden and instead of her another went to the stake.

Although some believed that the surviving heroine of France went to a monastery, some believed that she later returned under the name of Jeanne des Armoise. Her surname appeared because the heroine got married and even gave birth to children. This version is supported by the fact that the girl, who called herself not only Jeanne, but also Claude, first of all sought out her two brothers - and it was not profitable for the impostor that one of the relatives of the Maid of Orleans saw her.

Jeanne des Armoise visited several cities in France, and almost everywhere she was given a magnificent reception and presented with expensive gifts. However, in the end, she was arrested and recognized as an impostor. As the arrested woman testified during interrogations, she found it tempting to pretend to be Jeanne, because she fought like a soldier of the Pope, in men's clothes, and thought that she was no worse than the one who had become a heroine.

Doubts are also added by the fact that there were several impostors at that time, for example, a magician named Jeanne Ferron tried to impersonate Jeanne d'Arc. But, since she did not know how to ride, she was simply ridiculed. In another case, a girl was again confused, who went to war disguised as a man. Perhaps at some point the death of the national heroine clouded her mind and she really became convinced that the Maid of Orleans could not die, and that she herself is a virgin. Her name was Jeanne de Sermez, and she was not kept under arrest for long, released without any punishment.

Jeanne, hypnosis and games of genetics

The least insane theories seem to be that Jeanne naturally possessed a strong hypnotic gift, literally enchanting people and forcing them to believe her to the last (moreover, most likely, she believed herself, being carried away) and that Jeanne was a biological youth with Morris syndrome. That is, her male genitals did not form properly. The testicles remained inside and did not work well enough for the development of the body to follow the male pattern.

Boys with Morris syndrome look exactly like girls, except that they are not curvy and are on average taller. There are, however, important differences: no hair grows on their bodies and they do not have periods. According to legend, it was precisely these features of Jeanne that the ladies who examined her for virginity took for a sign of special purity and closeness to the angels.

True, being carried away by the theory of Jeanne the hermaphrodite, the supporters of the version cite very stupid arguments: supposedly false virgins with Morris syndrome are distinguished by insane courage, unusual for women, and a tendency to dress in men's clothes. But on such grounds, half of the heroines of the Great Patriotic War are also hermaphrodites.

Mysterious never ceases to appear Jeanne D'Arc in the cinema: Which of the actresses best got used to the image of the Maid of Orleans from 1899 to the present day.