joan of arc of philadelphia by pwbaker, on Flickr

Joan of Arc was a teenager in the early 1400s who said she heard from God how to win military battles for her country. Most infuriating to those who opposed her was that she actually did what she heard the Lord tell her to do, and succeeded. At the tender age of 17, she walked into a year-long siege, asked the commander for armor and ended the standoff in just nine days.

At only 19 she was burned at the stake after an unjust trial which broke the laws of the day. A generation after she died, the Pope declared her innocent of the charges brought against her. The answers she gave during her trial were so profound that George Bernard Shaw was moved to write a play using the extensive records of her prosecution. She was canonized as a Catholic saint in 1920 (the same year the 19th amendment guaranteed the right to vote for American women.)

Modern day theories attempt to preclude divine intervention and place the blame for Joan’s “hallucinations” on illnesses like epilepsy or schizophrenia, but I think it unlikely a sickly, insane youth would be able to handle the rigors of 15th century military life. Another popular theory is that Joan suffered from bovine tuberculosis as a result of drinking unpasteurized milk. French historian Régine Pernoud, author of Joan of Arc: Her Story said that if drinking unpasteurized milk could produce such potential benefits for the nation, then the French government should stop mandating the pasteurization of milk.

I think Pernoud’s on to something…

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