Thursday, January 16, 2025

Was Joan of Arc royalty?

Of course not.

This was a peasant girl who charged into history with the force of a medieval thunderbolt.

Born in 1412 in the backwater village of Domrémy, Joan wasn't sipping wine in castles or learning courtly dances.

She was the daughter of Jacques d'Arc and Isabelle Romée - hardworking farmers who knew more about surviving winter than royal protocols.

Her family belonged to a rural class the French called "coq du village" - village roosters.

They weren't dirt poor, but they weren't anywhere close to nobility.

Basically, land-owning farmers who worked their own fields and paid their taxes.

Her father even pulled double duty as a village official, which meant he could read contracts and settle minor disputes.

But at the end of the day, he was still getting them hands dirty in the fields.

Joan's early life was a tactical training ground of a different sort.

While noble girls learned embroidery and proper etiquette, she was learning to handle livestock, manage a household, and navigate the brutal realities of medieval peasant life.

These weren't the skills of a princess, they were the hard-earned capabilities of someone who had to work to survive.

When she hit the French royal court like a precision-guided missile in 1429, she wasn't wearing silk gowns or flashing royal credentials.

She showed up in borrowed men's clothing, carrying a letter of introduction from a local noble who probably thought he was taking one hell of a risk backing this crazy peasant girl.

The fact that she wasn't royal made her mission seem even more incredible to the medieval mind.

In their worldview, God sometimes chose the most unlikely operators for the most crucial missions.

The trial records, our most reliable intel on Joan, show how much her common origins irritated her enemies.

They tried to paint her as an upstart for daring to wear military gear and command noble-born officers.

But, she never tried to hide her background. Even when standing before Charles VII, she owned her peasant status like it was combat armor.

She wasn't playing at being noble, she was something far more dangerous: a commoner who'd been given a divine mission.

This background wasn't a liability; it was what made her story explosive.

She didn't have family connections, political backing, or noble privilege in her tactical toolkit.

Everything she accomplished came from raw conviction and pure, unfiltered courage. 

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