The Magdalene became a popular French figurehead for female-friendly dissenting mystical traditions, and the Angevins took her as a patron saint. Their domains included Provence in southern France-which made them patrons of the cult of Mary Magdalene, who was said to have spent the last years of her life in Provence. With their English branch, the Plantagenets, they ruled hundreds of thousands of square miles from Ireland to the Mediterranean. Queens in Armor / Two Families in Contrastīy 1200, from their seat in west-central France, the Angevins had muscled their way to the peak of European power. Not of noble birth herself, Joan wouldn’t have lasted as long as she did without Angevin mentoring and protection. Orthodox Christian historians bend over backwards to avoid discussing Joan’s Angevin connection many characterize that dynasty as a limb of Satan. As a few historians point out, Joan was launched into leadership by a powerful ruling family, the House of Anjou, which had no problems with women warriors and protected her as long as they were able. How, in a society that was still essentially Catholic, did Joan of Arc reach the dizzying status of a maid in armor and reign there for a whole year, only to be dragged to a horrifying death as a heretic for wearing that same armor? Is there more to her controversy than the story we get from standard history? She saw herself as a woman leading a soldier’s life in order to carry out her divine mission.
Joan expressed no interest in changing her gender or passing as a man. If so, she and her contemporaries-given the state of 15th-century medical knowledge-had no idea that this was the case. The more I study Joan’s life, the more I suspect she was a case of complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS). But all these viewpoints converge on one fact: in 1431, Joan’s male clothing, and her insistence that God told her to wear it, became the pretext to burn her at the stake. She is variously pegged as heterosexual, lesbian, and transgender/intersex. A few historians aver that her links with the “bloodline of Jesus” need to be examined. The Roman Church claims her as a champion of Catholic nationalism, while Protestants insist she was one of the first Protestants. Today, historians and commentators still argue fiercely about Joan.
CONTROVERSY about Joan of Arc’s gender first exploded in 1428, and its shock wave has kept rolling for nearly 600 years.
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