What Not To Wear: Joan of Arc Edition

April 9, 2019June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

Most of us have at least a working familiarity with the story of Joan of Arc. A simple (but not impoverished) French peasant girl, she began hearing voices from God telling her she was going to save France from the English and their Burgundian allies. Through some combination of cleverness, sincerity, and miraculous signs, she convinced Charles VII to let her lead French soldiers in battle and eventually secured his coronation.

Having outlived her political usefulness, Joan was then pushed aside. She was captured by the English, put on trial for heresy, and burned at the stake when she was only nineteen years old. In her final moments, she begged for a cross to be held before her, high enough to see through the flames. She called out to Jesus while she burned.

It’s a gripping tale, and surprisingly well-documented for its times. References to Joan pop up everywhere in the historical record, as do endless legends, rumors, and interpretations of her life and death. By far the most detailed accounts were the trial records so carefully preserved, first by those who wished to condemn her, then several decades later by those who wished her redeemed. For five months, Joan was questioned, criticized, badgered, and abused by learned men with little interest in legal or spiritual truth. Their goal was to destroy her reputation, to invalidate her apparent miracles and the king she claimed to have installed by the will of God. If she could be shown to be a heretic – a witch – then the English could reclaim the political and spiritual high ground and eventually control France itself.

The courtroom in which Joan was tried and convicted was not a traditional English court of law. Nor was it properly sanctioned by the Catholic Church then recognized as the authority over such issues. It was instead something of a rogue proceeding, heavy with the trappings of a religious investigation but failing to adhere to the rules of either Church or State. Joan, a peasant girl with no formal education, was denied her own counsel. She was kept in what was essentially a dungeon rather than a church prison as required in such cases. At one point, Joan apparently signed a confession of sorts, under fear of the most painful of deaths. It’s unlikely she knew precisely what it said, and she recanted soon after, at which point her fate was sealed beyond redemption. She was executed by fire.

And yet, reading through the trial records, it becomes clear that Bishop Cauchon – the primary interrogator and the man most accountable to the English for securing Joan’s condemnation – is repeatedly frustrated in his efforts to pin heresy or witchcraft on Joan in any meaningful way, even in these severely tilted circumstances. It’s equally clear that it was essential to the facade that he do so, lest the entire process be revealed as the travesty it was.

Even in a charade of a trial, participants generally strive to persuade themselves before seeking to persuade others. Humans are corrupt and selfish, to be sure – but most of us still want to be able to sleep at night. We like to win, but we don’t like to feel like horrible people while doing it. We demand a narrative – however twisted or internal – which justifies our treatment of others. We want to feel right.

Joan was accused of setting herself up as an idol of sorts – a charge the court found themselves unable to prove, even to themselves. She was criticized for how others responded to her, as if she were a miracle-worker or healer – criticisms she shrugged off, for she had little control over how others responded.

Time and again her accusers obsessed over a “fairy tree” in her native Domremy and the possibility that Joan at some point in her childhood danced or sang around it. They focused on a ring her mother gave her with a traditional blessing inscribed on the inside, and any possible indication it operated as a relic or charm. They tried to tie her to known mystics – Brother Richard, Catherine de la Rochelle, and others – although Joan was single-minded to the point of obsession and the last to validate what others wanted or claimed. They particularly hoped to uncover the details of whatever sign she’d given Charles VII upon first meeting him – a secret which remains unknown to us even today, but which persuaded an insecure and uninspired dauphin to suddenly step up and take great risks to secure his crown.

Joan was asked theological questions she had no reason to understand, yet generally managed to circumvent in her responses. She was challenged about the multiple pope problem then facing the Church and any advice she might have given to others regarding its proper resolution – a resolution no one questioning her had offered themselves. Every rumor, every recorded word or phrase, every action of Joan which could be cut’n’pasted into something smacking of corruption were strung together in faux outrage, despite how obvious it was to all involved that whatever Joan may have been, she was hardly vain or ambitious, let alone the willing servant of darkness or corruption.

Right or wrong, she was a humble girl convinced she was obeying the will of God and bewildered why men of the cloth found the idea so horrifying. Joan was even willing to submit to church authority, so long as it not blatantly contradict the revealed will of God as she understood it. In many ways, she anticipated the Protestant Reformation Martin Luther would spark some seventy-five years later.

Thus, in the end, there were really only two points on which Cauchon and his cohorts found traction, even by their own standards.

The first were her voices and accompanying visions of St. Catherine, St. Margaret, and St. Michael. Joan was prodded endlessly about these experiences, perhaps in the hope she would ascribe some characteristic or detail to them which seemed to contradict scripture or church teaching. Revelation via angelic visitation may have been unusual, but their own scriptures provided multiple precedents in both Old and New Testaments, making even this loftiest of Joan’s claims difficult to condemn too broadly without seeming petty and vain even for the late medieval church. (“Why would God appear to someone humble and small when he could speak through the rich and powerful and by their own standards blatantly corrupt? Oh, wait…”)

The other issue – and the one for which she was finally and truly condemned – involved her clothes. More than any other single issue, in strict legal terms, Joan was executed for violating society’s dress code.

It had started with her initial journey to see Charles VII. Having somehow persuaded a local official by the name of Robert Baudricourt to legitimize her mission – enough that the King would receive her, at least – Joan sets off with several male cohorts assigned to her protection and logistical guidance. Whether it was primarily to disguise herself from the English and their sympathizers along the way, or to de-sexualize her in the eyes of the many strange men with whom she’d be sharing close quarters, Joan cut her hair short and adapted some form of male military attire.

It was a practical decision. Suspicious eyes weren’t drawn to a small party of male soldiers sharing a campsite, whereas the addition of a young woman would certainly bring attention. Should her party be attacked, armor was of course far better protection than whatever feminine garb would have been considered more appropriate.

Perhaps most significantly, the primary garments of any soldier’s armor were secured to one another by ropes and ties and fasteners. No one wanted some critical piece of protection to fly off in the heat of battle, or slide loose during long rides on horseback, so getting in and out of military accoutrements was a time-intensive task by design. As a 17-year old virgin surrounded by unfamiliar soldier-types far from home, it made absolute sense to protect herself sexually as much as militarily.

It’s important to note that this was a choice entirely allowed by church doctrine. Cross-dressing could be sinful, or even heretical, but it very much depended on circumstances. And Joan, by any reasonable measure, had circumstances.

Trial transcripts record repeated questioning of Joan concerning her attire. She expressed complete willingness to change into a dress once moved to a church prison, where she’d be guarded by women, as church law required. Her request was, each time, denied. Joan was asked to recite the Lord’s Prayer (something a witch would be unable to do). Again she was compliant, if only she were first given the opportunity for a proper confession. Impossible, unless she changed her outfit! And the cycle began anew.

In the end, Bishop Cauchon and company left her with little real choice. They declared victory and the fire was lit.

Joan of Arc has meant a wide variety of things to many different people over the centuries, but it’s this detail that most resonates with me. She prioritized decency and practicality over rules or society’s squeamishness. Joan knew the mores, but she had a larger mission; the tender scruples of others simply weren’t a priority. Thus, in a century of warfare, political strife, economic claims, and divine rights of kings, fought with swords, rituals, and betrayals amidst questions of faith, education, social status, and gender roles, a young girl who heard voices from God and saved a nation with her stubborn faith was executed… for not taking off her pants.

We are welcome to remember Joan for working miracles and overthrowing kingdoms, but these neither saved nor condemned her. Violating the comfort zones of few folks with a little power and an exaggerated sense of self-righteousness, however…

Charles VII remained on the throne and eventually the English were completely expelled from France. Joan was still dead at that point, but would no doubt have been quite pleased.

RELATED POST: Joan of Awkard, Part One: Missing Voices

Helen Churchill Candee on Women in Oklahoma Territory

March 25, 2019June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

Helen Churchill Candee arrived in Gurthrie, O.T., in the mid-1890s, primarily because of the territory’s widely-advertised lax divorce laws and her desire to escape an abusive marriage. She’d come from a respectable New England upbringing and a life of some affluence, including travel, books, art, and an impressive formal education. While not necessarily an oddity in Oklahoma society, she was certainly not your average boomer.

Her writings on Oklahoma and its people are some of the most insightful and sympathetic of her generation. Six articles and a novel, with overlapping themes and anecdotes, between 1896 and 1901. In them she covers a variety of topics comfortably, from agricultural logistics to social dynamics to government policy and how it impacts very real people—people she observed, interacted with, and developed affections for on a daily basis.

One of the most intriguing threads in this early writing is her approach towards women in Oklahoma Territory. Candee was already something of a feminist, although the term itself would have been unfamiliar to most and these leanings were not as pronounced as they’d become a few decades later. Her first book, How Women My Earn A Living, was first published in 1900, and took a socially-appropriate-but-imminently-practical approach towards ladies who found themselves in need of substantive employment. In retrospect, it’s considered something of a minor landmark in feminist literature.

Candee’s treatment of female society in the territories which is particularly fascinating. She writes with gentle candor, taking the reader into her confidence without ever quite becoming gossipy, only periodically stepping into other narrative “voices” in order to better explore her subject. Surely such forthrightness suggests we might catch occasional glimpses of the woman behind the words?

First Impressions “In Oklahoma”

Her first piece on life in O.T., “In Oklahoma,” was for The Illustrated American, a periodical for whom she’d written regularly for several years. It was published on April 4, 1896, not long after she’d moved to the area. It’s one of the edgiest of her writings on the Territory and offers her earliest commentary on Indians, government policy, violence over disputed claims, and other themes to which she’d later return. It lacks the warmer perspective she’d have a few years later, when her affections for the Territory seem to color her portrayals of even the most unpleasant realities.

It’s also the first time she writes specifically about women in O.T.:

Among the home-seekers there were women—not helpless, discouraged women, inefficient and parasitical, but belonging to the large class who prefer work to dependence and who looked upon “proving up a claim” as a business measure, perhaps not expecting to spend all their lives in exile, but willing to conform to the time of residence stipulated by the Government, that they might sell the claim later with its improvements and realize a fair sum.

So there’s a sentence.

Candee’s contrast of O.T. home-seekers with “helpless, discouraged women, inefficient and parasitical” certainly cuts more sharply than her later works. At the risk of reading too much into one colorful phrase, perhaps this reflects a bit of her own “strength via defiance” – her own refusal to be a “helpless, discouraged woman”?

Candee was caring for two children in a frontier town. Divorce carried substantial social stigma, whatever her former society or current surroundings. There’s nothing to indicate she was in financial difficulty, but neither could she possibly have maintained in Guthrie the sort of comfort and security which had defined her world for nearly forty years. It must have taken some grit and grind in practice, however much grace and style were manifested in the presentation.

A little defensiveness or hostility is not inconceivable. It happens.

Or maybe that’s too much of a leap – inferring more than the text justifies. That also happens.

Holding Claims and Digging Out

But unless a woman is as brave as a lion and as self-sufficient as Webster’s Unabridged, it is a weary banishment. Houses are not huddled together in the territory; they are far apart, one every mile perhaps, and the majority occupied by negroes or the usual class of workers that open up the frontier, so there is no society for the woman “holding down” a claim, unless she is interested in humanity of the lowest sort.

A phrase like “brave as a lion and as self-sufficient as Webster’s Unabridged” is too golden to pass into obscurity. If only we could run about quoting it to people while shaking them by the collar enthusiastically, without getting arrested…

Her claim is probably from twelve to forty miles from the nearest railroad town; the other settlements scarcely count. And yet, inside her cabin you perhaps may see late magazines, a few books, an old Satsuma plate, some Oriental stuffs, to remind her of the world beyond the blackjacks and the rolling prairie.

More magazines than books, and a single “Satsuma plate” along with other “Oriental stuffs.” Can you feel it?

Satsuma was a type of Japanese dinnerware which could be a sign of substantial sophistication, but which was mass- produced by American factories during this time in imitation thereof. Taken together, this scattered collection acknowledges civilization, and reaches for it despite surroundings. What would prove a rather pathetic effort in other settings seems a noble declaration of values on the frontier.

Candee is perfectly comfortable with the independent female accomplishing things formerly associated with men. She’d almost have to be, since she was doing it herself, and she’d certainly have encountered others in such unorthodox surroundings. And yet…

Her house began as a “dug-out”… It is getting uncomfortably near to nature’s heart to live in a square hole dug in the ground…
The dug-out is cool in summer and warm in winter, and the tireless hurricane that incessantly sweeps the territory is powerless to blow it over; but the soul of the woman longs for something more, and when the claim has yielded a profit she invests the money in a suitable house…

The “tireless hurricane that incessantly sweeps the territory”? Yeah, there’s still some edge working its way to the surface here. We’re not letting her write the state musical.

Candee’s independent woman embraces the practicalities of a dug-out, but her “soul… longs for something more” – in this case, the comforts of proper domesticity. If only we could get her, Betty Friedan, and Michelle Obama in a room together for a few hours and just… listen.

*giddy*

Changing Perspectives and Falling Plums

“Divorcons,” a piece published a week later in the periodical, is atypical. Candee writes in the fictionalized role of an “investigator” coming to Oklahoma City to “familiarize myself with the Government employés and their methods.” It ends with an editorial call for longer residency requirements before divorce can be secured, a topic possibly of some discomfort to Candee—perhaps explaining the detachment with which she writes in this unusual case.

The characters in this short piece are caricatures, alternately shadowy and one-dimensional. The “girls of easy assurance and ready tongue who bandied slang with… negroes,” the “mulatto chambermaid,” and the giggling arm-candy of businessmen in town only long enough to divorce their unseen wives before heading for Europe with their latest conquests, are hardly meant to be flattering, but neither are they presented as typical. They’re set pieces in an odd little moral noir.

Stark contrast is provided two years later when Candee wrote rather extensively of “Social Conditions In Our Newest Territory” for The Forum in June, 1898. This time it’s women in town who strive to balance gritty practicality with traditional womanhood and some appearance of high society.

The President appoints all important officers, beginning with the Governor and extending to the judiciary, the marshalship, and minor positions. The men who occupy these offices have the privilege of making subordinate appointments in connection with their work. Each change of Administration disrupts the entire Territory; and business is temporarily paralyzed. Candidates and their aids flock to Washington, and wait on the pleasure of the President…
Local vernacular describes this condition as “waiting for plums to fall.” Except in the judicial positions, the candidates are professional or commercial men who expect to supplement their ordinary business with the duties and emoluments of Government service. Sometimes the Government at Washington delays settling the affairs of our youngest Territory; but this would never be done were it known how agonizing is the suspense in awaiting the falling of the plums.

Andrew Jackson would have been horrified, yet no doubt strangely aroused.

It comes hardest on the women, who in public maintain a dignified composure, but in private abandon stoicism and weep hysterically over the delay or the denouement.

Candee has some—but not much—sympathy for the traditionally supportive wife, flinging feelings everywhere while the men do manly things like grovel for patronage. One wonders how much her own background – the longsuffering spouse of a successful businessman, now divorced on the last frontier and proudly pushing forward on brains and style – shapes such portrayals.

Redefining Class

Later in the piece, Candee addresses the affectations of high society:

One of the most striking things in Territory society is the existence of class distinctions – more especially among the women. In business, in politics, in all the affairs of life except amusement, people are equal; but inside the parlors of the frame houses distinctions are arbitrarily made according to local standards. Occupation has little to do with it; for an auctioneer’s wife may be received, while a lawyer’s wife will be debarred.

In other words, the standards have adapted to the circumstances. Traditional social distinctions would leave most Oklahomans out of elite loops altogether, so the unwritten rules have been re-unwritten.

Young men in this country pursue any occupation by which they can life; and few of the young women lead lives of simple domesticity. All young people are at work, some of them in the humblest positions; but these things have nothing to do with the social position.

Most women in the Territory were employed in one way or another. That alone would disqualify them from high society elsewhere, but this wasn’t elsewhere. And there were few circumstances in which men of independent wealth would find themselves in Oklahoma Territory in the late 19th century.

In some places money secures the latter; but, as a rule, it is created by one of two causes,—personal magnetism, and that ultra-snobbishness which is found in its highest development in America.

So… personality and attitude? Two sides of the same shiny, annoying coin.

The extremest of conventionality marks the women, who know nothing of the delightful freedom of the women of larger cities. They live entirely within the limits of their little town; paying visits to one another. When they take their walks abroad, or drive in their buggies or surreys, it is to trot up and down the gridiron of unshaded streets; disregarding the soul-satisfying wonders of the wide prairies beyond. They become absolutely self-centered, and their views, circumscribed; but this works to the advantage of local development.

Written by a man, this would sound severe and condescending. Written by Candee, who may have partaken in some of these exact rituals, it merely seems honest – if a bit blunt. The women become sympathetic characters rather than either role-models or villains. And, as became typical of much of Candee’s writing about the Territory, they’re not entirely to blame, even for their snobbery or ignorance. They are products of their circumstances, pursuing intangible desires while accommodating very tangible limitations.

As to this “advantage of local development”…

If their eyes were always on the unattainable, whether apparel or the cultivation of the mind, there would be discontent and a tendency to scorn the simple pleasures which alone are possible. The truly feminine desire to follow the mode is evinced by the tendency to adopt new forms of expression and hospitality. Society events are reported in the local papers in the same descriptive terms as those which tell of metropolitan entertainments; and thus the people pleasantly delude themselves.

They’ve never been to Daniel Boulud’s, so they maintain a perfectly enjoyable uppity-ness over their reserved seats at Applebee’s. Accurate, perhaps – but harsh!

Moving On

“Oklahoma Claims,” published in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine, October 1898, utilizes three presumably fictional characters. The narrator, a variation of Helen, acts as the bemused-but-curious traveling companion for Ollin, a well-intentioned but slightly corrupted homesteader who proudly plays the government system in his favor. They are accompanied by Leora, Ollin’s “buxom niece,” who is comically large and somewhat simple, but still wily and shameless in gaming the system herself.

“Oklahoma” (The Atlantic Monthly, September 1900) and “A Chance In Oklahoma” (Harper’s Weekly, February 23, 1901) are arguably the strongest of the six pieces, but neither speaks of women other than in passing. Whether this is an intentional shift or the discussion simply falls outside the primary focus of each piece, they add little to this particular equation.

We’re left to Candee’s other works to better understand her and her approach towards the complex sex. As to women in early Oklahoma, we’ll simply have to seek further information in far less-entertaining accounts.

The Seneca Falls Convention (from “Have To” History)

March 23, 2019June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 1 Comment

Stuff You Don’t Really Want To Know (But For Some Reason Have To) About the Seneca Falls Convention (1848)…

Three Big Things:

1. Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton – Denied the right to participate in the first “World’s Anti-Slavery Convention” in London in 1840, Mott and Stanton decided that if women were to be effective reformers, they’d need more rights themselves. They spearheaded the first “women’s rights convention” on record in Seneca Falls, NY, eight years later.

2. “The Declaration of Sentiments” – Modeled after the Declaration of Independence, this document (read at the convention) declared that “all men and women are created equal” and the “history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman.” It’s probably excerpted in the back of your textbook somewhere.

3. Controversy over Suffrage – Stanton was part of a contingent who wanted to push for women to be given the right to vote; Mott and other more cautious activists resisted, fearing it would be so unpopular as to harm their efforts overall. The resolution passed, however, despite having little impact on election laws at the time.

Background

The first half of the 19th century became a time of great social reform across the United States, although most movements were far more active and had much greater impact in the northern half of the young nation than the “tradition”-driven south. Temperance, prison reform, abolition, the beginnings of public education, better care for the mentally ill, and women’s rights were largely intertwined issues – sometimes conflicting but mostly supporting one another. Underlying all of these reform efforts was the idea that society (and the people within it) could be made better.

While men tended to lead most of these reform efforts, women were active in unprecedented ways. It was not unusual for reform-based organizations to vigorously debate whether or not to allow women to speak at their meetings or on their behalf publicly, weighing principle against the practical impact. Any group risked losing potential allies and essential support should they so brazenly defy social and political norms.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who was a Quaker, and Lucretia Mott, who was not, were part of a group who travelled to London to take part in the first World’s Anti-Slavery Convention. While allowed to attend, they were forced to sit in the balcony and could not speak or participate. The decided that if women were to have meaningful impact in various other areas of reform, they would first need a little social and political efficacy of their own.

The Quakers believed in the “priesthood of all believers,” a particularly Protestant sort of Protestantism which meant the church as an institution went easy on the doctrinal details or authority of the clergy and heavy on the relationship with Jesus and personal Bible study. Their belief in the value of all individuals meant they were some of the earliest abolitionists and tended to be strong proponents of women’s rights. There was thus considerable support for the idea of a “women’s rights convention” from Quakers – both women and men – in the Seneca Falls area.

The Convention

The first day was intended to be exclusively for women, with men admitted on the second. Some women arrived with their children – of both sexes – and a few dozen men who hadn’t gotten the memo showed up as well. They were allowed to attend with the understanding they’d not interrupt or cause shenanigans.

Day One was largely devoted to the reading and discussion of the Declaration of Sentiments. A few changes were adopted, and it was voted on and approved by the Convention. The women then discussed a series of “resolutions” composed by multiple organizers by largely edited and finalized by Stanton. They said things like –

Resolved, That woman is man’s equal–was intended to be so by the Creator, and the highest good of the race demands that she should be recognized as such.
Resolved, That the women of this country ought to be enlightened in regard to the laws under which they live, that they may no longer publish their degradation, by declaring themselves satisfied with their presentposition, nor their ignorance, by asserting that they have all the rights they want…
Resolved, That the same amount of virtue, delicacy, and refinement of behavior, that is required of woman in the social state, should also be required of man, and the same transgressions should be visited with equal severity on both man and woman…
Resolved, That woman has too long rested satisfied in the circumscribed limits which corrupt customs and a perverted application of the Scriptures have marked out for her, and that it is time she should move in the enlarged sphere which her great Creator has assigned her.
Resolved, That it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise…

That last one is the “right to vote” part that caused such a kerfuffle; it eventually passed along with the rest.

Day Two largely followed up on these same two documents, but with men allowed to participate this time, and there were discussions of other legalities and practicalities. Those present signed the final forms of the Declaration and the Resolutions, and there were more speeches rousing the crowd to action and on towards victory and so on and it was apparently all quite inspirational.

There were numerous other conventions across the north in subsequent months and years, some bigger and bolder, others not nearly as impressive. But the birth of them all was in Seneca Falls, New York, July 19th and 20th, 1848.

You Wanna Sound REALLY Smart? {Extra Stuff}

Mary Ann M’Clintock – Quaker woman whose name should probably join Stanton’s and Mott’s when discussing the organization and successful running of this major undertaking. M’Clintock hadn’t gone to London, but she was an active abolitionist and part of the earliest conversations in which the convention moved from “idea” to “goal.” Several of her daughters were involved as well, and her home was the site of several extensive planning sessions leading up to the convention. The original Declaration of Sentiments was drafted in her parlor and presumably with her input along with a small handful of other women present. She was voted Secretary of the Seneca Falls Convention and her husband, Thomas, served as “chair” for several sessions in which both men and women were in attendance.

Frederick Douglass – Former slave turned author, orator, and abolitionist, and who was the only African American of either sex to attend the Seneca Falls Convention. When the controversial issue of women’s suffrage was being debated, Douglass spoke in its favor and argued that he should not receive the vote unless women did as well. He recognized even then the intertwined natures of women’s rights and rights for Black Americans. It took others a bit longer.