Tag Archives: Henry VIII

New Podcast Episode: The Bell Tower, Tower of London: Thomas More, Elizabeth I, and Other Histories, Part 3

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Approaching the Lower Wakefield Tower, Tower of London, England

Listen to this podcast episode here or on Google Play, or subscribe on iTunes

Saturday, May 4th, 2018, continued

After parting with Simon, Laurence and I step out of the Tower grounds for a quick lunch, though when we return, our first stop features sights and stories that could turn anyone’s stomach. As you may have guessed, it’s the torture room of the Lower Wakefield Tower. As the signage indicates, the chamber now dedicated to the history and artifacts of the Tower’s legacy of torture was likely not used for that purpose at the time. However, it’s well chosen for its current purpose. The underground stone chamber is entered via a series of short stairways and small narrow doorways, evoking an increasing sense of entrapment among stones as cold and impassive as were the torturer’s sympathies.

There is no direct link between this chamber and Thomas More or Elizabeth I, but both of them had strong associations with the use of torture… Read the written version here

~ Ordinary Philosophy is a labor of love and ad-free, supported by patrons and readers like you. Any support you can offer will be deeply appreciated!

The Bell Tower, Tower of London: Thomas More, Elizabeth I, and Other Histories, Part 3

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Approaching the Lower Wakefield Tower, Tower of London, England

Saturday, May 4th, 2018, continued

After parting with Simon, Laurence and I step out of the Tower grounds for a quick lunch, though when we return, our first stop features sights and stories that could turn anyone’s stomach. As you may have guessed, it’s the torture room of the Lower Wakefield Tower. As the signage indicates, the chamber now dedicated to the history and artifacts of the Tower’s legacy of torture was likely not used for that purpose at the time. However, it’s well chosen for its current purpose. The underground stone chamber is entered via a series of short stairways and small narrow doorways, evoking an increasing sense of entrapment among stones as cold and impassive as were the torturer’s sympathies.

There is no direct link between this chamber and Thomas More or Elizabeth I, but both of them had strong associations with the use of torture. This comes as no surprise when it comes to Elizabeth, since, infamously, torture was used particularly often on political and religious prisoners during her reign. At the time, torture was regarded by many as an effective method of wresting confessions and information from accused enemies of church and state. Though it was illegal under English common law, torture or the threat of torture was nevertheless used in some cases, especially those in which the crime was considered particularly harmful to the state. England had been rife with religious and political turmoil for decades by the time Elizabeth ascended the throne, so there was a driving political interest in restoring order by cracking down on religious and political dissidents. Protestant Elizabeth reversed her elder sister and royal predecessor Mary I’s policies designed to restore England to Catholicism, religious ties which their father Henry VIII had severed so that he could divorce his wife and marry Elizabeth’s mother Anne Boleyn. So, plots and intrigues against Elizabeth’s reign by papal loyalists abounded, and private citizens practiced their Catholic religion in secret since it was once again illegal.

Sign for the torture exhibit at the Lower Wakefield Tower, Tower of London

Elizabeth believed that national unity necessarily included unity of creed as well as nationwide fealty to her, and under her administration fines, imprisonment, torture, and even death were seen as effective deterrents to dissent and disloyalty. Many claim that Elizabeth harshly persecuted Catholics and other religious dissenters for practicing their faith at least as ruthlessly as Mary’s administration had persecuted Protestants, or at least that Elizabeth had failed to interfere when her officers did so. But other historians characterize Elizabeth’s suppression of Catholicism as comparatively mild except when it was linked to religiously-motivated plots to undermine or delegitimize her rule. Elizabeth had many friends who were known Catholics and dissenters and, especially earlier in her reign, rarely punished them for it so long as they kept their beliefs to themselves. She famously stated that she had ‘no desire to make windows into men’s souls.’ But those who were perceived threats to the security of Elizabeth’s throne were often dealt with ruthlessly, though Elizabeth herself was sometimes reluctant to order such punishment.

Regnans in Excelsis, Pius V’s papal bull excommunicating Elizabeth I

Initially more hands-off regarding the practice of religion by otherwise loyal private citizens, Elizabeth’s administration cracked down more severely on the practice of Catholicism after Pope Pius V excommunicated her in 1570. Prior to this excommunication, Elizabeth seemed to have considered the practice of Catholicism as a private matter of conscience so far as this didn’t interfere with their duties as loyal subjects. After the excommunication, however, English Catholics and Elizabeth were all placed in untenable positions. Pope Pius V was not content merely to banish Elizabeth from the Church; he called on Catholics to renounce their loyalty and obedience to her on pain of their own excommunication. In doing so, Pius bound politics to religion far more firmly than Elizabeth had done or wanted to do. Since Elizabeth believed in the legitimacy of her own reign and was bound to promote and protect it, she was unable to overlook this attack on her right to rule and felt forced to act.

More’s connection to torture may be much more troubling since he’s a Catholic saint, let alone given that he was in many other ways an admirable character. However, not all see More in such a glowing light. One of the most controversial facts about More is that he advocated torturing recalcitrant heretics. Some might find it more understandable that Elizabeth, as head of state responsible for enforcing the rule of law, would include torture as a tool of enforcement since it was at least somewhat consistent with the standards of the time. More likewise, in his tenure as Chancellor of England, was responsible for upholding the rule of law and maintaining national security, and in an era when church and state were so intertwined, this entailed enforcing religious uniformity. Neither More nor Elizabeth had access to the large modern body of evidence that torture is not, in fact, effective in gathering reliable intelligence, nor does it deter ideological extremism.

Pages from Thomas More’s A Dialogue Concerning Heresies, 1532

However, as writer Michael Shermer notes, even then, many doubted the rightness and effectiveness of torture, especially those who routinely heard startling and manifestly untrue ‘confessions’ extricated from those under duress. It seems that the otherwise kindly and intelligent More may have been capable of similar insights if he was not himself blinded by his own zealotry. More’s customarily mild and forbearing disposition may have given way to harshness in dealing with heretics because of his deep religiosity in his particular brand of Catholicism. As his biographer Peter Ackroyd writes, ‘More believed in the communion of the faithful, living and dead, while [to More, the heretical Martin] Luther affirmed the unique significance of the individual calling before God.’ According to author and Tudor specialist Melita Thomas, More regarded the Catholic Church as a community of souls whose unity with the divine was threatened by heresy much in the same way as a healthy body is threatened by disease. Like a cancerous tumor, heresy must be identified and ruthlessly cut off from the body of the church. In the case of heretics, there could be no mercy without sincere and complete repentance, since nothing less than the eternal salvation of souls was at stake. Thomas does not offer this as an excuse for More’s bloodthirstiness in this regard but as an explanation.

Historian Brian Moynahan is not among those who believe that this explanation excuses More’s advocation of torture for heretics. He believes that More was at best inconsistent and at worst hypocritical in this matter. In more than one instance, More confessed to his daughter Margaret Roper his fear of the pain he might suffer if he was tortured or put to death for his refusal to swear to the Act of Succession, which, among other things, rejected papal authority over the Church in England. More’s refusal had already led to his imprisonment and, he was sure, would ultimately lead to his execution. In a letter to Margaret on the 3rd of June, 1535, More wrote that his interrogators made the point that More himself, when Chancellor, ‘examined heretics’ and ‘compel[ed] men to answer’ on pain of death. Why shouldn’t More himself, his interrogators asked, suffer the same treatment he had recommended for others? After all, those accused of heresy likewise refused to submit to the authority of the state and the church. More defended himself on the grounds that he could not submit since it was a matter of conscience. But, as his interrogators observed, his defense comes off like a case of special pleading since that was arguably true of accused heretics as well.

A door to the room with torture instruments and exhibits in the Lower Wakefield Tower, Tower of London

Besides, when it comes to those who we honor for their exceptional virtue and expansive moral imagination, commonly used defenses such as ‘well, they were a person of their time’ sound less convincing. The point of bestowing the status of sainthood or sage seems to be that those so honored are exceptional, that they should be able to reason and feel beyond the limitations of their own time, especially in matters of morals and justice. For example, I’ve never accepted the excuse that Thomas Jefferson’s slave-owning was just an understandable manifestation of his ‘being a man of his time.’ The plain fact is, Jefferson knew better but persisted in slave-owning (and -buying and -selling) anyway because freeing them would have caused him personal inconvenience. For both Jefferson and More, insights about the wrongness of their worst practices were available to them, so it’s not as if it’s a matter of 20/20 hindsight or unfair retroactive judgment according to new standards not yet conceived of at the time. As discussed above, torture was illegal under English common law and recognized by many as a cruel infringement on personal integrity, and an accomplished and well-read lawyer such as More was surely cognizant of this. It was also a common charge at the time that torture was used to force false confessions from people just as it was supposed to force true ones, a charge that Catholics later made against Elizabeth and her administration. It seems that Elizabeth and More, like Jefferson, failed their own best selves when it came to an important issue of justice and human rights, and they could and should have known better.

As I look at the instruments of torture and the descriptions of how they were used, I find I have no stomach for lingering or for taking or sharing photos of the instruments or displays. It’s true that these artifacts and the uses to which they were put are of historical interest. But there are photos and articles galore featuring these dreadful things in books and on the internet, and I get the feeling that this room is more often a scene of gruesome entertainment than a place of somber reflection on humankind’s history of inhumanity to one another. I’ve no doubt the latter very often takes place here too, but perhaps the gloomy, creepy mood of the room puts me in a pessimistic state of mind. I’ve seen enough representations of these instruments and read enough about them already that I feel I’m learning nothing new nor am I having an experience of particular value in this room. I take no photos and beat a quick retreat.

Traitors’ Gate under St Thomas’ Tower, from inside the walls of the Tower of London. As you can see, the sky has a grayish cast to it: I took this photo last time I was here at the Tower in January

Elizabeth I When a Princess, c. 1546, attributed to William Scrots, via Royal Collection Trust

We leave the chamber and head toward the southwest corner of the Tower complex. On the way, we pass St. Thomas’ Tower, originally built in the 1270’s by Edward I, and the Traitors’ Gate below it. This is where both Elizabeth and More entered the Tower as prisoners. This wide arched entryway was built so that small boats could easily and securely enter the Tower and deposit their detainees. Then-Princess Elizabeth entered this archway by boat on March 18, 1554, as Mary’s prisoner. As discussed in the previous installment of my Tower visit story, Elizabeth had been connected to Sir Thomas Wyatt’s rebellion, the purpose of which was to prevent Mary’s marriage to King Philip of Spain and to place Elizabeth on the throne. Elizabeth was reported to have said as she entered this gate, ‘Oh Lord! I never thought to have come here as a prisoner; and I pray you all, good friends and fellows, bear me witness, that I come in as no traitor, but as true woman to the queen’s majesty as any is now living.’ As our guide Simon told us earlier today, the truth of Elizabeth’s protestation of total innocence is still debated to this day.

When More entered Traitors’ Gate as Henry VIII’s prisoner on April 17th, 1534, he made no such impassioned protestations of innocence. Instead, as was his wont, More made a joke. When asked for his ‘upper garment,’ More offered his hat, though he would have known that what was required from him was his gown or outer coat. In addition to the warm coat he was loathe to give up, More also wore his gold chain of livery en route to the Tower, which appears to be a form of protest against losing his freedom and his job because he acted according to his religious beliefs. Simon told us earlier today that More’s chain is still worn by Mayor of London. The rooms in St. Thomas’ Tower over the Traitors’ Gate had just been rebuilt and refurbished as part of the many improvements Henry made to the Tower in preparation for Anne’s coronation celebrations. Since Henry’s desire to make Anne his queen was the impetus for More’s imprisonment here, the irony is a bit thick.

William Roper, by Hans Holbein the Younger, ca. 1535-1536, Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Returning to More’s stated fears of suffering and death during his imprisonment, he seemed nevertheless to refuse to let them rule his decisions, through sheer force of will. Prior to his entering the Tower, More said to his son-in-law William Roper on his way to Lambeth Palace where he had been summoned to take the Oath of Succession, ‘Son Roper, I thank our Lord the field is won.’ Ackroyd thinks More’s statement admits of two interpretations: that he had conquered his feeling for his family enough to be able to leave them behind if that’s what it took to stay true to his conscience, or that he had managed to conquer his fears on his own behalf so that he could better plan how to conduct himself. I’d like to think it was the latter. However, commenting as the direct observer when More made this statement, Roper believed it was the former.

Roper also made an important observation about More’s beliefs that landed him here in the Tower. Ackroyd, like Melita Thomas of Tudor Times, points out that More, as we have seen, believed strongly in the Church as a community. More believed further that its spiritual authority rests on its divinely-guided consensus expressed through papal decrees. Yet both Thomas and Ackroyd point out that More’s views on papal supremacy shifted somewhat over the years. Initially, Roper, also More’s earliest biographer, described it, More thought that insofar as he was also a temporal prince, the Pope’s authority should not be urged so strongly by Henry VIII in his 1521 treatise A Defense of the Seven Sacraments. Henry VIII consulted More as an editor and advisor for the work; More’s involvement was later used in the attempt to coerce and destroy him in the case that eventually led to his death. According to Roper, More was accused of ‘unnaturally procuring and provoking’ Henry to argue strongly in favor of the Pope’s authority, thereby putting ‘a sword into the Pope’s hands to fight against himself,’ Yet, as we see, More remembered that affair quite differently. When it comes to spiritual rather than temporal matters, More thought of papal authority emanating from, and therefore in some sense secondary to, the Church, the body of Christ on earth. But over time, More’s belief in the final authority of the Pope over the earthly Church strengthened to the point that he, at least in part, bet his life on it.

The Salt Tower and adjoining arched structure where menagerie was, Tower of London

Entry to the lower chamber of the Salt Tower, Tower of London

Turning left at St. Thomas’ Tower, we head for the Salt Tower at the southeast corner of the Tower compound. It was built in the 1230’s under King Henry III’s reign. Simon told us earlier today that this is the other prime candidate as the site of More’s imprisonment. It was also among the most secure chambers, so influential prisoners whose cases were most politically charged were often held here.

This is perhaps, then, the site of his daughter Margaret’s visits and where More received and composed letters to her, the closest of his children. From the beginning of his imprisonment, Margaret acted as the go-between for More and his family, relaying messages and news between them. Margaret had, rather slyly, made herself welcome as a visitor to the Tower by taking the Oath of Succession in full while adding the exculpatory clause ‘so far as will stand the law of God.’ While More was required to take the full Oath with no amendments or additions whatsoever, Margaret was allowed leeway in this because she was seen as ‘covered’ by her husband Roper’s swearing to the unalloyed Oath anyway. Since she was his wife and therefore, by law and custom, his subservient, his Oath applied to her as well. Since Margaret had taken the Oath, it was hoped that she could influence her father to do so. Until More’s imprisonment became more harsh and restrictive in the months preceding his death, Margaret was allowed a great deal of access to her father.

Left, Historical placard and right, lower chamber of the Salt Tower, Tower of London

Margaret Roper by Hans Holbein the Younger, ca. 1536, Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Margaret was highly educated, a rarity for Tudor women, studying Latin, Greek, philosophy, theology, science, and mathematics from an early age. She wrote letters to her father in Latin to improve her skills and became an expert in that language to the extent that she translated one of Erasmus‘ Latin works into English for publication when she was 19. She was also a well-respected scholar though little else of her work survives outside of her famous correspondence with her father. Among the many topics of their in-person discussions and letters, More and Margaret adapted fables he had told to her as a child to refer to the current political situation and his dispute with the king. She and More also composed a long letter in dialogue form to show clearly and compellingly why More felt he could not take the Oath of Succession without flouting his conscience and damning his soul.

More wrote a great deal when he was imprisoned as long as he had access to writing materials, a privilege denied him as the circumstances of his imprisonment became more severe as the pressure to conform was ramped up. In addition to his correspondence, More wrote religious treatises and two of his most famous works after Utopia: The Sadness of Christ and the Dialogue of Comfort. In the latter, More retold, through one of its characters, a fable that his own mother told him, about a priest fox who hears a wolf’s and an ass’s confessions. Utopia, a tale of an imaginary land with a system of philosophically-derived, seemingly idealized customs and governance that are nevertheless as problematic as the idealized society in Plato’s Republic, reads like a fable as well as satire. As we can see, fables played a strong role in More’s imagination.

A view of the upper chamber of the Salt Tower, Tower of London

Memorial plaques at Tower Hill Scaffold Site near the Tower of London

Laurence and I explore the upper and lower chambers of the Salt Tower, examining the fascinating inscriptions and drawings carved into the walls by prisoners held in these rooms over the years. We continue on and explore other parts of the Tower unrelated to this story.

Our last stop pertaining to this exploration takes us outside the Tower walls to the Tower Hill Scaffold Site in Trinity Gardens, only a mile from where More had been born on Milk Street. Trinity Gardens is a pretty little park on a rise across the A100 / Tower Hill road from the Tower, dominated by the Tower Hill Memorial to those of the Merchant Navy and Fishing Fleets who died in World War II. The Scaffold Site, small and somewhat easy to miss, is just to the east of the Memorial. A stand of palm trees that I had seen when here last in January helps me find the site again. It’s surrounded by a very low concrete wall or curb interspersed with short concrete obelisk-shaped posts. Bronze green-patinaed plaques contain some of the names of over 125 people (according to one of the plaques) that were put to death here over the space of around 400 years. Thomas More’s, Thomas Cromwell’s, and Thomas Wyatt’s are among them, three Thomases all closely connected to the histories I’m here to follow.

After one year and three months of imprisonment in the Tower, after persuasion, influence, separation from his family, financial pressure, and increasingly harsh confinement failed to bend him to Henry VIII’s will, More could no longer escape the executioner. More was executed on July 6th, 1535, just five days after his trial. Henry never took kindly to opposition from anyone, but the perceived lack of loyalty from his friends and those he had shown special favor in the past irked him most and provoked his harshest responses. Despite a long string of promises not to force his old friend More to betray his conscience, Henry ordered his execution after More refused to go along with Henry’s change of mind. Henry extended one mercy to More: instead of the protracted and agonizing traitors’ death by hanging, drawing, and quartering to which he had originally been condemned, More’s sentence was commuted to the relatively humane death by beheading. By all accounts, More died courageously, swearing his personal loyalty and friendship to Henry while affirming his primary loyalty to the will of God as he saw it. Characteristically, some of his last remarks were kindly and joking ones, apparently to cheer up the executioner, who More assured was simply sending him to heaven where he wanted to go anyway. More exhorted the executioner to escort him safely up the platform’s wobbly steps but to let him make his own way down afterward, and admonished him to strike carefully since More’s short neck might make him accidentally botch the job.

Scaffold Site at Tower Hill, to the north near the Tower of London

Margaret was not there to witness More’s execution. In my further research, I find that it’s still uncertain as to whether this was out of grief, or because she wasn’t informed in time to get there, or because she and the rest of More’s family weren’t allowed to attend. Despite her absence, More was no doubt comforted by the memory of his last encounter with her. Margaret waited among the crowd where she knew More would pass when he was returned to his Tower cell after his trial in Westminster Hall. Upon seeing him, she discarded the dignified bearing expected of her as a gentlewoman, pushing her way through the crowd and, recklessly, past his armed guards, and flung herself on More, showering him with embraces and kisses. According to Roper, there was scarcely a dry eye among those who witnessed this scene. Margaret was loving and solicitous of More’s legacy as she had been of himself. After his severed head had been displayed for a time, Margaret conspired to have it retrieved and it was buried with her. She quickly went to work collecting, arranging, annotating, and publishing a collection of her father’s works and letters. It’s as much the work of Margaret as anyone else that her father’s memory remained so prominent, and so positive, in English, Catholic, and Renaissance history.

UPDATE: in researching the practice and legality of torture in Tudor England, I found more information about the inscription I found as I left the Bell Tower chamber where Elizabeth was imprisoned which includes ‘In forture strange, My trouth was tried, Yet of my liberty ye denied…’ According to scholar Elizabeth Hanson, it was written in 1581 by Thomas Myagh, who had been imprisoned and tortured at the Tower under suspicion of involvement in an Irish rebellion against Elizabeth’s reign.

*Patron of this Tower of London journey: Laurence Murphy ~ With warmest gratitude, thank you!*

*Listen to the podcast version here or on Google Play, or subscribe on iTunes

~ Ordinary Philosophy is a labor of love and ad-free, supported by patrons and readers like you. Any support you can offer will be deeply appreciated!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sources and inspiration:

Ackroyd, Peter. The Life of Thomas More. London: Chatto & Windus, 1998

‘Annual Survey of Visits to Visitor Attractions: Latest Results.‘ VisitBritain.org

Borman, Tracy. The Story of the Tower of London. London: Merrell Publishers Limited, 2015

Borman, Tracy. ‘The Tudors and the Tower.‘ Tudor Times website, 3 Aug 2015

Bowker, M. ‘Roper [née More], Margaret (1505–1544), Scholar and Daughter of Sir Thomas More.’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Camden, William Norton, Robert; Hans and Hanni Kraus. The historie of the most renowned and victorious Princesse Elizabeth, late queen of England. Contayning all the important and remarkeable passages of state both at home and abroad, during her long and prosperous raigne. Composed by way of annals. Neuer heretofore so faithfully and fully published in English.
Sir Francis Drake Collection Library of Congress. London: Printed by N. Okes for B. Fisher; 1630

Collinson, Patrick. ‘Elizabeth I (1533–1603), Queen of England and Ireland.‘ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

English Monarchs website: ‘The Bell Tower’ and ‘The Queen’s House‘

Erasmus, Desiderius, Margaret Roper, and Richard Hyrde. A Deuoute Treatise vpon the Pater Noster, Made Fyrst in Latyn by the Moost Famous Doctour Mayster Erasmus Roterodamus, and Tourned in to Englisshe by a Yong Vertuous and Well Lerned Gentylwoman of. XIX. Yere of Age. London: Thomas Berthelet, 1525

Freeman, Thomas S. (2002). ‘`As true a subiect being prysoner’: John Foxe’s notes on the imprisonment of Princess Elizabeth, 1554-5.‘ (Notes And Documents). The English Historical Review, 117(470), 104-116

Furness, Hannah. ‘Wolf Hall is ‘Deliberate Perversion’ of History, says David Starkey.‘ The Telegraph, 26 Jan 2015

Graham, Beckett and Susan Vollenweider. ‘Episode 43: Elizabeth I, Part One‘ and ‘Episode 44: Queen Elizabeth 1, Part Two‘ for their History Chicks podcast

Guy, John. A Daughter’s Love: Thomas and Margaret More. London: Fourth Estate, 2008

Guy, John. ‘For What Did Thomas More So Silently Die?’ Lecture published at Tudors.org

Hanson, Elizabeth. ‘Torture and Truth in Renaissance England.’ Representations, no. 34, 1991, pp. 53–84

House, Seymour Baker. ‘More, Sir Thomas [St Thomas More] (1478–1535), Lord Chancellor, Humanist, and Martyr.‘ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Jones, Jonathan. ‘Wolf Hall is Wrong: Thomas More was a Funny, Feminist Renaissance Man.‘ The Guardian, 29 Jan 2015

Marc’hadour, Germain P. ‘Thomas More.’ Encyclopædia Britannica

Massie, Allan. ‘Let’s Not Overlook the Gory Details of Gloriana.‘ The Telegraph, 02 Jun 2012

More, Thomas. The Apology of Sir Thomas More, Knight. from The Complete Works of St. Thomas More, Vol. 9. Yale University Press, published online by The Center for Thomas More Studies

More, Thomas. Conscience Decides: Letters and Prayers from Prison Written Between April 1534 and July 1535. Selected and arranged by Dame Bede Foord; preface by Trevor Huddleston; introduction by Germain Marc’hadour. London: Geoffrey Chapman Ltd, 1971

More, Thomas. The English Correspondence of Sir Thomas More, 1947 Rogers edition, Princeton University Press, published online by The Center for Thomas More Studies

Moynahan. God’s Bestseller: William Tyndale, Thomas More, and the Writing of the English Bible – A Story of Martyrdom and Betrayal. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003

Pius V. Regnans in Excelsis: Excommunicating Elizabeth I of England. 1570 (encyclical). From Papal Encyclicals Online

Roper, William. The Life of Sir Thomas More. 1556. Ed. Gerard B. Wegemer and Stephen W. Smith. From Center for Thomas More Studies, 2003

Shermer, Michael. ‘We’ve Known for 400 Years That Torture Doesn’t Work.‘ Scientific American, May 1, 2017

Stanford, Peter. ‘Sir Thomas More: Saint or Sinner?’ The Telegraph, 20 Jan 2015

Teysko, Heather. ‘Catholics in Elizabethan England.‘ Renaissance English History Podcast: A Show About the Tudors, episode 26, Jul 6, 2015

Teysko, Heather and Melita Thomas. ‘Tudor Times on Thomas More.’ Renaissance English History Podcast: A Show About the Tudors, episode 55, Sep 16, 2016

‘Tower Hill Memorial.‘ Commonwealth War Graves Commission website

Weikel, Ann. ‘Mary I (1516–1558), Queen of England and Ireland.’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

New Podcast Episode: The Bell Tower, Tower of London: Thomas More, Elizabeth I, and Other Histories, Part 1

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Bell Tower, Tower of London, England

Listen to this podcast episode here or on Google Play, or subscribe on iTunes

Saturday, May 4th, 2018

I first visited the Tower of London in January of this year with my friend Steven, a fellow student of history; I at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, he at King’s College, London. We had great fun, two history nerds running around London for a couple of days! While we were at the Tower, I looked for the cell where Sir Thomas More was imprisoned for over a year before he was executed for treason on July 6th, 1535. Like many brought up in Catholic families after the film was made, I grew up watching the adaptation of Robert Bolt’s Man for All Seasons starring Paul Scofield, seeing it so many times I believe I could have parroted the dialogue from entire scenes from memory with little effort. Going back and watching clips, I still remember just about everything that every character will say and do ahead of time. The tragic story of and Scofield’s compelling characterization of the clever lawyer and saint captured my imagination. Since then, I’ve read more about him over the years and broadened my understanding of this man, who was much more complex than the stellar but somewhat two-dimensional martyr of integrity and righteousness portrayed in the film… Read the written version here

~ Ordinary Philosophy is a labor of love and ad-free, supported by patrons and readers like you. Any support you can offer will be deeply appreciated!

The Bell Tower, Tower of London: Thomas More, Elizabeth I, and Other Histories, Part 1

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Bell Tower, Tower of London, England

Saturday, May 4th, 2018

I first visited the Tower of London in January of this year with my friend Steven, a fellow student of history; I at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, he at King’s College, London. We had great fun, two history nerds running around London for a couple of days! While we were at the Tower, I looked for the cell where Sir Thomas More was imprisoned for over a year before he was executed for treason on July 6th, 1535. Like many brought up in Catholic families after the film was made, I grew up watching the adaptation of Robert Bolt’s Man for All Seasons starring Paul Scofield, seeing it so many times I believe I could have parroted the dialogue from entire scenes from memory with little effort. Going back and watching clips, I still remember just about everything that every character will say and do ahead of time. The tragic story of and Scofield’s compelling characterization of the clever lawyer and saint captured my imagination. Since then, I’ve read more about him over the years and broadened my understanding of this man, who was much more complex than the stellar but somewhat two-dimensional martyr of integrity and righteousness portrayed in the film.

Bell Tower placard, Tower of London, England

Early on in our Tower visit, I spotted a sign near the base of the Bell Tower, just across and to the left of the place where visitors enter the Tower, which identified the Bell Tower as More’s place of imprisonment. Upon further inquiry, I discovered that it’s not open to the public. It had been for a short while many years back, but wear and tear caused by visitors there and in other especially historically significant places within the Tower caused them to be closed off again. The damage was minor but happened more quickly than expected, even given the very large number of people that pass through every year: almost three million in 2017 alone! I persisted in my inquiries, as my historically nosy self is wont to do, and discovered that historians can and do seek and gain permission to visit. And so I did!

Simon Dodd, Yeoman Warder at the Tower of London

So on the morning of May 4th, 2018, I arrive at the Tower of London’s raven cages, this time with Laurence as my companion (unfortunately, Steven had a prior engagement and couldn’t make it.) We’re a little early for our assigned meeting time of 11 am with a Yeoman Warder of the Tower, one of the ceremonial guardians also commonly known as ‘beefeaters.’ We’re bleary-eyed since we had pulled an all-nighter: I was unable to get the night before off of work so I went straight to the airport after my shift in the very wee hours of the morning. Laurence very kindly met me there to keep me company. Fortunately, his sense of adventure is also strong and his knowledge of efficient travel to London excellent, so here we are, ahead of time. It’s a very sunny day, almost hot, much different than my first visit to the Tower which had been, appropriately, moodily gray and drizzly. As we wait, we watch the ravens. It’s long been a tradition to keep a certain number of these clever birds at the Tower, where they’re fed, groomed, and trained, their wings clipped just enough to keep them from going over the Tower walls but not enough to keep them from their perches. Some of them are roaming freely. Two of the ravens are nuzzling one another on a perch within one of the cages, one ducking regularly and enthusiastically to groom the other’s neck feathers.

Yeoman Warder Simon Dodd arrives and greets us. He proves throughout our time together to be an extremely friendly, knowledgeable, witty, and all-around delightful man, and very generous with his time. I couldn’t have asked for a better host or conversational partner. Laurence is particularly interested and well-read in military history and Simon has had a long and distinguished military career, so, we all have a lot to talk about. I only hope, as we tour and talk, that my sleep-deprived brain can form intelligent questions and process his answers. I take no chances with its ability to successfully retain information: I take plentiful notes as we go. After introductions and a brief chat, we start right in on our tour.

Sir Thomas More by Hans Holbein the Younger, ca. 1527, public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Before I get into the details of the day’s explorations, let me offer a few more details about Thomas More just in case this is your introduction to him, or, just in case it’s been awhile since you read or heard anything about him and your memory is rusty on the subject. Born on February 6th, 1478, he was a lawyer, scholar, writer, statesman, and Lord Chancellor of England from 1529 until he asked King Henry VIII to release him from the post in 1532 when More found himself no longer able to support the King in his power struggle with the Pope. Henry VIII’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon, was the widow of his older brother prior to Henry’s marriage to her. When the marriage failed to produce any living male heirs, Henry VIII sought to have his marriage to her annulled, freeing him to marry his paramour Anne Boleyn. Trouble was, Henry VIII had already sought and won a special dispensation to marry Catherine in the first place from the previous Pope; the new Pope was a virtual prisoner of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V; and Catherine was the Emperor’s aunt. So, as you can imagine, this whole annulment business was a sticky, tangled religious and political mess. Henry solved the problem in a typically aggressive and self-aggrandizing way: he tore the Church of England away from the Catholic Church and placed himself at the head of it, ruining careers, taking away titles, confiscating lands and property, and chopping off heads along the way.

More and Henry went way back. More first met Henry when the latter was a young prince. In 1499, More’s friend Erasmus brought him along to the palace where the royal family was staying. The bright, athletic, and precocious eight-year-old Henry was second in line to the throne behind his elder brother Arthur. More would become a huge influence on and trusted counselor of King Henry VIII until the King turned against him when More refused to formally acknowledge Henry as supreme head of the Church in England. Erasmus was another central figure in More’s life. He was twelve years older than More, yet the two became very intimate friends very quickly. Erasmus called More ‘sweetest Thomas’ and More called Erasmus ‘my derlynge’ (my darling). These two humanist scholars bonded deeply over books and writing; Erasmus and More were inspirations for one another’s most enduring works, Erasmus’ In Praise of Folly (in fact, the book’s original Latin title Moriae Encomium is a pun on More’s name) and More’s Utopia. When More decided to turn his energies to a life of public service instead of scholarship, Erasmus was disappointed, but they remained friends. Sadly, according to More’s biographer John Guy, Erasmus effectively abandoned him in his troubles with the King, yet More continued to write to him as to a trusted friend up to the end of his life.

A view of the Thomas More cell in the Bell Tower, Tower of London

The bonds of trust and friendship between More and Henry VIII only went so far, however, at least on Henry’s part. From the beginning, More made it clear to Henry that his beliefs regarding the annulment and the nature and extent of papal authority did not accord with Henry’s actions or with what was included in the final version of the Act of Succession. Henry promised to allow More the freedom to act in accordance with his conscience, but like so many of Henry’s promises, this one turned out not to be worth much. Eventually, Henry (perhaps prodded by Anne Boleyn) demanded that More swear to the Act. More found he could not since the preamble of the Act specified that the monarch was the supreme head of the church in England rather than the Pope; as he told the King’s ministers charged with administering the Oath of Supremacy to him, ‘…it were a very hard thing to compel me to say either precisely with [the Act of Supremacy] against my conscience to the loss of my soul, or precisely against it to the destruction of my body.’

To return to the story of the day… Simon leads us first to the place I first sought: the cell where Sir Thomas More was held. Well, maybe he was held here. There’s plenty of dispute about this: there’s no contemporary written record of where exactly More was held. Historians disagree and their dispute continues in books, newspapers, and elsewhere. The Tower of London’s signage indicates that he was most likely kept in this Bell Tower cell, but Simon responds to my questions regarding this dispute that the chances may even be ‘fifty-fifty’ that he was held here or in the Salt Tower, another very secure cell where politically dangerous but distinguished and influential people like More were held. He goes on to explain that the southwest or southeast tower, the Bell Tower or Salt Tower respectively, were the only two likely candidates for More’s cell. Outside of rooms in the central White Tower, which was not a place of imprisonment at the time, the Bell Tower cell is the most secure, with 11 foot thick stone walls and 30 foot deep stone foundations. The Salt Tower was also pretty secure, though not quite to this degree.

A wider view of Thomas More’s cell, Bell Tower, Tower of London

Another More historian, Peter Ackroyd, believes More might have been held at least for a time in the Beauchamp Tower, where many other religious and political prisoners were held. But those cells were not so secure nor isolated as the Bell or Salt Tower cells. According to the notes for Ackroyd’s biography, Sonja Johnson of the Tower of London described More’s cell as ‘one of those apartments which were reserved for the more influential or privileged “guests” of the lieutenant. His was a pentagonal stone chamber, with a vaulted ceiling; it was some nineteen feet in height, with a floor space of approximately eighteen feet by twenty feet. The walls themselves were between nine and thirteen feet thick, the floor flagged through with rough and uneven stone, the windows merely arrow-slits or “loops”‘. And, it was cold: cold enough that, Simon says, it was used as a larder for a time. In fact, the very cool temperature helped preserve the room, despite the damp. Johnson’s description fits perfectly with this high-ceilinged, chilly stone room we’re in.

John Fisher and Thomas More portraits in chamber below St Peter ad Vincula, Tower of London

There are other reasons to think More may not have been held in this cell, at least not during the entire time of his imprisonment in the Tower. Historical researcher Stephen Priestley told the Guardian’s Maev Kennedy that Tower authorities tried to break up communication between More and fellow prisoner Bishop John Fisher, who was also opposed to the Act of Succession, much more openly so than More, and also thrown into the Tower for it. The cell above this one in the Bell Tower, which at the time could be reached by a narrow staircase from this one, was the one that held Fisher, or at least, probably did. This leads Priestly to surmise that Fisher and Thomas would have been eventually placed where they could not communicate so easily with one another. I also consider the stories that Simon and others tell of More rapping on the ceiling to get Fisher’s attention in the room above. But, as you can see yourself from the photos and as Simon points out today, this hardly seems possible in the Bell Tower cell, no matter how hard you might pound on the ceiling if you found a way to reach it at all. Perhaps, then, More and Fisher were held, at least for awhile, in neighboring cells where such communication was possible. Or perhaps, the ceiling-rapping stories are apocryphal and More and Fisher communicated only through smuggled notes and letters, as we know for certain they did.

On the way from the Bell Tower’s lower cell to our next destination, we spot Merlin the Raven. Simon Dodd tells us that she was named prior to knowing her sex, which was later determined by DNA. That’s the only way you can tell, he says – other than by such behavior as egg-laying, of course.

Overall, given what I’ve read and heard, I think, like Ackroyd does, that More’s place of imprisonment changed at least once. In one of his letters written in 1534 from his prison cell to his eldest daughter and confidante Margaret Roper, who he called ‘Meg,’ More reports that he was returned to ‘close keeping’ and ‘shut up again.’ Does this mean he was imprisoned more securely, perhaps in a different room, or just not allowed to leave his cell? Ackroyd interprets More’s comments to mean he was held in solitary confinement, but perhaps they could also refer to his being moved to a more isolated, stronger cell away from others where escape or rescue was far less likely.

After spending some time looking closely at the Bell Tower cell, talking over its history, and discussing the likelihood and duration of More’s imprisonment here, Simon, Laurence, and I re-emerge from the dim cell blinking against the bright sun’s light.

Next, we make a short visit to the Queen’s House. Simon tells us a bit about the history and historians of the Tower and that there have been 160 Constables of the Tower since 1066, the portraits of many of which are hanging here on the Queen’s House wall. He tells us about the early-to-mid 19th century Constable Duke Wellington who worked to make the Tower function better; made it look more like it did in the medieval era; increased its military management; and who was dismayed when tourism to the Tower drastically increased during his tenure there. Simon recommends us to read and watch David Starkey’s, Lucy Worsley’s, and Anna Keay’s books and audiovisual productions to learn more about Tudor history in general. In researching this piece, I recently read a Telegraph article about Starkey’s sharp criticism of the BBC’s historical miniseries Wolf Hall‘s negative portrayal of Thomas More.

A room in the Queen’s House, Tower of London

Simon Dodd telling us history in the Queen’s House, Tower of London

Simon also describes changing features of the Tower over the centuries with reference to a lovely old painting of the Tower hanging on the wall, and indicates the route by which More would have been taken from the gate through which he entered the Tower to his cell in *the Bell Tower.

We will see and talk about many, many more things during our day’s tour of the Tower so I’ve decided to break up this story into multiple parts. Stay tuned for more about our Tower adventure…

*Patron of this Tower of London journey: Laurence Murphy ~ With warmest gratitude, thank you!

Listen to the podcast version here or on Google Play, or subscribe on iTunes

~ Ordinary Philosophy is a labor of love and ad-free, supported by patrons and readers like you. Any support you can offer will be deeply appreciated!

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Sources and inspiration:

Ackroyd, Peter. The Life of Thomas More. London: Chatto & Windus, 1998

‘Annual Survey of Visits to Visitor Attractions: Latest Results.‘ VisitBritain.org

Borman, Tracy. The Story of the Tower of London. London: Merrell Publishers Limited, 2015

Borman, Tracy. ‘The Tudors and the Tower.‘ Tudor Times website, 3 Aug 2015

Camden, William Norton, Robert; Hans and Hanni Kraus. The historie of the most renowned and victorious Princesse Elizabeth, late queen of England. Contayning all the important and remarkeable passages of state both at home and abroad, during her long and prosperous raigne. Composed by way of annals. Neuer heretofore so faithfully and fully published in English.
Sir Francis Drake Collection Library of Congress. London: Printed by N. Okes for B. Fisher; 1630

Collinson, Patrick. ‘Elizabeth I (1533–1603), Queen of England and Ireland.‘ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Davies, C. S. L., and John Edwards. ‘Katherine [Catalina, Catherine, Katherine of Aragon] (1485–1536), Queen of England, First Consort of Henry VIII.’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

English Monarchs website: ‘The Bell Tower’ and ‘The Queen’s House‘

Freeman, Thomas S. (2002). ‘`As true a subiect being prysoner’: John Foxe’s notes on the imprisonment of Princess Elizabeth, 1554-5.‘ (Notes And Documents). The English Historical Review, 117(470), 104-116

Furness, Hannah. ‘Wolf Hall is ‘Deliberate Perversion’ of History, says David Starkey.‘ The Telegraph, 26 Jan 2015

Guy, John. A Daughter’s Love: Thomas and Margaret More. London: Fourth Estate, 2008

Guy, John. ‘For What Did Thomas More So Silently Die?’ Lecture published at Tudors.org

House, Seymour Baker. ‘More, Sir Thomas [St Thomas More] (1478–1535), Lord Chancellor, Humanist, and Martyr.‘ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Ives, Eric William. ‘Henry VIII (1491–1547), King of England and Ireland.’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Jones, Jonathan. ‘Wolf Hall is Wrong: Thomas More was a Funny, Feminist Renaissance Man.‘ The Guardian, 29 Jan 2015

Kennedy, Maev. ‘Historians Scorn Claims over Thomas More’s Cell.’ The Guardian, 10 Jan 2000

Marc’hadour, Germain P. ‘Thomas More.’ Encyclopædia Britannica

More, Thomas. The Apology of Sir Thomas More, Knight. from The Complete Works of St. Thomas More, Vol. 9. Yale University Press, published online by The Center for Thomas More Studies

More, Thomas. Conscience Decides: Letters and Prayers from Prison Written Between April 1534 and July 1535. Selected and arranged by Dame Bede Foord; preface by Trevor Huddleston; introduction by Germain Marc’hadour. London: Geoffrey Chapman Ltd, 1971

More, Thomas. The English Correspondence of Sir Thomas More, 1947 Rogers edition, Princeton University Press, published online by The Center for Thomas More Studies

Moynahan. God’s Bestseller: William Tyndale, Thomas More, and the Writing of the English Bible – A Story of Martyrdom and Betrayal. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003

Plowden, A. ‘Grey [married name Dudley], Lady Jane (1537–1554), Noblewoman and Claimant to the English Throne.‘ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Roper, William. The Life of Sir Thomas More. 1556. Ed. Gerard B. Wegemer and Stephen W. Smith. Center for Thomas More Studies, 2003

Stanford, Peter. ‘Sir Thomas More: Saint or Sinner?’ The Telegraph, 20 Jan 2015

Teysko, Heather and Melita Thomas. ‘Tudor Times on Thomas More.’ Renaissance English History Podcast: A Show About the Tudors, episode 55, Sep 16, 2016

 

Christine de Pizan’s Song of Joan of Arc: A Defense of a Political Heroine

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Jeanne d’Arc by Albert Lynch, engraving from Figaro Illustre magazine, 1903, public domain

This is a paper I recently submitted for one of my classes at the University of Edinburgh. I was very glad for the opportunity to bring Joan into my studies here!

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Song of Joan of Arc (Ditié de Jehanne d’Arc) is the medieval Italian-French writer Christine de Pizan’s paean to the teenage visionary who led the French army to stunning victories in the Hundred Years War against the English and their French allies. Prior to Song, from about 1399 to 1429, de Pizan authored forty-one works of poetry, prose, and praise and earned her own living doing it, the first European woman to do so.[1] Many of her works are called proto-feminist not because she advocated changing the social and political roles of women, but because she used her pen so often to defend the moral and intellectual worth of women against misogynist literary attacks, notably Jean de Meun’s The Romance of the Rose and Matheolus’ Lamentations.[2] Nadia Margolis describes de Pizan’s magnum opus The Book of the City of Ladies as ‘the first recorded history of women by a woman author, …one of the first deliberate, systematic refutations of male assertions of women’s inferiority ever written.’[3]

De Pizan draws on her canon for her Song of Joan. She marshals her characterizations of great female heroes and saviors of the past from her prolific body of work in celebration of this amazing heroine of her own time. She draws on the Bible and the classics for her Song as well. Nor does de Pizan stop with great women: a mythic and historic, Biblical and Greek array of great male and female figures march triumphantly before Joan in Song. Written in 1429, the year of de Pizan’s death and two years before Joan’s execution by fire, it’s the last of her works. This epic poem is not only a hagiography nor even, as we’ll see, is it interspersed with mere patriotic digs at the English foe and their allies. Like so many of her works, it’s also a defense, not of all women in this case, but of one particular woman. Specifically, it’s a defense of Joan against politically motivated attacks on her personal and religious character. Thus, I argue, de Pizan’s Song is a political work as well.

As the introductory stanzas give way to the main topics of the Song, de Pizan calls on God to help her tell her story well and truthfully.[4] This is reminiscent of the openings of ancient Greek works such as Homer’s Odyssey[5] and Hesiod’s Theogony[6], in which they call on the Muses to do the same. De Pizan draws this classical theme throughout her Song, calling on the ancients as well to help demonstrate the type and significance of Joan’s heroism. This device serves to underscore Joan’s monumental role in history as well as to make the God-ordained nature of her mission more believable: after all, God has called on people to do great things many times before. De Pizan portrays Joan as the fitting culmination for her own time of the great lineage of heroes and saviors from the Bible and the classics. And not only is Joan like them, she is superior to them: “She frees France from its enemies, …not even Hector – Nor Achilles could withstand her.”[7] In stanza XXIII, Joan is a Moses, leading her people out of subjugation.[8] In stanza XXV, Joan is a Joshua, a conqueror. In stanza XXVII, Joan is a Gideon, a simple shepherd called by God to be a warrior. But these were men, de Pizan points out, and Joan was a young girl. Not only did she perform brave and marvelous feats, she did so without the naturally greater physical strength of grown men.[9] Because this rendered her task more difficult, her feats were all the greater.

And de Pizan has no shortage of great female heroines to associate with Joan. Some of these associations are named: Judith, Esther, and Deborah. The exploits of these great heroines of the Bible would have been widely known to her Christian audience: Judith cuts off the head of the general Holofernes before he can destroy her city; Esther risks her life to reveal a plot that would have led her husband-king to destroy her people; and the prophet and judge Deborah arranges a battle to free her people, then cements the victory by hammering a tent pin into the enemy general’s head as he rests in defeat. Some of the women de Pizan associates with Joan, however, are not identified by name. Nevertheless, many of these latter associations would have been readily identifiable for the educated reader and especially for readers of de Pizan’s earlier work since they were drawn from the classics. For example, in stanza XIV, De Pizan attributes Joan’s military success to her intelligence as well as God’s help: “Once it was lost but now it is yours – …And all due to – the intelligence of the Maid who, thanks – to God, most expertly played her part.”[10] In earlier works, such as Letter of Othea to Hector and The Book of the City of Ladies, de Pizan lauds Minerva and Pallas Athena, two aspects of the same Greek goddess. Minerva is associated with war, as the wise woman who invents armor and iron weapons; Pallas is associated with wisdom and knowledge generally. As the wise warrior woman extraordinaire, Joan is Minerva-Pallas, personified.

The clearest and most-repeated association I find between Joan and an unnamed great woman is with the Virgin Mary. In one stanza, de Pizan praises Joan as both virgin and a moral mother “You are virgin, very young, – To whom God grants the strength and power – To be both woman and champion, – Who offers France the gentle breast, – the food of peace…”[11] Later on, de Pizan continues the Marian theme: “Aha!! What honor for the female – Sex! God shows how he loves it, – …By one woman [the nobles and realm] were fortified, No men could do this deed….”[12] If these parallels aren’t clear enough, de Pizan portrays Joan as the vessel through which salvation comes (to France) and through which the king comes to rule his kingdom (Charles’ coronation at Reims). And just as it was in Nazareth, God could have saved France any way he chose, and he chose to save both through women.

Some of de Pizan’s hagiographic characterizations of Joan do not relate to her virtues as a woman, such as those which reflect her earlier works such as City of Ladies and Letter of Othea, or as a savior, such as those which compare her to Old Testament and mythic heroines and heroes. It appears, rather, that they relate to her superiority over her foes. Angus J. Kennedy and Kenneth Varty, in the interpretive essay which accompanies their publication and translations of Song, identify the strong anti-English sentiment found throughout the work.[13] As they point out, de Pizan characterizes the English and their allies as evil, wicked, traitors, and before Joan and her army’s power, helpless as dead dogs.[14] De Pizan also uses the term l’Englecherie, which Kennedy and Varty describe as a pejorative term for the English in that place and time.[15]

Yet this patriotic poem goes beyond ‘heaping scorn’[16] on her foes. De Pizan offers a defense of Joan’s character by offering descriptions of her virtues and intentions that contradict the negative characterizations of her spread by the English and their French allies, the Burgundians. We have a contemporary record of these in the transcripts of her trial in Rouen. Joan was captured on May 23rd, 1430 at Compiègne, and after lengthy negotiations, was handed over to an ecclesiastical court in exchange for 10,000 livres.[17] Despite her being subjected to a purportedly religious trial, she was not, as was customary in those kinds of cases, kept in a religious prison looked after by nuns. Rather, she was kept in an English military prison, chained to a wall, with male guards inside and outside her cell.[18]

The trail at Rouen was widely understood to be both a character and a literal assassination carried out by means of a show trial,[19] carried out with elaborate procedure to make it seem as impartial as possible.[20] Her judges, led by Pierre Cauchon, a French judge in the pay of the English, set out to prove Joan was so depraved, morally and religiously, that she could not have been sent by God. The opening statement of the trial reads: “The reputation of this woman had already gone forth into many parts: how, wholly forgetful of womanly honesty, and having thrown off the bonds of shame, careless of all the modesty of womankind, she wore with an astonishing and monstrous brazenness, immodest garments belonging to the male sex…”.[21] The issue of men’s clothing, which Joan habitually worse since going to war, was a major theme throughout the trial. It was used as evidence not only of her immodesty but her heresy as well, since the Bible forbids women to wear men’s clothing[22]. The judges did not address the fact that imprisoning her in a cell with male guards exposed her to the continual threat of sexual assault and rape[23]; Joan may have found it expedient to wear men’s clothing to preserve her virginity[24], a status which these judges were so intent to undermine. After many sessions of testimony and questioning, twelve formal Articles of Accusation were drawn up and read aloud. One accuses her of staying in a house “with unguarded women” where soldiers liked to hang around[25]. Another accuses her of “having intimate relations” with Captain Robert de Baudricourt and promising to bear him one pope, one emperor, and one king[26].

In defense of Joan’s moral purity, De Pizan refers specifically to Joan’s virginity no less than 13 times in her Song, besides numerous allusions throughout to Joan’s generally virtuous character. De Pizan might have used this description to describe any great woman since de Pizan considers virginity as sacred a designation for women as any Christian of her time[27].

But aside from the sometimes rather startling charges pertaining to her sexual behavior, the imputations of witchcraft and heresy were more serious. The opening statement continues, “her presumptuousness had grown until she was not afraid to perform, to speak, and to disseminate many things contrary to the Catholic faith and hurtful to the articles of the orthodox belief. And by so doing, as well in our diocese as in several other districts of this kingdom, she was said to be guilty of no inconsiderable offenses[28].” Her judges expand on this theme in another statement read over a month later at the first public session[29].

De Pizan goes well beyond defending Joan as personally pious: she presents Joan as a defender of the Christian faith itself. De Pizan writes that not only will Joan defend the faith, but “The Christian faith and Holy Church, – Will both be set to rights through her…”[30] This was one of the passages which alerted me to the political elements in Song. The Hundred Year’s War and de Pizan’s Song long predate England’s schism with the Catholic Church; it so happened that the Pope bestowed the title ‘Defender of the Faith’ nearly one hundred years later on the English monarch Henry VIII before Henry broke England’s ties to the Catholic Church[31]. There were no particular reasons to charge England with being at odds with the Christian faith except as far as they refused to lay down their arms before Joan. Still, even if Joan were on God’s side in the quarrel between the French and the English, this wouldn’t imply that Joan was defender of the Christian faith at large. What, then, explains de Pizan’s remarks here?

The English and their allies certainly did not see themselves as enemies of God or the true faith[32]. They saw themselves as rightful heirs to the throne of France; indeed, as a result of the habit of monarchs creating alliances by marrying their children off to one another only to have these heirs to the crown die off in inconvenient succession, the English monarch did have a real claim to the French throne[33]. It was not in the English interests for their claim to be invalidated as against the will of God. It was in their interests to demonstrate that Joan was not on God’s side. If she had a reputation as indecent, immodest, unwomanly, or a woman of loose morals with a penchant for soldiers, that would weaken Joan’s reputation for holiness. It was even more in their interests that Joan be perceived as a witch, a heretic, or both: if this could be demonstrated, then Joan’s claim to be sent by God could not[34]. Therefore, de Pizan mounts a strong defense of Joan’s godliness, claiming her not only as a pious Christian but as a defender of the faith itself. But the role as a defender of the faith doesn’t seem necessary to add to Joan’s already impressive resume of Christian greatness in Song except as an additional qualifier, a sort of icing on the cake. But de Pizan goes even beyond that: “Yet destroying the English invader – is not, indeed, her primary concern. – For her calling is in preserving – the Faith….”[35]

Once again, we can ask: what impels de Pizan to make the claim that Joan’s primary concern is defending the Christian faith, on behalf of the impressive warrior-saint for whom she’s already claimed so much? When de Pizan mounts her defense of Joan, she could not have known that Joan would be tried by an ecclesiastical court that would seek to officially undermine Joan’ claim that she was doing the will of God on behalf of France. But while de Pizan wrote her Song, Joan was on trial in the court of public opinion. Both trials were political trials, each side out to win the public’s support for their legitimacy to rule. God had chosen a side in this political contest, and Joan said that was France. Therefore, de Pizan added, Joan, as God’s chosen champion of God’s chosen France, was also the champion of the faith itself. In Song, de Pizan places France, France’s king, Joan, God, and the Christian faith itself on one side, the English and their allies on the other. There was only one side, therefore, that the faithful could join, and that was Joan’s. The faithful was transformed, in Song, to the political.

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[1] Redfern, Jenny. “Christine de Pisan and The Treasure of the City of Ladies: A Medieval Rhetorician and Her Rhetoric” in Reclaiming Rhetorica: Women and in the Rhetorical Tradition, ed. Lunsford, Andrea. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995, p. 74

[2] De Pizan, Christine. Letter of Othea to Hector (1399-1400). Trans., ed., and interpretive essay by Jane Chance. 1997, pp. 8, 14

[3] Margolis, Nadia. “A Feminist-Historical Citadel: Christine de Pizan’s Book of the City of Ladies.” Feminist Moments: Reading Feminist Texts. Ed. Katherine Smits and Susan Bruce.: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. 11–18. Bloomsbury Collections. Accessed 28 Nov. 2017 at http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781474237970.ch-002, paragraph 1

[4] De Pizan, Christine. Ditié de Jehanne d’Arc (1429). Ed. and trans. by Angus J. Kennedy and Kenneth Varty. Oxford: Society for the Study of Mediaeval Languages and Literature, 1977, pp. 41-42

[5] Homer, Odyssey. Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University. Accessed 6 December 2017 at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0136, v. 1-10

[6] Hesiod, Theogony. Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University. Accessed 6 December 2017 at www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0130, v. 1-5, 20-25

[7] De Pizan, The Song of Joan of Arc. Trans. by Leah Shopkow. Retrieved 20 November 2017 from www.indiana.edu/~dmdhist/joan.htm, stanza XXXVI

[8] Margolis writes that De Pizan sees herself in this role in the City of Ladies as well: ‘First, it echoes the Old Testament (2 Kings 17: 7) in comparing women constrained by misogyny to the Jews enslaved by Pharaoh, thereby likening Christine to Moses (Exod 1; Deut 34). Just as Moses was chosen to lead the Israelites to freedom, so Christine was chosen to lead women to better destinies.’ – paragraph 6

[9] Song, all translations, stanza XXVII

[10] De Pizan, The Song of Joan of Arc. Trans. by Ben D. Kennedy. Retrieved 20 November 2017 from www.maidofheaven.com/joanofarc_song_pisan_contents.asp. Leah Shopkow translates the phrase to ‘wise Joan’, but the Middle French dictionary I consult translates the adjective sensible as closer in meaning to ‘intelligent.’ As Shopkow notes, in some places she sacrifices a little accuracy for overall coherence and poetic rhythm. See the introduction to her translation at www.indiana.edu/~dmdhist/joan.htm

[11] Song, trans. Shopkow, stanza XXIV

[12] Song, trans. Shopkow, stanza XXXIV

[13] Ibid., p. 13

[14] Song, trans. Shopkow, stanzas XXIII, XXIV, XXXIV, XLV, and XXXIII, respectively

[15] Song, Kennedy and Varty, p 87

[16] Ibid., p. 13

[17] The Trial of Jeanne D’Arc. Trans. By W. P. Barrett. Originally published New York: Gotham House, Inc., 1932. From Medieval Sourcebook, Fordham University. Accessed 29 November 2017 at https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/joanofarc-trial.asp, p. x

[18] Ibid., p. x

[19] Michelet, J. Joan of Arc: Or, The Maid of Orleans: From Michelet’s History of France. New York: Stanford & Delisser, 1858. Accessed 28 November 2017 from https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433071375152, pp. 115-116; Robins, P. R. “Discerning Voices in the Trial of Joan of Arc and ‘The Book of Margery Kempe’.” Fifteenth-Century Studies 38, 2013, pp. 177, 187-188

[20] Robins, p. 183

[21] Ibid., p. 2

[22] Bible, King James Version. [online], Accessed 29 November 2017 at: www.bible.com/en-GB/bible, Deuteronomy 22:5

[23] On at least one occasion, though she was in chains, Joan successfully fought off a rape attempt: Michelet, p. 207-208

[24] Men’s clothing was somewhat time-consuming to remove: hose and chausses were laced to a belt and/or the upper garments to hold them in place – Houston, Mary G. Medieval Costume in England and France: The 13th, 14th and 15th Centuries. (1939). New York: Dover, 1996, p. 53, 80-81. Joan’s ability to fight off her would-be rapist may have been aided by her protective covering of laced-together, difficult-to-remove clothing

[25] Trial, Article XIII, p. 154

[26] Ibid., Article XI, p. 159

[27] De Pizan, Christine, The Book of the City of Ladies (1405). Trans. and intro. Brown-Grant, Rosalind. London, Penguin Books, 1999, p. xix, xxiii

[28] Trial, p. 2-3

[29] Ibid., p 34, 36 ‘Since she was appearing in judgment before us we began to explain… how many of her actions, not in our diocese alone but in many other regions also, had injured the orthodox faith, and how common report of them had spread through all the realms of Christendom…. Therefore, considering the public rumor and common report and also certain information already mentioned, after mature consultation with men learned in canon and civil law, we decreed that the said Jeanne should be summoned and cited by letter to answer the interrogations in matters of faith and other points truthfully according to law and reason….’

[30] Song, trans. Shopkow, Stanza XLII

[31] ‘Defender of the Faith’. Ed.s, Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011. Accessed 29 November, 2017 at http://www.britannica.com/topic/defender-of-the-faith

[32] Robins, p. 177

[33] Vale, M. G. A. The Origins of the Hundred Years War: The Angevin Legacy, 1250-1340. Oxford: Clarendon, 1996, pp. 227, 266

[34] Trial, p. xi, Robins, p 177

[35] Song, trans. Kennedy, stanza XLV

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