The Maid - Joan Of Arc, Told By Christine De Pizan - The One Year Women in Christian History Devotional

1429

Living in France during the early 1400s, writer Christine de Pizan sang not only the praises of great women of history but also of a newly emerging heroine: “I know about Esther, Judith, and Deborah, worthy women through whom God restored his oppressed people . . . , but there has been no one through whom he has performed a greater miracle than through the Maid.”

She was talking about the “Maid of Orleans,” Joan of Arc, the rustic visionary who rose to sudden fame in May 1429, rallying the forces of King Charles VII to break an English siege of the city of Orleans (see March 12).

“She was sent by divine command, guided by God’s angel to the king,” Christine wrote. “Led before clerks and wise men and was well examined to see whether she spoke the truth.”

Christine wrote “The Song of Joan of Arc” on July 31, 1429, while these exploits were still fresh. “Whatever she does, she always has God before her eyes, whom she calls to, serves and prays to in deed and word. . . . Oh, how clear this was at the siege of Orleans where her power first appeared!”

Along with the rest of her country, Christine was amazed by these events. “A young girl of sixteen years (isn’t this beyond nature?), to whom arms seem weightless—she seems to have been brought up for this, she is so strong and hardy. And the enemies flee before her, no one can last in front of her. She does this with many eyes looking on and rids France of her enemies, recapturing castles and towns. Never was there such great strength, not in a hundred or a thousand men.”

A year later Joan was captured, and a year after that she was executed, but Christine’s epic poem freezes this moment of victory in time. “Don’t you realize,” she implores tepid readers, “that God has a hand in this?”

Look around you. What is God doing in your world? Is he raising up certain people to do his work? Then sing about it.

Miriam the prophet, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine and led all the women as they played their tambourines and danced. . . . “Sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously.”

Exodus 15:20-21