Wednesday 4 April 2012

End of an Era

Well, that is it. My blog is complete. Now time for the special thanks:
Wikipedia, God, Satan, atheists everywhere, Jaquille, his mum, the folks down at the Vaseline offices, coca-cola, cocaine, my imaginary dog muffins, muffins in general, Juan Fransisco Valdez, pirates, ninjas, the entire nation of Lithuania, Joan of Arc, my tapeworm Bob, the guy at the Karori Mini-Mart, he's always so nice to me, my cousin's cousin (me), the Chicken Grabba meal deal at Burger King, Odessa Pechacek, Alex's youtube channel, Slenderman, Akiyama from Sky Finance, Randy the one-eyed sheep herder, the Bloody Blacksmith of Ipswitch, you, my donkey (known to the Spanish as burro), that guy from Slumdog Millionaire and Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, I think he was Dev Patel or something, Prothy the Prothean, Alice the Camel, the Walrus Moustache, Newton's First Law, Tom Clancy, Robert Ludlum, Harry Turtledove, Martin Sheen, Nolan North, Winston Churchill, Goro Majima, the Fermi Paradox, Gregory Reyes, the Airview Historic District, my Sim City 4 regions Fairview and Isala, the Giant Panda, the midget Panda, Nemo of Finding Nemo fame, the BDSM community, the Horsehead Nebula, adverbs, colons, semicolons, Efe, the comfy chair from Comm lab 1A, the Roman alphabet, the Greek alphabet, Hawaiians, Hawaiian Pizza, the school notices, senior girl's basketball, Tiger Woods, the league of nations, Mitsubishi, anyone who has ever done the 40 hour famine for charity, Dominique Wilkins, Twitter, Eddyn's moodle account, natural disasters, Jiggly-puff, old people on the bus who smell like blue cheese, old people on the bus who don't smell like blue cheese, Vodka, cheap Vodka, expensive Vodka, the South African Rand (their unit of currency), Bryn's hoddie, Tim's cool vest, Pac-man, Eli W, the special thanks list, Edward James Olmos, the Russian card game Durak, Bombastus, General Custer, Captain Crunch, the crunch bar, the pizzas at the Mediterranean food warehouse, Tokyo's red light district, Michael Hill Jeweler, Alex's novel essay, Moses, the Holy Ghost, Jesus's sister Muriel, the Indian Census bureau, PK Banerjee, sixinchgrowth.com, Monty Python, the Black night, the Pirates of Penzance, Major General Stanley, Gwen Stefani, Spencer J. William J. S. Spencer Stevens, Cho Han, Godfrey's vacuum store, and last but not least, the guy from the old Dick Smith logos.

Final evaluation.

I believe I have completed this blog to the best of my ability, answering three main points about Joan of Arc, taken from trustworthy sources, and written in my own words. My posts were written in an informative manner, that is easy to read but not oversimplified. My posts were a good amount in length. Research was easier at home than at school, as some sources were blocked by websense, and research was slightly stymied by not being able to use wikiepedia, but I was able to find good websites that contain historical info.

Last post, probably.

The Hundred Year's War lasted for another twenty-two years after Joan's death. King Charles VII held title as French king until the end of the war. Burgundy stopped supporting the English before the end of the war, and many of the French tactics that won battles are attributed to Joan.

Joan became quite a popular religious figure, and in Orleans the church arranged for a religious play to be made about Joan. In the 1450s, Joan was retried, declared a martyr, and found innocent of heresy.

Joan's popularity as a figure of the Catholic Church grew, and she was canonized as a saint in 1920.

Monday 2 April 2012

Can't think of a post title.

Ok, back to post more.

Early in 1429 (Joan aged 17), she convinced one of France's lords to let her have an escort to the royal court to present her case. She arrived after an 11 day journey, most of it through enemy territory, to Chinon. Here she spoke to Charles, Dauphin (uncrowned heir) of France, asking that she lead a charge to lift the siege on Orleans.

Charles seemed to support Joan, but before setting forth to Orleans, she was made to go to Poitiers, to be judged by some of the kingdoms top religious leaders. The leaders sent word to Charles that "Nothing improper had been found in her, only good, humility, chastity, piety, propriety, simplicity."

With this Charles was satisfied, and Joan left with an army to Orleans. They arrived on the 29th of April, and began winning key victories, causing the English to abandon the siege on the 8th of May. Joan led the French to many victories, eventually starting a campaign to enter the city of Rheims. Rheims was the city where loyal coronations took place, and if they were to get there, Dauphin Charles could become King Charles VII.

On the way, another major victory occurred. In 1420, the Treaty of Troyes was signed in Troyes, which essentially gave the English right to the French throne. Joan's army rode in, and took the city back for Charles. The French army entered Rheims, and on the 17th of July, 1429, Dauphin Charles became King Charles VII. A four month truce period occurred between the royal forces, and the alliance of Burgundy and England.

There was little change in the war for the rest of the year. King Charles attempted an attack on Paris, which was then controlled by the Burgundians. The attack failed, and Joan was injured by a crossbow bolt.

In 1430, Joan was captured. The Duke of Burgundy had laid siege to the city of Compiegne, and she hoped to avoid it falling into their hands. The defense of the city was a failure, and this is how she was taken.

After numerous escape attempts, Joan was given over to the English, where she was tried for heresy, (0ften considered to be sham trial) and burnt at the stake on the 30th of May, 1431.

Thursday 29 March 2012

Reflection

I have been told that every few days, I am to reflect on the period's work. Here goes, I guess.
My strengths is the ability to quickly read information, learn it, and put into my own words on the blog.
My weakness was connection problems with WHS-wifi.
This will be remedied over the weekend as my connection is fine at home.

Question two

Now it is time to talk about Joan herself. Around 70 years after the war had started, both sides were still fighting, even after Europe had been ravaged by the black death. Joan of Arc was said to be born around 1412, to a peasant family in north-eastern France. At this point, France was divided, as a region called Burgundy had broken off and allied with England. When she was twelve, Joan claimed to have had visions of St. John, St. Catherine, and St. Margaret.

At the time, the French that fought England were led by the Duke of Orleans, who was linked to the uncrowned heir to the throne. Joan said the vision told her to lift the siege on the city of Orleans.

More to come soon.

Tuesday 27 March 2012

Last post about the war's beginning.

Okay, this is my last post on how the war began. After Phillip VI took the French throne, England still had control of a portion of Gascony, which was a point of dispute between the two sides. The events that sparked off the war happened in 1333, when Edward III of England went to war with David II of Scotland, hoping to rule over the entirety of Great Britain. David II was an ally of the French, causing further stress. The war initially was a huge success for the English, forcing David II to flee to France. In 1336, France threatened to seize Gascony if England did not stop the war with Scotland. England refused, and in 1337, the Hundred Years War began.

Question one continued,

After a series of conflicts in the 1200s, almost all of the English holdings on the French mainland were gone, leaving only a small region near Spain, known as Gascony. In the decades before the war began, many of the English nobility remembered their grandparents owning many fruitful regions of France. This, combined with a good amount of the English aristocracy being of French ancestry, was a large motivation for retaking of portions of mainland France, especially Normandy.

The constant intertwining of England and France, made lines of succession quite confusing. In 1314, Phillip IV of France died. Phillip had four children: Louis X, Phillip V, Charles IV, and Isabella, who was married to Edward II of England. Isabella's and Edward's child, Edward of Windsor, was a possible heir to both the English and French throne. Louis X, first son of Phillip IV, died two years later, letting Phillip V attempt to claim the throne, something opposed by many of the French nobility. Phillip V became king anyway, and also stated that the French throne was a title that could be only held by a man. Phillip V died in 1322, leaving the throne to Charles IV, third son of the late Phillip IV.

In 1324, King Charles IV of France, fought a brief war with his brother-in-law, King Edward II of England. England was devastated in the war, losing even more of their remaining land in the French region of Gascony.

Recovery of land lost in this conflict became a focus in French-English relations, and also drove the support of Edward II into the ground. In 1327, Edward II was deposed, and replaced by Edward of Windsor (now King Edward III). A year after Edward III ascended to the English throne, Charles IV of France died, leaving only one female child. Edward III was nephew to the late French King, and by feudal law, rightful heir to the French throne.

The French nobility were obviously against the idea of being ruled by an English king. Edward's mother, Isabella, was already held in low regard for her behaviour, so the French searched for another solution. The fourth son of Phillip III of France was Charles of Valois, who had died in 1325. His son, Phillip of Valois, was sworn in as King Phillip VI of France.

The next post will involve the declaration of war in 1337.

Monday 26 March 2012

Question one

The first question for my Joan of Arc project is "What was France like during this period of time?"

Joan of Arc was famous for her role in the Hundred Year's War, so I'm going to begin by researching the war. http://www.middle-ages.org.uk and Wikipedia say that the Hundred Years War was actually a series of conflicts fought almost entirely in France, between England and France (with Burgundy later becoming an entity of its own). It lasted from 1337 to 1453 (117 years), but was not continuous fighting, instead a series of wars, punctuated by a number of unsuccessful peace treaties. To understand why the war began, it is important to note the relationship England and France had in the centuries before. After the invasion of England in 1066, William I of England (also known as William the Conqueror, William, Duke of Normandy, and William the Bastard." meant that the king of England was a French duke who had to pledge allegience to the king of France. A king doing such to another king was considered quite embarrassing and humiliating. For a while, since the kings of England were also tied to the Duke of Normandy, there was a period where the king(s) of England owned more land in France than the king of France did, despite the English king still pledging allegiance to a French king with less power in France.

The next post will show what sparked off the Hundred Year's war in the early 14th century.

First Post

Since my project is on Joan of Arc, who I know as a French peasant during the Hundred Year's War, who claimed to have seen god, was then burned at the stake for being a witch, and I think became a saint. This is all I know so far, so to begin with, I am going to research the Hundred Year's War, and see what France was like at the time.

The beginning of this blog.

Hello readers, or probably just reader, this is the blog where I will be doing my findings on Joan of Arc, one of history's most influential teenagers. Stick around and I'll post my findings soon.