e dress and to assume male roles (as directed by the voices), and her refusal to give up her transvestism. Each of these facets of her presentation was essential to her acceptance as a possibly genuine representative of God. Each of these choices and behaviors rendered her emphatically not-female. This non-female persona had a double function--it was essential, in a social sense, to her ability to lead and advise, and it was the demonstration, in a religious sense, of the sanctified nature of her mission.
Joan's choices responded to a complicated set of needs among those she hoped to help, and among those who would follow the Dauphin. The transvestism had both social and religious implications that made her a more plausible candidate to aid the Dauphin. Charles VII's acceptance of Joan's assistance was contingent on believing that she was engaged in a divine mission, or, at least, that her claims might be true. Even if Charles or his advisors could not fully accept this, it was clear to them that she was convinced of her claims, and that others would be too.
Though this was an age when belief in miracles and visions came more readily, not every claimant was simply accepted as speaking the truth. But, being a woman, in combination with her low social status and her standing as a pious mystic, made Joan, essentially, a disinterested party. Women and peasants were not involved in high-level politics (with the exception of women such as Charles VII's mother, the Queen of Sicily) and Joan's claims regarding her divine mission were the claims of a young woman who had no particular stake in the matters in which she became involved. Whether the French believed her mission to be divinely inspired or not, they were able to use her claims to support those of Charles because, as a woman and a peasant, the outcome of the battles between the English and the French really had very little bearing on her own life. Had she remained in ...