The Ecstasy of St. Joan by Lauren Raye Snow

Title:	The Ecstasy of St. Joan
Date Created:	July 2022
Copyright:	© Lauren Raye Snow
Genre:	Fantasy
Mediums:	Procreate
Views:	57
Posted:	12/6/2023

Projects: Apex Magazine, Locus Magazine, Infected By Art Volume 11, Diet Milk Magazine, Mermaids Monthly, New Gothic Review

Location: United States

From the transcript of the trial of Jeanne D�Arc: �Jeanne replied she would not receive the Eucharist by changing her costume for a woman�s; she asked to hear Mass in her male attire, adding that it did not burden her soul.� �We questioned her to find out [why] she had resumed man�s dress and rejected woman�s clothes. Asked why she had resumed it, and who had compelled her to wear it, she answered that she had taken it of her own will, under no compulsion, as she preferred man�s to woman�s dress. The charge: �The report has now become well known that this woman, utterly disregarding what is honourable in the female sex, breaking the bounds of modesty, and forgetting all female decency, has disgracefully put on the clothing of the male sex, a striking and vile monstrosity.� One of her final words before her execution was this: �I was the angel, and there was no other.� This (though likely referring to her martial success for France) drew me into a beautiful possible world for Joan, where she could be her own Holy Angel.