Stories & Legends
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The Sword of St. Joan of Arc
My tip that led to the discovery of the sword of St. Jeanne d’Arc came from Dom Gueranger, who notes in his
Liturgical Year that the Maid of Orleans received her sword in a miraculous way in Sainte-Catherine-de-Fierbois, a church dedicated to St. Catherine of Alexandria in a village of the same name.
Even today the village of Sainte-Catherine-de-Fierbois remains small (population c. 750) and is most famous for the altar beneath which St. Joan found her sword from Heaven. St. Catherine of Alexandria was one of the Saints who gave aid and counsel to the Maid of Orleans, so it comes as no surprise to learn the role she played in the Maid obtaining her sword.
After her meeting with the Dauphin in Chinon in 1429, Charles arranged that a suit of armor be made for her. But the Maid refused his offer of a sword because her ‘Voices’ told her where she would find the one Heaven had chosen for her. We know these things because she spoke about the sword during the proceedings in her Trial of Condemnation in 1431.
It was called the “Sword of St. Catherine,” with five crosses on the blade. Her inquisitors asked her about this sword with the aim of inducing her to admit it had “magical” powers. This she would not do, but she explained to them in simple words the truth of its marvelous origin.
When she was in Chinon her “Voices” had told her she would find her sword in the Church of St. Catherine de Fierbois, behind the altar. She sent a letter to the parish priest and asked that a search be made and the sword be sent to her. It was found exactly where she had indicated, buried in a place behind the altar, all covered with rust.
An arms merchant from Tours was sent to retrieve it for la Pucelle, and Prelates of both Tours and Ste.-Catherine had precious sheathes made for it, one of red velvet and the other of cloth of gold, but she preferred to use the strong leather one that she ordered made.
Asked how she knew that this sword was there, she answered,
“This sword was in the earth, all rusty, and there were upon it five crosses, and I knew it by my voices, and I had never seen the man who went to seek this sword.
“I wrote to the Prelates of the place that, if they please, I should have the sword and they sent it to me. It was not very deep underground behind the altar, as it seems to me, but I do not know exactly where it was – in front of or behind the altar.
“After this sword was found, the Prelates of the place had it rubbed, and at once the rust fell from it without difficulty. There was an arms merchant of Tours who went to seek it, and the Prelates of that place gave me a sheath and those of Tours also, with them, had two sheathes made for me: one of red velvet and the other of cloth-of-gold. And I myself had another made of right strong leather.
“But when I was captured, it was not that sword which I had. I always wore that sword until I had withdrawn from Saint-Denis after the assault against Paris.” (1)
The sword was found where St. Michael had indicated to Joan, but then, a second miracle: The thick layer of rust on the buried iron rubbed off effortlessly with a cloth.
She explains that she had carried the Fierbois sword at least until she withdrew from Saint-Denis after the assault on Paris in September 1429 where her reversal of fortune began. During the attack Joan was wounded by a crossbow bolt in the thigh, carried against her will from the battlefield, and, without her presence to encourage the troops, a retreat was called four hours later by Charles VII.
That is, she carried it at least until she reached Lagny on March 29, 1430. She was captured at Compeigne two months later. (2) Was it a foreknowledge of the coming betrayal that prompted La Pucelle to hide her Sword of St. Catherine? Once she had remarked that she “feared only treachery.” And, in the end it was by treachery that she was taken and handed over to the English who burned her in Rouen.
She told no one where she placed the Sword of St. Catherine, and took up instead a smaller and more wieldable sword that, she told her inquisitors, she had taken from a Burgundian soldier named Franquet d’Arras. She added, “I kept it because it was a good war-sword – good to lay on stout thumps and blows with.” If she gave some good stout thumps, it was usually to the prostitutes whom she would chase out of the camp, for she stated under oath that she had never killed anyone.
When her judges questioned her about the whereabouts of the Sword of Fierbois, for they did not want any “relics” left that the people might honor, she refused to provide an answer, saying it did not concern the case. The only information she would give is that it was lost and that her brothers had the rest of her goods, her horses and swords. (3)
Since it was known that she had left a suit of armor and a sword at the Church of St. Denis as an act of devotion, the judges further inquired about that sword. She answered that she had not offered the sword from Saint Catherine of Fierbois. (4)
Many rumors swirled around France about the fate of this blade. There is even one story that has found its way into print that the blade of the sword broke when she was driving prostitutes out of camp, which indeed she was known to do. Jeanne d’Arc denied this tale during the process with her interrogators.
The legend of its origins
One legend about the origins of the Sword from Heaven is that it belonged to Charles Martel, grandfather of Charlemagne, who halted the Muslim invasion in Europe at the Battle of Tours (or Poitiers) in 732. It was there he earned his surname Martel, or hammer, for his fierce smoting of the enemy.
In thanksgiving the Frankish commander is said to have left his sword at the altar of Sainte Catherine de Fierbois. Fearing that it would be stolen, he chose to secretly bury it behind the altar.
The Maid of Orleans went to her death without revealing the whereabouts of the Sword from Heaven. One is left to wonder if it will be found again miraculously by a new hero of France who will emerge during the Great Chastisement to once again save the First Daughter of the Church.
The Church of Sainte-Catherine-de-Fierbois, then & now, below, with a statue of St. Joan in front
After her meeting with the Dauphin in Chinon in 1429, Charles arranged that a suit of armor be made for her. But the Maid refused his offer of a sword because her ‘Voices’ told her where she would find the one Heaven had chosen for her. We know these things because she spoke about the sword during the proceedings in her Trial of Condemnation in 1431.
It was called the “Sword of St. Catherine,” with five crosses on the blade. Her inquisitors asked her about this sword with the aim of inducing her to admit it had “magical” powers. This she would not do, but she explained to them in simple words the truth of its marvelous origin.
When she was in Chinon her “Voices” had told her she would find her sword in the Church of St. Catherine de Fierbois, behind the altar. She sent a letter to the parish priest and asked that a search be made and the sword be sent to her. It was found exactly where she had indicated, buried in a place behind the altar, all covered with rust.
An arms merchant from Tours was sent to retrieve it for la Pucelle, and Prelates of both Tours and Ste.-Catherine had precious sheathes made for it, one of red velvet and the other of cloth of gold, but she preferred to use the strong leather one that she ordered made.
‘I knew the sword was there
because my Voices told me so’
“This sword was in the earth, all rusty, and there were upon it five crosses, and I knew it by my voices, and I had never seen the man who went to seek this sword.
“I wrote to the Prelates of the place that, if they please, I should have the sword and they sent it to me. It was not very deep underground behind the altar, as it seems to me, but I do not know exactly where it was – in front of or behind the altar.
“After this sword was found, the Prelates of the place had it rubbed, and at once the rust fell from it without difficulty. There was an arms merchant of Tours who went to seek it, and the Prelates of that place gave me a sheath and those of Tours also, with them, had two sheathes made for me: one of red velvet and the other of cloth-of-gold. And I myself had another made of right strong leather.
“But when I was captured, it was not that sword which I had. I always wore that sword until I had withdrawn from Saint-Denis after the assault against Paris.” (1)
The sword was found where St. Michael had indicated to Joan, but then, a second miracle: The thick layer of rust on the buried iron rubbed off effortlessly with a cloth.
She explains that she had carried the Fierbois sword at least until she withdrew from Saint-Denis after the assault on Paris in September 1429 where her reversal of fortune began. During the attack Joan was wounded by a crossbow bolt in the thigh, carried against her will from the battlefield, and, without her presence to encourage the troops, a retreat was called four hours later by Charles VII.
That is, she carried it at least until she reached Lagny on March 29, 1430. She was captured at Compeigne two months later. (2) Was it a foreknowledge of the coming betrayal that prompted La Pucelle to hide her Sword of St. Catherine? Once she had remarked that she “feared only treachery.” And, in the end it was by treachery that she was taken and handed over to the English who burned her in Rouen.
The only image of Joan made in her lifetime, sketched by Clément de Fauquembergue in the margin of a set of government documents in 1429
When her judges questioned her about the whereabouts of the Sword of Fierbois, for they did not want any “relics” left that the people might honor, she refused to provide an answer, saying it did not concern the case. The only information she would give is that it was lost and that her brothers had the rest of her goods, her horses and swords. (3)
Since it was known that she had left a suit of armor and a sword at the Church of St. Denis as an act of devotion, the judges further inquired about that sword. She answered that she had not offered the sword from Saint Catherine of Fierbois. (4)
Many rumors swirled around France about the fate of this blade. There is even one story that has found its way into print that the blade of the sword broke when she was driving prostitutes out of camp, which indeed she was known to do. Jeanne d’Arc denied this tale during the process with her interrogators.
The legend of its origins
One legend about the origins of the Sword from Heaven is that it belonged to Charles Martel, grandfather of Charlemagne, who halted the Muslim invasion in Europe at the Battle of Tours (or Poitiers) in 732. It was there he earned his surname Martel, or hammer, for his fierce smoting of the enemy.
In thanksgiving the Frankish commander is said to have left his sword at the altar of Sainte Catherine de Fierbois. Fearing that it would be stolen, he chose to secretly bury it behind the altar.
The Maid of Orleans went to her death without revealing the whereabouts of the Sword from Heaven. One is left to wonder if it will be found again miraculously by a new hero of France who will emerge during the Great Chastisement to once again save the First Daughter of the Church.
‘I loved it because it was found in St. Catherine’s Church
for I loved that church very dearly’
- Regine Pernoud, trans by Edward Hyams, Joan of Arc: By Herself and Her Witnesses, Lanham MD: Scarborough House, 1966, p. 61-62
- Lance Bernard, The Sword from Heaven, Los Gatos, 2001.
- Trial of Condemnation, February 27, 1431, Fourth Session
- Ibid.
Posted November 30, 2024
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