Frequently Asked Questionst

Her name used in this web project: Jeanne d’Arc or Joan of arc?

Although we know her as Joan of Arc, or Jeanne d’Arc in French, she called herself Jehanne la Pucelle, or Joan the Maid. She is also known as the “Maid of Orléans.” Pucelle means “maid” and also signifies that she was a virgin, an important distinction given that her society held female virginity before marriage in high regard. In this project, both versions of her name are used. It varies according to the origin of an article and translation.

In the management of proper names I may not hope to have succeeded better than other authors who have written of the history of one country in the language of another. In this matter it is hard to formulate a principle, and impossible to live up to it when formulated without falling into absurdity.

For instance, I find it impossible to write of the great ally of the English except as “Philip, duke of Burgundy;” and, if I am to do so, I do not see how I can write of Jeanne’s father as “Jacques d’Arc,” or of the favorite of Charles VII. as “Georges de la Trémoille.” In the fifteenth century, the particle “de” in “de Bourgogne,” “d’Arc,” and “de la Trémoille” meant, so far as I can perceive, the same thing.

I acknowledge, however, that “James of Arc” is an awkward locution, and in the notes, at any rate, I have sometimes left a French name untranslated.

“I will retain her natural and beautiful name. To translate it into Joan seems quite unnecessary ”

(Mrs. Oliphan. Scottish novelist and historical writer)