Tom K. wrote:
> It is my understanding that d'Arc is an incorrect (though nearly
> universal) usage, implying that Joan was of "noble" birth when she was
> not. I claim no expertise here, but I read somewhere recently that
> Jaques Barzun, who I belive does speak French and knows many things,
> told them this about Joan's name.
> I do not know how one is supposed to refer to the Maid of Orleans
> under this view, so I went with Darc, which is almost surely not the
> answer.
> Maybe someone on the list knows, and would enlighten me, as to:
> (i) whether the view attributed to Prof. Barzun is right and, if so,
> (ii) how one properly ought to refer to Joan. (Surely, whatever the
> answer, "Joan of Arc" or "Jean D'Arc" is the way to go if you want to
> be commonly understood: still, I wonder what the technical answer is.)
The site to go to is:
http://archive.joan-of-arc.org
From her biography page
http://joan-of-arc.org/joanofarc_life_summary.html
On the night of the Feast of the Epiphany (January 6th) at the end of
the medieval Christmas season, in the year 1412 during the final
waning period of relative peace secured by the Truce of Leulinghen, a
baby was born to Jacques Darc (or "d'Arc") and his wife Isabelle in
the village of Domrémy. She was christened Jehanne ("Joan"),
apparently after her mother's sister Jehanne Lassois, or her
godmothers Jehanne Royer, Jehanne de Viteau, and Jehanne "the wife of
Mayor Aubéry". Lord Perceval de Boulainvilliers later claimed that the
roosters of the village, "like heralds of a new joy", hailed her birth
by crowing long before dawn4, as if to announce a different type of dawn.
A few snippets from a page on her name and signature
http://archive.joan-of-arc.org/joanofarc_signatures.html
...
Another point of contention: there are those who strenuously object
to the modernized version of her family's surname (d'Arc, meaning "of
Arc", instead of the medieval "Darc"). The lack of any apostrophe in
15th century contractions has left the matter open to speculation,
although the Latin form, "Darco", has been taken to indicate that it
was simply a name rather than a contracted phrase. (Those who are
interested in the gritty details can click here for the various pro
and con arguments invoked in this momentous intellectual battle).
Inevitably, those scholars who favor the "contraction hypothesis" are
further divided into two camps: those who believe that the name "of
Arc" merely indicates place of origin, versus those who believe that
it indicates feudal ownership and therefore noble lineage (i.e.,
aristocratic roots prior to the family's ennoblement by Charles VII in
1429). The issue is largely moot, since there wasn't any meaningful
distinction between the lowest noble families and the more prosperous
farmers: the aristocracy was constructed along the same 'pyramid' form
as the rest of society, meaning that there were thousands of petty
nobles at the bottom of the scale who lay within the economic gray
area where the Second and Third Estates overlapped. By necessity such
families often intermarried with commoners, blurring the line between
the two classes. The moderate prosperity of the Darc family could
indicate that they were either a faded remnant of an old noble house,
or a rising peasant family; either way, it would make little practical
difference.
In the medieval manuscripts, the name appears in numerous forms: Darc,
Tarc, Tart, Dare, Day, Daix, etc. The latter two spellings (Day and
Daix) were attempts to reflect the pronunciation used by the family
itself: in their native dialect the final consonants were dropped and
the vowel shortened. The spellings which use a 't' for the initial
consonant are believed to reflect the sharp pronunciation of 'd' in
the same dialect.
...
Her first name, "Jehanne" or "Jhenne" ("Joan" or "Joanna" in English)
was virtually the most common female name in that era, appearing
prominently and repeatedly in all French families of the late medieval
period.
Regards,
Rick Parker
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