Alternative Historical Interpretations of Joan of Arc - Relics and Sites

Relics and Sites

The Joan of Arc museum at Chinon, France has a charred bone fragment reputed to belong to Joan of Arc. Its authenticity is unconfirmed and appears to be unlikely, given the circumstances of her death. The English ordered her body burned to ashes and the ashes cast into the River Seine. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has a helmet in its Arms and Armor collection with a legendary attribution to Joan of Arc. The museum makes no claims that this legend is true, but notes that the helmet dates from the right time period.

Several locations associated with Joan of Arc still exist, including the house where she was born, at Domrémy-la-Pucelle. The site has been converted to a museum. The adjacent church has undergone extensive alterations since the fifteenth century but still contains a fourteenth-century statue of St. Margaret, before which Joan of Arc probably prayed. By contrast, the royal castle at Chinon is now a ruin. Little more than the outer wall remains. One wall remains of the great hall where she met Charles VII.