The Tree of the Bourlémonts. Gendered Beliefs in Fairies and Their Transmission From Old To Young Women in Joan of Arc’s Domrémy

“Joan was accustomed to frequent the said tree and spring, most often at night, […] and she turned around this spring and the tree in dance.” These words were written down in 1429 by an anonymous Burgundian priest in his Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris, and are about Joan of Arc’s habit of visiting a very old tree that was located in the Bourlémonts’ property, in Domrémy. This represented a problem for the priest and - to an even greater extent - to Joan’s judges for, upon investigation, it was found that near the tree certain faees (“fairies”, identified by the clerics as evil spirits) used to gather together. This contribution focuses on two aspects of said reports: 1) on the one hand, it aims to deepen our understanding of how the Church (via Joan’s judges and the Bourgeois of Paris) perceived, received, and “translated” popular beliefs such as that in Domrémy’s “Fairy Tree” into the Christian worldview, according to which supernatural beings could be either angels or devils (and not, simply, “marvelous” entities); 2) on the other hand, particular attention will be paid to the apparently gendered transmission of such a belief within the village’s “old women” to new generations of young girls like Joan. This perspective will take into consideration the growing number of women visionaries in Joan’s times, but also an older and quite widespread association in medieval Europe between women and the “supernatural”, in both a negative and a positive sense, and in both Christian and non-Christian environments.