Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/729

 J A J O A even to ecclesiasticism of any kind. Among this class of composi tions the greatest historical importance belongs to the Liber intro- dudorius in Evangdium wternum, now no longer extant, except in some excerpts. The work was censured as heretical by the univer sity of Paris, and the order for its destruction was obtained from Alexander IV. in 1255 ; this, however, only stimulated the public interest in the books of Joachim himself, which now began to be circulated and read more widely than ever. That interest died a natural death, however, when the year 1260, which Joachim had fixed as the time of the end, had come and gone, leaving the old and evil world practically unchanged. See Engelhardt, Kirchengesckichtliche AbJiandlungen, 1832 ; Meander, Gcsch. d. christl. Religion u. Kirclie (English transla tion, vol. vii., 1852); Kenan, &quot;Joachim de Flore et rEvangile eternel,&quot; iu the Revue dcs Deux Mondes for 1866 ; Preger, Gcsch. d. dcutsclten Mystik, vol. i., 1875; and Mbller s art. &quot;Joachim von Floris,&quot; in Herzog-Plitt s Rcal-Encyk., vol. vi. JOACHIMSTHAL (Boh., Jdchimov), a mining town of Bohemia, in the circle of Eger, is favourably situated in a valley on the southern slopes of the Erzgebirge, about 10 miles north of Carlsbad, and 3 miles from the Saxon frontier, at an elevation of 2000 feet above the level of the sea, 50 23 N. lat, 12 51 E. long. It is the seat of a, circuit court and board of mines, and has two commer cial schools and establishments fur teaching lace -making and straw-plaiting. The inhabitants are chiefly employed in mining, and in the manufacture of white and red lead, vermilion, cobalt, smalt, uranium yellow, bismuth, and nickel ; also of thread, lace, basket-work, cutlery, paper, and cigars. The town owes its celebrity to the silver, lead, tin, and iron mines in its vicinity. During the 16th century the silver mines reached a very high point of pro ductiveness, but since that period the yield has considerably declined. Population in 1870, 6586. In place of the present town of Joachimsthal, which dates from the year 1516, there stood formerly the village of Conradsgriin. This was ceded by the kings of Bohemia to the counts of Schlick, from whom it passed by feudal tenure to the knights of Haslava. It is from the silver guldengroschen, first coined in 1518 by order of Count Schlick, and afterwards known as Joachimsthaler, that the German term thaler is derived, in 1547, during the Smalkald war, the town was besieged by William Thumshhn, general of John Frederick, elector of Saxony, but the siege was soon raised. In 1579 certain special privileges and additional lands were granted to Joachimsthal by the emperor Rudolph II. The last emigration of Protestants from the neighbourhood to Saxony took place in 1663. Three-fourths of the town was destroyed by fire on the 31st March 1873. The large church of St Joachim, which was also burned, was rebuilt and restored in 1876. In the neighbourhood are the ruins of the castle of Freudenstein. JOAN&quot;, the name given to a female pope, now regarded as a fictitious personage, who under the title of John VII. or VIII. was said, according to the most general accounts, to Lave occupied the papal chair between the pontificate of Leo IV. and Benedict III., although various other dates are given. Tradition represents her as of English descent, but born in Ingelheim or Mainz. By some her original name is given as Gilberta, by others as Agnes. She was credited with having fallen in love with a young Benedictine monk, and with having on that account assumed the male monastic habit and lived for some time in the monastery of Fulda. Her lover, it is affirmed, died while they were pursuing their studies together at Athens, and after his death she went to Rome, where, according to the most approved ver sion of the story, she became a very successful professor. So high indeed became her reputation for piety and learning that the cardinals with one consent elected the supposed young monk the successor of Pope Leo IV. In this posi tion she comported herself so as entirely to justify their choice until the catastrophe of giving birth to a male child during a procession to the Lateran palace suddenly and irrevocably blasted her reputation. She is said either to have died in childbirth or to have been stoned to death. The story of the pontificate of Joan was received as fact from the 13th to the 15th century, but it has been discredited by later researches. The circumstantial evidence around which it clung, and which may have aided in suggesting it, was the observance of a circuit by the papal processions so as to avoid passing through a certain street (a statue at one time standing in that street, said to represent a woman and child, with a monumental stone near it having a peculiar inscription), and the use of a pierced seat at the enthronement of the popes. Of these facts other and more credible explanations have, however, been given, although there is no suffi cient evidence to demonstrate beyond dispute the manner in which the story originated. According to Dr Dbllinger, who gives an elaborate analysis of the story in Die Pcqist-Fabeln dcs Mittclaltcrs, Munich, 1863, the tradition finds no support in the original text either of Marianus Scotus, Sigebert of Gemblours, or Otto of Freysingen. She is first mentioned by Stephen de Bourbon, who died in 1261, and who took his information probably from the chronicle of the Dominican Jean de Mailly, no copy of which is now known to be in existence. The story is not found in any of the original manuscripts of Martinus Polus, and according to Dbllinger was interpolated in that chronicle some time between 1278 and 1312. He attributes the propagation of the myth chiefly to its insertion in Martinus Polus, from which it was copied into the Florcs Tcmporum, a chronicle founded on Martinus, and its real originators he supposes to have been the Dominicans and Minorites, who had a grudge against the papacy on account of the persecutions they were experiencing at the hands of Benedict VIII. So rapidly did the tradition spread that in 1400 a bust of the papess was placed in the cathedral of Siena along with the other popes, having the inscription &quot;John VIII. , a woman from England.&quot; The statue occupied this position till the beginning of the 17th century. See the work of Dollinger above mentioned, which has been translated into English both in England and in America, and the authorities therein referred to. JOAN OF ARC, or more properly Joanneta Dare, after wards known in France as Jeanne d Arc, 1 the Maid of Orleans, was born about 141], the daughter of Jacques Dare, peasant proprietor cf Domremy, a small village partly in Champagne and partly in Lorraine, and of his wife Isabeau de Vouthon, who from having made a pilgrimage to Rome had received the usual surname of Romee. Joan never learned to read or write, and received her sole religious instruction from her mother, who taught her to recite the Pater Noster, Ave Maria, and Credo. In her childhood she was noted for her abounding physical energy ; but her vivacity, so far from being tainted by any coarse or unfeminine trait, was the direct outcome of intense mental activity and an abnormally sensitive nervous temperament. Towards her parents her conduct was uniformly exemplary, and the charm of her unselfish kindness made her the special favourite of many in the village. In all household work she was specially proficient, her skill in the use of the needle not being excelled by that of any matron even of Rouen. As she grew to womanhood she became inclined to silence, and spent much of her time in solitude and prayer. All advances made by the young men of her acquaintance with the view of win ning her attention or favour she decisively repelled ; and, while active in the performance of her usual round of duties, and apparently finding her mode of life quite pleasant and congenial, inwardly she was engrossed with thoughts reaching far beyond the circle uf her daily concerns. At this time, through the alliance and support of Philip of Burgundy, the English had extended their conquest over the whole of France north of the Loire as well as Guienne ; and, while the infant Henry VI. of England had in 1422 been proclaimed king of France at his father s grave at St Denis, Charles the dauphin, devoted only to present ease and pleasure, was almost passively contemplating the slow dismemberment of his kingdom by internal confusion and misery, and by the progressive encroachments of the English rule. The fact that the hard straits to which the kingdom was reduced were greatly owing to the conduct of Isabella, the dauphin s mother, who disinherited her son 1 In the Act of ennoblement the name is spelt Day, due probably to the peculiar current pronunciation. It has been disputed whether the name was written originally d Arc or Dare. It is beyond doubt that the father of Joan was not &quot;of noble origin, but Boutciller suggests that at that period the apostrophe did not indicate nobility.