OK, här är engelsk info om de historiska figurerna ifråga, i korthet:
Från www.encyclopedia.com:
Savonarola, Girolamo
Pronounced As: jrolämo sävonärolä , 1452-98, Italian religious reformer, b. Ferrara. He joined (1475) the Dominicans. In 1481 he went to San Marco, the Dominican house at Florence, where he became popular for his eloquent sermons, in which he attacked the vice and worldliness of the city, as well as for his predictions (several of which, including the death date of Innocent VIII, turned out to be true). In 1491 he became prior of San Marco, and after the death of Lorenzo de’ Medici, who was his enemy, and the subsequent exile of the Medici (1494) he became the real spiritual ruler of the city. He was uncompromisingly severe in his condemnation of what he considered the paganism of the times and called for a regeneration of spiritual and moral values and a devotion to asceticism. When Charles VIII of France invaded Italy in 1494 (as Savonarola had predicted), Savonarola supported him, hoping that Charles would lead the way to the establishment of a democratic government in Florence and to the reform of the scandalously corrupt court of Pope Alexander VI. Alexander, understandably infuriated, ordered Savonarola to refrain from preaching; however, he continued to preach, and the pope excommunicated him for disobedience in 1497. Savonarola now declared Alexander no true pope, being elected by simony. The people of Florence, who had for a time staunchly supported Savonarola, tired of his rigid demands. Hostility toward him grew, led especially by local Franciscans, and in Mar., 1498, the government, threatened by a papal interdict, asked him to stop preaching. His ruin came suddenly when one of his disciples accepted an ordeal by fire to prove Savonarola’s holiness. Rain prevented the event. Nevertheless, there were riots, and Savonarola and two disciples were arrested by the city. Under torture he confessed to being a false prophet, or so it was announced. The three were hanged for schism and heresy; papal commissioners had passed on the sentence, which was assured by Alexander’s vindictiveness.
Bibliography
See biographies by P. Villari (2 vol., tr. 1888; repr. 1972), R. Ridolfi (1959), and R. R. Renner (1965); study by D. Weinstein (1970).
Joan of Arc
Fr. Jeanne D’Arc (zhän därk), 1412?-31, French saint and national heroine, called the Maid of Orléans; daughter of a farmer of Domrémy on the border of Champagne and Lorraine.
Inspiration and Leadership
At a young age she began to hear voices-those of St. Michael, St. Catherine, and St. Margaret. When she was about 16, the voices exhorted her to bear aid to the dauphin, later King Charles VII, then kept from the throne by the English in the Hundred Years War. Joan won the aid of Robert de Baudricourt, captain of the dauphin’s forces in Vaucouleurs, in obtaining an interview with the dauphin. She made the journey in male attire, with six companions. Meeting the dauphin at Chinon castle, she conquered his skepticism as to her divine mission. She was examined by theologians at Poitiers, and afterward she was furnished with troops by Charles.
Her leadership provided spirit and morale more than military prowess. In May, 1429,she succeeded in raising the siege of Orléans, and in June she took other English posts on the Loire and defeated the English at Patay. After considerable persuasion the dauphin agreed to be crowned at Reims; Joan stood near him at his coronation. This was the pinnacle of her fortunes.
Capture and Martyrdom
In Sept., 1429, Joan unsuccessfully besieged Paris. The following spring she went to relieve Compiègne, but she was captured by the Burgundians and sold to the English, who were eager to destroy her influence by putting her to death. Charles VII made no attempt to secure her freedom. In order to escape responsibility, the English turned her over to the ecclesiastical court at Rouen. She was tried for heresy and witchcraft before Pierre Cauchon and other French clerics who supported the English.
Probably her most serious crime was the claim of direct inspiration from God; in the eyes of the court this refusal to accept the church hierarchy constituted heresy. Throughout the lengthy trial and imprisonment she bravely fought her inquisitors. Only at the end of the trial, when Joan was sentenced to be turned over to a secular court, did she recant. She was condemned to life imprisonment. Shortly afterward, however, she retracted her abjuration, was turned over to the secular court as a relapsed heretic, and was burned at the stake (May 30, 1431) in Rouen. Charles VII made tardy recognition of her services by a rehabilitation trial in 1456 that annulled the proceedings of the original trial.
Joan was beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1920 (feast: May 30). Her career lent itself to numerous legends, and she has been represented in many paintings and statues. In literature and music she appears notably, though not always accurately, in works by many eminent writers and composers.
Bibliography
Among her biographies, the best known is that of J. Michelet (tr. 1957). See also biographies by A. Lang (1908) and V. Sackville-West (1936); translations of the trial records by W. P. Barrett (1932 ed.) and W. S. Scott (1950) ; R. Pernoud, The Retrial of Joan of Arc (tr. 1955) and Joan of Arc by Herself and Her Witnesses (tr. 1966); C. W. Lightbody, The Judgements of Joan (1961); H. Guillemin, Joan, Maid of Orleans (1973).
Retz or Rais, Gilles de Laval, seigneur de
Pronounced As: zhl d läväl sanyör d rets, res , 1404-40, marshal of France, a lord of the Breton marches. A noted soldier, he was at Orléans with Joan of Arc. He was a liberal patron of music, literature, and the arts. After his retirement, rumors spread of satanic and vicious doings in his castle. He was tried in an ecclesiastical court, and he confessed to kidnaping more than 100 children, mostly boys, and to murdering them after maltreating them. He was handed over by the Church to the civil authorities and was executed. There is no reason to doubt his confession. He has been supposed, probably wrongly, to be the original of Bluebeard.
Bibliography
See E. Gabory, Alias Bluebeard (tr. 1930); T. Dix, Black Baron (1930); J. Benedetti, Gilles de Rais (1971).
Att hieroforen var Savonarolas snälle tvilling hade att göra med att vår vän Girolamo var en betydligt mer brysk person; han lät bl.a. bränna konst, musikinstrument och dylik hednisk flärd, och hans uppfattning om "demokrati" misstänker jag hade ganska lite med vår uppfattning om mänskliga rättigheter att göra.
På svenska är det viktigaste (nåja) verket om Jungfrun från Orleans Sven Stolpes
Jeanne D'Arc - senaste upplagan kom 1988. Det finns en bok som heter
Helgonet och Djävulen och bör finnas på större bibliotek i alla fall (annars kan man pröva att fjärrlåna) - den är riktigt bra vad gäller Gilles de Raiz. Annars kan man säkert hitta information om honom i vilken text om medeltida ockultism som helst - Jörgen Peterzéns
Magi - En resa i myt och verklighet har ett kapitel om honom, men Peterzén håller inte med texten ovan om hans skuld - Peterzéns de Raiz är en ganska lättlurad och girig typ som drogs vid näsan av charlataner i sin jakt på guld för att fixa sin sumpade ekonomi. Magi var hans IT-boom; alkemi alt. djävulspakter skulle fixa det hela, men det värsta han skulle ha gett sig in på var gravplundring.
Kenneth Hite, en av mina husgudar, ägnar ett kapitel av
Suppressed Transmissions 2 - ett verk alla genast bör köpa, och har ni inte pengar så sälj någon närstående som slav så ni får det - åt Jeanne&Gilles ("Louis&Clark"?). Han håller det också för troligt att de Raiz var dubbelskyldig, och presenterar en hel del skojiga konspirationsteorier kring de bägge.
Gondica-variant: Den i sina egna ögon välsignade och högst välmenande mystagogen försöker förstärka ran-Rais egenskaper som krigare - han var ju marskalk för Frankrike - råkar ut för
hubris-effekter (se Galenik-bibban som fanns här för ett tag sedan) och gör honom till teratofil. Det senare är ju faktiskt en framgång - på sitt egna vridna sätt. Teratofiler har ju övermänskliga krafter, och om ran-Rais är en allmänt vidskeplig typ lär han också tro på snacket om att han nu är osårbar (fast han lär få svårt att förvandla sig till vilddjur... fast det kan man bortförklara med hallucinationer).
Men se för Theos' skull till att fila bort serienumren lite mer än jag gjort här om ni använder det här! <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15>
Nightowl, gratulerar i efterskott <img src="/images/icons/cool.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15>
