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Don't tell SeanJohnson, but St. Joan wore mens' clothing and fought against men in battle.

Please supply the reference that she wore mens' clothes.
thank you

The relevant sources are of several types. A number of the tribunal members themselves (see below) later admitted that Joan of Arc had said she clung to her soldiers' outfit as a desperate means of discouraging rape - since the type of clothing in question had numerous cords by which the long boots and hosen [see note at right] could both be fastened to the tunic, thereby making it difficult for a rapist to pull them off. A dress, on the other hand, offered no such protection against her abusive guards: she was being guarded by English soldiers, in violation of the standard Inquisitorial practice of placing female prisoners in the custody of nuns (precisely in order to prevent the problems that Joan of Arc was facing). As with so many other crucial items, this was left out of the transcript of the Condemnation trial, unless one counts the few partial versions of quotations which were later related in full by the eyewitnesses: e.g., the transcript does say that she asked to be placed in a Church prison with women (alluding to the abovementioned Inquisitorial practice), and it also includes a brief version of her statements protesting that her actions were perfectly lawful under the rules of the Church - alluding to the provision in medieval theology which permitted necessity-based cross-dressing (click here to see examples from the "Summa Theologica" and 15th century theologians). The eyewitnesses later clarified these statements by relating a fuller version of her quotations on the matter; moreover, necessity-based cross-dressing was hardly unknown in that era: an especially ironic example is that of the sister-in-law of the English Regent, who disguised herself as a soldier at one point in order to escape from the custody of Duke Philip of Burgundy in 1425. No one tried to put her on trial for heresy.