In plenty of TV shows, films Joan of Arc is usually portrayed as a blonde. Is this based on a real account of her or is that a work of fiction? I've also noticed quite a few medieval painters portray her as a blonde.
I ask about this because one of my friends talked about how a lot of TV shows usually portray Joan in particular as a blonde when in reality there are barely any blonde people in France, and she was likely a brunette or had black. Is this true? Were there more blondes in medieval France when compared to today? Are there any historical records from the period documenting Joan of Arcs appearance?
For all the attention and consternation that contemporaries paid to Joan's hair cut, we have absolutely zero record of her hair color.
In the 19th century, historian and early Joan of Arc scholar Jules Quicherat claimed to have found a hair embedded in the seal attached to a letter sent under Joan's name in 1429. Quicherat claimed that the hair must have belonged to Joan. It was apparently black.
Both Quicherat's own contemporaries were and modern scholars are skeptical of the attribution to Joan, however. At the time, it's noteworthy that the Catholic Church did not consider it a veritable relic of Joan. Today, Kelly DeVries and others tend towards the view that a random hair from anyone could get trapped in the wax. The important thing in authenticating a letter to medieval people was the seal itself. It might be Joan's, but it might not be.
Furthermore, both the seal and the hair have long since disappeared.
The actual color of Joan's hair, therefore, is lost to history.