The Trial of Joan of Arc

On 21 February 1431 a prisoner was brought before a church court in the castle of Rouen. The king, its record says, had given her up to be tried “in the matter of the Faith” (Trial of Condemnation, 21 February 1431 (Murray, pp. 3–7)); a notary of the court later testified that, as he had heard, she was brought to Rouen on letters from the king of England, and that Englishmen guarded her (Nullification Trial, deposition of Guillaume Manchon, 2 May 1452 (Murray, p. 178)). She said that she was called Jeanne, that she was born at Domrémy and that she was about nineteen (Trial of Condemnation, 21 February 1431 (Murray, pp. 3–7)). The judges were Pierre Cauchon, bishop of Beauvais, and the deputy of the inquisitor of France (Trial of Condemnation, 24 May 1431 (Murray, pp. 127–134)). Two years before, Joan of Arc had written to the king of England and his commanders before Orléans that she was sent by God, the King of Heaven, to drive them out of France. The letter was read in court, and she acknowledged it except for three phrases (Trial of Condemnation, 1 March 1431, letter of 22 March 1429 (Murray, pp. 36–38)).

The court’s record gives her answers. When she was thirteen, she said, she “had a Voice from God” in her father’s garden, with a light. It taught her to be good and to go to church, and later told her to go into France and raise the siege of Orléans (Trial of Condemnation, 22 February 1431 (Murray, pp. 10–11)). She named Saint Michael, whom she had seen “before my eyes”, and Saints Catherine and Margaret (Trial of Condemnation, 27 February 1431 (Murray, pp. 24–26)). Asked whether she was in the grace of God, she answered: “If I am not, may God place me there; if I am, may God so keep me” (Trial of Condemnation, 24 February 1431 (Murray, p. 18)). She wore men’s clothes, she said, at God’s command. Asked to submit her words and deeds to the decision of the church, she referred herself to God who had sent her: “in my opinion it is all one, God and the Church” (Trial of Condemnation, 17 March 1431 (Murray, pp. 86–87)).

On 24 May, in the cemetery of Saint-Ouen, she asked that her case be sent to the pope and was told that this would not do. While the bishop was reading the sentence she gave way and signed an abjuration, and was sentenced to prison for life (Trial of Condemnation, 24 May 1431 (Murray, pp. 127–134)). Four days later the judges found her again in men’s clothes. Her voices, she told them, had reproached her, and what she had revoked she had revoked “for fear of the fire” (Trial of Condemnation, 28 May 1431 (Murray, pp. 135–138)). On 30 May, in the Old Market, the judges declared her a relapsed heretic and abandoned her to the secular power, with a request that it moderate its judgment as to death and mutilation (Trial of Condemnation, 29–30 May 1431 (Murray, pp. 138–146)).

In 1455 Callixtus III received a petition from her mother and brothers. His rescript repeats their claims, that she had detested heresy, had asked for her case to be sent to the Apostolic See and had been condemned unjustly, and charges the archbishop of Reims and the bishops of Paris and Coutances to hear both sides and judge (Callixtus III, rescript of 11 June 1455, Quicherat, vol. 2, pp. 95–98). Among the witnesses was the Dominican Martin Ladvenu, who had heard her confession and given her communion. He testified that she was led to the fire without any sentence from the secular judges, and that she maintained to the end that her voices came from God (Nullification Trial, depositions of Martin Ladvenu, 1452–1456 (Murray, pp. 193–195)).

On 7 July 1456 the papal judges gave sentence at Rouen (Nullification Trial, last day of the process (Quicherat, vol. 3, p. 351)). They declared that the twelve articles on which the first court had sought opinions had been drawn from her answers falsely and with malice. They pronounced the trial, both its sentences and the abjuration “null, non-existent, without value or effect”, and Joan and her family free of any stain of infamy. Of her revelations they said only that on such a question “it is most difficult to furnish a certain judgment”. They ordered a cross set up in the Old Market, where she had died “by a cruel and horrible fire” (Nullification Trial, sentence of 7 July 1456 (Murray, pp. 321–327)).

In 1920 Benedict XV declared her a saint (Benedict XV, Divina disponente formula of canonization).