Joan of Arc
A young woman from Domrémy who said that voices from God sent her to help the king of France. Captured and tried by a church court at Rouen, she was burned as a relapsed heretic on 30 May 1431. A second church court annulled the sentence in 1456, and she was canonized in 1920.
At her trial she said that at home she was called Jeannette and in France Jeanne, that her father was Jacques d’Arc and her mother Ysabelle, that she was born at Domrémy and was about nineteen years old. She had learned her prayers from her mother and could spin and sew. From the age of thirteen, she said, she heard a voice from God, which in time told her to go into France; she went to the captain of Vaucouleurs, who gave her an escort, and rode to the king in men’s clothes (Trial of Condemnation, 21–22 February 1431 (Murray, pp. 6–12)). Her letter summoning the English to leave France was read to her in court; it is dated on Tuesday in Holy Week, 22 March, in the year the record writes as 1428 and modern reckoning as 1429 (Trial of Condemnation, 1 March 1431 (Murray, pp. 36–38)).
The court of Pierre Cauchon declared her a relapsed heretic on 30 May 1431 and gave her up to the secular power (Trial of Condemnation, 30 May 1431 (Murray, pp. 142–146)). In 1456 judges commissioned by Callixtus III pronounced that trial and sentence null (Nullification Trial, sentence of 7 July 1456 (Murray, pp. 321–327)). Benedict XV declared her a saint in 1920 (Benedict XV, Divina disponente). See the Trial of Joan of Arc.
In the timeline
- 30 May 1431, firm dateThe Trial of Joan of Arc
A church court at Rouen under Bishop Pierre Cauchon tries Joan of Arc for heresy, and on 30 May 1431 she is burned as relapsed. In 1456 judges appointed by Pope Callixtus III declare that trial and its sentences null. Both verdicts are known from the courts’ own records.