Record of the Nullification Trial of Joan of Arc
The record of the church trial that in 1456 annulled the condemnation of Joan of Arc. It contains the sworn evidence of people who had known her at Domrémy, at Orléans and at court, and of clerks and assessors of the first trial, and it ends with the sentence of 7 July 1456.
Read the text at gutenberg.org ↗Latin text: J. Quicherat, Procès de condamnation et de réhabilitation de Jeanne d’Arc, vols. 2–3 (Paris, 1841–1849) ↗
The trial was opened on a commission from Callixtus III and heard witnesses at Domrémy, Orléans, Paris and Rouen. The judges also took into their record an inquiry made at Rouen in 1452 by a papal legate. Many of the witnesses at Rouen had served the first court: the notaries Manchon and Taquel, the usher Massieu, and the friars Isambard de la Pierre and Martin Ladvenu.
They testified a quarter of a century after the events, after the French king had recovered Rouen, in a cause brought by Joan’s family and first set in motion by the king whom she had served. Men who had sat in the first court had reason to lay the blame on the dead bishop and on the English. The judges nonetheless had the minutes of the first trial before them and compared the two. Murray’s volume prints before these depositions an earlier inquiry made on the king’s order in 1450; it was not part of the church court’s record and is not cited here. His translation gives “June” for the month of the sentence, which the Latin text and his own introduction give as July. See the Trial of Joan of Arc.
Cited in
- 30 May 1431, firm date