Joan of Arc, Trial

The Trial of Joan of Arc, which took place before an English backed church court in Rouen, France in the first half of the year 1431 was, by general consensus, one of the most significant and moving trials ever conducted in human history. It culminated in the burning at the stake of the person known to history as Joan of Arc, the young French peasant girl who was the defendant in the case. Later, the trial verdict would be reversed, completely exonerating her. She is now a French national heroine and saint of the Roman Catholic Church.

Background and context

Joan of Arc burst onto the scene of world history in spectacular fashion in the Spring of the year 1429, at which time she, in obedience to what she identified as the command of God, led the Dauphin's armies in a series of stunning military victories which resulted in reversing the course of the Hundred Years' War.

Military success on this scale was denied her following these initial triumphs. First, there was a reversal before the gates of Paris in September of that same year and then, in the Spring of 1430, she fell captive, in a minor action near Compiegne, to the French Burgundian allies of the English.

The French King, Charles VII, refused to ransom her from the Burgundians who then sold her to the English who transferred her to Rouen and placed her on trial for heresy before a church court headed by Bishop Pierre Cauchon.

The Documentary record

The life of Joan of Arc is one of the best documented of her era. This is especially remarkable when one considers that she was not of noble birth, but instead was a very young peasant girl. In one of history's true ironies, a large part of the thanks for this fact is owed to the records kept by those very same individuals who attempted to eradicate her name from memory. The reference, of course, is to the trial record kept during her Trial of Condemnation in Rouen in 1431.

During the investigation and trial itself, a trio of notaries, headed by chief notary Guillaume Manchon, took notes in French which were then collated each day following the trial session. Four years later (at the earliest), these records were translated into Latin by Manchon and University of Paris master Thomas de Courcelles. Five copies were produced, three of which are still in existence.

Jules Quicherat published the first unabridged version of the trial record in the first volume of his 5 volume Proces de condamnation et de rehabilitation de Jeanne d'Arc in Paris in the 1840s. But it was not until 1932 that the first unabridged English translation became available when W.P. Barrett published his Trial of Joan of Arc [1] in New York.

Preliminaries

The proceedings against Joan began on January 9 in the English King's castle in Rouen. The first order of business was a preliminary inquiry into Joan's character and habits. An examination as to Joan's virginity was conducted sometime prior to January 13, overseen by the Duchess of Bedford (the wife of John, Duke of Bedford, and regent in France of the boy-king Henry VI of England). At the same time, representatives of Pierre Cauchon, the Bishop of Beauvais and the man who would preside over the Trial, were sent to Domremy and vicinity to inquire further into Joan's life, her habits, and virtue, with several witnesses being interviewed.

The result of these inquiries was that nothing could be found against Joan to support any charges against her.

Assessments of the trial

Joan of Arc's trial for heresy was politically motivated. The Duke of Bedford claimed the throne of France for his nephew Henry VI. She had been responsible for the rival coronation so to condemn her was to undermine her king's legitimacy. Legal proceedings commenced on 9 January 1431 at Rouen, the seat of the English occupation government. The procedure was irregular on a number of points. In 1456, Pope Calixtus III declared Joan of Arc innocent of the heresy charges brought before her.

The cardinal of Winchester interrogates Joan of Arc. (By Gillot Saint-Èvre, Louvre, Paris, 1835)

To summarize some major problems, the jurisdiction of judge Bishop Cauchon was a legal fiction He owed his appointment to his partisan support of the English government that financed the entire trial. Clerical notary Nicolas Bailly, commissioned to collect testimony against Joan of Arc, could find no adverse evidence Without such evidence the court lacked grounds to initiate a trial. Opening a trial anyway, the court also violated ecclesiastical law in denying her right to a legal advisor. Upon the opening of the first public examination Joan complained that those present were all partisans against her and asked for "ecclesiastics of the French side" to be invited The trial record demonstrates her remarkable intellect. The transcript's most famous exchange is an exercise in subtlety. "Asked if she knew she was in God's grace, she answered: 'If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me.' The question is a scholarly trap. Church doctrine held that no one could be certain of being in God's grace. If she had answered yes, then she would have convicted herself of heresy. If she had answered no, then she would have confessed her own guilt. Notary Boisguillaume would later testify that at the moment the court heard this reply, "Those who were interrogating her were stupefied." In the twentieth century George Bernard Shaw would find this dialogue so compelling that sections of his play Saint Joan are literal translations of the trial record.

Several court functionaries later testified that significant portions of the transcript were altered in her disfavor. Many clerics served under compulsion, including the inquisitor, Jean LeMaitre, and a few even received death threats from the English. Under Inquisitorial guidelines, Joan should have been confined to an ecclesiastical prison under the supervision of female guards (i.e., nuns). Instead, the English kept her in a secular prison guarded by their own soldiers. Bishop Cauchon denied Joan's appeals to the Council of Basel and the pope, which should have stopped his proceeding.

The twelve articles of accusation that summarize the court's finding contradict the already doctored court record.The illiterate defendant signed an abjuration document she did not understand under threat of immediate execution. The court substituted a different abjuration in the official record

Further reading

• Joan's Trial and Execution at Rouen, in Joan of Arc: Her Story by Regine Pernoud and Marie-Veronique Clin.
• True Lies: Transvestism and Idolatry in the Trial of Joan of Arc, by Susan Schibanoff (in Fresh Verdicts on Joan of Arc, edited by Bonnie Wheeler and Charles T. Wood.)

Internet resources

• The text of the condemnation trial