The Trials of Joan of Arc

As the sun rose on 21 February 1431 Joan of Arc appeared before a tribunal of 43 men tasked with questioning her on matters of faith. A little over four months later the court found her guilty of heresy. Joan submitted to the charges and signed an abjuration, but was nonetheless sentenced to life in prison. Officials visited her cell days later after learning that she had disobeyed a court order forbidding her from wearing men’s clothing. Far more damning than her attire was her statement that she no longer stood by her abjuration, which she admitted to having accepted only out of a ‘fear of the fire’. Her recantation made certain that that fear would become her fate. Two days later, on 30 May 1431, Joan stood before a large crowd at the Old Market in Rouen, where, declared a relapsed heretic, she was excommunicated. No longer responsible for her, the Church transferred her to secular authorities representing Henry VI, the declared king of France and England. She was condemned to death by fire.

We can speak with such precision about Joan of Arc’s final moments thanks to an unparalleled medieval archive dedicated to her subject. Royal missives, religious opinions, sermons, and poetry as well as personal letters, diaries, and travel accounts contain abundant information concerning this young woman, known as ‘the Maid’, who claimed to have been sent by God with the mission of returning the Valois dauphin Charles to the French throne. Those who orchestrated her death surely hoped to silence all future discussion about Joan. Instead, her execution launched a passionate dispute over her memory.

Two Joans at war

From her first meeting with the exiled Charles VII in spring 1429 debate about Joan spread across Europe. Pancrazio Giustiniani, a young Italian living in Bruges, wrote to his father in Venice just weeks before her victory at the siege of Orléans that May. He mentioned the many jokes circulating about a maiden claiming divine status, but he admitted that, over time, he had become enthralled and ‘like everyone else, [he] too was kept in suspense by this woman’. Theologians and politicians, in contrast, took Joan’s claims very seriously. An early report known as the Poitiers Conclusions made public the opinion of a group of learned churchmen, asked by Charles to interview Joan to determine whether he should send her to Orléans with an army. After six weeks of interviews, they only agreed that, despite appearing before them dressed as a man and demanding an army, Joan had shown herself to possess all the necessary womanly qualities of a good Christian. They praised her ‘goodness, humility, virginity, devotion, honesty and simplicity’, but had no evidence of a miracle to confirm her status as a divine messenger. To be safe, they advised Charles to send her to Orléans rather than risk angering God.

In the summer following the Orléans victory, the poet Christine de Pizan, an ardent Valois supporter, conferred the authority to Joan that the Poitiers Conclusions had withheld. In a 488-line poem known as the Ditié of Joan of Arc, Christine declared that she ‘was miraculously sent by divine command’. Meanwhile, supporters of Henry VI described her as ‘a false witch’ in the Chronicles of London while the University of Paris, then under English control, issued an opinion on ‘Good and Bad Spirits’ which asserted that, in retaking Orléans, Joan ‘was not guided by the Spirit of truth … but by the Devil’.

When Joan was captured in spring 1430 the debate became a legal dispute. Henry wrote to the bishop of Rouen, Pierre Cauchon, calling for an ecclesiastical investigation into Joan’s heretical behaviours, contending that she ‘had been reputed, charged, and defamed by many people for superstitions, false dogmas, and other crimes of divine treason’. The court’s preliminary interrogations of Joan over the winter of 1431 led to the official charge of heresy and, ultimately, the fatal verdict.

Rather than quietening arguments about Joan, the 1431 proceedings inspired a second ecclesiastic trial 25 years later. This second case occurred in the aftermath of Charles VII’s successful recapture in November 1449 of the city of Rouen, where Joan had been executed. Guillaume Bouillé, a professor at the University of Paris, now free of English oversight, asked his king to allow an inquiry into Joan’s case. Bouillé collected sufficient evidence to justify a legal inquiry that would play out over the next five years. In 1456 a new trial pronounced the previous court guilty of corruption and restored Joan’s good reputation. She was declared an innocent victim of partisan prejudice. This second trial is referred to today as the nullification or the rehabilitation trial.

Both courts took great efforts to ensure that their decisions stood. Each body commissioned a legal dossier in multiple copies to publicise the verdict and ensure that Europe’s religious and secular leaders could consult the documents. The courts believed these records would justify their verdicts and make theirs the final word. In fact they provided readers with abundant biographical information to continue the debate for centuries thereafter.

Rival dossiers

Following Joan’s execution Bishop Cauchon ordered notaries to produce several exact copies of the record of the 1431 trial. The record contains a Latin translation of an original French minute, a running daily account of events in the courtroom. The minute is not a dictation but a summary of the interrogation. Only in rare cases are Joan’s responses cited verbatim. The presentation of her complaints on the first day of interrogations provides an example. To her initial protest, the bishop responded that her attempts to escape made her untrustworthy. The record summarises Joan’s response:

She replied that she did not accept this injunction, adding that if she escaped, no one could blame her for having broken or violated her oath because she had never given her oath to anyone. Then she complained about being held in chains and in bonds of iron.

But to the bishop’s response, that chains were necessary because of her reputation, the record registers Joan’s incriminating reply: ‘It is true that elsewhere I wished to escape and would still do so, as is lawful for all people who are incarcerated or imprisoned.’ In other cases, the record withholds her full testimony. When asked the next day who advised her to wear men’s clothing, the record states that ‘she changed her answer often’, as if to suggest that she was evasive or lying.

Alongside the translated minute, which constitutes only half of the official record of the 1431 trial, the dossier contains missives documenting Joan’s transfer from Henry to the Church for judgment as well as appointment letters for various members of the tribunal. These are followed by multiple legal opinions pertaining to the case, the list of charges with supporting arguments, a copy of Joan’s abjuration, two sermons publicly delivered in her presence, and sworn testimonies of those present during her final moments.

The 1431 official record might have succeeded in condemning Joan to infamy had it not been for a handful of Church officials who, following Charles VII’s triumphant return to Paris in 1436, picked up her cause. In 1450 Bouillé conducted a preliminary investigation into Joan’s case. Scholars debate why Charles agreed to this given that he appeared to have abandoned Joan after her capture. Perhaps he feared that her charge of heresy tainted his legitimacy. Whatever the reason, Charles approved the inquiry and that same year Bouillé interviewed numerous witnesses present at the 1431 trial. Bouillé concluded that the 1431 judges had ‘made and committed many errors and abuses, such that … they had her put to death very cruelly, iniquitously and against reason’. Ever cautious, Charles turned to the pope for guidance and a papal bull from Calixtus III launched a legal inquiry into the 1431 sentence. Hundreds of witnesses privy to Joan’s life and case were interviewed and legal opinions were presented. Then, in July 1456, based on evidence that the 1431 trial proceedings ‘contain[ed] deceit, slander, contradiction, and manifest error of law and of fact’, the judgment against Joan was annulled.

As with the 1431 court, the 1456 court ordered a legal dossier – nearly four times as thick as its predecessor. In addition to legal arguments and a preliminary list of 101 charges brought against the previous trial, it contains 135 witness depositions collected between 1452 and 1456. Among those interviewed were childhood acquaintances, fellow soldiers, townspeople who met Joan during her military campaigns, and even a few participants from the earlier trial. Repeating the practice of the earlier court, Europe’s rulers received copies of this new dossier, but – unlike the earlier dossier – at least one copy was made available for public consultation in the Notre Dame cathedral library. To make clear that this version of events replaced the previous case, the court ordered that a copy of the 1431 trial record ‘be torn up’, although some of the copies of the new trial did contain a record of the previous proceedings.

Both courts commissioned a written record to defend their verdicts, and to assume control of Joan’s memory. The 1431 dossier began with Bishop Cauchon reminding readers why an investigation had been necessary: Joan had ‘disregard[ed] the honor due the female sex’ and had ‘dared to perform, to speak, and to publicize many things contrary to the catholic faith’. The 1456 dossier countered with a copy of the papal bull declaring that Joan ‘did not hold any belief, or make any affirmation or declaration, that smacked of heresy’, and had been falsely judged by those who followed ‘their sole desire and their private will’.

Both cases relied on firsthand testimony. In 1431, citing Joan’s interrogations, the court detailed a pattern of religious defiance that had begun in childhood. It claimed that rumours of her dancing around a ‘fairy tree’ with other children pointed to black magic and that her running away from home to seek out her ‘so-called king’ without parental approval broke the biblical commandment to honour one’s parents. Of greater importance was her rejection of divine law that forbade women to dress as men, an issue relentlessly brought up during her interrogations. Twenty-five years later, the second court argued for her innocence based on depositions by hundreds of witnesses who testified to her good moral upbringing and her religious devotion. The 1456 dossier also countered claims of Joan as a belligerent heretic who behaved like a man by portraying her as a ‘frightened’ and ‘terrified’ girl who had been ‘afflicted’ due to the psychological trauma and constant threat of physical violence. In place of a heretic, the 1456 file delivered the perfect female victim, a version of the damsel in distress of medieval romance.

Child of God

These two legal dossiers have been mined by scholars and artists intent on retelling Joan’s story, often with little thought given to their subjective nature and the purpose behind the information they chose to share. It is true that the records provide extraordinary insight into Joan’s life. Both were deeply interested in her childhood. While seeking in 1431 to establish a pattern of transgressive behaviour the record ultimately revealed Joan’s conventional upbringing. We learn that her mother taught her the daily prayer along with sewing and spinning, and that she sometimes made flower garlands. Yet while this may appear to support Joan’s innocence, it could also have accentuated her transgressive appearance.

Joan’s youth was also a topic of discussion in 1452: childhood friends and elders from her village, Domrémy, were interviewed and her religious devotion and good Christian character were highlighted. Jean Morel, an elder, remarked that her enthusiasm for attending mass was often mocked by the other children, while the widow Thiesselin recalled that instead of dancing and singing with the other girls, Joan would often run off to church. These memories played an instrumental role in final arguments in 1456 that insisted on her lifelong religious devotion.

For the two courts, testimonial evidence regarding Joan’s religious beliefs and spiritual activity served opposite ends. The first court’s lengthy interrogation regarding her claims of divine instruction is telling. Joan initially resisted speaking about the voices she heard, but she would ultimately identify St Michael, St Catherine, and St Marguerite as her spiritual guides. Eventually, she reluctantly answered questions about their physical appearance, the frequency of their visits, and the content of their counsel. Some of the questioning can appear irrelevant. During the fifth interrogation session, for example, the court pressed Joan for details. Did her voices appear with crowns? With long hair? Wearing jewellery? Joan repeatedly stated that she had no idea. As this line of questioning wore on, Joan appears to have lost her temper:

Asked whether [St Michael] was naked, she answered: ‘Do you think God can’t find him clothes?’

Asked whether he had hair, she answered: ‘Why would it be cut off?’

These retorts may inspire admiration for Joan’s quick wit under duress, but it is likely that the record cites her to highlight her disregard for her interrogators’ authority and her resistance to discussing her voices. Her discussion of their appearances constituted the first of the final 12 charges against her, in which the court was reminded of her claims that ‘she saw with her bodily eyes Saint Michael … and then Saint Catherine and Saint Margeret … but will say nothing of the rest of their bodies or clothing’.

Witnesses in the 1450s were encouraged to share evidence that endorsed Joan’s claims of being guided by God. Fellow soldiers credited military victories to her fervent prayer. Others identified as ‘miraculous’ that her comrades-in-arms agreed to avoid drink, gambling, and women while on campaign. The final sentence in 1456 called on these testimonies to support the court’s belief that Joan was ‘more worthy of admiration than condemnation’.

The two trials also diverge substantially when speaking of Joan’s military activity. In 1431 the court considered her soldiering only insofar as it highlighted transgressive behaviour. For instance, the notaries recopied a letter dictated by Joan in which she called on the English to cede Orléans because it proved her bellicose nature. The same court otherwise only gave serious attention to her failed attack on Paris in September 1429 because it served as proof that God did not support her actions.

The 1456 record, in contrast, gives ample space to her Orléans victory, and registers the depositions of more than three dozen survivors. Several soldiers testified on her behalf and, beyond miraculous evidence of God’s support, they praised her uncommon martial skills and courage. One nobleman asserted that she was as skilled as any captain and behaved as if ‘she had trained all her life for war’.

Each court presented testimony as objective fact, even as they controlled it through their questioning. In the first instance, Joan was limited to addressing the subjects broached by her interrogators. The later court proved equally selective. Witnesses were asked whether Joan conducted herself as a good Christian and the set questions encouraged them to stick to examples that endorsed medieval conventions of feminine conduct. The questionnaire from 1455 addressed to her former neighbours in Domrémy, for example, directly inquired as to whether ‘in her early childhood, she was suitably brought up in the faith and good morals’, encouraging witnesses to discuss what she did for leisure and whether ‘she confessed freely and often’. Joan’s cousin, Durand Laxart, gave a model answer:

Joan was of good disposition, pious, patient, and loved to go to the church to confess; she gave alms to the poor when she could … She loved to work, she spun, followed the plough, watched over the animals and did all that was required of women.

History’s judgement

In the subsequent centuries Joan barely figured as a historical subject. Where she did appear, her importance was downplayed, which helps explain why, by the 16th century, her story was largely the preserve of fiction. Shakespeare – using pro-Anglo-Burgundian accounts, not the trials – reimagined her as a wily figure who tried to avoid execution by falsely claiming she was pregnant. Around the same time, Béroalde de Verville wrote the first French romance dedicated to Joan in which she appeared as the daughter of a nymph raised on a magical island far from France. Later, Voltaire would make her the subject of a bestselling satire: he declared that her one true miracle was that she stayed a virgin. Joan only emerged as an important historical subject after the French Revolution when the country was desperate for heroes that were not kings.

Joan’s first modern biography, by Jules Michelet, the celebrated historian of post-Revolution France, wove elements from both trial records to reconstruct her life story. In 1853 Michelet’s Jeanne d’Arc was published as part of the Railroad Library (Bibliothèque des chemins de fer), an inexpensive series designed for train travellers. It became a bestseller and has been in print in France ever since. Michelet wrote like a novelist, frequently exercising poetic licence. His final scene of Joan burning is a vivid example. Whereas the 1431 record provides no description of this event, Michelet borrowed testimony from Joan earlier in the trial to imagine a final scene in which, defiant, she cries out her truth one final time:

Meanwhile, the flames rose … When they first seized her, the unhappy girl shrieked for holy water – this must have been the cry of fear … But soon recovering, she called only on God, on her angels and her saints. She bore witness to them: – ‘Yes, my voices were from God, my voices have not deceived me’.

Michelet brings pathos to Joan’s last moments, but does so without acknowledging that these very words had first been recorded to condemn her rather than celebrate her heroism.

Michelet’s imaginative use of the legal dossiers influenced subsequent works. The 1431 trial record was so crucial to Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc (1929) – commissioned by the Société Générale des Films to capitalise on public interest – that the film opens with a close-up of the manuscript. Subsequent intertitles of the dialogue between Joan and her judges draw heavily from the same record. Régine Pernoud, the recognised matriarch of Johannic studies, published in 1962 a new biography of Joan that depended so greatly on both legal dossiers that the French title, translated, reads as Joan of Arc as Written by Her and Her Witnesses. To bolster Joan’s testimony, Pernoud did not intervene with historical commentary as one might expect. Instead, she cited the depositions from 1456 that corroborated Joan’s claims. Later works continue this treatment. The 1456 witnesses’ versions of events have rarely been questioned.

Any attempt to reconstruct Joan’s life must acknowledge that the two main historical sources were authored by courts keen to promote a particular version of it. Both trials were concerned with her religious practices, but neither was curious about her awareness of the political conflict engulfing the kingdom. Both records are silent on who was present in the courtroom during the 1431 trial besides the interrogators. Was the first session open to the public as would have normally been the case? We know little about her appearance in court apart from her chains and that she wore men’s clothing. Had she been given the option of women’s dress? These are just some of the unanswered questions in hundreds of pages of legal records.

We must also consider how each court’s presentation of Joan influences contemporary perceptions. With her status as a heretic long abandoned, it is the second trial that has proved to be on the right side of history. When pronouncing its final sentence in 1456, that court ordered the reconsecration of the site in Rouen where Joan had been executed and the erection of a cross in her memory. Yet their favouring of the ultimate scene of her victimhood was a telling choice: rather than Orléans and her first military victory, the court concerned itself with changing Joan’s status from heretic to victim.

Deborah McGrady is Professor of French and Director of Medieval Studies at the University of Virginia, and author of Joan of Arc: The Life of a French Cultural Icon (Boydell Press, 2025).