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The trial of Joan of Arc (or Jehanne Darc), a French military leader under Charles VII during the Hundred Years' War, began on 9 January 1431 and ended with her execution on 30 May.
Joan was captured during the siege of Compiègne in 1430 by Burgundian forces and subsequently sold to their English allies. She was prosecuted by a pro-English ecclesiastical court at Rouen in 1431.
The court found her guilty of heresy and she was burned at the stake. The verdict was later nullified at a rehabilitation trial, which was overseen by the inquisitor general Jean Bréhal in 1456. Considered a French national heroine, Joan was declared a saint by the Catholic Church in 1920.
In the spring of 1429, acting in obedience to what she said was the command of God, Joan of Arc inspired the Dauphin's armies in a series of military victories which included the lifting of the siege of Orléans and defeat of a large English army at the Battle of Patay, reversing the course of the Hundred Years' War. The Dauphin was crowned a few months later at Reims as Charles VII of France.
Joan, having completed her mission, prepared to return home to Domremy. Before she could go, she was asked by the newly crowned king to continue fighting for France, and she agreed. What was a string of victories before became a series of military setbacks that eventually led to her capture. First, there was a reversal before the gates of Paris in September of that same year. Then, she was captured in May 1430 in the siege of Compiègne by the Burgundian faction led by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, who was allied with the English.
The Burgundians delivered her to the English in exchange for 10,000 francs. King Charles did not attempt to retrieve her. In December of that same year, she was transferred to Rouen, the military headquarters and administrative capital in France of Henry VI of England, and placed on trial for heresy before a Church court headed by pro-English Bishop Pierre Cauchon, in efforts to illegitimize King Charles's crowning.
The ordinary, or regular, trial of Joan began on March 26, the day after Palm Sunday, with the drawing up of the 70 articles, later summarized in a 12 article indictment. If Joan refused to answer them, she would have been said to have admitted them. On the following day, the articles were read aloud and Joan was questioned in French. The next two days, the extensive list of charges were then read to her in French. The Ordinary Trial concluded on May 24 with the abjuration.
On May 24, Joan was taken to a scaffold set up in the cemetery next to Saint-Ouen Church, and told that she would be burned immediately unless she signed a document renouncing her visions and agreeing to stop wearing soldiers' clothing. Faced with immediate execution, she agreed to give up the clothing and sign the abjuration document.
On May 28, Joan recanted her previous abjuration, and donned men's apparel once more. When asked, she admitted to listening to her voices again. She was accused of relapsing into heresy, and sentenced to be executed. Only those who had relapsed -that is, those who having once abjured their errors returned to them-could be condemned to death by a tribunal of the Inquisition and delivered for death.
On May 30, 1431, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake at the Old Marketplace in Rouen.
Eighteen years after Joan of Arc's execution, an ecclesiastical tribunal initiated a retrial at the request of Charles VII. The tribunal declared that the judgement of the original trial was not valid because it was biased and had not followed proper procedure.
On May 16, 1920, Pope Benedict XV canonized Joan of Arc as a Saint.
She is the patroness saint of France, women, prisoners, and soldiers.
More information: Patrimoine Histoire
I do not know if you are;
but take good heed not to judge me ill,
because you would put yourself in great peril.
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