Joan of Arc

"Jeanne d'Arc" and "Jehanne" redirect here. For other uses, see Jeanne d'Arc (disambiguation), Joan of Arc (disambiguation), and Jehanne (disambiguation).

Saint Joan of Arc
Historiated initial depicting Joan of Arc (dated to the second half of the 15th century, Archives Nationales, Paris, AE II 2490)
Virgin
Born	c. 1412 Domrémy, Duchy of Bar, Kingdom of France
Died	30 May 1431 (c. age 19) Rouen, Normandy (then under English rule)
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church Anglican Communion
Beatified	18 April 1909 by Pope Pius X
Canonized	16 May 1920 by Pope Benedict XV
Feast	30 May
Patronage	France Signature.

Joan of Arc (French: Jeanne d'Arc pronounced [ʒan daʁk]; c. 1412 – 30 May 1431) is a patron saint of France, honored as a defender of the French nation for her role in the siege of Orléans and her insistence on the coronation of Charles VII of France during the Hundred Years' War. Stating that she was acting under divine guidance, she became a military leader who transcended gender roles and gained recognition as a savior of France.

Joan was born to a propertied peasant family at Domrémy in northeast France. In 1428, she requested to be taken to Charles, later testifying that she was guided by visions from the archangel Michael, Saint Margaret, and Saint Catherine to help him save France from English domination.

Convinced of her devotion and purity, Charles sent Joan, who was about seventeen years old, to the siege of Orléans as part of a relief army. She arrived at the city in April 1429, wielding her banner and bringing hope to the demoralized French army. Nine days after her arrival, the English abandoned the siege. Joan encouraged the French to aggressively pursue the English during the Loire Campaign, which culminated in another decisive victory at Patay, opening the way for the French army to advance on Reims unopposed, where Charles was crowned as the King of France with Joan at his side. These victories boosted French morale, paving the way for their final triumph in the Hundred Years' War several decades later.

After Charles's coronation, Joan participated in the unsuccessful siege of Paris in September 1429 and the failed siege of La Charité in November. Her role in these defeats reduced the court's faith in her. In early 1430, Joan organized a company of volunteers to relieve Compiègne, which had been besieged by the Burgundians—French allies of the English. She was captured by Burgundian troops on 23 May. After trying unsuccessfully to escape, she was handed to the English in November. She was put on trial by Bishop Pierre Cauchon on accusations of heresy, which included blaspheming by wearing men's clothes, acting upon visions that were demonic, and refusing to submit her words and deeds to the judgment of the church. She was declared guilty and burned at the stake on 30 May 1431, aged about nineteen.

In 1456, an inquisitorial court reinvestigated Joan's trial and overturned the verdict, declaring that it was tainted by deceit and procedural errors. Joan has been revered as a martyr and viewed as an obedient daughter of the Roman Catholic Church, an early feminist, and a symbol of freedom and independence. After the French Revolution, she became a national symbol of France. In 1920, Joan of Arc was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church and, two years later, was declared one of the patron saints of France. She is portrayed in numerous cultural works, including literature, paintings, sculptures, and music.

Name

Joan of Arc's name was written in a variety of ways. Before the sixteenth century, there was no standard spelling of her name; her last name was usually spelled "Darc" without an apostrophe, but included variants like "Tarc", "Dart" or "Day". At Joan's trial, her father's name was written as "Tart". In Charles VII's letter granting her a coat of arms in 1429, she was called "Jeanne d'Ay de Domrémy". Joan may never have heard herself called "Jeanne d'Arc". The first written record of her being called by this name is in 1455, 24 years after her death. Joan was not taught to read and write in her childhood. Her letters were dictated. She may have eventually learned to sign her name, as some of her letters are signed. She may even have learned to read. In her letters, Joan referred to herself as "Jeanne la Pucelle" (Joan the Maiden) or simply as "la Pucelle" (the Maiden), emphasizing her virginity, and she signed her name "Jehanne". In the sixteenth century, she became known as the "Maid of Orleans".

Birth and historical background

France, 1429

---

  Controlled by Henry VI of England

  Controlled by Philip III of Burgundy

  Controlled by Charles VII of France

Around 1412, Joan of Arc was born in Domrémy, a small village in the Meuse valley, which is now in the Vosges department in the historical region of Lorraine, France. Her date of birth is unknown, and Joan's statements about her age were vague. Her parents were Jacques d'Arc and Isabelle Romée. Joan had three brothers and a sister. Her father was a peasant farmer with about 50 acres (20 ha) of land, and he supplemented the family income as a village official, collecting taxes and heading the local watch.

Joan was born during the Hundred Years' War, a conflict between the kingdoms of England and France that had begun in 1337 over the status of English territories in France and English claims to the French throne. Nearly all the fighting had taken place in France, devastating its economy. At the time of Joan's birth, France was divided politically. The French king Charles VI had recurring bouts of mental illness and was often unable to rule; his brother Louis, Duke of Orléans, and his cousin John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, quarreled over the regency of France. In 1407 the Duke of Burgundy ordered the assassination of the Duke of Orléans, beginning a civil war. Charles of Orléans succeeded his father as duke at the age of thirteen, and was placed in the custody of Bernard, Count of Armagnac; his supporters became known as "Armagnacs" while supporters of the Duke of Burgundy became known as "Burgundians". The future French king Charles VII had assumed the title of Dauphin (heir to the throne) after the deaths of his four older brothers, and was associated with the Armagnacs.

Henry V of England exploited France's internal divisions when he invaded the kingdom in 1415. The Burgundians took Paris in 1418. In 1419, the Dauphin offered a truce to negotiate peace with the Duke of Burgundy, but the duke was assassinated by Charles's Armagnac partisans during the negotiations. The new duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good, entered into an alliance with the English. Charles VI accused the Dauphin of murdering the Duke of Burgundy and declared him unfit to inherit the French throne. During a period of his illness, Charles VI's wife, Isabeau of Bavaria, stood in for him and signed the Treaty of Troyes, which gave their daughter Catherine of Valois in marriage to Henry V, granted the succession of the French throne to their heirs, and effectively disinherited the Dauphin. This gave rise to rumors that the Dauphin was not King Charles VI's son, but the offspring of an adulterous affair between Isabeau and the murdered duke of Orléans. In 1422, Henry V and Charles VI died within two months of each other; the 9-month-old Henry VI of England was the nominal heir of the Anglo-French dual monarchy as agreed in the treaty, but the Dauphin also claimed the French throne.

Early life

Earliest extant representation of Joan of Arc, drawing by Clément de Fauquembergue (May 1429, French National Archives)

In her youth, Joan did household chores, spun wool, helped her father in the fields and looked after their animals. Her mother provided Joan's religious education. Much of Domrémy lay in the Duchy of Bar, whose precise feudal status was unclear; though surrounded by pro-Burgundian lands, its people were loyal to the Armagnac cause. By 1419, the war had affected the area. In 1425, Domrémy was attacked and the village's cattle were stolen. This led to a sentiment among villagers that the English must be expelled from France to achieve peace. Joan had her first vision after this raid.

Joan later testified that when she was thirteen, around 1425, a figure she identified as Saint Michael surrounded by angels appeared to her in the garden. After the vision, she reported weeping because she wanted them to take her with them. Throughout her life, she had visions of St. Michael, a patron saint of the Domrémy area who was seen as a defender of France. She stated that she had these visions frequently and that she often had them when the church bells were rung. Her visions also included St. Margaret and St. Catherine; although Joan never specified, they were probably Margaret of Antioch and Catherine of Alexandria—those most known in the area. Both were known as virgin saints who strove against powerful enemies, were tortured and martyred for their beliefs, and preserved their virtue to the end of their lives. Joan testified that she swore a vow of virginity to these voices. When a young man from her village alleged that she had broken a promise of marriage, Joan stated that she had made him no promises; his case was dismissed by an ecclesiastical court.

Henry V's brothers, John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford and Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester had continued the English conquest of France. Most of northern France, Paris, and parts of southwestern France were under Anglo-Burgundian control. The Burgundians controlled Reims, the traditional site for the coronation of French kings; Charles had not yet been crowned, and doing so at Reims would help legitimize his claim to the throne. At the beginning of 1428, the English had been besieging Orléans and had nearly isolated it from the rest of Charles's territory by capturing many of the smaller bridge towns on the Loire River. Orléans was strategically important as the last obstacle to an assault on the remainder of Charles's territory. According to Joan's later testimony, it was around this period that her visions told her to leave Domrémy to help the Dauphin Charles.

During Joan's youth, there were two prophecies circulating in the French countryside. One promised that a maid from the borderlands of Lorraine would come forth to work miracles, and the other was that France had been lost by a woman, but would be restored by a virgin. Joan told her uncle Durand Laxart she was the maid in the prophecy. In May 1428, she asked him to take her to the nearby town of Vaucouleurs, where she petitioned the garrison commander, Robert de Baudricourt, for an armed escort to the Armagnac court at Chinon. Baudricourt sarcastically refused and sent her home. In July, Domrémy was raided by Burgundian forces which set fire to the town, destroyed its crops, and forced Joan, her family and the other townspeople to flee. She returned to Vaucouleurs in January 1429. Her petition was refused again, but by this time, she had gained the support of two of Baudricourt's soldiers, Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy. Meanwhile, she was summoned to Nancy under safe conduct by Charles II, Duke of Lorraine, who had heard about Joan during her stay at Vaucouleurs. The duke was ill and thought she might have supernatural powers that could cure him. She offered no cures, but reprimanded him for living with his mistress.

Baudricourt agreed to a third meeting with Joan in February, around the time the English captured an Armagnac relief convoy for Orléans at the Battle of the Herrings. Their conversations, along with Metz and Poulengy's support, convinced Baudricourt to allow her to go to Chinon for an audience with the Dauphin. Joan traveled with an escort of six soldiers. Before leaving, Joan put on men's clothes, which were provided by her escorts and the people of Vaucouleurs. She continued to wear men's clothes for the remainder of her life.

Chinon

Charles VII of France by Jean Fouquet (c. 1444, Louvre, Paris)

Charles VII met Joan for the first time at the Royal Court in Chinon in late February or early March 1429, when she was seventeen and he was twenty-six. She told him that she had come to raise the siege of Orléans and to lead him to Reims for his coronation. They had a private exchange that made a strong impression on Charles; Jean Pasquerel, Joan's confessor, later testified that Joan told him she had reassured the Dauphin that he was Charles VI's son and legitimate king.

Charles and his council needed more assurance, and sent Joan to Poitiers to be examined by a council of theologians, who declared that she was a good person and a good Catholic. They did not render a decision on the source of Joan's inspiration, but agreed that sending her to Orléans could be useful to the king and would test if her inspiration was of divine origin. Joan was then sent to Tours to be physically examined by women directed by Charles's mother-in-law Yolande of Aragon, who verified her virginity. This was to establish if she could indeed be the prophesied virgin savior of France, to show the purity of her devotion, and to ensure she had not consorted with the Devil.

The dauphin, reassured by the results of these tests, commissioned plate armor for her. She designed her own banner, and had a sword brought to her from under the altar in the church at Sainte-Catherine-de-Fierbois. Around this time she began calling herself "Joan the Maiden", emphasizing her virginity as a sign of her mission.

Before Joan's arrival at Chinon, the Armagnac strategic situation was bad but not hopeless. The Armagnac forces were prepared to survive a prolonged siege at Orléans, the Burgundians had recently withdrawn from the siege due to disagreements about territory, and the English were debating whether to continue. Nonetheless, after almost a century of war, the Armagnacs were demoralized. Once Joan joined the Dauphin's cause, her personality began to raise their spirits inspiring devotion and the hope of divine assistance. Her belief in the divine origin of her mission turned the longstanding Anglo-French conflict over inheritance into a religious war. Before beginning the journey to Orléans, Joan dictated a letter to the Duke of Bedford warning him that she was sent by God to drive him out of France.

Military campaigns

Orléans

Joan of Arc enters Orléans by Jean-Jacques Scherrer (1887, Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Orléans)

In the last week of April 1429, Joan set out from Blois as part of an army laden with supplies for the relief of Orléans. She arrived there on 29 April and met the commander Jean de Dunois. Orléans was not completely cut off, and Dunois got her into the city, where she was greeted enthusiastically. Joan was initially treated as a figurehead to raise morale, flying her banner on the battlefield. She was not given any formal command or included in military councils, but quickly gained the support of the Armagnac troops. She always seemed to be present where the fighting was most intense, she frequently stayed with the front ranks, and she gave them a sense she was fighting for their salvation. Armagnac commanders would sometimes accept the advice she gave them, such as deciding what position to attack, when to continue an assault, and how to place artillery.

On 4 May, the Armagnacs went on the offensive, attacking the outlying bastille de Saint-Loup (fortress of Saint Loup). Once Joan learned of the attack, she rode out with her banner to the site of the battle, a mile east of Orléans. She arrived as the Armagnac soldiers were retreating after a failed assault. Her appearance rallied the soldiers, who attacked again and took the fortress. On 5 May, no combat occurred since it was Ascension Thursday, a feast day. She dictated another letter to the English warning them to leave France, and had it tied to a bolt which was fired by a crossbowman.

The Armagnacs resumed their offensive on 6 May, capturing Saint-Jean-le-Blanc, which the English had deserted. The Armagnac commanders wanted to stop, but Joan encouraged them to launch an assault on les Augustins, an English fortress built around a monastery. After its capture, the Armagnac commanders wanted to consolidate their gains, but Joan again argued for continuing the offensive. On the morning of 7 May, the Armagnacs attacked the main English stronghold, les Tourelles. Joan was wounded by an arrow between the neck and shoulder while holding her banner in the trench on the south bank of the river, but later returned to encourage the final assault that took the fortress. The English retreated from Orléans on 8 May, ending the siege.

At Chinon, Joan had declared that she was sent by God. At Poitiers, when she was asked to show a sign demonstrating this claim, she replied that it would be given if she were brought to Orléans. The lifting of the siege was interpreted by many people to be that sign. Prominent clergy such as Jacques Gélu, Archbishop of Embrun, and the theologian Jean Gerson wrote treatises in support of Joan after this victory. In contrast, the English saw the ability of this peasant girl to defeat their armies as proof she was possessed by the Devil.

Loire Campaign

Joan of Arc
Allegiance	Kingdom of France
Conflict	Hundred Years' War
Major battles and journeys 200km 125miles Rouen Chinon Domrémy 12 9 8 Paris 7 Reims 6 5 4 3 2 Orléans 1      Joan's journey to Chinon   Orléans and Loire Campaign   March to Reims   Reims and the Siege of Paris   Campaign against Perrinet Gressard   Compiègne

After the success at Orléans, Joan insisted that the Armagnac forces should advance promptly toward Reims to crown the Dauphin. Charles allowed her to accompany the army under the command of John II, Duke of Alençon, who collaboratively worked with Joan and regularly heeded her advice. Before advancing toward Reims, the Armagnacs needed to recapture the bridge towns along the Loire: Jargeau, Meung-sur-Loire, and Beaugency. This would clear the way for Charles and his entourage, who would have to cross the Loire near Orléans to get from Chinon to Reims.

The campaign to clear the Loire towns began on 11 June when the Armagnac forces led by Alençon and Joan arrived at Jargeau and forced the English to withdraw inside the town's walls. Joan sent a message to the English to surrender; they refused and she advocated for a direct assault on the walls the next day. By the end of the day, the town was taken. The Armagnac took few prisoners and many of the English who surrendered were killed. During this campaign, Joan continued to serve in the thick of battle. She began scaling a siege ladder with her banner in hand but before she could climb the wall, she was struck by a stone which split her helmet.

Alençon and Joan's army advanced on Meung-sur-Loire. On 15 June, they took control of the town's bridge, and the English garrison withdrew to a castle on the Loire's north bank. Most of the army continued on the south bank of the Loire to besiege the castle at Beaugency.

Meanwhile, the English army from Paris under the command of Sir John Fastolf had linked up with the garrison in Meung and traveled along the north bank of the Loire to relieve Beaugency. Unaware of this, the English garrison at Beaugency surrendered on 18 June. The main English army retreated toward Paris; Joan urged the Armagnacs to pursue them, and the two armies clashed at the Battle of Patay later that day. The English had prepared their forces to ambush an Armagnac attack with hidden archers, but the Armagnac vanguard detected and scattered them. A rout ensued that decimated the English army. Fastolf escaped with a small band of soldiers, but many of the English leaders were captured. Joan arrived at the battlefield too late to participate in the decisive action, but her encouragement to pursue the English had made the victory possible.

Coronation and siege of Paris

Coronation of Charles VII in Philippe Contamine, Charles VII : une vie, une politique; Joan of Arc stands holding a banner of France to his right. Unknown author (15th century).

After the destruction of the English army at Patay, some Armagnac leaders argued for an invasion of English-held Normandy, but Joan remained insistent that Charles must be crowned. The Dauphin agreed, and the army left Gien on 29 June to march on Reims. The advance was nearly unopposed. The Burgundian-held town of Auxerre surrendered on 3 July after three days of negotiations, and other towns in the army's path returned to Armagnac allegiance without resistance. Troyes, which had a small garrison of English and Burgundian troops, was the only one to resist. After four days of negotiation, Joan ordered the soldiers to fill the city's moat with wood and directed the placement of artillery. Fearing an assault, Troyes negotiated a surrender.

Reims opened its gates on 16 July 1429. Charles, Joan, and the army entered in the evening, and Charles's consecration took place the following morning. Joan was given a place of honor at the ceremony, and announced that God's will had been fulfilled.

After the consecration, the royal court negotiated a truce of fifteen days with the Duke of Burgundy, who promised he would try to arrange the transfer of Paris to the Armagnacs while continuing negotiations for a definitive peace. At the end of the truce, Burgundy reneged on his promise. Joan and the Duke of Alençon favored a quick march on Paris, but divisions in Charles's court and continued peace negotiations with Burgundy led to a slow advance.

As the Armagnac army approached Paris, many of the towns along the way surrendered without a fight. On 15 August, the English forces under the Duke of Bedford confronted the Armagnacs near Montépilloy in a fortified position that the Armagnac commanders thought was too strong to assault. Joan rode out in front of the English positions to try to provoke them to attack. They refused, resulting in a standoff. The English retreated the following day. The Armagnacs continued their advance and launched an assault on Paris on 8 September. During the fighting, Joan was wounded in the leg by a crossbow bolt. She remained in a trench beneath the city walls until she was rescued after nightfall. The Armagnacs had suffered 1,500 casualties. The following morning, Charles ordered an end to the assault. Joan was displeased and argued that the attack should be continued. She and Alençon had made fresh plans to attack Paris, but Charles dismantled a bridge approaching Paris that was necessary for the attack and the Armagnac army had to retreat.

After the defeat at Paris, Joan's role in the French court diminished. Her aggressive independence did not agree with the court's emphasis on finding a diplomatic solution with Burgundy, and her role in the defeat at Paris reduced the court's faith in her. After the defeat, scholars at the University of Paris argued that she failed to take Paris because her inspiration was not divine. In September, Charles disbanded the army, and Joan was not allowed to work with the Duke of Alençon again.

Campaign against Perrinet Gressart

Miniature depicting Jeanne d'Arc from The Lives of Famous Women, by Jean Pichore (1506, Musée Dobrée, Nantes, France)

In October, Joan was sent as part of a force to attack the territory of Perrinet Gressart, a mercenary who had served the Burgundians and English. The army besieged Saint-Pierre-le-Moûtier, which fell after Joan encouraged a direct assault on 4 November. The army then tried unsuccessfully to take La-Charité-sur-Loire in November and December and had to abandon their artillery during the retreat. This defeat further diminished Joan's reputation.

Joan returned to court at the end of December, where she learned that she and her family had been ennobled by Charles as a reward for her services to him and the kingdom. Before the September attack on Paris, Charles had negotiated a four-month truce with the Burgundians, which was extended until Easter 1430. During this truce, the French court had no need for Joan.

Siege of Compiègne and capture

The Duke of Burgundy began to reclaim towns which had been ceded to him by treaty but had not submitted to him. Compiègne was one such town of many in areas which the Armagnacs had recaptured over the previous few months. Joan set out with a company of volunteers at the end of March 1430 to relieve the town, which was under siege. This expedition did not have the explicit permission of Charles, who was still observing the truce. Some writers suggest that Joan's expedition to Compiègne without documented permission from the court was a desperate and treasonable action, but others have argued that she could not have launched the expedition without the financial support of the court.

In April, Joan arrived at Melun, which had expelled its Burgundian garrison. As Joan advanced, her force grew as other commanders joined her. Joan's troops advanced to Lagny-sur-Marne and defeated an Anglo-Burgundian force commanded by the mercenary Franquet d'Arras who was captured. Typically, he would have been ransomed or exchanged by the capturing force, but Joan allowed the townspeople to execute him after a trial.

Mural Joan captured by the Burgundians at Compiègne by Jules-Eugène Lenepveu (c. 1886–1890, Panthéon, Paris)

Joan reached Compiègne on 14 May. After defensive forays against the Burgundian besiegers, she was forced to disband the majority of the army because it had become too difficult for the surrounding countryside to support. Joan and about 400 of her remaining soldiers entered the town.

On 23 May 1430, Joan accompanied an Armagnac force which sortied from Compiègne to attack the Burgundian camp at Margny, northeast of the town. The attack failed, and Joan was captured; She agreed to surrender to a pro-Burgundian nobleman named Lyonnel de Wandomme, a member of Jean de Luxembourg's contingent. who quickly moved her to his castle at Beaulieu-les-Fontaines near Noyes. After her first attempt to escape, she was transferred to Beaurevoir Castle. She made another escape attempt while there, jumping from a window of a 70-foot (21 m) tower and landing in a dry moat; she was injured but survived. In November, she was moved to the Burgundian town of Arras.

The English and Burgundians rejoiced that Joan had been removed as a military threat. The English negotiated with their Burgundian allies to pay Joan's ransom and transfer her to their custody. Bishop Pierre Cauchon of Beauvais, a partisan supporter of the Duke of Burgundy and the English crown, played a prominent part in these negotiations, which were completed in November. The final agreement called for the English to pay 10,000 livres tournois to obtain her from Luxembourg. After the English paid the ransom, they moved Joan to Rouen, their main headquarters in France. There is no evidence that Charles tried to save Joan once she was transferred to the English.

Trials and execution

Trial

Main article: Trial of Joan of Arc

The Trial of Joan of Arc, by Louis Maurice Boutet de Monvel (1909–1910, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.)

Joan was put on trial for heresy in Rouen on 9 January 1431. She was accused of having blasphemed by wearing men's clothes, of acting upon visions that were demonic, and of refusing to submit her words and deeds to the church because she claimed she would be judged by God alone. Joan's captors downplayed the secular aspects of her trial by submitting her judgment to an ecclesiastical court, but the trial was politically motivated. Joan testified that her visions had instructed her to defeat the English and crown Charles, and her success was argued to be evidence she was acting on behalf of God. If unchallenged, her testimony would invalidate the English claim to the rule of France and undermine the University of Paris, which supported the dual monarchy ruled by an English king.

The verdict was a foregone conclusion. Joan's guilt could be used to compromise Charles's claims to legitimacy by showing that he had been consecrated by the act of a heretic. Cauchon served as the ordinary judge of the trial. The English subsidized the trial, including payments to Cauchon and Jean Le Maître, who represented the Inquisitor of France. All but 8 of the 131 clergy who participated in the trial were French and two thirds were associated with the University of Paris, but most were pro-Burgundian and pro-English.

Miniature of Pierre Cauchon presiding at Joan of Arc's trial, unknown author (15th century, Bibliothèque nationale de France)

Cauchon attempted to follow correct inquisitorial procedure, but the trial had many irregularities. Joan should have been in the hands of the church during the trial and guarded by women, but instead was imprisoned by the English and guarded by male soldiers under the command of the Duke of Bedford. Contrary to canon law, Cauchon had not established Joan's infamy before proceeding with the trial. Joan was not read the charges against her until well after her interrogations began. The procedures were below inquisitorial standards, subjecting Joan to lengthy interrogations without legal counsel. One of the trial clerics stepped down because he felt the testimony was coerced and its intention was to entrap Joan; another challenged Cauchon's right to judge the trial and was jailed. There is evidence that the trial records were falsified.

During the trial, Joan showed great control. She induced her interrogators to ask questions sequentially rather than simultaneously, refer back to their records when appropriate, and end the sessions when she requested. Witnesses at the trial were impressed by her prudence when answering questions. For example, in one exchange she was asked if she knew she was in God's grace. The question was meant as a scholarly trap, as church doctrine held that nobody could be certain of being in God's grace. If she answered positively, she would have been charged with heresy; if negatively, she would have confessed her own guilt. Joan avoided the trap by stating that if she was not in God's grace, she hoped God would put her there, and if she was in God's grace then she hoped she would remain so. One of the court notaries at her trial later testified that the interrogators were stunned by her answer. To convince her to submit, Joan was shown the instruments of torture. When she refused to be intimidated, Cauchon met with about a dozen assessors (clerical jurors) to vote on whether she should be tortured. The majority decided against it.

In early May, Cauchon asked the University of Paris to deliberate on twelve articles summarizing the accusation of heresy. The university approved the charges. On 23 May, Joan was formally admonished by the court. The next day, she was taken out to the churchyard of the abbey of Saint-Ouen for public condemnation. As Cauchon began to read Joan's sentence, she agreed to submit and signed an abjuration, which included an agreement that she would not bear arms or wear men's clothing.

Execution

Public heresy was a capital crime, in which an unrepentant or relapsed heretic could be given over to the judgment of the secular courts and punished by death. Having signed the abjuration, Joan was no longer an unrepentant heretic, but could be executed if convicted of relapsing into heresy.

As part of her abjuration, Joan was required to renounce wearing men's clothes. She exchanged her clothes for a woman's dress and allowed her head to be shaved. She was returned to her cell and kept in chains instead of being transferred to an ecclesiastical prison. Witnesses at the rehabilitation trial stated that Joan was subjected to mistreatment and rape attempts, including one by an English noble, and that guards placed men's clothes in her cell, forcing her to wear them. Cauchon was notified that Joan had resumed wearing male clothing. He sent clerics to admonish her to remain in submission, but the English prevented them from visiting her.

Miniature of Joan's Execution from The Vigils of King Charles VII, anonymous (c. 1484, Bibliothèque nationale de France)

On 28 May, Cauchon went to Joan's cell, along with several other clerics. According to the trial record, Joan said that she had gone back to wearing men's clothes because it was more fitting that she dress like a man while being held with male guards, and that the judges had broken their promise to let her go to mass and to release her from her chains. She stated that if they fulfilled their promises and placed her in a decent prison, she would be obedient. When Cauchon asked about her visions, Joan stated that the voices had blamed her for abjuring out of fear, and that she would not deny them again. As Joan's abjuration had required her to deny her visions, this was sufficient to convict her of relapsing into heresy and to condemn her to death. The next day, forty-two assessors were summoned to decide Joan's fate. Two recommended that she be abandoned to the secular courts immediately; the rest recommended that the abjuration be read to her again and explained. In the end, they voted unanimously that Joan was a relapsed heretic, and should be abandoned to the secular power, the English, for punishment.

At about the age of nineteen, Joan was executed on 30 May 1431. In the morning, she was allowed to receive the sacraments despite court process requiring they be denied to heretics. She was then taken to Rouen's Vieux-Marché (Old Marketplace), where she was publicly read her sentence of condemnation. At this point, she should have been turned over to the appropriate authority, the bailiff of Rouen, for secular sentencing, but instead was delivered directly to the English and tied to a tall plastered pillar for execution by burning. She asked to view a cross as she died, and was given one an English soldier made from a stick, which she kissed and placed next to her chest. A processional crucifix was fetched from the church of Saint-Saveur. She embraced it before her hands were bound, and it was held before her eyes during her execution. After her death, her remains were thrown into the Seine River.

Aftermath and rehabilitation trial

Main article: Rehabilitation trial of Joan of Arc

Joan in the foreground, facing figures from her rehabilitation trial in the Monument Commemorating the Rehabilitation of Joan of Arc, a plaster work by Émile Pinchon (1909, Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Noyon)

The military situation was not changed by Joan's execution. Her triumphs had raised Armagnac morale, and the English were not able to regain momentum. Charles remained king of France, despite a rival coronation held for the ten-year-old Henry VI of England at Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris in 1431. In 1435, the Burgundians signed the Treaty of Arras, abandoning their alliance with England. Twenty-two years after Joan's death, the war ended with a French victory at the Battle of Castillon in 1453, and the English were expelled from all of France except Calais.

Joan's execution created a political liability for Charles, implying that his consecration as the king of France had been achieved through the actions of a heretic. On 15 February 1450, a few months after he regained Rouen, Charles ordered Guillaume Bouillé, a theologian and former rector of the University of Paris, to open an inquest. In a brief investigation, Bouillé interviewed seven witnesses of Joan's trial and concluded that the judgment of Joan as a heretic was arbitrary. She had been a prisoner of war treated as a political prisoner, and was put to death without basis. Bouillé's report could not overturn the verdict but it opened the way for the later retrial.

In 1452 a second inquest into Joan's trial was opened by Cardinal Guillaume d'Estouteville, papal legate and relative of Charles, and Jean Bréhal, the recently-appointed Inquisitor of France, who interviewed about 20 witnesses. The inquest was guided by 27 articles describing how Joan's trial had been biased. Immediately after the inquest, d'Estouteville went to Orléans on 9 June and granted an indulgence to those who participated in the ceremonies in Joan's honor on 8 May commemorating the lifting of the siege.

For the next two years d'Estouteville and Bréhal worked on the case. Bréhal forwarded a petition from Joan's mother, Isabelle, and Joan's two brothers Jean and Pierre, to Pope Nicholas V in 1454. Bréhal submitted a summary of his findings to theologians and lawyers in France and Italy, as well as a professor at the University of Vienna, most of whom gave opinions favorable to Joan. After Nicholas V died in early 1455, the new pope Callixtus III gave permission for a rehabilitation trial, and appointed three commissioners to oversee the process: Jean Juvénal des Ursins, archbishop of Reims; Guillaume Chartier, bishop of Paris; and Richard Olivier de Longueil, bishop of Coutances. They chose Bréhal as Inquisitor.

The rehabilitation trial began on 7 November 1455 at Notre Dame Cathedral when Joan's mother publicly delivered a formal request for her daughter's rehabilitation, and ended on 7 July 1456 at Rouen Cathedral, having heard from about 115 witnesses. The court found that the original trial was unjust and deceitful; Joan's abjuration, execution and their consequences were nullified. In his summary of the trial, Bréhal suggested that Cauchon and the assessors who supported him might be guilty of malice and heresy. To emphasize the court's decision, a copy of the Articles of Accusation was formally torn up. The court ordered that a cross should be erected on the site of Joan's execution.

Visions

Jeanne d'Arc écoutant les voix by Eugène Thirion (1876, Notre Dame Church, Ville de Chatou)

Joan's visions played an important role in her condemnation, and her admission that she had returned to heeding them led to her execution. Theologians of the era believed that visions could have a supernatural source. The assessors at her trial focused on determining the specific source of Joan's visions, using an ecclesiastical form of discretio spirituum (discernment of spirits). Because she was accused of heresy, they sought to show that her visions were false. The rehabilitation trial nullified Joan's sentence, but did not declare her visions authentic. In 1894 Pope Leo XIII pronounced that Joan's mission was divinely inspired, and by the end of her canonization trial in 1903, her visions were seen as part of that mission.

Contemporary scholars have suggested neurological and psychiatric causes for her visions. Her visions have been described as hallucinations arising from epilepsy or a temporal lobe tuberculoma. Others have implicated ergot poisoning, schizophrenia, and delusional disorder. One of the Promoters of the Faith at her 1903 canonization trial suggested that her visions may have been manifestations of hysteria. It has been argued that Joan's visions were a product of creative psychopathy induced by her early childhood rearing or that they were partly produced by her interrogation during her trial. However, trial records biased to show Joan's guilt are unlikely to provide descriptions of symptoms needed to support a medical diagnosis.

Joan's firm belief in the divinity of her visions strengthened her confidence, enabled her to trust herself, and gave her hope during her capture and trial.

Clothing

Joan's cross-dressing was the topic of five of the articles of accusation against her during the trial. In the view of the assessors, it was the emblem of her heresy. Her final condemnation began when she was found to have resumed wearing men's clothes, which was taken as a sign that she had relapsed by obeying her visions again.

Jeanne d'Arc, a gilded bronze statue by Emmanuel Frémiet (1874, Place des Pyramides

From the time of her journey to Chinon to her abjuration, Joan usually wore men's clothes and cropped her hair in a male fashion. When she left Vaucouleurs to see the Dauphin in Chinon, Joan was said to have worn a black doublet, a black tunic, and a short black cap. By the time she was captured, she had acquired more elaborate outfits. At her trial, she was accused of wearing breeches, a mantle, a coat of mail, a doublet, hose joined to the doublet with twenty laces, tight boots, spurs, a breastplate, buskins, a sword, a dagger, and a lance. She was also described as wearing a golden surcoat over her armor, as well as of wearing furs, and sumptuous riding habits made of precious cloth.

During the trial proceedings, Joan is not recorded as giving a practical reason why she cross-dressed. She stated that it was her own choice to wear men's clothes, and that she did so not at the request of men but by the command of God and his angels. She stated she would return to wearing women's clothes when she fulfilled her calling.

Although Joan's cross-dressing was used to justify her execution, the church's position on it was not clear. In general, it was seen as a sin, but there was no agreement about its severity. Thomas Aquinas stated that a woman may wear a man's clothes to hide herself from enemies or if no other clothes were available, and Joan did both, wearing them in enemy territory to get to Chinon, and in her prison cell after her abjuration when her dress was taken from her. Soon after the siege of Orléans was lifted, Jean Gerson said that Joan's male clothes and haircut were appropriate for her calling, as she was a warrior and men's clothes were more practical.

Cross-dressing may have helped her maintain her virginity by deterring rape and signaling her unavailability as a sexual object; scholars have stated that when she was imprisoned, wearing men's clothes would have only been a minor deterrent to rape as she was shackled most of the time. For most of her active life, Joan did not cross-dress to hide her gender. Rather, it may have functioned to emphasize her unique identity as La Pucelle, a model of virtue that transcends gender roles and inspires people.

Legacy

Joan is one of the most studied people of the Middle Ages, partly because her two trials provided a wealth of documents. Her image, changing over time, has included being the savior of France, an obedient daughter of the Roman Catholic Church, an early feminist, and a symbol of freedom and independence.

Military leader and symbol of France

Joan of Arc, statue by Denis Foyatier (1855, Orléans)

Joan's reputation as a military leader who helped drive the English from France began to form before her death. Just after Charles's coronation, Christine de Pizan wrote the poem Ditié de Jehanne D'Arc, celebrating Joan as a supporter of Charles sent by Divine Providence; the poem captured the "surge of optimism" and "sense of wonder and gratitude" that "swept through the whole of the French" after the triumph at Orléans, according to Kennedy and Varty (1977). As early as 1429, Orléans began holding a celebration in honor of the raising of the siege on 8 May.

After Joan's execution, her role in the Orléans victory encouraged popular support for her rehabilitation. Joan became a central part of the annual celebration, and by 1435 a play, Mistère du siège d'Orléans (Mystery of the Siege of Orléans), portrayed her as the vehicle of the divine will that liberated Orléans. The Orléans festival celebrating Joan continues in modern times.

Less than a decade after her rehabilitation trial, Pope Pius II wrote a brief biography describing her as the maid who saved the kingdom of France. Louis XII commissioned a full-length biography of her around 1500.

Joan's early legacy was closely associated with the divine right of the monarchy to rule France. During the French Revolution, her reputation came into question because of her association with the monarchy and religion, and the festival in her honor held at Orléans was suspended in 1793. In 1803, Napoleon Bonaparte authorized its renewal and the creation of a new statue of Joan at Orléans, stating: "The illustrious Joan ... proved that there is no miracle which French genius cannot accomplish when national independence is threatened."

Since then, she has become a prominent symbol as the defender of the French nation. After the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, Joan became a rallying point for a new crusade to reclaim Lorraine, the province of her birth. The Third Republic held a patriotic civic holiday in her honor, on 8 May to celebrate her victory at Orléans. A series of French warships have been named for her. During World War I, her image was used to inspire victory. In World War II, all sides of the French cause appealed to her legacy: she was a symbol for Philippe Pétain in Vichy France, a model for Charles de Gaulle's leadership of the Free French, and an example for the Communist resistance. More recently, her association with the monarchy and national liberation has made her a symbol for the French far right, including the monarchist movement Action Française and the National Front Party. Joan's image has been used by the entire spectrum of French politics, and she is an important reference in political dialogue about French identity and unity.

Saint and heroic woman

Illustration by Albert Lynch (1903, in Figaro Illustré magazine)

Joan is a saint in the Roman Catholic Church. She was viewed as a religious figure in Orléans after the siege was lifted and an annual panegyric was pronounced there on her behalf until the 1800s. In 1849, the Bishop of Orlėans Félix Dupanloup delivered an oration that attracted international attention, and in 1869 petitioned Rome to begin beatification proceedings. She was beatified by Pope Pius X in 1909, and canonized on 16 May 1920 by Pope Benedict XV. Her feast day is 30 May, the anniversary of her execution. In an apostolic letter, Pope Pius XI declared Joan one of the patron saints of France on 2 March 1922.

Joan was canonized as a Virgin, not as a Christian martyr because she had been put to death by a canonically constituted court, which did not execute for her faith in Christ, but for her private revelation. Nevertheless, she has been popularly venerated as a martyr since her death: one who suffered for her modesty and purity, her country, and the strength of her convictions. Joan is also remembered as a visionary in the Church of England with a commemoration on 30 May. She is revered in the pantheon of the Cao Dai religion.

While Joan was alive, she was already being compared to biblical women heroes, such as Esther, Judith, and Deborah. Her claim of virginity, which signified her virtue and sincerity, was upheld by women of status from both the Armagnac and Burgundian-English sides of the Hundred Years' War: Yolande of Aragon, Charles's mother-in-law, and Anne of Burgundy, Duchess of Bedford.

Joan has been described as a model of an autonomous woman who challenged traditions of masculinity and femininity to be heard as an individual in a patriarchal culture—setting her own course by heeding the voices of her visions. She fulfilled the traditionally male role of a military leader, while maintaining her status as a valiant woman. Merging qualities associated with both genders, Joan has inspired numerous artistic and cultural works for many centuries. In the nineteenth century, hundreds of work of art about her—including biographies, plays, and musical scores—were created in France, and her story became popular as an artistic subject in Europe and North America. By the 1960s, she was the topic of thousands of books. Her legacy has become global, and inspires novels, plays, poems, operas, films, paintings, children's books, advertising, computer games, comics and popular culture across the world.

See also

Alternative historical interpretations of Joan of Arc

References

Sources

Books

• Aberth, John (2000). From the Brink of the Apocalypse. Routledge. ISBN 9780415927154. OCLC 1054385441.
• Adams, Tracy (2010). The Life and Afterlife of Isabeau of Bavaria. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 9780801899263. OCLC 1026404304.
• Allmand, Christopher (1988). The Hundred Years War: England and France at War c. 1300-c. 1450. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781139167789. OCLC 1285662551.
• Barker, Juliet (2009). Conquest: The English Kingdom of France, 1417-1450. Little, Brown. ISBN 9781408702468. OCLC 903613803.
• Barstow, Anne Llewellyn (1986). Joan of Arc: Heretic, Mystic, Shaman. E. Mellen. ISBN 9780889465329. OCLC 1244846182.
• Boal, Barbara (2005). "The Cao Dai and the Hoa Hao". In Partridge, Christopher (ed.). Introduction to World Religions. Fortress. pp. 208–209. ISBN 0800637143. OCLC 58802408.
• Burne, Alfred Higgins (1999) [1956]. The Agincourt War: A Military History of the Latter Part of the Hundred Years War from 1369 to 1453. Wordsworth Editions. ISBN 1840222115. OCLC 1285475585.
• Castor, Helen (2015). Joan of Arc: A History. Harper. ISBN 9780062384393. OCLC 1256258941.
• Champion, Pierre (1932) [1920]. "Essay on the Trial of Jeanne d'Arc, Dramatis Personae, Biographical Sketches of the Trial Judges and Other Persons Involved in the Maid's Career, Trial and Death". The Trial of Jeanne D'Arc. Translated by Taylor, Coley; Kerr, Ruth H. Gotham House. OCLC 1314152. Archived from the original on 14 November 2014. Retrieved 25 November 2021.
• Chenu, Bruno (1990). Book of Christian Martyrs. Crossroad. ISBN 9780824510114. OCLC 645341461.
• Cohen, Paul A. (2014). History and Popular Memory. Columbia University Press. ISBN 9780231537292. OCLC 964546561.
• Conner, Susan Punzel (2004). The Age of Napoleon. Greenwood. ISBN 9780313320149. OCLC 56575944.
• Crane, Susan (2002). The Performance of Self: Ritual, Clothing, and Identity during the Hundred Years War. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0812236580. OCLC 843080228.
• Curry, Anne; Hoskins, Peter; Richardson, Thom; Spencer, Dan (2015). The Agincourt Companion: A Guide to the Legendary Battle and Warfare in the Medieval World. Andre Deutch. ISBN 9780233004716. OCLC 921184232.
• DeVries, Kelly (1996). "A Woman as Leader of Men: Joan of Arc's Military Career". In Wheeler, Bonnie; Wood, Charles T. (eds.). Fresh Verdicts on Joan of Arc. Garland. pp. 3–18. ISBN 0815336640. OCLC 847627589.
• DeVries, Kelly (1999). Joan of Arc: A Military Leader. Sutton Publishing. ISBN 9780750918053. OCLC 42957383.
• Dunn, Susan (2021). The Deaths of Louis XVI: Regicide and the French Political Imagination. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691224916. OCLC 1235966126.
• Dworkin, Andrea (2007) [1987]. Intercourse. Basic Books. ISBN 9780465017522. OCLC 1153284259.
• Fraioli, Deborah (2000). Joan of Arc: The Early Debate. Boydell Press. ISBN 9780851158808. OCLC 48680250.
• Fraioli, Deborah (2005). Joan of Arc and the Hundred Years War. Greenwood Press. ISBN 0313324581. OCLC 1150093760.
• France, Anatole (1909). Jeanne d'Arc, Maid of Orleans, deliverer of France: Being the Story of her Life, her Achievements, and her Death, as Attested on Oath and Set Forth in the Original Documents. Heinemann. OCLC 862867781. Archived from the original on 14 June 2020. Retrieved 28 August 2020 – via Project Gutenberg.
• Fuller, John Frederick Charles (1954). A Military History of the Western World: From the Earliest Times to the Battle of Lepanto. Vol. I. Funk & Wagnalls. OCLC 1150796947.
• Gaehtgens, Thomas (2018). Reims on Fire: War and Reconciliation Between France and Germany. Getty Research Institute. ISBN 9781606065709. OCLC 1028601667.
• Garber, Marjorie B. (1993). Vested Interests: Cross-dressing and Cultural Anxiety. Harper Collins. ISBN 0060975245. OCLC 1151664883.
• Gies, Frances (1981). Joan of Arc: The Legend and the Reality. Harper & Row. ISBN 0690019424. OCLC 1204328346.
• Gildea, Robert (1996). The Past in French History. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300067118. OCLC 638739483.
• Goldstone, Nancy Bazelon (2012). The Maid and the Queen: The Secret History of Joan of Arc. Viking. ISBN 9780670023332. OCLC 1150263570.
• Guillemin, Henri (1973) [1970]. Joan, Maid of Orleans. Saturday Review Press. ISBN 9780841502277. OCLC 636407.
• Hamblin, Vicki L. (2016) [2003]. "En L'honneur de la Pucelle: Ritualizing Joan the Maid in Fifteenth-Century Orléans". In Astell, Ann W.; Wheeler, Bonnie (eds.). Joan of Arc and Spirituality. Palgrave. pp. 209–226. ISBN 9781137069542. OCLC 1083468869.
• Harrison, Brian (2002). "Aborted Infants as Martyrs: Are There Wider Implications?". In Nichols, Aidan (ed.). Abortion and Martyrdom: The Papers of the Solesmes Consultation and an Appeal to the Catholic Church. Gracewing. ISBN 9780852445433. OCLC 49989918.
• Harrison, Kathryn (2014). Joan of Arc: A Life Transfigured. Doubleday. ISBN 9780385531207. OCLC 1194440229.
• Henderson, David Kennedy (1939). Psychopathic States. W. W. Norton. OCLC 912042868.
• Hobbins, Daniel (2005). "Introduction". In Hobbins, Daniel (ed.). The Trial of Joan of Arc. Harvard University Press. pp. 1–32. ISBN 9780674038684. OCLC 1036902468.
• Hotchkiss, Valerie R. (2000). Clothes Make the Man: Female Cross Dressing in Medieval Europe. Garland. ISBN 9780815337713. OCLC 980891132.
• Huizinga, Johan (1959). Men and Ideas: History, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance; Essays. Meridian. OCLC 1036539966.
• Kelly, Henry Ansgar (1996). "Joan of Arc's Last Trial: The Attack of the Devil's Advocates". In Wheeler, Bonnie; Wood, Charles T. (eds.). Fresh Verdicts on Joan of Arc. Garland. pp. 205–236. ISBN 0815336640. OCLC 847627589.
• Lang, Andrew (1909). The Maid of France: Being the Story of the Life and Death of Jeanne d'Arc. Longmans, Green. OCLC 697990421.
• Lightbody, Charles Wayland (1961). The Judgements of Joan: Joan of Arc, A Study in Cultural History. Harvard University Press. OCLC 1150088435.
• Lowell, Francis Cabot (1896). Joan of Arc. Houghton Mifflin Co. OCLC 457671288.
• Lucie-Smith, Edward (1976). Joan of Arc. Allen Lane. ISBN 0713908572. OCLC 1280740196.
• Mackinnon, James (1902). The Growth and Decline of the French Monarchy. Longmans. OCLC 1017332942.
• Maddox, Margaret Joan (2012). "Joan of Arc". In Matheson, Lister M. (ed.). Icons of the Middle Ages: Rulers, Rebels, and Saints. Vol. 2. Greenwood. pp. 417–450. ISBN 9780313340802. OCLC 728656735.
• Mackowiak, Philip A. (2007). Post Mortem: Solving History's Great Medical Mysteries. American College of Physicians. ISBN 9781930513891. OCLC 1285753937.
• Margolis, Nadia (1996). "The "Joan Phenomenon" and the Right". In Wheeler, Bonnie; Wood, Charles T. (eds.). Fresh Verdicts on Joan of Arc. Garland. pp. 265–287. ISBN 0815336640. OCLC 847627589.
• McInerney, Maud Burnett (2003). Eloquent Virgins: The Rhetoric of Virginity from Thecla to Joan of Arc. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9781137064516. OCLC 1083464793.
• Megivern, James (1997). The Death Penalty: An Historical and Theological Survey. Paulist Press. ISBN 9780809104871. OCLC 1244600248.
• Meltzer, Francoise (2001). For Fear of the Fire: Joan of Arc and the Limits of Subjectivity. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226519821. OCLC 46240234.
• Mock, Steven (2011). Symbols of Defeat in the Construction of National Identity. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107013360. OCLC 1097164619.
• Michelet, Jules (1900) [1855]. Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans. From Mitchelet's History of France. Translated by Ketcham, Henry. A. L. Burt. OCLC 1047498185.
• Murray, T. Douglas (1902). "Introductory Note to the Rehabilitation". In Murray, T. Douglas (ed.). Jeanne D'Arc, Maid of Orleans, Deliverer of France, Being the Story of Her Life, Her Achievements, and Her Death, As Attested on Oath and Set Forth in the Original Documents. William Heinemann. pp. 371–376. OCLC 903887215. Archived from the original on 29 June 2018 – via Project Gutenberg.
• Napier, Gordon (2017). Maleficium: Witchcraft and Witch Hunting in the West. Amberly. ISBN 9781445665115. OCLC 1000454943.
• Pernoud, Régine (2007) [1955]. The Retrial of Joan of Arc; The Evidence at the Trial For Her Rehabilitation 1450–1456. Translated by Cohen. Harcourt, Brace and Company. ISBN 9781586171780. OCLC 1338471.
• Pernoud, Régine (1966) [1962]. Joan of Arc By Herself and Her Witnesses. Translated by Hyams, Edward. Stein and Day. OCLC 1035912459.
• Pernoud, Régine; Clin, Marie-Véronique (1999) [1986]. Wheeler, Bonnie (ed.). Joan of Arc: Her Story. Translated by duQuesnay Adams, Jeremy. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 9780312214425. OCLC 1035889959.
• Perroy, Edouard (1959). The Hundred Years War. Eyre & Spottiswoode. ISBN 9780413213709. OCLC 1149428397.
• Peters, Edward (1989). Inquisition. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520066304. OCLC 970384852.
• Rankin, Daniel; Quintal, Claire (1964). "Authors' Comments". In Rankin, Daniel; Quintal, Claire (eds.). The First Biography of Joan of Arc with the Chronicle Record of a Contemporary Account. University of Pittsburgh Press. OCLC 1153286979.
• Richey, Stephen W. (2003). Joan of Arc: The Warrior Saint. Praeger. ISBN 9780275981037. OCLC 52030963.
• Russell, Jeffrey Burton (1972). Witchcraft in the Middle Ages. Cornell University Press. ISBN 9780801406973. OCLC 1151774229.
• Sackville-West, Victoria (1936). Saint Joan of Arc. Cobden-Sanderson. OCLC 1151167808.
• Schibanoff, Susan (1996). "True Lies: Transvestism and Idolatry in the Trial of Joan of Arc". In Wheeler, Bonnie; Wood, Charles T. (eds.). Fresh Verdicts on Joan of Arc. Garland. pp. 31–60. ISBN 0815336640. OCLC 847627589.
• Seward, Desmond (1982). The Hundred Years War: The English in France. Atheneum. ISBN 9780689706288. OCLC 1280811695.
• Sullivan, Karen (1996). ""I Do Not Name to You the Voice of St. Michael": The Identification of Joan of Arc's Voices". In Wheeler, Bonnie; Wood, Charles T. (eds.). Fresh Verdicts on Joan of Arc. Garland. pp. 85–112. ISBN 0815336640. OCLC 847627589.
• Sullivan, Karen (1999). The Interrogation of Joan of Arc. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 9780816689866. OCLC 236342924.
• Taylor, Craig, ed. (2006). Joan of Arc: La Pucelle (Selected Sources Translated and Annotated). Manchester University Press. ISBN 9780719068478. OCLC 1150142464.
• Taylor, Larissa (2009). The Virgin Warrior: The Life and Death of Joan of Arc (eBook). Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300161298. OCLC 794005335.
• Tuchman, Barbara (1982). A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century. Knopf. ISBN 9780394400266. OCLC 1033665932.
• Vale, M. G. A. (1974). Charles VII. Eyre Methuen. ISBN 0413280802. OCLC 1280787240.
• Verger, Jacques (1972). "The University of Paris at the End of the Hundred Years' War". In Baldwin, John W.; Goldthwaite, Richard A. (eds.). Universities in Politics: Case Studies from the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period. Johns Hopkins Press. pp. 47–78. ISBN 0801813727. OCLC 1151833089.
• Warner, Marina (1981). Joan of Arc: The Image of Female Heroism. Knopf. ISBN 9780394411453. OCLC 1150060458.
• Weiskopf, Steven (1996). "Readers of the Lost Arc: Secrecy, Specularity, and Speculation in the Trial of Joan of Arc". In Wheeler, Bonnie; Wood, Charles T. (eds.). Fresh Verdicts on Joan of Arc. Garland. pp. 113–132. ISBN 0815336640. OCLC 847627589.
• Wood, Charles (1988). Joan of Arc and Richard III: Sex, Saints, and Government in the Middle Ages. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198021094. OCLC 519442443.

Journal articles, dissertations, and theses

• Allen, Clifford (1975). "The schizophrenia of Joan of Arc" (PDF). History of Medicine (London). 6 (3–4): 4–9. PMID 11630627. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 December 2013.
• Barstow, Anne Llewellyn (1985). "Mystical experience as a feminist weapon: Joan of Arc". Women's Studies Quarterly. 13 (2): 26–29. JSTOR 40003571. Archived from the original on 25 January 2022. Retrieved 25 January 2022.
• Boyd, Beverly (1986). "Wyclif, Joan of Arc, and Margery Kempe". Mystics Quarterly. 12 (3): 112–118. JSTOR 20716744. Archived from the original on 9 December 2021. Retrieved 9 December 2021.
• Brown, Frederick (2012). "The battle for Joan". The Hudson Review. 65 (3): 439–452. JSTOR 43489248. Archived from the original on 17 December 2021. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
• Bullough, Vern L. (1974). "Transvestites in the Middle Ages". American Journal of Sociology. 79 (6): 1381–1394. doi:10.1086/225706. JSTOR 2777140. PMID 12862078. S2CID 3466059. Archived from the original on 24 December 2021. Retrieved 28 December 2021.
• Contamine, Philippe (2007). "Remarques critiques sur les étendards de Jeanne d'Arc" [Critical remarks on the banners of Joan of Arc]. Francia (in French). 34 (1): 187–200. doi:10.11588/fr.2007.1.45032. Archived from the original on 7 May 2021. Retrieved 7 May 2021.
• Crane, Susan (1996). "Clothing and gender definition: Joan of Arc" (PDF). Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies. 26 (2): 298–320. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 July 2016.
• Elliott, Dyan (2002). "Seeing double: John Gerson, the discernment of spirits and Joan of Arc". The American Historical Review. 107 (1): 26–54. doi:10.1086/532095. JSTOR 10.1086/532095. Archived from the original on 22 December 2021. Retrieved 24 December 2021.
• Foote-Smith, Elizabeth; Bayne, Lydia (1991). "Joan of Arc". Epilepsia. 32 (6): 810–815. doi:10.1111/j.1528-1157.1991.tb05537.x. PMID 1743152. S2CID 221736116.
• Fraioli, Deborah (1981). "The literary image of Joan of Arc: Prior influences". Speculum. 56 (4): 811–930. doi:10.2307/2847364. JSTOR 2847364. S2CID 161962500. Archived from the original on 24 January 2022. Retrieved 25 January 2022.
• Frank, John P. (1997). "The trial of Joan of Arc". Litigation. 69 (5): 51–54. JSTOR 29759909. Archived from the original on 23 December 2021. Retrieved 24 December 2021.
• Gibbons, Rachel (1996). "Isabeau of Bavaria, Queen of France (1385–1422): The creation of a historical villainess". Transactions of the Royal Historical Society. 6: 51–73. JSTOR 3679229.
• Hamblin, Vicki L. (1984). The Fifteenth-century French Mistere du Siege D'Orléans: An Annotated Edition (Portions in French Text) (PhD). University of Arizona. Archived from the original on 8 January 2022. Retrieved 9 January 2022.
• Hamblin, Vicki L. (1988). "The Mistère du siège d'Orléans as a representational drama". The Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature. 42 (1/2): 61–68. doi:10.2307/1347436. JSTOR 1347436. S2CID 194274410. Archived from the original on 8 January 2022. Retrieved 9 January 2022.
• Henker, F. O. (1984). "Joan of Arc and DSM III". Southern Medical Journal. 77 (12): 1488–1490. doi:10.1097/00007611-198412000-00003. PMID 6390693. S2CID 44528365.
• Hughes, J. R. (2005). "Did all those famous people really have epilepsy?". Epilepsy & Behavior. 6 (2): 115–39. doi:10.1016/j.yebeh.2004.11.011. PMID 15710295. S2CID 10436691.
• Kelly, Henry Ansgar (1993). "The right to remain silent: Before and after Joan of Arc". Speculum. 68 (4): 992–1026. doi:10.2307/2865494. JSTOR 2865494. S2CID 162858647. Archived from the original on 24 December 2021. Retrieved 24 December 2021.
• Kelly, Henry Ansgar (2014). "Inquisitorial deviations and cover-ups: The prosecutions of Margaret Porete and Guiard of Cressonessart, 1308–1310". Speculum. 89 (4): 936–973. doi:10.1017/S003871341400164X. JSTOR 43577195. S2CID 170115473. Archived from the original on 27 December 2021. Retrieved 28 December 2021.
• Kennedy, Angus J.; Varty, Kenneth (1977). Introduction. Ditié de Jehanne D'Arc. By de Pizan, Christine. Society for the Study of Mediæval Languages and Literature. ISBN 9780950595504. OCLC 1083468869. Archived from the original on 16 June 2008.
• Newhall, Richard A. (1934). "Payment to Pierre Cauchon for presiding at the trial of Jeanne d'Arc". Speculum. 9 (1): 88–91. doi:10.2307/2846456. JSTOR 2846456. S2CID 162439379. Archived from the original on 22 December 2021. Retrieved 24 December 2021.
• Nicastro, Nicholas; Fabienne, Picard (2016). "Joan of Arc: Sanctity, witchcraft or epilepsy". Epilepsy & Behavior. 57 (Part B): 247–250. doi:10.1016/j.yebeh.2015.12.043. PMID 26852074. S2CID 3841213.
• Noonan, John T. (1987). "Principled or pragmatic foundations for the freedom of conscious?". Journal of Law and Religion. 5 (1): 203–212. doi:10.2307/1051025. JSTOR 1051025. S2CID 170525217. Archived from the original on 27 December 2021. Retrieved 28 December 2021.
• Noonan, John T. (1998). "The Death Penalty. An historical and Theological Survey by James T. Megivern". Book Review. The Catholic Historical Review. 84 (4): 703–705. doi:10.1353/cat.1998.0239. JSTOR 25025339. S2CID 159923086. Archived from the original on 26 December 2021. Retrieved 28 December 2021.
• Nores, J. M.; Yakovleff, Y. (1995). "A historical case of disseminated chronic tuberculosis". Neuropsychobiology. 32 (2): 79–80. doi:10.1159/000119218. PMID 7477805.
• d'Orsi, Giuseppe; Tinuper, Paolo (2006). ""I heard voices ...": from semiology, an historical review, and a new hypothesis on the presumed epilepsy of Joan of Arc". Epilepsy & Behavior. 9 (1): 152–157. doi:10.1016/j.yebeh.2006.04.020. PMID 16750938. S2CID 24961015.
• Ratnasuriya, R. H. (1986). "Joan of Arc, creative psychopath: Is there another explanation?". Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. 79 (Part B): 247–250. doi:10.1177/014107688607900413. PMID 3517329.
• Schildkrout, Barbara (2017). "Joan of Arc—Hearing voices". American Journal of Psychiatry. 174 (12): 1153–1154. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2017.17080948. PMID 29191033.
• Sexsmith, Dennis (1990). "The Radicalization of Joan of Arc: Before and after the French Revoluion". RACAR: Revue d'art canadienne/Canadian Art Review. 17 (2): 125–130. doi:10.7202/1073071ar. JSTOR 42630458. Archived from the original on 24 January 2022. Retrieved 25 January 2022.
• Sherman, Larry R.; Zimmerman, Michael R. (2008). "Ergotism and its effects on society and religion". Journal of Nutritional Immunology. 2 (3): 127–136. doi:10.1300/J053v02n03_08.
• Sizer, Michael (2007). "The calamity of violence: Reading the Paris massacres of 1418". Journal of the Western Society for French History. 35: 19–39. OCLC 990058151. Archived from the original on 24 February 2014.
• Sproles, Karyn Z. (1996). "Cross-dressing for (imaginary) battle: Vita Sackville-West's biography of Joan of Arc". Biography. 19 (2): 158–177. doi:10.1353/bio.2010.0242. JSTOR 23539706. S2CID 161108684. Archived from the original on 24 January 2022. Retrieved 25 January 2022.
• Sullivan, Winnifred Fallers (2011). "Joan's two bodies: A study in political anthropology". Social Research. 78 (2): 307–324. doi:10.1353/sor.2011.0038. JSTOR 23347178. Archived from the original on 17 December 2021. Retrieved 24 December 2021.
• Taylor, Larissa Juliet (2012). "Joan of Arc, the church, and the papacy". The Catholic Historical Review. 98 (2): 217–240. doi:10.1353/cat.2012.0129. JSTOR 23240136. S2CID 154958228. Archived from the original on 12 January 2022. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
• de Toffol, Bertrand (2016). "Comment on "Joan of Arc: Sanctity, witchcraft, or epilepsy?"". Epilepsy & Behavior. 61: 80–81. doi:10.1016/j.yebeh.2016.04.052.

Online sources

• "The Calendar". The Church of England. 2021. Archived from the original on 9 March 2021.
• "Bienvenue sur la site de Domremy-la-pucelle [Welcome to the Domremy-La-Pucelle Website]". Domremy la Pucelle: village Natal de Jaenne d'Arc [Domremy La Pucelle: Birth Village of Joan of Arc] (in French). 2021. Archived from the original on 16 April 2021.
• Ghezzi, Burt (2021) [1996]. "Saint Joan of Arc, 1412–1431". Loyola Press. Archived from the original on 14 January 2022.
• "Jeanne D'Arc". Global Security. 2022. Archived from the original on 1 January 2003.
• "Joan of Arc Celebrations". Metropolis of Orléans. 2021. Archived from the original on 16 May 2021.
• Linder, Douglas O. (2017). "Joan of Arc's Abjuration (May 24, 1431)". Famous Trials. Archived from the original on 2 July 2017.
• "Groupe scuplté (grandeur nature): la réhabiitation de Jeanne d'Arc" [Group Sculpture (Life Size): The Rehabilitation of Joan of Arc]. L'inventaire général du patrimoine culture, Conseil régional Hauts-de-France [The General Inventory of Cultural Heritage, Hauts-de-France Regional Council]. Archived from the original on 13 August 2022.

Primary sources

• Benedict XV (2021) [1920]. "Divina Disponente". The Holy See. Archived from the original on 25 February 2021.
• Bréhal, Jean (1893) [1456]. "Livre Quatrième: Texte de la Recollectio" [Book Four: Text of the Recollectio]. Jean Bréhal, Grand Inquisiteur de France, et la Réhabilitation of Jeanne D'Arc [Jean Bréhal, Grand Inquisitor of France, and the Rehabilitation of Joan of Arc]. By Belon, Marie-Joseph; Balme, François (in French and Latin). P. Lethielleux. OCLC 1143025136.
• Pius XI (1922). "Galliam, Ecclesiae filiam" [France, Daughter of the Church]. Acta Apostolicae Sedia (in Latin). 14 (7): 185–187.
• de Pizan, Christine (1977) [1493]. "Christine de Pisan: Ditié de Jehanne D'Arc". Jeanne dárc la pucelle. Translated by Kennedy, Angus J.; Varty, Kenneth. Society for the Study of Mediæval Languages and Literature. Archived from the original on 1 November 2020.
• Rankin, Daniel; Quintal, Claire, eds. (c. 1500). The First Biography of Joan of Arc with the Chronicle Record of a Contemporary Account (PDF). OCLC 1153286979. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 July 2011.

Transcripts of Joan of Arc's trial and the rehabilitation trial

• The Trial of Jeanne d'Arc. Translated by Barrett, Wilfred Philips. Gotham House. 1932. OCLC 1314152. Archived from the original on 18 August 2016. (English language translation of Joan's trial.)
• Quicherat, Jules (1841a). Procès de condamnation et de réhabilitation de Jeanne d'Arc, dite La Pucelle [The Trials of the Condemnation and Rehabilitation of Joan of Arc, known as The Maid] (in Latin and French). Vol. I. Renouard. OCLC 310772260. (Latin text of Joan's trial.)
• Quicherat, Jules (1841b). Procès de condamnation et de réhabilitation de Jeanne d'Arc, dite La Pucelle [The Trials of the Condemnation and Rehabilitation of Joan of Arc, known as The Maid] (in Latin and French). Vol. II. Renouard. OCLC 310772267. (Latin text of the rehabilitation trial, volume I.)
• Quicherat, Jules (1845). Procès de condamnation et de réhabilitation de Jeanne d'Arc, dite La Pucelle [The Trials of the Condemnation and Rehabilitation of Joan of Arc, known as The Maid] (in Latin and French). Vol. III. Renouard. OCLC 162464167. (Latin text of the rehabilitation trial, volume II.)

External links

• "The Siege of Orleans", BBC Radio 4 discussion with Anne Curry, Malcolm Vale & Matthew Bennett (In Our Time, 24 May 2007)