Trial of Joan of Arc

How did a teenage girl stand up to armies, theologians, and kings? Dr. Eleanor Janega is joined by Professor Anne Curry to trace Joan of Arc’s astonishing rise and tragic fall. From leading French forces to facing a ruthless 1431 heresy trial, they uncover the politics, pressure, and defiance that shaped her fate. Joan's defiance, the relentless efforts of her captors to discredit her, and the intricate political machinations at play have all fed into her enduring legacy as a symbol of faith and courage. MORE The Real Joan of Arc Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-real-joan-of-arc/id1564113746?i=1000664580198&uo=4&itscg=30200&ls=1&mttnsubad=6442463604&at=1000l3ctA&itsct=podfollow_podcasts&ct=gone-medieval-eplink Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/2wgZwZ7RZt5d6AZOeLih2b Joan of Arc's Signature & Other Medieval Marvels Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/joan-of-arcs-signature-other-medieval-marvels/id1564113746?i=1000677065398 Listen on Spotify https://podfollow.com/gone-medieval/episode/62f781925d45c5e9b4c5205cd07e0faca4557b04/view Gone Medieval is presented by Dr Eleanor Janega. Audio editor is Amy Haddow, the producer is Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff. All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds. Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast. Sign up to History to watch Eleanor's latest documentary all about Joan of Arc, as well as full access to our library of history documentaries, including Eleanor exploring the medieval apocalypse, medieval winter, the Normans and so much more. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• 1:46Eleanor Janega?

  Hello, I'm Dr Eleanor Janiger, and welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gob-smacking details, and the latest groundbreaking research, from the Vikings to the Normans, from kings to popes, to the Crusades. We delve into the rebellions, plots, and murders that tell us who we really were, and how we got here.

• 2:29Eleanor Janega?

  Rouen, 30 mai 1431.

• 2:34Eleanor Janega?

  Dans le marché, la foule se rassemble tôt.

• 2:38Eleanor Janega?

  Hommes et soldats, pècheurs et paysans, attirés par les mêmes de la duty, la curiosité et la peur.

• 2:49Eleanor Janega?

  Au centre, dans le bois, se trouve une fille de 19 ans, pleurant.

• 2:57Eleanor Janega?

  Escortée par huit cent soldats anglais, elle est conduite par les rues de Rouen vers la vieille rue. Ses pieds reposent sur des pinceaux. Sa robe de tissu blanc tremble dans le vent. Ce n'est pas un prisonnier ordinaire.

• 3:16Eleanor Janega?

  Elle a commandé des armées, a élu un roi, a défendu l'Angleterre et a prétendu entendre les voix des saints.

• 3:25Eleanor Janega?

  Pour ses captifs, elle est un herétique, peut-être une witche, une figure dangereuse. Pour ses suiveurs, elle est quelque chose de plus proche de divin.

• 3:40Eleanor Janega?

  Un soldat anglais compassionné la fait une croix de bois, la qui elle embrasse et la place devant son coeur.

• 3:48Eleanor Janega?

  L'exécuteur hésite.

• 3:51Eleanor Janega?

  Peut-être même il sent la poids du moment. Que ce qui va se passer écho très loin de la rue, loin de France, dans les siècles à venir.

• 4:05Eleanor Janega?

  Le bicheur raise sa main.

• 4:08Eleanor Janega?

  Une prière est chantée. Joan of Arc souligne ses yeux au ciel, sa voix en haut du bruit. Jésus, Jésus.

• 4:23Eleanor Janega?

  The flames take. Within moments, the smoke swallows her whole.

• 4:31Eleanor Janega?

  It's reported that Joan's heart remains intact amid the flames before her ashes are collected and thrown into the Seine to prevent the gathering of relics.

• 4:44Eleanor Janega?

  Even some of the English soldiers who had mocked her weep at her death, returning from the execution beating their breasts.

• 4:53Eleanor Janega?

  But how did it come to this? How did a teenage peasant girl from Don Romaine become both savior and sacrifice? Hailed as God's messenger one year, condemned as his enemy the next?

• 5:09Eleanor Janega?

  I'm exploring the story of Joan of Arc in an exciting new documentary film, which you can find if you subscribe at historyhit.com. One of my special guests in the film is Professor Anne Curry, the emeritus professor of medieval history at the University of Southampton. And she's joining me today to trace the turbulent path that led Joan of Arc from the battlefield to the pyre.

• 5:34Eleanor Janega?

  Because the trial of Joan of Arc stands as one of the most extraordinary judicial proceedings of the medieval period, meticulously documented in a way that allows us to hear the voice of a peasant girl facing down the combined might of the English occupation government, the pro-English church hierarchy, and the theologians of the University of Paris.

• 5:57Eleanor Janega?

  What unfolded between January and May 1431 in Rouen was ostensibly a heresy trial. But in reality, it was a calculated political prosecution designed to discredit both Joan herself and King Charles VII, whose coronation she had secured.

• 6:17Eleanor Janega?

  Yet despite the outcome, Joan's performance during her interrogation revealed a sharp wit, unwavering courage, and a faith that even her executioners would later struggle to reconcile with their verdict.

• 6:35Eleanor Janega?

  Professor Currie, welcome to Gone Medieval.

• 6:38Speaker 05

  Good morning.

• 6:40Eleanor Janega?

  It's lovely to have you here and talking about, I think, a particularly complex facet of the life of Joan of Arc. I think that this is the sort of thing that everyone sort of thinks that they understand what happens to Joan of Arc after she is captured. But, you know, as historians never tire of saying, it's actually more complex than that.

• 7:05Speaker 05

  Well, definitely. And of course, the point is that here Joan is is meeting not only the might of the Catholic Church, but the intellectual caliber of the Catholic Church, which was considerable. We've got lots of doctors of theology, masters of theology, doctors of canon law, that kind of thing. And there she is up against, if you like, all of these people and very much kind of a lone, lone voice against them.

• 7:31Eleanor Janega?

  Exactly. And I mean, it's, I think that it is very, obviously, there's no, there's no getting around it. It's quite dramatic. But I suppose as good a place as any to start with something like the trial is asking why it is that the English and the Burgundians are so interested in sidelining Joan? Because, you know, to a certain extent, at this point in time, she's lost a little bit of favor at the court of the French king. You know, she's not exactly in the inner circle in the way that she had been. So what is to be gained by taking her off the playing field?

• 8:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, you've got to look earlier than that. When all of those amazing things happened in the summer of 1429, you know, she managed to get Charles VII crowned as king and the English and Burgundians lost lots of places. The people who supported the Treaty of Troy and Henry VI, this king of France, were saying, how could this have happened? It can't be God's will, because after all, you know, we've got the Kingdom of France. So it must be the will of the devil. It must be by devilish practices. So already in the summer of For fourteen twenty nine, there were things being said about Joan by her enemies, essentially, and that didn't go away. That continues really right through fourteen twenty

• 8:53Speaker 05

  nine and into fourteen thirty. When she's captured, they have the opportunity to follow up all of those things they've been thinking about her as being a heretic and, you know, misleading, seducing the people and getting Charles the Seventh crowned by diabolic intervention rather than divine intervention. So, once she's captured in, on the twenty third of May, fourteen thirty, they have their big opportunity. And immediately, you see letters written by the University of Paris and actually by the Inquisitor of France as well to bring her to, or to investigate her, I should say.

• 9:32Eleanor Janega?

  Now, you've brought us to an important point here. Can we talk a little bit about who was at Joan's trial?

• 9:39Speaker 05

  Absolutely.

• 9:39Eleanor Janega?

  We've got, poor, poor Joanie. You know, we've got a teenage girl. She's kind of dragged in front of some of the highest up members of the church in the region. She's imprisoned at Rouen and sort of brought out. Who's she standing in front of at the time?

• 9:54Speaker 05

  A very large number of people. And that's what's quite amazing about this. Now, got to be said, of course, why is it in Rouen? Well, it's in Rouen because that's where the young king, Henry the Sixth, is. And it's also there because although the man who has the right to charge her and to try her, that's Kierkegaard, the bishop of Beauvais, he hasn't got his diocese of Beauvais anymore, the Charles the Seventh's got it. So, he's gone into exile in Normandy. And at the end of December, he's given by the cathedral chapter at Rouen, a property in Rouen that makes it possible for him to exercise justice, if you like, as bishop of Beauvais, the one where she was captured in Rouen. So, that's

• 10:36Speaker 05

  why he's got authority to have this trial in Rouen. But the bishop is always the most important person in these sorts of heresy trials. Then they have to have alongside him a representative of the Inquisitor of France. This is a system set up in the thirteenth century. There is Jean Graveron, who in fact is conducting another case in Normandy at this point. So it's his deputy, Jean Lemaître, who is the co-judge with Cauchon. And it's interesting because initially Jean Lemaître isn't too sure he's got the right authority. The Middle Ages were just full of debates on this kind of thing. So there's quite a lot of discussion about whether he had the right authority.

• 11:16Speaker 05

  He was delegated to try in Rouen because he was deputy inquisitor for that area, if you like. However, it was the Bishop of Beauvais who was conducting a trial. Didn't he have authority alongside the Bishop of Beauvais? Anyway, that got sorted out with lots of letters and exchanges. All of these are in the trial records, incidentally, because they wanted to make it absolutely squeaky clean. So we've got two judges, Guécauchon, the bishop of the diocese where she was captured, and Jean Lemaître, the deputy inquisitor of France. So technically, they are the judges, but they call on support and advice from a vast number of other people, many of whom are graduates of the University of Paris, most of whom are clergy within Normandy.

• 12:00Speaker 05

  And that can be, you know, the abbot of Fekon, for instance, a great religious house on the coast of Upper Normandy, and also Canons of Rouen Cathedral, even a doctor of medicine who is based at Rouen Cathedral. So there's a vast number of them. In fact, I'm making a database of them at present. And so far, I've got to about a hundred and six. So we have a very large number of people involved in this, in this trial. Technically, as I say, they're not the judges, but they're there to give advice. Some of them only pop up once, but some of them are there on several occasions. And on some occasions, Joan is facing then over sixty people in the room.

• 12:42Eleanor Janega?

  So I find this incredibly interesting because the University of Paris, pretty closely aligned with the English cause in France and, you know, obviously via the Burgundians. And this is the thing that I think people Forget, is that it's it's difficult for us to get our head around the idea that Burgundy is not necessarily French in the way that we think about it in in the modern sense. And you do have this incredible rivalry between the Dukes of Burgundy, who are some of the most wealthy and incredibly powerful people in in Europe, and the theoretical French throne and Charles VII. And so we tend to say, oh, it's it's the English when we talk about these things.

• 13:27Eleanor Janega?

  And it is, I'm not saying that it isn't, but it's sort of the the English via the Burgundians.

• 13:34Speaker 05

  No, we often, as historians, use the term Anglo-Burgundians. And really, what we're saying is anybody who recognizes the Treaty of Troy of May 1420 that recognized the English as kings of France. All they had to do was wait for Charles VI. They had Charles VI to to die, then Henry V would become King of France, as he was King of England, and the treaty said, thenceforward, the King of England will always be King of France. So actually, we've got Henry VI, of course, because Henry V dies too soon. So from 1422, Henry VI is King of England after his father's death on the 31st of August 1422, and he's King of France after the death of his grandfather, Charles VI,

• 14:18Speaker 05

  on the 14th of October. So by the time of the Trial of Joan, Henry VI is King of England and France, and he's actually in the the castle at Rouen because he's come over. He landed in Calais on the 23rd of October, St. George's Day 1430. So he's in Rouen, he's in the same castle as Joan, and of course, that's an aim to give extra authority, if you like, to this. So I think the Burgundians, they're often said to be the Allies, but really, they are French. The Duke of Burgundy is a descendant of one of the sons of John the Second, king in the middle of the 14th century. So they're really French peers, if you like. However,

• 14:59Speaker 05

  they, by various means, marriages and I can, and they've got hold of other territories that are not French, including Flanders, for instance, and other areas. Eventually, they're going to get hold of Luxembourg, for instance, Brabant, all these sorts of areas in the Low Countries. So that gives them a kind of extra element in addition to the huge lands they had, have on the eastern frontier of France as well, in Burgundy, Franche-Comte, those sorts of areas there. But I think we shouldn't see them as too separate. I think they are peers of France who have agreed to accept the Treaty of Troyes and therefore who recognise Henry VI as King of France.

• 15:38Eleanor Janega?

  I find the entire make-up quite interesting because, you know, in, in my academic research, I spend a lot of time looking at Bohemians behaving badly and being accused of, being accused of heresy, some of whom, you know, are let off and some of whom are not. But within that, there is always a lot of talk back and forth about whether or not an unbiased trial can be made within the sphere that they're in. So there's rather a lot of back and forth to the papacy, you know, and whether that is the papacy in Avignon when things are settled, or whether or not that's being sent down to Constance. But there is a lot

• 16:19Eleanor Janega?

  of discussion about whether or not a fair trial can be actually got under particularised circumstances. And that works both ways. Sometimes the people complaining about who they think are heretics think that they're going to get special favour in Prague and then they send them off to, to Avignon and, and vice versa, right? So I, I find it interesting here and I think not unnotable is all I would say that. You know, I am not saying that, that the Bishop of Beauvais doesn't have the right to try Joan. But also, I think that there is something here where, you know, Joan is just a teenage girl, you know, she doesn't really understand that that she can perhaps make a fuss about these sorts of things. I mean, it would be within the realm of possibility to to flag these things up because I've seen it done. But, you know, she's just a peasant girl, you know?

• 17:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'll come back to that in a minute. But it was a legal trial. I mean, there were many other heresy trials in this period. It's just that we know about this one more than anything else.

• 17:13Eleanor Janega?

  We know so much about it, yeah.

• 17:14Speaker 05

  It's partly because it's overturned in fourteen fifty six. She's tried again when she's dead. And indeed, she she did towards the end of the trial say, you know, send to the Pope. Well, of course she did, because it's a political trial. She supported Charles the Seventh. So she's thinking of every possible way of showing that this is a political trial. And but because it's fascinating that Charles the Seventh makes no effort whatsoever to save her. And that is partly because he's now getting pretty embarrassed all by her. And she has said some pretty outrageous things, you know. I mean, the main thing is she hasn't submitted to the Church Militant, really. And that's really what the the the kernel

• 17:56Speaker 05

  of the trial is. Now, is she then the hapless victim? And I've said already about, you know, more than a hundred people involved in the trial. Sometimes a room with sixty odd people in it. But you just need to read the trial records to say that she put up a pretty good fight, even on the first day when they bring her in, because it's twenty first of February, you know, they've spent about a month and a half preparing the ground. And then finally, she's brought in and everything was was with exhortations to her to accept the Church and all of that. And she immediately comes up with, well, I want to say, I want to hear mass before I I go. And they say, no, you can't do that because you're in men's clothing. Yeah. She also comes out with, she wants judges assembled from England and

• 18:39Speaker 05

  France. So she realizes that it's likely that the judges who all support the Treaty of Trial are going to be Attacked biased against somebody who's just got Charles the Seventh Grand King of France.

• 18:52Eleanor Janega?

  Can we talk a little bit about what her state of mind may have been at the time? Because she is in this, you know, really interesting and incredibly precarious position because very much she was dependent on Charles the Seventh for her cachet, at the very least, you know? And as you say, you know, she comes in, she's wearing her men's clothing still. And I think that there is this tendency, you know, one of the big things that people tend to talk about in her capture is mistreatment as a part of this. But to me, her showing up still in her men's clothing is kind of evidence of the opposite, actually.

• 19:33Speaker 05

  Absolutely. Well, also, she's got her hair cut short now. She was captured in May 1430. We're now in February 1431. There's a lot of haircuts needed in that time. And so they're actually, you know, the English, well, before, when she's in the hands of the Burgundians, are accepting her. And she has, she must have some servants, if you like. She's not kept in terrible conditions, really. Okay, there is a debate about whether she should be in an ecclesiastical prison guarded by women. But, you know, remember, she tried to escape, and so that's why they could justify keeping her in the castle. And the cell must be big enough to allow sometimes about 16 people into it to interview her.

• 20:15Speaker 05

  So she's not kept in very bad conditions, although there's some suggestion, you know, being chained up at night. And that, again, is all to do with the escape. But they do allow her to wear men's clothing. She must have some baggage with her, be captured with her. Clearly, she's not got her horses anymore. And she says her brothers have got her treasure, that money. But she is well enough looked after, because after all, you don't want a dead Joan. You want a Joan you can try. So I think we've got to sort of bear that in mind. She's seated, for instance, during the trial, and that's explicitly mentioned. So I don't think she is badly treated. And you could say, well, what about the chance of physical assault by her guards?

• 21:00Speaker 05

  Yes, and that's claimed towards the end of the whole thing after she's made a confession. But I think that's why they named three guards there. So in a way, they're wanting them to report on each other if anything naughty goes on. So I think we have to assume that she's been very carefully treated by the church because she's in the hands of the church, remember? She's handed over on the the third of January to the church. And although this is a trial that can lead to death, because if she's found guilty, she should be handed over for execution, the church is keener to save the soul. And there are many, I think there are five exhortations,

• 21:43Speaker 05

  little sermons given to Joan during the trial in order to try to persuade her to see her, the folly of her ways. So it's not like a criminal trial. It's a very different kind of trial.

• 21:56Eleanor Janega?

  So when we begin the trial, what's the first things that happened to Joan? Is it the oath taking? Is that how we begin?

• 22:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, and she's a bit reluctant about that. I mean, she's just difficult, you know, and initially she's a bit reluctant to answer questions, but as time goes on, she gets freer in this. You know, first she says, I'll only tell you about my, my, my home in Domraine and also my journey to France and that sort of. But she does, she won't talk about her voices, but she does. She does. She can. In fact, you can almost see that she quite likes talking about these things because they're matters of great importance and pride to her as well. Now, these trials were a set procedure. They, somebody could be brought to trial by what's called popular repute.

• 22:49Speaker 05

  It just needed somebody to say, I think that Joan of Arc is a heretic. That she's brought to trial. There's plenty of popular repute. You've heard things about what she's, she's done. I mean, you get all that text in fourteen twenty nine. So she's brought to trial because of popular repute about. She's been doing. So they've first of all got to collect loads of information. And so the first two months of the process, if you like, is actually the collecting of information. And that involves sending people to Dom Ramey and Vaucluse. So there is evidence that they did get, try to get information, whether they got much. And not all that much is said about home life, so to speak there. There is some concern about

• 23:32Speaker 05

  a tree that they all danced around in Dom Ramey and there were some efforts to feature that as a sort of, you know, a part of sorcery and that kind of thing. It was not a very, very big element in it. They're more interested in her voices and her interactions, the supposed angel that brought Charles the Seventh's crown, that kind of thing. More interested in the political elements of it rather than her home life. Anyway, so they got the information from Dom Ramey. They then must have collected other information and then they start to interview her. So on the 21st of February, you have the first of six public sessions where essentially she's asked questions. And then they collect all of that together and then they visit her in a cell and she has another six

• 24:17Speaker 05

  interrogations in cells. We've got 12 interrogations. Yeah. And we're now on the 17th of March. So we spent two months collecting information and interviewing Joan, if you like. So now the trial proper can begin because you have now got all the information you need. And therefore technically she's shown or read a text with all of the charges against her and her replies and things of this sort. So the ordinary trial begins on the 26th of March is how they decide on that day they're going to proceed to a trial. So in other words, it's right, the director of public prosecutions, he's weighed up the evidence

• 24:56Speaker 05

  against Joan and he's decided there is a case to answer. So let's now proceed to a trial. So that's when the trial starts.

• 25:03Eleanor Janega?

  So when we've got the evidence and now Joan is sort of going to be questioned and presented with it. Do you think that asking her to to take oaths before this is kind of a an attempt to force her hand, as it were?

• 25:21Speaker 05

  No, oaths were a very standard procedure in the Middle Ages. When you took up office, you you paid an oath as well. Indeed, the officers in this trial pay oaths as well. It it's really the, you know, I shall tell the truth, the whole truth, and not a but truth. That's what the oath is. So it's a fundamental element in a in a trial.

• 25:39Eleanor Janega?

  Hmm. I think, you know, that that that is, again, something that people kind of forgot. It's like, yes, this is a religious trial, but the church has trials all the time. You know, that that's what the church is, especially at this point in time. It's a legal body as much as anything else.

• 25:54Speaker 05

  Definitely, definitely.

• 25:55Eleanor Janega?

  And, you know.

• 25:56Speaker 05

  They've got experts in civil law there as well as as canon law. Yeah, I mean, these people who've conducted trials before Gaucho had, and certainly the the Deputy Inquisitor had, yeah. So and other people have been involved in heresy trials before. Uh, the difference with this one is it is a big political status. But then so was the trial of the Templars back in the early 14th century that the French king was very keen on in order to get all of their resources. So it's not unique in terms of being a big political trial.

• 26:27Eleanor Janega?

  So what what are the kind of things that they questioned her about? Like, you know, you've mentioned already, there's some questioning about what's happening in Dombe Remy and, you know, the tree and things of this nature. But there's also rather a lot about her visions, is there not?

• 26:39Speaker 05

  Hmm. Yes, because there was, I mean, the fundamental thing was that the clergy were very special people. Remember, they are anointed, they're they're made into to clergy, or they're tonsured if they're monks, things of this sort. They are set apart, and they're often very well educated as well. And therefore, they knew the teachings of the church. There were great canonists, canon law existed. There was also a lot of theology about the saints and things of this sort. So what they were checking was whether she followed in her beliefs, the right and proper catechism, if you like, of the Catholic Church.

• 27:20Speaker 05

  There were some areas where it looked as though she didn't. For instance, did saints have bodies? And of course, the canon law view was no, they didn't. So there were lots of questions about what they looked like and kind of could she touch them and things of this sort. But also, there was this central thing about omission. They believed, you know, that God inspired things, so it wasn't incredible that somebody should be inspired by God to do something. But they didn't. They wanted to test whether Joan really was sent by God. Because really, they they didn't like the idea, and this is where the politics comes in, that apparently her God supported Charles the Seventh, whereas their God supported Henry the Sixth. So.

• 28:05Eleanor Janega?

  You know, I have to say, it gets pretty tricky, but I always say that God wants particular outcomes one way or another, you know?

• 28:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, see, trial records are fascinating because they kept them in French minute. She spoke in French, probably with a kind of Lorraine accent. And you can see in that how, rather like a modern day court case, they would ask her a question. And she'd give answers and that sort of thing. And then a couple of days later, they'd sort of seem to ask the same question. Well, that's because every night they checked the transcripts. There were two scribes writing it down. They talked to each other and they checked with the judge that he's happy with the record of the trial. And then they sort of had these advisors and the advisor said, oh, I think you could have pushed her a little bit more on Saint Michael, yeah?

• 28:52Speaker 05

  And so therefore they asked questions again about Saint Michael. So using the records is problematic or it's time consuming. Because you've got to read them all and think, hasn't she already said that?

• 29:03Eleanor Janega?

  How does she do under questioning? Is she able to kind of sidestep theological traps at all? Or is she kind of, you know, at the mercy of these scholars?

• 29:13Speaker 05

  I think she's quite confident and cheeky. I mean, she is very much inspired by her mission and her own belief. She's constant, really, and I think you've got to praise her for that. But they were a lot cleverer than her in matters of canon law and theology. And so you could say they were laying traps for her. But then, you know, she she was quite forthright about the the voices and all of that. So I don't think she she didn't know enough theology to say, oh, I shouldn't say that. But then the churchmen are trying to bring her into a realisation and therefore exhorting her to drop some of these things that are

• 29:53Speaker 05

  contrary to the the matters of faith. And so it's not like a criminal trial today, because all the time they are trying to bring her back into right beliefs. Yeah, so, okay, they're going to try her. But the whole point really was then to get her to confess that, yes, she'd been wrong, and she would submit to the judgement of the church. That's that's what these trials are aimed at, really.

• 30:21Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, it's a quite different goal, I suppose. You know, we're used to the idea of a prosecution as being that the thing that people wish to achieve is said prosecution. Whereas even with a heresy trial with the worst possible heretic, when you find them guilty of heresy, you then hope that they will then say, oh, yeah, that I shouldn't have said that. Sorry, and I recant, you know.

• 30:48Speaker 05

  Correct. And, yeah, and John did, of course. I mean, just to take you back to this formal trial and opening at the end of March. By then, they'd got a very long, I think, the seventy or so accusations against her. Yeah. And so she's she's asked to sort of comment on them. And she she, in a way, she sort of confirmed, yes, that's she'd said that. And then others, it's not entirely. And she said, give me a few days to think about it and that. So, anyway, eventually, they get them down to twelve articles against her. And she, again, she knows what those are. And she responds to them. Then what they do is send them out for people to comment. On them, it's like a public consultation. Well, the University of Paris gets to look at

• 31:31Speaker 05

  the charges against her and the other clergy in Rouen. So there's quite a lot of experts brought into to this. And that takes a long time to get the information. But eventually the conclusion is that, yes, this is heresy, you know, people have told us this. And therefore she's brought back in and they start to do the exhortations and say, well, Joan number five, we found you guilty. Yeah. Although the the formal sentence, I think, isn't till the twenty fourth of May. But essentially, April, May are spent refining the articles, getting this external opinion on it from other lawyers and that kind of thing. And

• 32:15Speaker 05

  then telling Joan, and she has got the opportunity to say things. But there are many sermons. It must have been a very interesting time for Joan. There she was in her cell often. And somebody comes in and gives her quite a long sermon, you know.

• 32:27Eleanor Janega?

  Well, you know, you do mention this, you know, she's in her cell quite often. And at first, when she is put on trial, it's very public, you know, she's she's out and about. But there is this kind of shift at a point in time, isn't there, to doing more questioning within her cell itself?

• 32:46Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. Well, I think this again is standard practice. They have the six public sessions and the six detailed sessions, a small group of people asking her more specific questions. There are fewer questions in the cell and more more of them are public. And then later on, there are public sessions. I mean, calculating this is what was interesting. There are twelve private consultations, if you like, in the cell and eleven public appearances of Joan. I mean, to me, that's that's it's it's the way they were. They were conducted. Everything was written down. So, you know, we have a full record. And as I say, Cauter wanted to have a, as I say, a very good process. He didn't want anything

• 33:30Speaker 05

  to be wrong. And that's why there was a hoo-ha over whether the deputy inquisitor had the right to operate, etc. Et cetera. He was coming along to things, but it wasn't formally confirmed for a few weeks that he actually did have the power. They had to check with the Inquisitor of France that he was happy with with all of it. So it's as if they're kind of making sure there's going to be no judicial review afterwards because of dodgy practice.

• 34:13Speaker 06

  Hey, it's Adam Grant from TED's Rethinking Podcast. As businesses scale, success depends on how well knowledge is captured, shared, and kept up to date. Camtasia Pro turns teams' expertise into engaging training, onboarding, and documentation. No professional editing experience required. With the industry's best screen recording, video editing, and AI-powered workflows, you can train faster and boost operational efficiency. Get over $100 off your first year at camtasia pro.com and start building a smarter way to educate customers, onboard employees, and ensure valuable expertise is shared across teams.

• 34:46Speaker 01

  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work.

• 35:05Speaker 06

  That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle/workspacewithGemini. That's goo.gle/workspacewithGemini.

• 35:20Speaker 07

  After civil war, regicide, and Cromwell's Republic, the monarchy returned. But Britain would never be the same. I'm Professor Suzanne Lipscomb, and this month on Not Just the Tudors, we're transported back to the age of Restoration royalty, from Charles II to Queen Anne and the birth of the Empire. Join me on Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 36:06Eleanor Janega?

  What's happening in this particular phase of the questioning? Because it seems to me that it kind of focuses up at this point in time. We have a lot of discussion about whether or not she is submitting to the church militant. And then also, you know, her ongoing desire to wear men's clothing, right? Like, these are two big things for her. And she kind of does some interesting justifications of why she keeps wearing men's clothing. And I know that now, to us, this seems kind of strange, because we would sort of say like, a big deal, who really cares about that? But it is an actual pressing matter for medieval people, I think you could say.

• 36:49Speaker 05

  Yes, because it's banned in the Bible, essentially. Yeah, she comes up with practical reasons, like when I'm with men and that kind of thing. However, the main problem is she says, "My voice has told me to do it." Yeah, and so she's doing it because of religious direction. So, of course, if they're saying, "Well, are you sure you've seen these saints? You know, are these really the saints? You're getting bad advice and like..." So therefore, that becomes a theological matter, so to speak, the wearing of the men's clothes. There is a very interesting point to make about this. I said she was retried after her death, 1456, and rehabilitated. Yeah, it's called the Trial of Nullity, conducted by Charles VII.

• 37:34Speaker 05

  They didn't mention the women's clothes at all. So that was a political trial as well. And it's just, you know, yeah, okay, so don't mention the clothes, don't mention the men's clothes. Yeah, you can see that it's justice as...

• 37:48Eleanor Janega?

  Well, it's a really interesting part of her hagiography, I think, that we see later after she dies. So, for example, when you see depictions of her in art, they never show her wearing men's clothing.

• 38:03Speaker 05

  Very rarely, very rarely, no, I mean, you're right, and the first picture of her, well, a doodle in the edge of the manuscript of the Parlement of Paris, recording the siege of Orleans, later on, her capture, that shows her really, it's very obviously a woman wearing a kind of skirt thing. I think people were a bit scared to, you know, because it was a, it was a bad thing, yeah. There wasn't cross-dressing, really, occasionally, I think there's some cases in London, but it isn't, and that's all to do with rather kinky prostitution in London. So it's not a normal thing at all. And the thing about it is, it is a

• 38:43Speaker 05

  permanent manifestation of her sin to those who are trying, because there she is, dressed in the men's clothes and being interviewed. So they might have thought it was better to let her keep them on, because it's pretty obvious then, you know, from her physical appearance, she was guilty.

• 38:59Eleanor Janega?

  This is an interesting point, too, because, you know, part of her justification for it is that she's saying, well, I'm around men, all right, I'm around men, so I kind of, so I sort of need to dress like a man. And this kind of also plays into, I think, this tension with her being locked up around men. And I, I do think, as you say, you know, that there is this kind of acknowledgement of this vulnerability, but it, it does seem that they're trying to kind of get out in front of it, but that there is, there is a vulnerability here to her position.

• 39:30Speaker 05

  That's interesting thought, actually, you know, possibly it was better to keep her in men's clothing, because then she wouldn't be attractive to the soldiers there and the guards, and, you know, I mean, actually, there's a sort of, it's protecting her interests to a certain degree. But the very important thing here is, on the 24th of October, when the sentence is read to her, she actually confesses and abjures her heresy. So she says, yes. Fair cop, I submit to the church militant. And she agrees to take off her men's clothes and to put on her women's clothes and to have her head shaved because she can't grow it overnight. So she has it shaved at that point. So at that point, therefore, the putting on of the women's clothes is sort of in a way the part of the recantation.

• 40:16Eleanor Janega?

  Can we talk a little bit about the the articles of accusation? Because you've you've mentioned already that initially there there's seventy.

• 40:22Speaker 05

  About seventy, yeah.

• 40:23Eleanor Janega?

  Articles. And, you know, we've got standard sort of heretical things. And we've also got idolatry in there.

• 40:30Speaker 05

  Well, they threw in, they threw in everything like, you know, campaigning on saints days and killing a prisoner. I mean, it's absolutely everything. It's sort of, you know, you know, well, some of those wouldn't stick if you put them in a court case. It seems a trivial, really. So it's not surprising that they reduced them down to twelve. And the ones they reduced them down to are very much the theological ones that she claims the saints told her to keep her virginity. Well, I'll think about that. I mean, the church liked people to keep their virginity. It wasn't that. She'd been advised by kind of saints she imagined, who were not really the proper saints, if you see what a meaning there. She showed reverence to her voices, again, you know, bowed down in front of them, all those

• 41:14Speaker 05

  sorts of things, which were a bit, a bit dodgy. And also, one that was kept in, which is quite interesting, because it's not theological in its own right, is that she tried to commit suicide. That was one of the articles. When she was in captivity at Bollevois, she had tried to leap from a tower. And of course, suicide was a sin at this time as well. But a lot of it is to do with her prophesying, you know, saying she knew what was going to happen. She knew that Charles was going to, that the siege of Orleans would be raised, etc., etc. So this, the church didn't like that kind of thing, because that's witchcraft, isn't it? You know, foretelling the future.

• 41:55Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, I mean, a very dim view.

• 41:58Speaker 05

  Correct.

• 41:59Eleanor Janega?

  On prophesying that the church takes. I see that come up again and again in my work. You know, there's this desire to prophesy and the fact that humans can't do that. You know, that's a very important bit, but.

• 42:09Speaker 05

  Correct. And also, I mean, you know, whilst you might have an ordained clergyman with a lot of learning, who knows certain things, Jo, you know, is a parishioner, if you like, who doesn't. She doesn't have the higher knowledge that you need. So a lot of these things, you know, you could say, well, they get out the sort of great book of theology or book of civil law, canon law, rather. And, you know, she couldn't possibly know. I'm sure she knew it was a sin to commit suicide, though. In short, had tried to commit suicide and she'd have known it was a sin to wear men's clothing as well. So there were things she kind of would have known. And there were other things they didn't like.

• 42:50Speaker 05

  She sent out letters in the name of Jesus Mary, you know, she signed Jesus Maria at the top of her letters and she also put a cross on the mat. So she was almost making them sound as though this is what God had written, rather than what Joan had written, if you like. And so she was assuming powers and rights and things of this sort, which she shouldn't have done. And one of the expressions used, particularly in chronicle sources, was that she seduced the people by these false, false statements and things of corrupted people by the things she'd said and written.

• 43:29Eleanor Janega?

  And I think these are important and really interesting, you know, legal points, because there are all of these rules within medieval Christianity. And to be fair, the great majority of them are usually not enforced, you know, things like, you know, working on saints' days, you know, but it sort of takes. Bringing yourself to the attention of the authorities, you know, there aren't exactly like church police walking around and every, you know, peasant who plows a field on some obscure saints' day isn't going to get brought up on it. But, you know, if you, if you come to the attention of the church and you have this sort of prominent position, that's when these things kind of cut the swing in, I suppose. And I think another thing that I'd

• 44:13Eleanor Janega?

  like to just sort of talk a little bit about is the element of torture, which is a bit of kind of an elephant in the room about this, because when Joan is under the care of the bishops, she is shown the torture chamber in the castle in Rouen. But it doesn't actually get used on her.

• 44:38Speaker 05

  No, no. Again, this is set procedure. This, as I say, you want a squeaky key process, Cauchon, and therefore they go through various stages. And this is in early May. So it's after the, the shorter articles have been drawn up and they're waiting for the replies from elsewhere. And, you know, she's been exhausted all the time to tell the truth. And they show her the torture. This is part of the procedure to sort of emphasize on her the need to tell the truth, really. And there is no torture. As I say, it's a standard procedure. Ditto the giving of her, you know, she's given a fish, isn't she, to eat by, you know, there's a kind of hard cop, soft cop approach to these people as well. So

• 45:23Speaker 05

  there's threats, but there's also the sort of trying to inveigle you into trust and that kind of thing. I mean, again, this is nothing specific to Joan. This is how, how they did it because they wanted to bring this lost soul back into the church, really. That's, that's what it was all about.

• 45:44Eleanor Janega?

  I think also, if you are them, if you are the members of the clergy,

• 45:51Eleanor Janega?

  On the 24th of May, you think we've done it, lads.

• 45:55Speaker 05

  She, correct, well, they were very surprised. In fact, they set up this huge event in the cemetery of Saint-Denis, brought her in and all of that kind of thing and found her guilty, you know, more exhortations against her. Then, blow me, she said, yeah, you're right. I confess, and I think they were taken by surprise because she'd been pretty forthright before that, you know, she'd, she hadn't given any sense that was going to come. And that is perhaps quite a puzzle. I mean, you've got to say, well, she, because she's a genuine person, that she was genuine, that this, she'd gone through this whole process, heard all these sermons and decided

• 46:37Speaker 05

  that, yes, she, in order to become loved by God again, and within the church, she needed to confess and to abjure.

• 46:48Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, I mean, I think that it's one of the things that it really comes out remarkably clearly in the trial documents is because Joan's consistent with the things that she says.

• 46:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 46:56Eleanor Janega?

  Her story does not change, which is why, you know, torture is never necessary because it's very clear that she's just saying the same thing. So this U-turn and this thing, oh, yeah, okay, yeah, I'll cop to it, I'll sign a document. Yeah. You know, it is, it's actually quite shocking that, that she does it.

• 47:14Speaker 05

  Well, it's surprising whether she is being brought face to face with the prospect of death, because had she not done that, she would have been burnt.

• 47:24Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah.

• 47:25Speaker 05

  So whether she, I mean, I think there is some suggestion it was the fear of the flames that she did that for. Okay, well, that's probably true, many heretics there. This, it's not unique, others have confessed in, in, in this way. She then, of course, the penalty is, is imprisonment, which, I mean, yeah, okay. I mean, technically, and this is very interesting, in the handing over document to the 3rd of January, when she's handed over by the King to the Church, there is a clause at the end of that letter that says if she's not found guilty of heresy, she could be handed back to us, to be, essentially implying she could be tried for treason, and indeed she could be. Now, what else would have happened? We don't know, do we? Because it didn't go there.

• 48:10Speaker 05

  She did abjure, she was taken back to her cell, had a hair. Cut and had women's clothes put on, but we don't know whether they would have then prepared a civil case or criminal case against her because she was guilty of treason. She'd opposed the Treaty of Toulon and she'd supported Charles the Seventh. Yes, that was treasonable and there were many people put to death for treason for that kind of of act. But within a few days, she's put the men's clothes back on. Four days later, essentially.

• 48:41Eleanor Janega?

  And that's important, right? Because that's one of the things that she's promised to do in order to avoid the formal charge of heresy and execution, no?

• 48:52Speaker 05

  Not not specifically. I mean, the the abjuration is general, yeah? But she does take on a woman's clothing and all of that. So, you know, it's expunged, you could argue, that, yes, she'd done bad things, but now she's abjured. But when they visit her cell on the twenty eighth, four days later, she's wearing men's clothes. Now, as you can imagine, historians have interpreted this in different ways. For the French patriotic historian, it's clear that the English kind of took her women's clothes away and left the men's ones for her to put on. Yeah, okay, but she could have been naked, couldn't she? And she could have said, no, I won't put those on. So I think that's not so likely. So what we're seeing is that she had men's clothes, they were in her cell, and she'd

• 49:36Speaker 05

  have stuff in the cell. Maybe they hadn't taken it all away. And although she's wearing women's clothing, she had the stuff there. Or they could have been deliberately testing her. I think that's likely, isn't it really? Testing her and seeing whether she would lapse, you know? I mean, that would be a natural thing to do without being very threatening and it's it's all right because she didn't need to take her women's clothing off. She could have left it on, but she chose, in my opinion, to take off her women's clothing and to put on men's clothing. So she herself decided she'd done the wrong, she'd she'd been wrong in abjuring. So she chooses and we're back to consistency and her great faith in herself and in her God.

• 50:21Speaker 05

  And we've got to sort of credit her for that, really, that she chooses, she chooses what she's going to do at that point.

• 50:46Speaker 06

  Hey, it's Adam Grant from TED's Rethinking Podcast. As businesses scale, success depends on how well knowledge is captured, shared, and kept up to date. Camtasia Pro turns teams' expertise into engaging training, onboarding, and documentation. No professional editing experience required. With the industry's best screen recording, video editing, and AI-powered workflows, you can train faster and boost operational efficiency. Get over $100 off your first year at camtasia pro.com and start building a smarter way to educate customers, onboard employees, and ensure valuable expertise is shared across teams.

• 51:19Speaker 02

  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at go.o.gle/workspacewithGemini. That's go.o.gle/workspacewithGemini.

• 52:09Eleanor Janega?

  That's a really important point to me. And I really don't like the interpretation that, you know, her other clothes are taken away because that's not what she says. You know, that's, that is not the thing that she says about it. She says, oh, actually, I was wrong. I did it because I was afraid. I should have stuck to my guns.

• 52:27Speaker 05

  Correct. Yeah, she, she does. Yes. And she, she really says I shouldn't have endured. You know, it's a general thing really there. So we've got to credit her with, with that. You know, if, if this idea that she had to put them on because the English had left them there and taken away all of these clothes, what's that say? That it's a patriotic thing, though, isn't it? It's the English, you know, the English are absolutely terrible and that, that kind of thing. Well, a bit unfair really because the trial has been conducted entirely by Frenchmen. There are some English present at the, on the 24th, but there aren't a single Englishman involved in that trial. Really so.

• 53:08Eleanor Janega?

  And I think that this is an important point here too, right? Because there is, I think, that as we see, you know, a pattern of attempting to get her to admit she's a heretic and, you know, come back to what they perceive to be as the side of the bosom, come back to the bosom of the church. They love to say, come back to the bosom of the church. Um, but I don't know if there could have been a way of avoiding her execution, because if, you know, she's, she's brought back into alignment with the church, I really don't see, you know, Henry letting it go.

• 53:44Speaker 05

  No, and the church couldn't either. I mean, heretics were burnt. There were some burnt, you know, in the diocese of Norwich around the same time because of being some lolots and they had, you know, sort of been found guilty and hadn't had good. So, you know, it was happening. She's not unique in, in that respect. Um, so you could say she chooses to die. I don't think there's any evidence it's because she doesn't want to be in prison forever and she's young and I don't think, again, I mean, she's motivated entirely by her faith, really, uh, and that's what's happening all the time. But of course, this having happened and also by her saying she heard her voices again. It's not just the men's clothes that she's put on. She's, oh, by the way, I heard my voices again. Yeah.

• 54:29Speaker 05

  So all of that, the previous four months, if you like, of trial are kind of overthrown, aren't they? Because she's gone back to the, what the original charges were, if you like, against her. So she's brought out for condemnation in the marketplace at Rouen and she's handed over, again, there are exhortations even at the last minute and that kind of thing. But, uh, she's handed over to the secular arm. Now, one of the dodgy bits is there is no record of that handing over. Normally, apparently you would have expected some sort of trial or a formalized really, because the church can't kill anybody, so it has to get the secular arm to, to do so.

• 55:11Speaker 05

  But the secular arm would always do it because it's supported the church in its decisions, so to speak. But there isn't anything. We just know that she was handed over to the buying of Rouen and she was burnt at the stake. But the stake would have been prepared. It was in the Viomarce. They weren't sort of thinking, oh, well, you never know what's going to happen this thirtieth of May. No, it was there already because she had already been found guilty. She was going to be handed over. And you're not going to waste time, are you going to so fair? And that's the first time she's appeared in public in Rouen, incidentally. She's otherwise in the castle all the time. And I think that's another point to bear in mind as to why they'd never consider an ecclesiastical prison for her.

• 55:55Speaker 05

  That is, that they don't then they keep her in the castle all the time. The the big sessions are in the the the roving room next to the great hall, all that kind of thing. And then she's in her cell. They never need to show her in Rouen because they would be a little bit worried that there were people who would support Charles the Seventh, therefore her. So she's not allowed out and she's not processed through until the thirtieth of October, when she's already been found guilty, essentially, and they're already preparing her execution.

• 56:23Eleanor Janega?

  But I think this is an interesting point because, you know, that possibly there are supporters of Charles the Seventh around. But Charles didn't do anything to attempt to rescue her, you know, at this point in time, you know, he very, I think, almost ostentatiously doesn't do anything when she is captured. And, you know, ordinarily, someone who is, you know, quite important to the court, when you capture them in battle, then you go to the court and you say, ha, ha, have your girl, give me money. And then and you ransom them. And the entire time, Charles declines, you know, he seems to have no interest in getting her back.

• 57:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, he doesn't. There's no negotiations at all, really. I think this is quite interesting here because when she's first captured, there are documents that call her prisoner of war. So there could technically have been some opportunity. However, both the Duke of Burgundy and John of Luxembourg, who held her, were lobbied by the church to hand her over. That's what I say, you've got to look before the trial, there's already. There's pressure really in fourteen twenty nine that she should be investigated by the church. And because the princes at this time and kings were supposed to support the church and the documents, the church kept reminding them of that. They were lobbying for her to be handed over to the church already.

• 57:46Speaker 05

  So I think Charles might have felt that even he couldn't intervene in in that. And if the Burgundians weren't prepared to negotiate a ransom handover. Uh, there, because the Burgundians, John Luxembourg and others, were trying to get as much money out of this as possible. So I suppose in theory, if Charles had come up with a very, very large ransom, maybe. But they did haggle, that's why it took quite a long time, didn't, she wasn't handed over to the English till November. So she'd been in Burgundian captivity from the end of May to November. And they did get quite a decent amount of money out of it, the English had to pay.

• 58:27Speaker 05

  And what's fascinating there is that the English raised the money by a tax in Normandy. They have to call the estates in Normandy in September, October of fourteen thirty. And they raise a tax, part of which is for the Russia, the purchase of the train of ours. So where she's actually called Bison yet to go because she's still technically in that category. And she's brought to Rouen, revived just before Christmas. And then she's handed over to the church in response to another spate of letters to hand her over. It is she's handed over on the third of January, so she's still, if you like, a state prisoner. Or mounted to the state till the third of January.

• 59:11Speaker 05

  And that document of third of January is the one that says, we hand her over to the church because we're good princes, we support the church and we want the best for the faith. And then it has the codicil, oh, by the way, if she's not found guilty, then, you know, we may also try her. But yeah, but but she would have been guilty of treason, you know, and she would have accepted that as well. So Charles, I think, couldn't do anything, he wasn't approached to do anything, but also. Didn't want to do anything because he was realising there was quite a lot of dirt on Joan by this time. And maybe what would be the advantage to him of getting her back? None, none at all. He was already, she was already not one of his company anymore. She'd gone off and done her own thing. She hadn't seen him for quite a while.

• 59:56Speaker 05

  So I think there was no advantage to him in, even if he could have done. And I think you've got to look at the practicalities. The Anglo-Bergundians are getting back some of the land they've lost. There's a big army's been assembled, a big one come from England with the king. So militarily speaking, Charles would have had greater difficulty in, you know, campaigning. If he'd gone with troops to try to get her, I think that wouldn't have been feasible. Uh, so he couldn't, he couldn't help her. And I think he was in two minds as to whether he should or not.

• 1:00:30Eleanor Janega?

  I think eventually we, we can argue that Charles does help Joan. If you consider the fourteen fifty six rehabilitation trial, you know. Is it, what, what is it that's brought up that casts doubt on the initial trial at this phase?

• 1:00:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, there's several interesting things happen after Joan's burning in fourteen thirty one. There are actually some Anglo French negotiations and the Burgundians defect to Charles in fourteen thirty five. There's actually also a false Proust, there's an impostor, impostor Joan turns up. Who was recognised by her brothers, yeah, by a few other people. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so.

• 1:01:13Eleanor Janega?

  You know, it's rather the fashion in the late medieval period.

• 1:01:15Speaker 05

  I fear it is. And the war starts to go badly for the English really. And by the mid fourteen forties, they decide they've got to come to truce. Yeah. So they're shown they're not going to win. And Charles just waits and there's supposed to be a meeting between the two kings, but it never happens. He just waits and then in fourteen forty nine, he invades Normandy and gets it back very, very quickly. A couple of years later, gets back Gascogne very quickly. So therefore by fourteen fifty, he's in control of, of Normandy. Very important in this is his reconquest of Rouen, which happens in October, November fourteen forty nine. Because what's in Rouen? Well, the trial records are in Rouen, yeah.

• 1:01:59Speaker 05

  And he is subject to pressure to do something. Her mother's still alive and the town of Orleans has given her mother a place to live and one of her brothers is living in Orleans. So there's a sort of Orleans lobby on Charles to do something about this. And because it's not a trial of rehabilitation, it's what's called a trial of nullity. It's a nullification technically. Anyway, Charles initially kind of says, oh yeah, well, I tell you what, let's investigate. Let's find the documents. So I'm gonna be able to look. And so they start to do this, but he then doesn't do anything. Yeah. And they think again in fourteen fifty two and there's more pressure on him that so, yeah,

• 1:02:40Speaker 05

  let's investigate a bit more and do that. So it takes quite a long time for him to be persuaded that there should be a, at either pace, he gets consulted on this, but I don't think he's under pressure there. But finally, in fourteen fifty five, they they set it up and it is conducted in a similar way, except they haven't got the girl to interview this time. But they collect a lot of stuff, yeah. They have set questions done and they get the answers and they write them down. They send people off to Orleans to interview folks. They send a few to Paris. They send interviews in Rouen, interviews in Domremy and Vaucluse. So they collect together a vast amount. There's about

• 1:03:21Speaker 05

  a hundred and thirteen people interviewed about this and they look at all the evidence and then they come to the conclusion, based on this evidence, that the trial has to be annulled. That's essentially what happens. It's not, she isn't technically, in a way, she's not declared she wasn't a heretic. It's just said the trial that made her, gave that charge against her, is now annulled. Yeah. So it leaves her in a way in a bit of limbo. And I think that contributes to the fact that it wasn't until nineteen twenty that she was canonized.

• 1:03:52Eleanor Janega?

  And I think that it's quite moving that the, you know, I like that her mum is still, is still pushing this thing.

• 1:03:59Speaker 05

  Correct.

• 1:04:00Eleanor Janega?

  That, you know, and it actually shows us rather a lot about belief at the time. I think that we have a hard time in, you know, the year of our Lord, 2025, getting our heads around the way medieval people really feel about faith. You know, this is something that would be pressing for Joan's mum. She would really feel as though, you know, her daughter had been done a disservice and that her daughter wasn't held. You know, this is something, you know, like legal proceedings from the church have weight, you know?

• 1:04:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, definitely. Oh, definitely. And also, I mean, you know, the point is that the Ark family were God fearing. That comes out in the testimony given by their friends in 1456, 1455, 1456. Okay, you could say, well, yeah, all our friends in Dom Raby are gonna say, oh, Joan, yeah, yeah, she was a real, really pure and virtuous girl and very God fearing. But they go further than that because some of them say, one, one, one says, some said she was too pious. So actually they're a bit cheeky about her. They say, oh, that Joan, wow, yeah, what a straight laced woman she was. You could never have it off with her.

• 1:05:10Speaker 05

  These are men who were teenagers with her and they're pretty honest about, you mean, that religious nutter who lived in our village. Yeah. And went off and there's a sort of feeling all the time that, yeah, of course they're impressed because they've got to be, but there is a sort of sense that, you know, when they're talking about the fairy tree, you know, is the courtship tree and that sort of thing, and they're dancing around it and that sort of thing. And they say, oh, yeah, I'm not sure Joan ever did dance around it. She sang though. So, you know, you're getting a picture of Joan as a real God person. She'd found religion. But her mother had as well. Her mother was very influential. In fact, I thought her mother went off on a big pilgrimage just before Joan set off

• 1:05:55Speaker 05

  on her mission. So it's her mother who helps a lot, I think, and that's how we understand Joan's religiosity there. So this evidence is all, all collected together. Incidentally, I should have said that the reason why Charles VII was a bit miffy about the whole thing is that, that he didn't want it to be seen a political retrial.

• 1:06:21Speaker 05

  And so, in fact, the church was telling him, hang on a minute, sire. You know, we can't do this. It'll just look as though you're trying to get one back on the English. So it's her mother who actually petitions the church for, and her brother who petitions the church for a reopening of the case. Yeah, that that has to be, and we can read from the sources, that was all deliberate. That was because Charles was told he hadn't to interfere in it. So it's her mother kneeling in Notre Dame, I think it is, and her brother, you know, asking that the case should be reopened.

• 1:06:58Eleanor Janega?

  I I find the entire trial so incredibly interesting because since it's so well documented, we're really able to get a picture of Joan as a person. You know, you know, we have so much out of her mouth about the way that she sees the world. We have so much about, you know, from the teenage voice in her village. You know, we have so much in a way that we really, really don't have about most people in the Middle Ages. You get a real sense of her as a person, I think.

• 1:07:29Speaker 05

  I agree. And of course, these trial records for heresy are a very valuable source for the historian. There was Le Chatte La Dure's work on Montigny that was very famous. So sort of, you know, with the heresies in the south of of France, the cathars and all that kind of thing. Because when these people were interviewed and the testimony written down and all that kind of thing, it wasn't just things about the faith that they said that were interesting, but it was about everyday life. For instance, in the nullification, her cousin, Duran Laxard, who'd helped her quite a lot, sort of said that, well, she'd come to help my wife who was having a baby.

• 1:08:11Speaker 05

  So you get some idea there, don't you, of the teenage Joan. There's another one where I think it's a priest who says that Joan said, if I did something, she would bring me some galette. So Joan in the Bake Off, you know, that kind of thing. I we're getting a reconstruction of of her life and also I think quite a bit about her time on campaign, things of of this sort. I mean, when things were going badly in the end of fourteen thirty thirty one, when she wasn't doing terribly well and the king had really cast her off, she was still involved in a few sieges. And one of the people gives

• 1:08:55Speaker 05

  testimony saying that he was going very badly, but Jen said, oh, no, it'll be all right. It'll be all right. And I'll pray and thousands of men will come. So it was a eternal optimism of I'm a bad child. Because it didn't. Nothing. And of course, they had to withdraw. Yeah. Yeah. But all the way, she thought God would help the French. That's that's the point. Or good would help the Valois, the Valois French. There's all these little vignettes that you get in these novels. Like you, you would get if you read lots of court cases, like the Old Bailey Online project, you know, you've got a lot of really interesting things on crime. But actually, there's a lot of the sort of circumstantial detail that people give. It's, oh, it was hot that day, or that kind of stuff. Yeah. So that's

• 1:09:40Speaker 05

  what's fascinating about it.

• 1:09:42Eleanor Janega?

  I think Joan is just this perpetually interesting figure for all of us, because obviously, you know, she loses her life. But I mean, ultimately, at this point in time in the twenty first century, I think we have to say that she's won the day. You know, she's triumphed. She's she's one of the the patron saints of France. She's she is one of the very few household medieval names, you know, and especially a woman from the I mean, fundamentally, yes, she she dies, but she's won. You know, this is a cultural phenomenon at this point.

• 1:10:16Speaker 05

  Correct. I mean, the afterlives of Joan are even fuller than the life. That's that's what's, and it's what I'm working on putting it all all together there. She's been and she's a she's an international heroine. She's known much more beyond France. She's even a heroine in England as well, inspiring the suffragettes, the obviously Catholic churches to to Joan here. There's a manga Joan of Arc. There's, you know, she's inspired modern fashion and all. I everything anywhere is Joan.

• 1:10:50Speaker 05

  Related, uh, the, um, Museum Historial de Jeanne d'Arc in Rouen has a lot of collections of commemorative mugs with Joan on them or pa- phony keyrings and, and, or I bought, I bought for my granddaughter, a little cuddly toy Joan. Uh, but of course, when I looked at the label, it wasn't really her. It was meant to be a little, a male knight. But, uh, but it has pink bits on it. So it looks, uh, feminine enough. There we are. So, so the Joan of Arc industry is huge.

• 1:11:25Eleanor Janega?

  I cannot thank you enough, Professor Currie, for coming to chat to me about this. I find the subject endlessly fascinating. It, it tells us so much, not just about Joan, but about the way medieval society ticks, the way that power is handed down. And there's just so much work still to be done. And I'm so glad that you're doing it.

• 1:11:46Speaker 05

  I'm, that's, that's right. But I also think it shows that, you know, Joan's a woman and she's a peasant and all, that the idea of the downtrodden, ignorant, silent peasant isn't true. She, she actually redeems the, the common person, doesn't she? And shows that someone, you could say, for a, a girl from a sort of farming community, another significant one on the borders of France, uh, she, she did pretty well. She, she got a coat of arms. Her family were all ennobled. Down to the end of the 18th century is still claiming that. I, she did, she did well. She's a good example of social mobility and a career girl. In the 15th century, you know, so, uh, I, I think that.

• 1:12:31Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, I, I can't say fairer than that. Well, thank you so, so much for joining us today. It's been an absolute delight.

• 1:12:37Speaker 05

  It's a pleasure. Always good to talk about it. Thanks very much. Eleanor, bye bye.

• 1:12:42Eleanor Janega?

  My thanks to Professor Anne Currie and to you for listening to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Remember, you can enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries, including my new film Joan of Arc, as well as ad-free podcasts by signing up at historyhit.com/subscription. You can follow Gone Medieval on Spotify, where you can leave us comments and suggestions, or wherever you get your podcasts. And tell all your friends and family that you've gone medieval. Until next time.

• 1:13:33Speaker 06

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