Joan of Arc: The Maid of Orléans, Her Trial and Her Legacy

Joan of Arc (Jeanne d’Arc, c. 1412 – 30 May 1431), known as the Maid of Orléans, was a young Frenchwoman who, convinced she was sent by God, joined the army of the Dauphin Charles during the Hundred Years’ War. In little more than a year she helped break the English Siege of Orléans and saw Charles crowned at Reims. Captured in 1430, she was tried for heresy and burned at Rouen, and later became one of the most famous figures in European history and a saint of the Catholic Church.

Background: France in crisis

When Joan was born, France was deep in its long war with England. The French king Charles VI suffered from bouts of mental illness, and two princely factions, the Armagnacs and the Burgundians, fought for control of the government. In 1415 Henry V of England crushed a French army at Agincourt and went on to conquer Normandy.

In 1419 the Duke of Burgundy, John the Fearless, was murdered in the presence of the Dauphin Charles, and Burgundy allied itself with England. The Treaty of Troyes in 1420 disinherited the Dauphin and named Henry V heir to the French crown. When both Henry V and Charles VI died in 1422, the infant Henry VI was proclaimed king of both realms. The Dauphin, uncrowned and short of money, held only the lands south of the Loire.

Early life and the road to Chinon

Joan was born in Domrémy, a village on the River Meuse on the borders of Champagne and Lorraine. Her parents, Jacques d’Arc and Isabelle Romée, were farmers of modest but respectable standing; her father was a village notable. She learned spinning and sewing and could not read or write, though she later learned to sign her name.

According to her own testimony at her trial, she began hearing voices at about the age of 13, which she identified as those of Saint Michael, Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret. The voices eventually told her to go to the Dauphin, drive the English from France and bring Charles to Reims to be crowned.

In 1428 Joan went to the nearby fortress town of Vaucouleurs and asked its captain, Robert de Baudricourt, for an escort to the Dauphin. He at first sent her home. She returned in early 1429 and, with the support of local people, persuaded him. In February she set out, dressed in men’s clothing for safety, with a small escort.

She reached Chinon in early March 1429. Later accounts claim she recognised Charles although he was disguised among his courtiers, but this story is not confirmed by the trial records and may be embellished. What is certain is that Charles had her examined by theologians at Poitiers for several weeks. They found nothing heretical in her and advised that she be allowed to prove her mission at Orléans.

Orléans and the coronation

Equipped with armour, a household and a banner showing Christ in judgement with the names “Jhesus Maria”, Joan travelled with a relief convoy to Orléans, which the English had besieged since October 1428. She entered the city on 29 April 1429.

Over the following days the French attacked the English siege forts. Joan urged the commanders forward, rode with the assaults and was struck by an arrow between her neck and shoulder during the attack on the fortress of Les Tourelles on 7 May. The fort fell that evening, and on 8 May the English abandoned the siege. The victory transformed her reputation, and she became known as la Pucelle, the Maid.

A rapid campaign along the Loire followed, ending in a French victory at Patay on 18 June 1429. Joan then pressed Charles to march through hostile territory to Reims, the traditional site of French coronations. Towns such as Troyes and Châlons opened their gates, and on 17 July 1429 Charles was crowned and anointed as Charles VII in Reims Cathedral, with Joan standing nearby holding her banner.

Failure at Paris, capture and trial

After the coronation, the king’s advisers favoured negotiation with Burgundy over further fighting. On 8 September 1429 Joan joined an attack on Paris, which failed; she was wounded in the thigh by a crossbow bolt. The army withdrew and was disbanded for the winter. Charles ennobled Joan and her family in December 1429.

In spring 1430 she went to help defend Compiègne against a Burgundian siege. On 23 May 1430, during a sortie, she was cut off outside the town and captured by Burgundian troops. Her captor’s lord, John of Luxembourg, held her for several months and then sold her to the English for 10,000 livres. Charles VII made no known effort to rescue or ransom her.

The English handed Joan to a church court in Rouen, the capital of English-held Normandy. It was presided over by Pierre Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, a supporter of the Anglo-Burgundian cause, together with a deputy of the Inquisition. The English had a strong political motive: if Joan’s mission was shown to be false, the coronation she had championed would be discredited.

The trial opened in January 1431, and public sessions began on 21 February. Joan, without legal counsel, was questioned repeatedly about her voices, her visions, her male clothing and her obedience to the Church. Her answers were often careful and quick-witted. Asked whether she knew she was in God’s grace, a question designed to trap her, she replied that if she was not, she prayed God would put her there, and if she was, that God would keep her there.

On 24 May 1431, at the cemetery of Saint-Ouen and under threat of immediate burning, she signed an abjuration and agreed to wear women’s clothing. A few days later she was found once again in men’s clothing; the reasons are disputed, and some witnesses later said she wore it to protect herself from abuse by her guards. The court declared her a relapsed heretic.

On 30 May 1431 Joan was burned at the stake in the Place du Vieux-Marché in Rouen. She was about 19 years old. Her ashes were thrown into the Seine.

Key people

• Joan of Arc, the visionary from Domrémy who called herself Jehanne la Pucelle.
• Charles VII (1403–1461), the Dauphin whom she helped to crown and who later reconquered most of France.
• Pierre Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, who presided over her trial.
• John, Duke of Bedford, the English regent in France, under whose authority the trial took place.
• Jean de Dunois, the Bastard of Orléans, the city’s commander and one of Joan’s comrades in arms.

Rehabilitation and sainthood

Charles VII recovered Rouen in 1449, and access to the trial records allowed him to reopen the case. With the approval of Pope Callixtus III, a nullification trial began in 1455. More than a hundred witnesses, including people who had known Joan in Domrémy, Orléans and Rouen, gave evidence. On 7 July 1456 the court declared the original verdict null and void.

Joan’s reputation grew over the following centuries. In the nineteenth century she became a national symbol, claimed by both Catholics and republicans. She was beatified in 1909 and canonised by Pope Benedict XV on 16 May 1920. France holds a national festival in her honour on the second Sunday of May.

Myths and facts

Myth: Joan was the commander-in-chief of the French army. Fact: She never held formal supreme command. Experienced captains led the army, but her presence and insistence on action had a powerful effect on morale and decisions.

Myth: “Arc” was the place she came from. Fact: D’Arc was her father’s surname. She came from Domrémy and called herself Jehanne la Pucelle; the spelling “d’Arc” with an apostrophe became standard later.

Myth: She was burned as a witch. Fact: The final charge was relapse into heresy. Accusations of sorcery were raised early in the proceedings but were not the basis of the sentence.

Myth: She was a poor shepherdess. Fact: She sometimes watched animals, as most village children did, but her family owned land and livestock and was comfortable by local standards.

By the numbers

Timeline

• c. 1412: Joan is born in Domrémy.
• 1429, early March: Joan meets the Dauphin Charles at Chinon.
• 1429, 29 April: She enters besieged Orléans.
• 1429, 8 May: The English abandon the siege of Orléans.
• 1429, 17 July: Charles VII is crowned at Reims.
• 1429, 8 September: Failed attack on Paris; Joan is wounded.
• 1430, 23 May: Joan is captured at Compiègne.
• 1431, 21 February: Public sessions of her trial begin in Rouen.
• 1431, 30 May: Joan is burned at the stake in Rouen.
• 1456, 7 July: The nullification trial annuls her conviction.

Why it matters

Joan of Arc changed the course of the Hundred Years’ War at its lowest point for France, giving Charles VII a crown and a cause. Her trial is one of the best-documented of the Middle Ages, preserving the voice of an unlettered young woman under interrogation. Through her rehabilitation and later canonisation she became a lasting symbol of faith, courage and French national identity.