JOAN: I shall say nothing else to you about this; I have a good master, God to wit, in whom I trust in all things and not in another.
Question: If you will not believe in the Church and believe in the article Unam sanctam Ecclesiam catholicam, you are a heretic in maintaining that, and other judges may punish you with the pain of fire.
JOAN: I shall say nothing else to you about this. And if I saw the fire, I should say all that I am saying, and do not otherwise.
Question: If the Holy Council General (Synod) and our Holy Father the pope, the cardinals and others of the Church were here, would you refer (the matter) and submit to that holy council?
JOAN: You will get nothing else out of me.
Question: Will you submit to our Holy Father the pope?
JOAN: Take me to him and I will answer him. (C.342–343)
Did this interrogation in fact occur exactly as it appears in the record? It may be doubted that it did if we can rely upon some of the witnesses at the Trial of Rehabilitation. For several of them affirmed that Joan said more than once that she would abide by the pope’s decision. Here, as an example, is Richard de Grouchet’s deposition: “I saw and heard, at the time of the judgment, that when Joan was asked if she would submit herself to the Bishop of Beauvais and to certain among those who were there and were named, Joan answered that she would not, and that she submitted herself to the pope and to the Catholic Church, demanding that she be taken to the pope. When she was told that the proceedings would be sent to the pope that he might judge them, she answered that she would not have them do so, for she knew not what they would put in the proceedings, but that she wanted to be taken there that she might be questioned by the pope. I do not know if it was put or written in the proceedings that she did not submit herself to the Church and I did not see that putting it in was prevented, but I know that in my presence Joan always submitted herself to the judgment of the pope and the Church.”
And we may also quote the deposition of Isambart de la Pierre: “Joan, asked if she would submit herself to our Holy Father the pope, answered yes provided she was led and taken to him, but that she would not submit herself to those who were present, that is to say the Bishop of Beauvais, for they were her mortal enemies. And when I persuaded her that she should submit herself to the Council General then assembled, at which were many prelates and doctors of the King of France’s party, that heard, Joan said that she submitted herself to the Council. Then the Bishop of Beauvais called upon me violently, saying, ‘Be silent, by the devil!’ That heard, Master Guillaume Manchon, notary of the trial, asked the bishop if he should write down her submission. The bishop answered no, that it was not necessary. And Joan said to him: ‘Ah, you take care to write down what is against me, and will not write down what is for me’; and I believe that it was not written down, whence arose a great murmuring in the assembly.” (R.222–223)
The record shows that Isambart was indeed present at that session of May 2nd. After Joan’s answer, “Take me to him and I will answer him,” the text of the proceedings notes simply: “. . . and otherwise would not answer.” (Lit: “. . . and more about it would not answer.”) After that the subject of questioning was changed completely: woman’s clothes, the sign given to the King, etc.; the change occurring from the direct style to the indirect, and from one question to another, leads us to think that it is here that the incident reported by Isambart should be placed.
Wednesday, May 9th, Joan was taken to the Great Tower of Rouen Castle—it still survives and is the only vestige of the ancient fortress of Bouvreuil. The judges were accompanied by only a reduced number of assessors; and in their presence Joan was threatened with torture. She was called upon thereafter to speak the truth on various points in the trial “which she has denied or in which she has answered in a lying fashion”.
JOAN: Truly, though you were to have my limbs torn off and send the soul out of my body, I should not say otherwise; and if I did tell you otherwise, I should always thereafter say that you had made me speak so by force.
And she added:
At the last feast of the Holy Cross (May 3rd) I had comfort from Saint Gabriel, and I believe that it was Saint Gabriel, and I learned it from my voice, that it was Saint Gabriel. I asked counsel of my voices if I should submit myself to the Church, since Churchmen were pressing me hard to submit myself to the Church: and these voices told me that if I wanted God to help me I must trust in him for all I did. I know well that God has always been the master of all that I have done, and that the devil has never had power over my deeds. I have asked my voices whether I shall be burnt and my voices have answered me that I should trust in Our Lord and that he would help me.
Question: About the sign of the crown of which you say that it (the crown) was delivered to you by the Archbishop of Rheims, will you abide by what that archbishop says?
JOAN: Bring him here and then I will answer you. I would not dare to say the opposite of what I have told you.
Thereupon, the masters present decided to put off the torture and to deliberate first as to whether or not it should be applied to her. The record mentions the presence of some “officers” who were there in readiness to put John to the torture. The principal man among them was the executioner, Maugier Leparmentier: he was still living at the time of the Rehabilitation and he remembered the episode perfectly. “I met Joan at the time when she was brought to the town of Rouen and I saw her at Rouen Castle when me and my companion were sent for to put Joan to the torture. She was then questioned for some time and she answered with much prudence, so much so that those who were there marvelled. Finally we withdrew, I and my companion, without having laid hands on her person.” (R.215)
Saturday, May 12th, Cauchon assembled twelve of the assessors to discuss the question of whether Joan was to be put to the torture. Only three among them gave an affirmative opinion: Thomas de Courcelles of Paris University; Nicolas Loiseleur, the man who had passed himself off as a fellow-countryman of Joan’s in an attempt to extract damaging confessions; and one Aubert Morel, Doctor of Canon Law, whose appearance at sittings of the court were few and far between. The details of this discussion do not appear in the definitive text of the proceedings drafted by Thomas de Courcelles; it is only to be found in the text of the “French Minute” given in the Urfé MS. and in that of Orleans. (See Commentary, p. 227.)
The English, however, were becoming impatient. A document recently brought to light, the Beauchamp Household Book now preserved in the Earl of Warwick’s archives and not yet published,* yields fresh confirmation of the texts we already possessed. In this register of accounts for the year 1431–32 are entered, day by day, the names of all the guests entertained by the then Earl of Warwick, who lived in Rouen as Governor representing the King of England. On Sunday, May 13th, the earl gave a grand dinner; first among the guests were the Bishop of Beauvais, Pierre Cauchon, and the Bishop of Noyon, Jean de Mailly. Also present were certain persons who had played important parts in Joan’s life, John of Luxembourg, his brother Louis, Chancellor of France, Humphrey, Earl of Stafford, one of the principal English captains, and the wife of John Talbot who had been captured by the French at Patay and was still held by them; she was Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick’s daughter.
After the list of names the Beauchamp’s major domo entered in his register the expenses necessitated by their keep. We thus know the details of an entertainment which seems to have been very grand, if we are to judge by the substantial purchases made on that day. (Folios 68 V. and 69 of the MS.)
It is very probable that we may ascribe to this Sunday, May 13th, the scene recounted by one of the witnesses at the Trial of Rehabilitation, Haimond de Macy, who, it will be recalled, had had some conversation with Joan in her prison at Beaurevoir; among the guests of that day the Account Book mentions “duo milites Burgonie,” two Knights of Burgundy, one of whom must be Haimond himself. Here is what he had to say about the matter:
“(After her stay at the castle of Beaure
voir and the castle of Crotoy) Joan was brought to the castle of Rouen, to a prison on the country side (of the castle). In that town, at the time when Joan was held there, the Count of Ligny (John of Luxembourg) went to see her, and me with him. One day this Count of Ligny wanted to see Joan. He went to her, accompanied by the lord Earls of Warwick and of Stafford, and the present Chancellor of England, at that time Bishop of Thérouanne and brother of the Count of Ligny, and myself. This Count of Ligny addressed himself to Joan, saying: ‘Joan, I am come to ransom you provided you will promise that you will never take up arms against us.’ She answered: ‘In God’s name, you are making game of me, for well I know that you have neither the will nor the power.’ And she repeated that several times because the count persisted in saying the same. And she said next: ‘I know that these English will put me to death, because they think, after my death, to win the Kingdom of France. But were they a hundred thousand godons* more than they are now, they will not have the Kingdom.’ At these words the Earl of Stafford was angry and he half-drew his dagger to strike her, but the Earl of Warwick prevented him.” (R.187)
This Earl of Stafford, one of Warwick’s intimates (his name constantly recurs in the pages of the register) seems to have been one of the most implacable against Joan. An episode recounted by Guillaume Manchon shows him as a man of quick and violent temper: “One day someone whose name I do not remember said something about Joan which displeased the lord of Stafford; this sire of Stafford pursued him who had spoken to a place of sanctuary, with drawn sword; to the point that, if the sire of Stafford had not been told that the place where this man was, was a holy place and enjoying the right of asylum, he would have struck the man.”
What decisions were taken at that dinner on May 13th? What is certain is that thereafter events came much faster.
On the following day, May 14th, the University of Paris met in plenary session to deliberate on the twelve articles of accusation which had been sent to it with a letter from Cauchon and another from the King of England, which letters can have left no doubt as to what the tendency of the deliberations ought to be. Not that there was any need to bring pressure to bear on that assembly as to the conclusion it was desired to come to, considering the unequivocal proofs of devotion which the University had long given to the English cause. The deliberations concluded by finding Joan guilty of being a schismatic, an apostate, a liar, a soothsayer, suspect of heresy; of erring in the faith, and being a blasphemer of God and the saints. A letter to the King of England, in support of these conclusions, was drawn up by the masters, who wrote:
“Your Most Noble Magnificence . . . has commenced a right good work touching our holy faith: to wit the judicial proceedings against the woman known as the Maid and her scandals, faults and offenses so manifest throughout this Kingdom. . . .
“We humbly implore your Excellent Highness, that very diligently this matter be brought swiftly to an end, for verily length and dilation is most perilous and it is very necessary to make in this (matter) notable and great reparation for that the people who, by this woman, have been mightily scandalised†, be led back into good and holy doctrine and belief.” (C.355–356)
As soon as he received these conclusions, so favourable to his cause, Cauchon hastened to assemble the assessors for a session of the court on Saturday, May 19th. After the letters and conclusions from the university had been read, the assessors were called upon, each for his opinion. Most of them, as we might expect, gave an opinion in the same sense as that of the authority par excellence of that time, the University of Paris. A few only had reservations, notably Brother Isambart de la Pierre, who referred the court to the first deliberations he had put before it and who insisted that Joan be warned again.
On Wednesday, May 23rd, Joan appeared before the court in a room in the castle near to her prison cell, to be solemnly exhorted by one of the university Masters, Pierre Maurice, to “renounce her errors and scandals”. A long and verbose exhortation was answered by Joan as follows:
“The way that I have always spoken and held to in this trial, that will I still maintain. And if I was brought to judgment and saw the fire lit and the faggots ready, and the executioner ready to stoke the fire and that I be within the fire, yet should I not say otherwise and should maintain what I have said in the trial even unto death.” (C.384)
It was at this point that it was decided to set a scene designed to shake her. On Thursday, May 24th, in the cemetery of Saint-Ouen, a scaffold and tribune were erected. Here Joan was to be brought and threatened with burning unless she made public abjuration.
The great prelates were all present; the scene was presided over by the Bishop of Winchester, Henry Beaufort, known as the “Cardinal of England”. He was Bedford’s uncle and Henry VI’s great-uncle. With him sat the Bishop of Beauvais and Noyon; Louis of Luxembourg, Bishop of Thérouanne; and William Alnwick, Keeper of the Privy Seal and Member of the Grand Council of the Crown. The principal assessors were also present, and a crowd had collected all round the platforms. Joan was brought out to a tribune facing the prelates; at her side was the usher, Jean Massieu, who was, as always, delegated to accompany her.
A sermon was preached to her, for which office Master Guillaume Erard had been chosen, a university man, a friend of Cauchon, and politically devoted to the English cause; he was to die in England, in 1439.
Isambart de la Pierre: “I was present at the first preaching to Joan which was done by Master Guillaume Erard who took as his text: the branch can produce no fruits if it stay not on the vine—saying that in France there never had been such a monster as Joan was, who was a magician, heretic, schismatic, and that the King who was favourable to her was like unto her in that he had tried to recover his kingdom with the help of such a heretical woman. He added, ‘Because of that, I believe that they were moved, among other things, by the desire to defame the royal majesty’.” (R.226) This impression was confirmed by other witnesses, such as Martin Ladvenu and Jean Massieu himself.
Jean Massieu: “When she was brought to Saint-Ouen, to be preached to by Master Guillaume Erard, during the preaching, at about half way, when Joan had been greatly blamed by the preacher’s words, he began to shout in a loud voice, saying: ‘Ah! France, thou art much abused, thou hast always been the most Christian country; and Charles, who calls himself King and of thee ruler, has adhered like a heretic and schismatic to the words and deeds of a woman vain and defamed and of all dishonour full; and not him only but all the clergy in his obedience and lordship, by whom she was examined and not corrected, as she has said’. . . . Then, addressing himself to Joan, he said, raising his finger: ‘It is to thee, Joan, that I speak, and I tell thee that thy King is a heretic and schismatic.’ To which she answered: ‘By my faith, sir, with respect, I dare to tell you and swear to you on pain of my life that he is the noblest Christian of all the Christians, and who better loves the faith and the Church, and is not such as you say.’ Then the preacher said to me, ‘Make her be silent.’ ” (R.227)
We read as follows in the record of this session: “After his sermon the preacher said to Joan: ‘Here be my lords the judges who many times have summoned and required of you that you submit all your deeds and sayings to our Holy Mother the Church, and that in those deeds and sayings there be many things which, as it seems to the clerks, were not good to say and maintain.”
JOAN: I will answer you. As for the matter of submission to the Church, I have answered on that point; of all the works I have accomplished, let them be sent to Rome to our Holy Father the Sovereign Pontiff, in whom, and in God first, I trust. As for my sayings and deeds, I have done them as from God. And with them I charge no man, neither my King nor any other; and if fault there be, it is in me and no other.
Question: Will you revoke all your sayings and deeds which are reproved by the clerks?
JOAN: I abide by God and our Holy Father the pope.
The text of the record continues here: “And it was said to her that this did not suffice, and that
to go for the pope to such a great distance could not be done, that the Ordinaries (diocesan bishops) were judges, each in his own diocese, and that it was necessary that she throw herself upon the Holy Church and that she abide by what the clerks and other learned men said and had determined on her sayings and deeds.”
It should be noted here that in Joan’s own epoch there were several precedents for what she asked: heretics who, having appealed to the Pope, were in fact taken before his court in Rome; in fact that was the rule in cases of judgment by the Inquisition.
Guillaume Erard repeated his exhortation three times. Here follows what Massieu, charged with reading to Joan the form of abjuration which she was called upon to sign, had to say: “When Joan was required to sign this document (cédule) there was a great murmuring among those who were present, to the point that I heard the bishop say to someone: ‘You will make reparation for that’ (‘You shall pay for that’) asserting that he had been insulted and that he would proceed no further unless he received an apology. Meanwhile, I warned Joan of the danger which threatened her in the matter of signing this abjuration document. I saw well that Joan understood neither the document nor the danger which threatened her. Then Joan, pressed to sign, answered: ‘Let this paper be seen by the clerks and by the Church into whose hands I must be put. If they advise me that I should sign it, and to do as I am told, I will do it willingly.’ Then Master Guillaume Erard said to her: ‘Do it now, if not this day shalt thou end thy days by fire.’ Then Joan answered that she would rather sign than be burnt, and at that moment there was a great tumult in the crowd which was there and stones were thrown. By whom? I know not.” (R.227–228)
Other details were given by one who was on the prelates’ tribune, Jean Monnet who was then clerk, that is secretary to Master Jean Beaupère: “I was at the sermon preached at Saint-Ouen and was myself on the tribune, seated at the feet of master Jean Beaupère. When the sermon was finished, as they began to read the sentence, Joan said that if she was advised by the clerks according to their conscience as it would seem to her (as best she could judge), she would willingly do what she was advised. That heard, the Bishop of Beauvais asked the cardinal of England, who was there, what, given Joan’s submission, he should do. The cardinal then answered the bishop that he should admit Joan to penitence. Thereupon the sentence which they had started to read was withdrawn and Joan was admitted to penitence (received as a penitent). I saw at the time a cédule of abjuration which was read, and it seems to me that it was a little cédule of five or six lines: and I remember that she threw herself upon the conscience of her judges as to whether she ought to recant or not.” (R.228–229)
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