Joan: The Mysterious Life of the Heretic Who Became a Saint

by Donald Spoto

Questioner: Do you not believe that you are bound to submit your words and deeds to the Church or to anyone other than God?

  Joan: La manière que j’ai toujours dicte et tenu eu procès, je la veuil maintenir quant ad ce: What I said and maintained at my trial, I still assert now…. And if I were to be condemned, and I saw the fire set, the wood prepared, and the executioner ready to throw me into the flames, even in the midst of the fire I would say nothing other than what I have previously said. And what I have sworn I will maintain even to my death.

  With that statement, Cauchon declared the trial ended, adding that sentence would be pronounced the next day; furthermore, he required everyone to gather at an appointed hour in the cemetery of Saint-Ouen.

  The assessors fully expected that a punishment of life imprisonment would be pronounced for Joan’s rebellion and heresy—that is, for her refusal to wear women’s clothing. But Cauchon knew that the Duke of Bedford required more than life imprisonment; thus the prison sentence would be only a first step. The bishop would have to find a reason for the death penalty, and the only ground for that was relapse: a suspect, after repenting of the crimes charged, would have to fall again into precisely the same forbidden actions or habits, and this would warrant death. Cauchon had to devise an elaborate scenario.

  The Abjuration: Thursday, May 24

  The next day Joan was led out in chains from the castle to the walled cemetery adjoining the abbey of Saint-Ouen, where an enormous crowd had gathered, eager for excitement. Two viewing stands were prepared, one for the prelates, the other for the assessors. A stake had been fixed in the ground as a threat of execution by burning (which, Joan may not have known, could not yet be carried out).

  Cauchon’s friend, the impassioned theologian Guillaume Erart, then preached a long sermon addressed directly to the prisoner and condemning her harshly for her crimes. A portion of the text was also dedicated to a blunt denunciation of Charles VII, which caused Joan to leap up and shout, “Condemn me, if you will, but not the king!”

  In reply, Erart laid aside his prepared text and pointed at Joan: “Your king is also a heretic and a schismatic, for he listened to you and your so-called voices.”

  No matter the danger of the moment, Joan remained steadfast in her loyalty to a sovereign who had done nothing to help her: “I swear to you that my king is a fine, true, and noble Christian!”

  “Force her to keep silent!” shouted Erart to the guards, and then he concluded his sermon, staring directly at Joan. “Here are the judges. They have time and again invited and required you to submit your erroneous words and deeds to the judgment of the Church.”

  To everyone’s surprise, Joan rose and in a clear voice said, “I will answer you. Regarding all my words and deeds, I appeal first of all to God.” There were shouts, murmurs and much shuffling, and Joan waited for silence. “I also wish the record to be sent to Rome and put before the pope, for everything I did was at God’s command.”

  “This is impossible, for our Holy Father is too far away. Besides, you must submit to your bishop.” At that point a document was brought to Joan. “You will abjure!” shouted Erart, taking his place at Cauchon’s side. “You will deny everything you have claimed, you will submit—and you will sign this document now!” She glanced at the paper and then said what they all knew—that she could neither read nor write. “Let this paper be read by the clergy,” Joan said, hoping to hear the document proclaimed aloud. “If they advise me to sign it, I shall freely do so.”

  “You will sign right now!” cried Erart. “Otherwise fire will consume you before this day is over!” The crowd began to shout, stones were thrown, and general chaos ensued. In the midst of the confusion Laurent Calot, the king’s secretary, placed a small bench before Joan, set a paper on it, and forced a writing instrument into her hand.

  Ill, exhausted after a long and bitter ordeal, and terrified at the prospect of imminent death by fire, Joan was near collapse. Massieu thought he heard her say that it was better to sign than to burn, and with Calot’s hand guiding hers, she drew a circle—and put an X in it. That was taken as her signature, which may explain the recorded fact that, at that very moment, those nearby heard Joan’s bitter laugh. Had she not said that such a cross indicated a document that should be ignored?

  Coded or not, what exactly did Joan sign, to which crimes did she apparently admit, and to what Church demands did she give her assent?

  The abjuration text that Cauchon ordered to be inserted into the official record (with the attachment of a separate paper purporting to be her signature) was a long and detailed confession of guilt. Until recently this was presumed to be the authentic abjuration of Joan of Arc:

  All those who have erred and been at fault in the Christian faith and have by God’s grace returned to the light of truth and unity of Our Holy Mother Church should vigilantly prevent the enemy of hell from driving them back and causing their relapse into error and damnation. Therefore I, Joan, commonly called the Maid, a miserable sinner, recognizing the snares of error in which I was held, and being by God’s grace returned to Our Holy Mother Church, in order to show that my return is made not insincerely but with a good heart and will, I now confess that I have most grievously sinned by falsely pretending to have had revelations and apparitions from God, His angels, Saint Catherine, and Saint Margaret; by seducing others; by believing foolishly and lightly; by making superstitious divinations; by blaspheming God and His saints; by breaking the divine law, holy Scripture, and canon law; by wearing a shameful and immodest dress against the decency of nature, and hair cropped like a man’s, against all womanly modesty; by bearing arms; by cruelly desiring the shedding of human blood; by declaring that I did all these things by the command of God, His angels and saints, and that to do so was good and not wrong; by being seditious and idolatrous, by adoring and summoning up evil spirits. I confess also that I have been schismatic and in many ways have erred from the path.*

  These crimes and errors I, by God’s grace having returned to the way of truth through the holy doctrine and good counsel of yourselves and the doctors and masters whom you sent me, sincerely and with a good heart abjure and recant, renouncing and cutting myself off from them all. In this I submit to the correction, disposition, amendment, and entire decision of Our Holy Mother Church and of your good justice. And I vow, swear and promise to you, my lord Saint Peter, Prince of the Apostles; to our Holy Father the Pope of Rome, his vicar and successor; to you, my lords, to the bishop of Beauvais and the religious brother Jean Le Maître, vicar of the lord Inquisitor of the faith, my judges, that I will never through exhortation or other means return to the aforesaid errors, from which it has pleased God to deliver and remove me. I will always dwell in the unity of Our Holy Mother Church and the obedience of our Holy Father the Pope of Rome. This I say, affirm, and swear by God almighty and the holy gospels. In witness whereof, I sign this with my mark.—Joan.

  This self-incriminating document was, however, a complete fabrication, composed later by Thomas de Courcelles under orders from Pierre Cauchon. All the eyewitnesses to that day insist that the document read to Joan was “about the length of the Lord’s Prayer.”

  “What she signed,” according to Massieu, who was at her side and whose testimony was supported by the others, “was a paper of no more than eight lines, saying that she would not again bear arms, wear men’s clothing, or cut her hair. That was what I read to her. But another document, not this one, was put into the trial record. She had no idea what was on it, nor what were the consequences of signing.” Such was also the testimony of no fewer than six witnesses who were present that morning, including Guillaume Manchon.

  Once the paper was removed, Joan’s sentence was read aloud: “lifelong imprisonment…so that you may repent of your sins and never again commit them.” Whatever the words Joan actually put her mark to, and however (contradictorily or not) she intended that mark, she now realized that she had given the impression that she had denied her voices, her spiritual
state, her mission—in summary, her entire awareness of herself before God. At Cauchon’s order she was taken back to Warwick’s prison, where she put on a dress brought for her to wear and, as a sign of penance, submitted to the complete shaving of her head.

  Very soon she learned that she had been deceived. The standard penalty after admitting to religious faults was a penance, perhaps a temporary imprisonment, followed by release. In any case she certainly expected, as was also the custom, to be freed from her chains and transferred to a Church facility, where she would be guarded by women. And she would surely be allowed the sacraments. But all of these expectations were futile. She was to remain chained for life as a political prisoner in an English political prison, despite the fact that a Church verdict of guilt for religious crimes had just been pronounced against her.

  The English, meanwhile, were furious with Cauchon, for the sentence meant that Joan was not to be executed but incarcerated for life. Warwick wasted no time in angrily accosting Cauchon: how did he mismanage the case to the point that Joan escaped a death sentence? “My lord,” said the bishop calmly to the earl, “have no fear—we shall catch her yet.”

  Cauchon had succeeded in making only one feeble charge stick against Joan: she had worn male clothing in defiance of his orders, and thus, he claimed, she was in rebellion against the Church itself. That this was wildly incorrect reasoning (not to say theologically imbecilic) was conveniently ignored. Her abjuration, which evidently contained a promise never again to wear male garb, would be the trap that would cause Joan’s relapse—and hence bring about her execution by the secular authority. If she wore men’s garb again, that would mean a reversion to the state of a heretic, from which there would be no second conversion. Execution would follow according to due process.

  Sunday, May 27–Tuesday, May 29

  The next several days were full of confusion, both inside and outside the prison, and the record reflects the various reminiscences of several witnesses. On crucial issues they agree, and on one point there can be no argument: when Joan was seen wearing men’s clothes again, someone had to have brought them to her.

  Jean Massieu gave the most elaborate account of what happened over the weekend, and his sworn testimony was based on what Joan told him the day before her death. On Sunday morning she asked her guards to remove her chains so that she might go to the latrine. “They tore off her dress as they unlocked the fetters, and they would not give it back. Instead they gave her the male clothing she had worn before. She reminded them that she was forbidden to wear that, but they removed the woman’s dress—and so, compelled by necessity, she put on the male garb again. After she was seen that way all day, it became the reason why she was judged relapsed and was condemned.” The entire charade, according to Massieu, was “entirely unjust.”*

  Cauchon’s direct involvement in the events of Sunday morning—indeed, his plan for Joan’s reversion to male clothing—was manifest in his otherwise inexplicable visit to Joan on Monday morning. With Le Maître and eight assessors, the bishop arrived at her cell, aware (or “informed”) that she had changed her garments. Now, with witnesses present, she could be charged on the spot with relapse.

  Even more important than the issue of the clothing, however, was the complete change of attitude her accusers found that Monday morning. Joan insisted that all her previous claims were true: she did hear voices, she was on a mission from God—and she had done very wrong in the cemetery by signing otherwise or giving a different impression, if indeed she did.

  “I never intended to deny my apparitions, and whatever I said or did, it was because I was afraid of the fire…. My voices were from God, and everything I did was according to God’s will. And I do not believe that either my God or my voices have ever deceived me.”

  Once again, on the matter of her faith in God’s revelations to her, she was as adamant as before. She said she may have lied in order to save her life, but now she would cling to the truth even if she were to lose her life. Death was preferable to denial of who she was and what she had received from God. Responsio mortifera, wrote Manchon in his notes at this point: “A fatal reply.”

  And with that, Cauchon swept regally from the cell, taking his team with him. He had won. “Farewell,” he said to Warwick as he left the tower moments later. “Be of good cheer—it is done!”*

  On Tuesday Cauchon summoned the judges and assessors to his chapel, where he reported that Joan the Maid had fully relapsed, that she once again claimed the voices and had resumed men’s clothes. He canvassed their opinions, and most of the thirty-seven present felt that she should be given one last chance to repent. Cauchon thanked them for their effort, dismissed them and promptly ignored their recommendation. That afternoon they all received written notification that on the following day Joan would be taken to the Vieux Marché, the Old Market of Rouen, at eight in the morning. There she would be declared a relapsed and excommunicated heretic and would then be turned over to secular justice.

  Execution: Wednesday Morning, May 30, 1431

  Early on Wednesday morning Cauchon sent Martin Ladvenu, a Dominican friar who had been an assessor at her trial, to Joan’s cell, with another Dominican, Jean Toutmouillé. She asked if Ladvenu would hear her confession and give her Holy Communion. Of this, the friars were uncertain: she was, after all, an intransigent heretic, and heretics were denied the sacraments as long as they were heretics—even unto death. The friars referred the matter to Cauchon, who said, “Give her anything she wants.”

  This odd reply may have had any one or more of several meanings: “She is innocent, so she should be given the sacraments”; “It does not matter what she is given, she is a dead woman”; “I have no regard for the sacraments”; “Let us put the matter in God’s hands.” Whatever the bishop intended, his words certainly nullify the charge of heresy. Permitted to confess and to receive the Eucharist, she was absolved of her sin in the eyes of the Church, was no longer a relapsed heretic, and had to be at once free of the death penalty. But none of those consequences occurred. Cauchon’s idea of justice continued; the trial and condemnation were merely preludes for murder.

  “She received the sacrament with great devotion,” according to Ladvenu. He then told her that her execution would certainly be that very day. “And when she heard the hard, cruel death that was coming, she burst into tears, crying pathetically that her body—“clean and whole and never corrupted,” as she said—ought not to be consumed by flames and reduced to ashes. “If I had been in a Church prison and not guarded by my enemies, it would not have turned out this way.”

  Who should then arrive but Cauchon himself, for reasons that must remain as mysterious as his words earlier that morning. Did his presence indicate that he was gloating over his victory? Was he in some way apologetic? Did he wish to appease his conscience by trying to bring spiritual comfort?

  “Bishop,” Joan cried aloud, “I die because of you!”

  “Ah, Joan,” he replied calmly, “take it with patience. You will die because you did not keep faith with us and because you have returned to your sorcery.”

  “If you had put me in the prison of a Church court and handed me over to competent churchmen, this would never have happened, and you know it.”

  Cauchon departed, and Joan turned to one of the friars. “Where shall I be tonight?”

  “Have you no faith in Our Lord?”

  “With God’s help, I shall be with Him in paradise.”

  At eight o’clock Joan was taken, wearing a long white garment and a white bonnet, to the Place du Vieux-Marché, near the church of Saint-Sauveur, where a vast crowd had gathered. Cauchon took his place with Jean Le Maître and others of the trial, and then a long sermon was preached by Nicholas Midi about her wicked ways and the opportunities she had been given to repent. “We admonished Joan…but she remained obstinate, and had maliciously and falsely shown that she was contrite. She blasphemed God and showed herself an incorrigible heretic who had relapsed into error and is unwor
thy of any pity.”

  The English were impatient for the finale. “Priest,” shouted one, “will we be home in time for dinner?”

  “Joan, go in peace,” concluded Midi. “The Church can no longer defend you and so dismisses you into secular hands.”

  Cauchon hurried on to the official sentence:

  We, Pierre, by divine pity the humble bishop of Beauvais, and we, Jean Le Maître, deputy Inquisitor of the Faith, do hereby declare: Since you, Joan, called the Maid, have been found by us to have relapsed into errors and crimes of schism, idolatry, invocation of devils, and various other wickednesses…you have incurred the sentence of excommunication. Seated on our tribunal of justice, we do cast you forth and reject you from the communion of the Church as an infected limb, and hand you over to secular justice, praying them to treat you with kindness and humanity with respect to your life and limbs.

  The final statement, a procedural formality, was the last thing Cauchon wanted, and so he orchestrated a swift end to the morning’s event. It was customary for such a prisoner to be officially turned over to the secular court, who would deliberate on a sentence and then decide the time, appropriateness and place of punishment. But as he had done for months, Cauchon ignored the proprieties for an Inquisitorial trial. He simply nodded to the bailiff, and the eager English, coached in advance by Bedford, Warwick and others, raced to their task.

  To save time and obviate last-minute objections, everything had been neatly prepared—the stake was firmly placed in the ground in the center of the marketplace; the logs and kindling were in place; torches were ready to light the pyre; the guards had swords and lances drawn in case of public outcry; and the chains had been brought from Joan’s cell, the better to fix her to the stake and prevent her, whom some believed to be a witch, from taking flight into the air.

  The end happened with heartbreaking cruelty.

  As she was led away and saw the apparatus of her execution, Joan collapsed, trembling and weeping. She tried to compose herself, knelt on the ground, and asked everyone to pray for her; faithful to the spirit of her Lord, she then forgave those responsible for what was happening. A paper hat was rudely placed on her head with the legend, “Heretic—Relapsed—Apostate—Idolatress.” The roar of the crowd, abetted by Burgundian loyalists, grew deafening around her.