SIX
The first stage of any inquisitorial process could involve a lengthy inquiry, during which the judges attempted to find out the precise grounds on which the accused could be indicted for heresy. In Joan’s case this led to cross-questioning, as the judges often seemed to go round in circles, like some bird of prey seeking the best way to attack its victim. By comparison, the subsequent ‘ordinary’ or actual trial was short and to the point.
The record of the trial is couched in the sonorous phrases beloved of grand ecclesiastics. ‘Pierre, by divine mercy Bishop of Beauvais, and brother Jean Lemaître, of the order of Preaching friars . . . and venerable master Jean Graverent of the same order . . . eminent doctor of theology, by apostolic authority Inquisitor of the Faith and of Heretical perversity in the whole kingdom of France’ sent greeting in the author and accomplisher of faith, Our Lord Jesus Christ. They knew of the reputation of a woman ‘of the name of Joan, commonly called the Maid’, who ‘had immodestly put on immodest garments suited to the male sex’ and who besides had the presumption to ‘perform, to speak, and to pass on many things opposed to the Catholic faith and detrimental to the articles of orthodox belief’.1 Cauchon explained how he and the Christian prince, ‘our lord the King of France and England’, had summoned the most illustrious lord the Duke of Burgundy and the lord Jean de Luxembourg to surrender this woman ‘to us, that we might, hold a complete inquiry into her acts and sayings before proceeding further, according to the Church’s laws’. The inquest was to be carried out in Rouen, beginning on 9 January 1431. Some distinguished men were asked to act as advisers: abbots Gilles of Ste-Trinité de Fécamp, doctor of sacred theology, and Nicolas de Jumièges, doctor of canon law; Pierre, prior of Longueville, doctor of theology; Raoul Roussel, treasurer of Rouen Cathedral, doctor of both canon and civil law; Nicolas de Venderès, Archdeacon of Eu, licentiate in canon law; Robert Le Barbier, licentiate in both canon and civil law; Nicolas Couppequesne, bachelor of theology, and Nicolas Loiselleur, master of arts. Jean d’Estivet, canon of the cathedral churches of Beauvais and Bayeux, was to exercise in the trial the office of prosecutor or procurator general, Master Jean de La Fontaine, master of arts and licentiate of canon law, was made councillor, commissary and examiner, and as notaries or secretaries were chosen the ‘prudent and honest’ Master Guillaume Colles, also called Boisguillaume, and Guillaume Manchon, priests, notaries by apostolic and imperial authority at the archiepiscopal court of Rouen; and Master Jean Massieu, priest, ecclesiastical dean of Rouen, was appointed executor of what was decided. The trial was recommended by the University of Paris.
It is worth commenting briefly on some of these men. Many were officials from Normandy, which was then still firmly under English control, and most were from Rouen. Some were notable, not always for good reasons. Estivet specialised in coarse language, Lemaître in evasion; he avoided taking part in the proceedings for as long as he could and did not appear till 13 March. Others obviously depended on the English: the Abbot of Fécamp received 1,000 livres a year from them, Roussel, also in their pay, was rewarded for his long service with the archbishopric of Rouen in 1444, five years before the city fell to Charles VII. As for the University of Paris, which provided expert comment, for some years now only those in favour of the Burgundian alignment with the Anglo-French monarchy had been employed.
The evidence against Joan was read out on 13 January, and further experts appointed. Ten days later articles were drawn up and discussed. On 13 February the officers appointed took the oath; on 19 February the court decided to summon the Inquisitor, but, as Lemaître refused to act, it wrote directly to the Inquisitor in person. Clearly the chief inquisitorial officials were not as committed to the cause as Cauchon and friends. The court reminded them that ‘heresy is a disease which creeps like a cancer, secretly killing the simple, unless the knife of the Inquisitor cuts it away’. Cauchon added that the king (that is, the child-king Henry) had graciously invited him to act in the case. In all the proceedings that followed it was Cauchon who took the lead.
At last, at eight o’clock in the morning of 21 February, a Wednesday, the first public session was held in the chapel royal of Rouen Castle, an English property. The court announced that Joan could not go to Mass, since she wore men’s clothes. She was required to take an oath: ‘we lawfully required the said Joan to take proper oath, with her hands on the holy gospels, to speak the truth in answer to such questions put to her, as before said’. For the first time she had the chance to show how sharp she was. She replied correctly: ‘I do not know what you wish to examine me on. Perhaps you might ask such things that I would not tell.’ She was then asked if she would answer questions on the faith, to which she replied that
concerning her father and her mother and what she had done since she had taken the road to France, she would gladly swear; but concerning the revelations from God, these she had never told or revealed to any one, save only to Charles whom she called king; nor would she reveal them to save her head; for she had them in visions or in her secret counsel; and within a week she would know certainly whether she might reveal them.
She did take an oath to answer on questions of faith. In this, as in subsequent exchanges, she was to show she was a better lawyer than her accusers, for good inquisitorial practice did not allow them to ask her to give evidence that could be used against her, let alone to answer every question they asked her. So was established a pattern of dialogue between legalistic, moralistic, literal-minded clerics concerned with self-justification and a free spirit without any theological training.
The first questions were routine and seemingly trivial, concerning her life at home. The overall aim of the questioning first became obvious when she was asked to say her Paternoster and she told Cauchon that if he would hear her in confession then she would gladly say it. Cauchon knew that a witch would not dare say the Paternoster: she guessed, with disconcerting shrewdness, that he would not dare hear her confession.
Cauchon changed the subject. He forbade her to try to leave her prison: she would not promise, in case she tried to escape and succeeded. The court then ordered her to be put in chains, thus once again failing to observe good legal practice. She was defiant: ‘It is true that I wished and still wish to escape, as is lawful for any captive or prisoner.’ English soldiers, again in defiance of correct legal practice, were appointed to guard her.
On Thursday 22 February, in the second session, after an altercation about oath-taking, she was questioned by Jean Beaupère. The court had made inquiries in her neighbourhood and learnt that she had been a pious girl, which she confirmed; the one sign that marked her out as unusual, she declared with startling assurance, was that she had heard voices. She claimed the voice she first heard ‘taught her to be good and to go to church often; and it told her that she must come to France’. She added that Beaupère would not learn from her
in what form that voice appeared to her. She further said this voice told her once or twice a week that she should leave and come to France, and that her father knew nothing about her intentions. She said the voice told her to come, and she could no longer stay where she was; and the voice told her again that she should raise the siege of the city of Orléans. She said too that the voice told her that she, Joan, should go to Robert de Baudricourt in the town of Vaucouleurs of which he was the captain, and he would provide an escort for her.
She volunteered to say how she came to Vaucouleurs, how she easily recognised Robert de Baudricourt, though she had never seen him before, how her voice identified him, how it told her he would refuse her twice, how the third time he would provide her with an escort. She offered to fill in many details about her journey to Chinon, but on the question of men’s dress ‘she several times refused to answer’ and also said ‘that it was altogether necessary to change her women’s clothes for men’s’. She believed her idea was sound. At Chinon, her gift for recognising a stranger was evident once more, and this time it was the man whom she called the king; and once more she did so by the ‘advice of her voice’.
She told him she wanted to make war on the English; then she started to hedge. Asked whether there was any light when the voice revealed her king, she answered: ‘Pass on to the next question.’ Asked if she saw no angel above the king, she answered: ‘Spare me that. Continue.’ She added that before the king put her to work he had several apparitions and beautiful revelations. Asked what revelations and apparitions the king had had, she answered: ‘I will not tell you. It is not now the time to tell you; but send to the king and he will tell you.’ She knew and they knew that they would never do that.
About her voices she became more explicit. ‘There is not a day,’ she told them, ‘when I do not hear this voice; and I have much need of it. I never asked of it any final reward but the salvation of my soul.’ It ‘told me to remain at St-Denis in France’, and she ‘wished to remain; but against my will the lords took me away . . . If I had not been wounded, I would not have left; I was wounded in the trenches before Paris, after I left St-Denis; but recovered in five days.’ She admitted that she caused an assault to be made before Paris on a feast day. Asked if she thought it was a good thing to do, she answered: ‘Pass on.’
By the date of the third session, on 24 February, it became obvious what the court was trying to do. Every time Joan was asked to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, she invoked a medieval equivalent of the Fifth Amendment: she refused to say she would tell the whole truth, for it might be wrong of her to do so. In the end she settled for promising to say what was relevant to the case. On this occasion she said that ‘of her coming to France she would willingly speak the truth, but not the whole truth; and a week would not be enough for that’. Yet once again she was the better lawyer, but the court advised her that she would make herself seem in the wrong if she would not swear. She was unmoved, saying that she came from God, and that there was nothing for her to do here, and she asked to be sent back to God, from whom she came. When they told her she would be charged with what she was accused of, she simply replied: ‘Continue.’
The court got down to the day’s theme. Beaupère was soon questioning her about ‘the voice’. How did she react to it, what did it tell her, what had it said when she woke up? A look of defiance flashed across her face as she told Cauchon to be careful what he did, as she was sent by God and he put himself in great danger. Had the voice forbidden her to reply to all that she was asked? ‘I will not answer that, I shall not tell you everything I have been told about the king.’ She was sure, as she was sure of the Christian faith, that the voice came from God. Would it obey her? Only if God willed it. Had she seen a light when the voice came? Yes, the light comes with the voice, but she would not say if she saw anything else with the voice; and she had not promised to answer everything she was asked. She quoted the proverb, ‘Men are sometimes hanged for telling the truth.’
What must have annoyed the men facing her became clear when she was asked if she was in God’s grace. This was a trick question to see if she was presumptuous, but Joan answered with great astuteness: if she were not in God’s grace she would pray that God would put her there; if she was, may she be kept there; and if she were not, the voice would not come to her. She also irritated them because her voice sided with the king of France against the Burgundians. A line of questioning they could have developed, but did not, was that if the Church is universal, why should God prefer one group of people to another? The reason perhaps that this argument was not deployed is that her judges too had taken a political stance, so that a criticism of her support of ‘France for the French’ could be turned equally against their belief in France for the Anglo-Burgundians.
The court made its first clumsy attempts to prove she was a witch. She was vague about life in the fields and could not remember when she had helped with the animals. She had little to say on the so-called fairies’ tree or the fountain nearby. Sometimes she had made garlands for Our Lady of Domremy there, but she had never seen fairies there or anywhere else, nor did she trust the story that from the local wood would come a maid who would work miracles. She was not even superstitious. What made her singular was her insistence on wearing male attire.
During the fourth session, on Tuesday 27 February, the court tried to go more deeply into the question of the voices. She came round to the subject of St Catherine and St Margaret, of the crowns on their heads, of how she had been asked all this before at Poitiers – not a happy reference, as the theologians there had supported her king – and how they were easy to distinguish from one another. She had known them for seven years, but she would not tell them more, she had said it all before at Poitiers, and some revelations were for the King of France alone, not for them. She could not say if the saints were the same age, if they spoke at the same time, which appeared first, but she had been comforted by St Michael – yes, he had come first. Was it a long time since she had first heard him? She was speaking not of his voice but of the comfort he brought her, since she was about thirteen; and he had first come with many angels. She came to France only at God’s command. She had seen St Michael with her own eyes, but what he looked like she was not allowed to say, nor was she going to tell them what he had first said, though she had once told the king everything. She wished her questioner had a copy of the record made at Poitiers, she was not sure what she could reveal to him now, but she would not have come to France without permission. And she wore male costume only because commanded to do so.
At the moment when the topic changed, the records stop citing her own words. Her voices, the lawyers noted, had told her about the sword unearthed at Ste-Catherine-de-Fierbois. She carried it continually from the time she had got it till she left St-Denis, after the assault on Paris. But she had not regarded it as a talisman, it had not been specially blessed, nor did it bring her better fortune and she did not know where it was. Besides she preferred her standard to her sword; and the painting on it was put there by God’s command.
The dialogue turned naturally to her military exploits. How many troops had she been given? Ten to twelve thousand, she thought. She was certain she would relieve Orléans, it had been revealed to her and she had told the king that she would. She had been wounded but she was comforted by St Margaret and the wound healed within a fortnight; she knew she would be wounded. She was questioned over her behaviour at Jargeau – at this point the questioning was broken off until later in the week.
On 1 March, at the start of the fifth session, Joan put her hands on the holy gospels and said: ‘Of what I know concerning the trial I will willingly tell the truth, and will tell altogether as much as if I were before the pope of Rome.’ Which pope, they asked? ‘Are there two?’ she countered. The Count of Armagnac had asked her which of the three sovereign pontiffs to obey, and she had said she would give him an answer when she was in Paris, or anywhere where she was at rest. She thought she should obey the pope in Rome.
Did she put the names of Jesus and Mary with a cross in her letters? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. The court quoted from her correspondence with the count and also with Bedford and the King (Henry). She said, where one letter said ‘Surrender to the Maid’ it should say, ‘Surrender to the King’. She, not any lord, had dictated the letters, she said, and within seven years the English would lose a greater stake than they had done at Orléans, for they would lose everything in France. (As so often before, she was over-optimistic: the English did indeed lose Paris, but little else for fifteen years.) She wished it would all happen by St John’s day, in other words by midsummer. Perhaps, by Martinmas (in November), ‘it might be that the English would be overthrown’.
Over and over again she was questioned about her voices, how often they talked with her, what they looked like, what language they spoke (why would St Margaret speak English, if she is not on the English side?). The questions moved to her rings; were they in some way magical? Next, she would not tell them what promises the voices had made, except that the king would regain his kingdom and they would take her to Paradise. She would not say if they would release her from prison, nor what was for the ears of the King of France only. She had nothing to say about a mandrake – they were back to the subject of superstition – and robustly rebuked them for thinking St Michael was naked. Not much on sexual fantasies, then, not even much to savour when they moved the discussion from saintly crowns to the king’s crown at the coronation. Throughout this session a record of her words was preserved.
In the sixth session, on Saturday 3 March, she was pressed to speak about the bodies of her saints. She would not be drawn, she would not incriminate herself; she knew she would be delivered, but not how or when. Why had people at Poitiers not pressed her on the matter of her dress? They had only asked when she changed, to which the answer was at Vaucouleurs. Had her voices ordered it, had the queen asked her about it, had the Demoiselle of Luxembourg and the Lady of Beaurevoir offered her a woman’s dress, or the cloth to make one, and told her to wear it – she had replied God had given her permission, it was not yet time. She said she should obey God in this matter. She would not say who had told her to wear men’s clothes.
She was questioned about the pennons on her standard. Had holy water been thrown on them? Had any of her companions-at-arms written on their pennons the names Jhesus Maria? Had she worn something round at the back of her helmet before Jargeau? Had she known brother Richard? How had he greeted her? Had she seen pictures of herself in circulation? Yes, at Arras. The court was pressing her to admit to some superstitious practice or to show pleasure in being considered a saint. Did her own party think she was sent from God? Had they kissed her hands and feet? Had she been a godmother? Had women touched her hand and her rings? Who had caught butterflies in her standard? Had she received the sacraments in men’s clothes? Why had she taken the Bishop of Senlis’s horse? How old was the child she restored to life in Lagny? Had she seen Catherine de La Rochelle, a woman who had turned out to be a fraud? – they were trying to show that she was a fraud too.
At Beaurevoir, during her four-month stay, she had jumped, though her voices had forbidden her to do so. She would rather commend her soul to God than fall into the hands of the English. Had she not blasphemed the name of God? Never: it was not her custom to swear. At Soissons she had never said she would have the commander drawn and quartered.
The first part of the public sessions finished in the first ten days of March. They had been too animated, with too many people talking at once, so the judges and assessors decided to continue the preliminaries without any interruption and make it easier for the theologians to study Joan’s answers. To modern observers, a trial in secret session smacks of a denial of human rights, but in the fifteenth century there was nothing strange in the procedure, partly because an inquisitorial trial was then the most open available; and, besides, nobody talked about human rights.
Jean de La Fontaine was charged to make legal inquiries; and when the hearings resumed in prison on 10 March, he was Joan’s interrogator. After asking her about her capture and the voice’s reaction to it, he moved on to ask about her banner, her shield and her coat of arms, her horses, her wealth. What she had was her king’s own money, given so that she could fight. What was the sign she gave the king? It is with the king’s treasure, and she would not say what it was. An angel had borne it to her king and after she left more than 300 had seen it.
On Monday 12 March the Dominican Brother Jean Lemaître, the Inquisitor’s vicar, was summoned, together with another Dominican, Brother Ysambard de La Pierre; the Inquisitor himself, Jean Graverent, had excused himself. In prison on the same day, Joan was brought before Jean de La Fontaine, who went straight back to the angel that brought the sign to her king. ‘He told the king to set me to work straightaway to free the country.’ By this time it must have been dawning on her that there was an intellectual barrier between her and her judges: she was sure she had experienced a series of private revelations, while they were sure she had not. This explains the literalistic line of the questions: had she received letters from St Michael? ‘Give me a week and I shall give you an answer,’ she replied. She did not help her cause by her lapses into hyperbole, claiming this time that in three years with the help of her saints she would bring the Duke of Orléans back to France.
By Tuesday 13 March Jean d’Estivet had been made Prosecutor and Jean Massieu ordered to carry out Cauchon’s citations and summonses. Lemaître and Cauchon continued with their examination. Joan refused to be drawn to speak about the sign of the crown, as this would mean perjuring herself, but she did say that Charles would have the whole kingdom. Had she spoken to St Catherine? Yes, and she was told to answer boldly. The crown she had seen at Chinon and at Reims meant that Charles would rule all France. It had been borne by an angel, which she thought the Archbishop of Reims, the lords d’Alençon, de La Trémoïlle and Charles de Bourbon had seen, while many churchmen and others had seen the crown but not the angel. The judges pressed her further on the crown and the angel; the clergy, she said, knew about it by their learning. Was this a crack at the clergy ranged before her? She was fearless, but also incapable of irony.
On Wednesday 14 March, the Inquisitor’s vicar appointed a notary, Nicolas Taquel, a priest of the diocese of Rouen. Joan’s recent behaviour was scrutinised. Why had she jumped from the tower at Beaurevoir? She had heard that the people of Compiègne, all of them, were to be put to fire and to the sword, and she would rather die than live after such a destruction of good people. That was one reason why she jumped: the other was that she knew she had been sold to the English, and she would have died rather than fall into the hands of her enemies the English. Had the leap been made at the counsel of her voices? St Catherine told her almost every day not to jump, and God would help her, and the people of Compiègne too. As she leaped she commended herself to God. She hoped that by the leap she would escape from being given to the English. She added touchingly that because of the noise of the prison and the tumult made by her guards she did not always understand her voice, yet every day it came to her. She asked for freedom for France and herself.
She also asked for the salvation of her soul. She was still bright enough to ask for a copy of the questions and of her replies, so that she might give it to the people at Paris if she went there. Her judges must watch out; she would be helped. This led them to touch on her apparent presumption: was she sure she would be saved?
That same Wednesday afternoon in the prison the inquisitors came back to the same subject. She was sure she would be saved if she kept her word to God and guarded her virginity. She was not aware of any mortal sin, but was keen to go to confession as much as possible. They pressed her further: had she committed a mortal sin by taking a man at ransom and then putting him to death, by attacking Paris on a feast day, by wearing men’s clothes, by taking a horse belonging to the Bishop of Senlis? On the last point she was scornful: the horse was no good for fighting.
On the following day, still in prison, Joan was ‘charitably exhorted, admonished, and required’ to defer to any decision by ‘Our Holy Mother the Church’, if she had done anything contrary to our faith. The court explained the distinction between the Church Triumphant, the Church in heaven, and the Church Militant, the Church on earth, and she was told to submit to the Church’s decision whatever it was. She temporised: ‘I will not give you any further answer for the present.’ This was to be the crux of her debate with her judges. They expected her to accept whatever they decided. She could not see how what God told her in one way, by her voices, could conflict with what she learnt in another way, by the Church’s teaching.
They asked her about her attempt to escape from the castle of Beaulieu; she would try to escape from anywhere. She admitted that so far her voices had not given her permission to escape from prison, but, if the door was open, that would mean God allowed her to do so. ‘Aide toy, Dieu te aidera.’
Since she wanted to hear Mass, why not in women’s clothes? ‘Would you promise I could go, if I was so dressed? And what do you answer, if I have sworn and promised to our king not to put off this dress? Yet I will tell you: have made for me a long dress reaching down to the ground, without a train, and give it to me to go to Mass; and then, on my return, I will put on once again the dress I have.’ For the honour of God and of Our Lady could she please go to Mass ‘in this good town’?
They asked her again about submitting to the Church. ‘Everything that I have said or done is in the hand of God, and I commit myself to Him. I would do or say nothing against the Christian faith. Would she submit in matters of faith to the Church’s command? Her line was the same as it had been. She could not see how God’s command, transmitted through her voices, could conflict with what she learnt in another way, through the Church’s teaching. ‘I will not add anything to my answers now, but next Saturday send me the priest, if you do not wish to come, and I will answer him with God’s help, and it shall be set down in writing.’
She must have been puzzled: how had she done or said anything against the faith? She taught no special doctrine, like Wyclif or Huss. She claimed only that she had had certain religious experiences. They therefore asked her more about her voices, whether she bowed to them, whether she lit candles for them and had Mass said to them, if she always did what they told her to do, how she could tell if they were good spirits. On the first occasion it was St Michael who had appeared to her, ‘the first time she was a young girl and was afraid; since then St Michael taught her and showed her so many things that she firmly believed it was he’. Asked what doctrine he taught her, her response was that ‘in all things he told her to be a good child and God would help her’; among other things, he told her she should go and help the king of France. A great part of what the angel taught her is ‘in this book’, and the angel told her of the ‘pity’ that was in the kingdom of France. What her judges wished to imply was that her private revelations were unorthodox.
On Saturday 17 March they asked further questions about the appearance of St Michael and she told them something about him, but nothing about any other angels she had seen. She believed, she said, what St Michael did or said, as firmly as she believed that Our Lord Jesus Christ suffered and died for us. Did she wish to submit all her acts or sayings, either good or evil, to the decision of Our Mother the Church? She said she loved the Church and would support it with all her might for the Christian faith; and she was not a person to be forbidden to go to church or hear Mass. As for the good works she performed, and her coming, she must commit herself to the King of Heaven who sent her to Charles, son of Charles King of France, who would be king of all France, even though she could not predict when this would happen. As for the Church’s decision, ‘I commit myself to Our Lord, Who sent me, to Our Lady, and to all the Blessed Saints of Paradise.’ She emphasised her point by asking, ‘Why do you make difficulties when it is all one?’ They told her that the Church Militant cannot err. Would she then submit to it? Cauchon noted that she would not give any further answers.
The inquisitors went back to the question of her dress – she said she wanted a long dress when she died – and of her grandmother, who saw the fairies, but was not a witch or a sorceress. As to her dress, she understood that it implied her military calling. And her saints’ attitude to the English? ‘They love those whom God loves, and hate whom He hates.’ But her male costume still riled the court: did Our Lord approve? What armour had she offered in the church of St-Denis and why did she want her armour to be revered? Why were there five crosses on the sword she found at Ste-Catherine-de-Fierbois? Why were angels painted on her standard?
That afternoon it was natural for them to ask if the angels on her standard were St Michael and St Gabriel. The standard, she said, was just meant to honour Our Lord, who was painted on it holding the world. They asked if this standard gave her the power to win all the battles in which she fought; and what was the purpose of the sign she put on her letters, and the names Jhesus Maria? Devotion to the names of Jesus and Mary was a new devotion; Joan said that the clergy who wrote her letters put those words on the letters.
The court went on to graver matters, asking what would happen if she were to lose her virginity, would her voices stop coming to her? Had her king been right to have the Duke of Burgundy killed? Would she tell the pope more than she had told the court? Was she not bound to tell him everything? She then demanded to be brought to him. This time the court changed the subject. Her questioners wondered if she was superstitious about the power of her rings and presumptuous about claiming to be intimate with St Catherine: did she know anything about fairies? Apparently not.
Why was it her standard, they asked, rather than the standards of other captains that was carried into the Reims Cathedral at the consecration? ‘It had been present in the perils; that was reason enough for it to be honoured,’ she replied.
On Passion Sunday, 18 March, Joan’s statements were presented to the assessors and on the following Thursday they were condensed into a small number of articles. On Saturday 24 March the interrogations were read in Joan’s presence. She told them that her surname was d’Arc or Romée and that in her part of the country girls bore their mother’s surname. She also asked that the questions and answers should be read consecutively to her, and she admitted as true whatever she did not then contradict. But she added these words to the article touching her taking woman’s dress: ‘Give me a woman’s dress to go to my mother’s house, and I will take it.’ She would do this, she claimed, to escape from prison, and once outside she would find out what she should do. Finally, after the contents of the register had been read to her, ‘the said Joan’ confessed that she believed she had spoken well according to what had been written in the register and read to her, and she did not contradict any other saying from the register.
On Palm Sunday, 25 March, Joan asked permission to go to Mass in the male costume she was wearing and to receive the sacrament of the Eucharist on Easter Day. Would she give up male dress if she were granted permission? She answered that had not had any advice on the subject and could not yet wear women’s clothes. The inquisitors pressed her to ask her saints if she could wear female dress, to which she replied she might be allowed to hear Mass as she was, but she could not change her costume. Neither side was capable of dialogue. The court would not give way, nor would she; indeed, she said that wearing men’s clothes ‘was not against the Church’. The court made a note of the conversation.
The interrogations had revealed the challenge that Joan’s assertions made to the conventional wisdom of her interrogators. Did she believe that she had magical powers? Did she claim to be impeccable, that is sinless? Could she justify her unnatural style of dressing? Could she justify her claim to hear the voices of angels and saints? Would she accept the Church’s authority? If the respective answers to these questions were yes, yes, no, no and no, then she was a witch and a heretic. The interrogators had a further concern: her confidence that Charles VII was God’s elected, the man chosen to be the king of France. Her mission was a political one antithetical to their own politics. In the eyes of her English gaolers she was a prisoner of war already guilty of treason. In the eyes of her French judges, she was liable to the punishment of a heretic and a witch. What her trial had to prove was that her treason derived from her heresy and witchcraft.
This preliminary trial was only a preamble, a foretaste of what was to come. It was the decision of the subsequent ‘ordinary’ trial that would determine Joan’s fate.