Joan of Arc Trial Begins: Judges Start Investigation
The trial was rigged from the start. The English needed Joan of Arc destroyed not just physically but spiritually, so they assembled a tribunal of pro-Burgundian clergy led by Bishop Pierre Cauchon, who had been handpicked for his loyalty to the English crown. Joan was nineteen, illiterate, and given no legal counsel, yet she parried sophisticated theological traps with answers that stunned her interrogators. When asked if she was in God's grace, she replied: 'If I am not, may God put me there; if I am, may God keep me there.' The judges could not convict her on that answer. They spent months trying to catch her in heresy, ultimately resorting to a forged confession document. Her execution by burning on May 30, 1431, was meant to discredit French claims to divine favor. Instead, it created a martyr whose legacy outlasted the English occupation of France.
January 9, 1431
595 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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