St. Joan of Arc's Trial of Nullification
CONTINUATION OF THE FIRST INQUIRY: 1449
BROTHER GUILLAUME DUVAL, of the Order of Saint Dominic, and
of the Convent of Saint Jacques at Rouen.
When the trial of the said Jeanne took place, I was present at
one session with Brother Ysambard de la Pierre; and, although we
could find no room for ourselves in the Consistory, we seated
ourselves at the middle of the table, near to Jeanne. When she
was questioned or examined, the said Brother Ysambard advised
her as to what she should say, nudging her or making some other
sign. After the session was over, I and Brother Ysambard, with
Maître Jean Delafontaine, were deputized to visit her in
prison the same day after dinner and give her counsel ; we went
together to the Castle of Rouen, to visit and admonish her; and
there we found the Earl of Warwick, who attacked the said Brother
Ysambard with great anger and indignation, biting insults, and
harsh epithets, saying to him: "Why did you touch that wicked
person this morning, making so many signs? Mort Bleu! villain!
if I see thee again taking trouble to deliver her and to advise
her for her good, I will have thee thrown into the Seine."
At which I and the other companion of the said Ysambard fled for
fear to the Convent.
I heard no more, for I was not present at the Trial.
MAÎTRE GUILLAUME MANCHON, Canon of the Collegiate Church
of Notre Dame d'Audely; Curé of the Parish Church of Sainte-Nicotas-le-Peintiur
at Rouen, and Notary of the Ecclesiastical Court; Notary of the
Trial of Jeanne, from the beginning up to the end, and with him
Maître Guillaume Colles, called Bois-Guillaume.
In my opinion, not only those who had charge of instituting and
conducting the Trial to wit, My Lord of Beauvais and the Masters
sent for from Paris for this Case but also the English, at whose
instance the Trial was undertaken, proceeded rather from hatred
and anger on account of the quarrel with the King of France, than
owing to her support of his party, and for the following reasons:
First, one named Maître Nicolas Loyseleur, a familiar of
my Lord of Beauvais, who held altogether to the English side for,
formerly the King being before Chartres, he went to fetch the
King of England to raise the Siege pretended that he belonged
to the Maid's country; by this means he found a way to have speech
and familiar converse with her, telling her news of her country
that would please her. He asked to be her confessor, and of what
she told him privately he found means to inform the Notaries:
indeed, at the beginning of the Trial, I and Boisguillaume, with
witnesses, were put secretly in an adjoining room, where there
was a hole through which we could hear, in order that we might
report what she said to Loyseleur. As I think, what the Maid said
or stated familiarly to Loyseleur he reported to the Notaries;
and from this were made memoranda for questions in the Trial,
to find some way of catching her unawares.
When the Trial had begun, Maître Jean Lohier, a grave Norman
Clerk, came to this Town of Rouen, and communication was made
to him of what the Bishop of Beauvais had written hereon; and
the said Lohier asked for two or three days' delay to look into
it. To which he received answer that he should give his opinion
that afternoon; and this he was obliged to do. And Maître
Jean Lohier, when he had seen the Process, said it was of no value,
for several reasons : first, because it had not the form of an
ordinary Process; then, it was carried on in an enclosed and shut-up
place, where those concerned were not in full and perfect liberty
to say their full will; then, that this matter dealt with the
honor of the King of France, whose side she [the Maid] supported,
and that he had not been called, nor any who were for him; then,
neither legal documents nor articles had been forthcoming, and
so there was no guide for this simple girl to answer the Masters
and Doctors on great matters, and especially those, as she said,
which related to her revelations. For these things, the Process
was, in his opinion, of no value. At which my Lord of Beauvais
was very indignant against the said Lohier; and although my Lord
of Beauvais told him that he might remain to see the carrying
out of the Trial, Lohier replied that he would not do so. And immediately
my Lord of Beauvais, then lodging in the house where now lives
Maitre Jean Bidaut, near Saint-Nicolas-le-Peinteur, came to the
Masters to wit, Maître Jean Beaupère, Maître
Jacques de Touraine, Nicolas Midi, Pierre Maurice, Thomas de Courcelles,
and Loyseleur - and said to them: "This Lohier wants to put
fine questions into our Process: he would find fault with everything,
and says it is of no value. If we were to believe him, everything
must be begun again, and all we have done would be worth nothing!"
And, after stating the grounds on which Lohier found fault, my
Lord of Beauvais added: "It is clear enough on which foot
he limps. By Saint John! we will do nothing in the matter, but
will go on with our Process as it is begun!" This was on
a Saturday afternoon in Lent; and the next morning I spoke with
the said Lohier at the Church of Notre Dame at Rouen, and asked
him what he thought of the said Trial and of Jeanne? He replied:
"You see the way they are proceeding. They will take her,
if they can, in her words as in assertions where she says, 'I
know for certain,' as regards the apparitions but if she said,
'I think' instead of the words 'I know for certain' it is my opinion
that no man could condemn her. It seems they act rather from hate
than otherwise; and for that reason, I will not stay here, for
I have no desire to be in it." And in truth he thenceforward
lived always at the Court of Rome, where he died Dean of Appeals.
( "Doyen de la Role "-Court of Appeals at Rome.)
At the beginning of the Trial, because I was putting in writing
for five or six days the answers and excuses of the said Maid,
the Judges several times wished to compel me, speaking in Latin,
to put them in other terms, by changing the sense of her words
or in other ways such as I had not heard. By command of the Bishop
of Beauvais, two men were placed at a window near where the Judges
sat, with a curtain across the window, so that they could not
be seen. These two men wrote and reported what there was in the
charge against Jeanne, keeping silence as to her excuses; and,
in my opinion, this was Loyseleur. After the sitting was over,
in the afternoon, while comparing notes of what had been written,
the two others reported differently from me, and had put in none
of the excuses; at which my Lord of Beauvais was greatly angry
with me. Where 'Nota'
(On the Minute of Manchon, which was
in the hands of the judges of the Rehabilitation in 1455.)
is
written in the Process there was disagreement, and questions had
to be made upon it; and it was found that what I had written was
true.
In writing the said Process, I was often opposed by my Lord of
Beauvais and the Masters, who wanted to compel me to write according
to their fancy, and against what I had myself heard. And when
there was something which did not please them, they forbade it
to be written, saying that it did not serve the Process; but I
nevertheless wrote only according to my hearing and knowledge.
Maître Jean Delafontaine, from the beginning of the Trial
up to the week after Easter, 1431, took the place of my Lord of
Beauvais, to interrogate her, in the absence of the Bishop; and
was always present with the Bishop in the conduct of the said
Trial. And when the time came that the Maid was summoned to submit
herself to the Church by this same Delafontaine, and by Brothers
Ysambard de la Pierre and Martin Ladvenu, they advised her that
she should believe in, and rely on, our Lord the Pope and those
who preside in the Church Militant; and that she should make no
question about submitting to our Holy Father the Pope and to the
Holy Council; for that there were among them as many of her own
side as of the other, many of them notable Clerics, and that if
she did not do this, she would put herself in great danger. The
day after she had been thus advised, she said that she wished
certainly to submit to our Holy Father the Pope and to the Holy
Council. When my Lord of Beauvais heard this, he asked who had
spoken with the Maid. The Guard replied that it was Maître
Delafontaine, his lieutenant, and the two Friars. And at this,
in the absence of the said Delafontaine and the Friars, the Bishop
was much enraged against Maître Jean Lemaitre, the Deputy
Inquisitor, and threatened to do him an injury. And when Delafontaine
knew that he was threatened for this reason, he departed from
Rouen, and did not again return. And as for the Friars, they would
have been in peril of death, but for the said Lemaitre, who excused
them and besought for them, saying that if any harm were done
to them, he would never again come to the Trial. And, from that
time, the Earl of Warwick forbade any one to visit the Maid, except
the Bishop of Beauvais or those sent by him; and the Deputy Inquisitor
was not allowed to go without him.
At the end of the sermon at Saint Ouen, after the abjuration of
the Maid, because Loyseleur said to her, "Jeanne, you have
done a good day's work, if it please God, and have saved your
soul," she demanded, "Now, some among you people of
the Church, lead me to your prisons, that I may no longer be in
the hands of the English." To which my Lord of Beauvais replied,
"Lead her back whence she was taken!" For this reason
she was taken back to the Castle which she had left. The following
Sunday, which was Trinity Sunday, the Masters, Notaries, and others
concerned in this Trial were summoned; and we were told that she
had resumed her man's dress and had relapsed; and when we came
to the Castle, in the absence of my Lord of Beauvais, there came
upon us eighty or a hundred English soldiers, or thereabouts,
who spoke to us in the courtyard of the Castle, telling us that
all of us Clergy were deceitful, traitorous Armagnacs and false
counselors; so that we had great trouble to escape and get out
of the Castle, and did nothing for that day. The following day
I was summoned; but I replied that I would not go if I had not
a surety, on account of the fright I had had the day before; and
I would not have gone back if one of the followers of my Lord
of Warwick had not been sent as a surety. And thus I returned,
and was at the continuation of the Trial, up to the end except
that I was not at a certain examination made by people who had
spoken with her privately,
(This was the Examination called
the 'Acta Posterius,' which, though included by Cauchon in the
Process, is not signed by the Official Registrars, Manchon, Boisguillaume,
and Taquel.)
as privileged persons; nevertheless, the Bishop
of Beauvais wanted to compel me to sign, and this I would not
do.
I saw Jeanne led to the scaffold
(Jeanne was burnt in the Market
Place at Rouen, where an inscribed stone marks the site. It is
stated that the execution took place in front of the Church of
St. Sauveur, and facing the principal street which leads to the
Market Place, thus accommodating a larger number of spectators
than was possible in any other part of the Place. There is still
some dispute as to the actual spot; but as the Cemetery was religious
ground and the execution was, nominally at least, a secular one,
the ground chosen must have been on land belonging to the municipality
of Rouen. Probably this was in the Marché aux Veaux, as
we find an order for the burning of a heretic there in 1522, "lieu
accoutumé faire lelles exéculions.")
and
there were seven or eight hundred soldiers around her, bearing
swords and staves; so that no one was so bold as to speak to her
except Brother Martin Ladvenu and Maître Jean Massieu.
Patiently did she hear the sermon right through afterwards she
repeated her thanksgiving, prayers, and lamentations most notably
and devoutly, in such manner that the Judges, Prelates, and all
present were provoked to much weeping, seeing her make these pitiful
regrets and sad complaints. Never did I weep more for anything
that happened to me; and, for a month afterwards, I could not
feel at peace. For which reason, with a part of the money I had
for my services I bought a little Missal, so that I might have
it and might pray for her. In regard to final repentance, I never
saw greater signs of a Christian.
I remember that at the sermon given at Saint Ouen by Maître
Guillaume Erard, among other words were said and uttered these:
"Ah! noble House of France, which had always been the protectress
of the Faith, have you been so abused that you would adhere
to a heretic and schismatic? It is indeed a great misfortune."
To which the Maid made answer, what I do not remember, except
that she gave great praise to her King, saying that he was the
best and wisest Christian in the world. At which Erard and my
Lord of Beauvais ordered Massieu to "Make her keep silence."
MAÎTRE JEAN MASSlEU, Priest, Curé of one of the
Divisions of the Parish Church of Saint-Caudres at Rouen, formerly
Dean of the Christendom of Rouen.
I was at the Trial of the said Jeanne on every occasion when she
was present before the Judges and Clerics; and, on account of
my office, I was appointed a Clerk to
Maître Jean Benedicite,
(Cognomen given to the Promoter,
d'Estivet.)
Promoter in this Action. I believe, from what
I saw, that the proceedings were taken out of hatred and in order
to abase the honor of the King of France whom she served, and
to wreak vengeance and bring her to death, not according to reason
and for the honor of God and of the Catholic Faith. I say this,
because when my Lord of Beauvais, who was Judge in the Case, accompanied
by six Clerics namely, Beaupère, Midi, Maurice, Touraine,
Courcelles, and Feuillet, or some other in his place first questioned
her, before she had answered one of them, another of those present
would interpose another question, by which she was often hurried
and troubled in her answers. And, besides, as I was leading Jeanne
many times from her prison to the Court, and passed before the
Chapel of the Castle, at Jeanne's request, I suffered her to make
her devotions in passing; and I was often reproved by the said
Benedicite, the Promoter, who said to me "Traitor! what makes
thee so bold as to permit this Excommunicate to approach without
permission? I will have thee put in a tower where you shall see
neither sun nor moon for a month, if you do so again."
And when the Promoter saw that I did not obey him, the said Benedicite
placed himself many times before the door of the Chapel, between
me and Jeanne, to prevent her saying her prayers before the Chapel,
and asked expressly of Jeanne : "Is this the Body of Christ?"
When I was taking her back to prison, the fourth or fifth day,
a priest named Maître Eustace Turquetil, asked me: "What
did you think of her answers? will she be burned? what will happen?"
and I replied: "Up to this time I have seen in her only good
and honor; but I do not know what will happen in the end, God
knows!" Which answer was reported by the said priest to the
King's people; and it was said that I was opposed to the King.
On this account, I was summoned, in the afternoon, by the Lord
of Beauvais, the Judge, and was spoken to of these things and
told to be careful to make no mistake, or I should be made to
drink more than was good for me. I think that, unless the Notary
Manchon had made excuses for me, I should not have escaped.
When Jeanne was taken to Saint-Ouen to be preached to by Maître
Guillaume Erard, at about the middle of the sermon, after she
had been admonished by the words of the preacher, he began to
cry out, in a loud voice, saying, "Ah! France, you art much
abused, you have always been the most Christian country; and Charles,
who calls himself thy King and Governor, had joined himself, as
a heretic and schismatic, which he is, to the words and deeds
of a worthless woman, defamed and full of dishonor; and not only
he, but all the Clergy within his jurisdiction and lordship, by
whom she had been examined and not reproved, as she had said."
Two or three times he repeated these words about the King; and,
at last, addressing himself to Jeanne he said, raising his finger:
" It is to thee, Jeanne, that I speak, I tell thee that thy
King is a heretic and schismatic !" To which she replied:
"By my faith ! sir, saving your reverence, I dare say and
swear, on pain of death, that he is the most noble of all Christians,
and the one who most loves the Faith of the Church, and he is
not what you say." And then the preacher said to me: "Make
her keep silence."
Jeanne never had any Counsel.
(At the beginning of the Trial,
Jeanne had asked for counsel, and it had been refused.)
I
remember that Loyseleur was one appointed to counsel her. He was
against her, rather deceiving than helping her. The said Erard,
at the end of his sermon, read a schedule containing the Articles
which he was inciting Jeanne to abjure and revoke. To which Jeanne
replied, that she did not understand what abjuring was, and that
she asked advice about it. Then Erard told me to give her counsel
about it. After excusing myself for doing this, I told her it
meant that, if she opposed any of the said Articles, she would
be burned. I advised her to refer to the Church Universal as to
whether she should abjure the said Articles or not. And this she
did, saying in a loud voice to Erard: " I refer me to the
Church Universal, as to whether I shall abjure or not." To
this the said Erard replied: "You shall abjure at once, or
you shall be burned." And, indeed, before she left the Square,
she abjured, and made a cross with a pen which I handed to her.
At the end of the sermon, I advised Jeanne to ask that she might
be taken to the prisons of the Church and it was right she should
be taken to the Church prisons, because the Church had condemned
her. And this thing was asked of the Bishop of Beauvais by some
of those present, whose names I do not know. To which the Bishop
replied: " Take her to the Castle whence she came."
And so it was done. That day, after dinner, in the presence of
the Counsel of the Church, she took off her man's dress and put
on a woman's dress, as she was commanded. This was on the Thursday
or Friday after Pentecost; and the man's dress was put in a bag
in the same room where she was kept prisoner, while she remained
guarded in this place, in the hands of five of the English, three
of whom stayed all night in the room, and two outside the door
of the room. I know of a surety that at night she slept chained
by the legs with two pairs of iron chains, and fastened closely
to a chain going across the foot of her bed, held to a great piece
of wood, five or six feet long, and closed with a key, so that
she could not move from her place. When the following Sunday came,
being Trinity Sunday, and when it was time to rise, as she reported
and said to me, she asked the English guards: "Take off my
irons that I may get up." Then one of the English took away
from her the woman's garments which she had on her, and they emptied
the bag in which was her man's dress, and threw the said dress
at her, saying to her: "Get up, and put the woman's dress
in the bag." And, in accordance with what he said, she dressed
herself in the man's dress they had given her, saying: "Sirs,
you know it is forbidden me ; without fail, I will not take it
again." Nevertheless, they would not give her the other,
inasmuch that the contention lasted till mid-day, and, finally,
she was compelled to take the said dress; afterwards, they would
not give up the other, whatever supplications or prayers she might
make.
This she told me on the Tuesday following, before dinner, on which
day the Promoter had departed in company with the Earl of Warwick,
and I was alone with her. Immediately I asked her why she had
resumed a man's dress, and she told me what I have just related.
I was not at the Castle on the Sunday, but I met near the Castle
those who had been summoned, much overwhelmed and affrighted.
They said they had been furiously driven back by the English with
axes and swords, and called traitors, and otherwise insulted.
On the following Wednesday, the day she was condemned, and before
she left the Castle, the Body of Christ was borne to her irreverently,
without stole and lights, at which Brother Martin, who had confessed
her, was ill-content, and so a stole and lights were sent for,
and thus Brother Martin administered It to her. And this done,
she was led to the Old Market-Place, and by her side were Brother
Martin and myself, accompanied by more than 800 soldiers, with
axes and swords. And being in the Old Market-Place, after the
sermon, during which she showed great patience and listened most
quietly, she evinced many evidences and clear proofs of her contrition,
penitence, and fervent faith, if only by her pitiful and devout
lamentations and invocations of the Blessed Trinity and the Blessed
and Glorious Virgin Mary, and all the Blessed Saints in Paradise
naming specially certain of these Saints: in which devotions,
lamentations, and true confession of faith, she besought mercy
also, most humbly, from all manner of people of whatever condition
or estate they might be, of her own party as well as of the other,
begging them to pray for her, forgiving them the harm they had
done her, [and thus] she persevered and continued as long a space
of time as half-an-hour, and up to the very end.
When she was given over by the Church, I was still with her; and
with great devotion she asked to have a Cross: and, hearing this,
an Englishman, who was there present, made a little cross of wood
with the ends of a stick, which he gave her, and devoutly she
received and kissed it, making piteous lamentations and acknowledgments
to God, Our Redeemer, Who had suffered on the Cross for our Redemption,
of Whose Cross she had the sign and symbol; and she put the said
Cross in her bosom, between her person and her clothing. And,
besides, she asked me humbly that I would get for her the Church
Cross, so that she might see it continually until death. And I
got the Clerk of the Parish of Saint-Sauveur to bring it to her;
the which, being brought, she embraced closely and long, and kept
it till she was fastened to the stake. While she was making these
devotions and pious lamentations, I was much hurried by the English
and even by some of their Captains, who wished me to leave her
in their hands, that she might be put to death the sooner, saying
to me, when I was trying to console her on the scaffold: "What,
Priest! will you have us dine here?" And immediately, without
any form or proof of judgment, they sent her to the fire, saying
to the executioner "Do your office!" And thus she was
led and fastened [to the stake], continuing her praises and devout
lamentations to God and His Saints, and with her last word, in
dying, she cried, with a loud voice: "Jesus!"
MAÎTRE JEAN BEAUPERE, Master in Theology, Canon of Rouen.
With regard to the apparitions mentioned in the Trial of the said
Jeanne, I held, and still hold, the opinion that they rose more
from natural causes and human intent than from anything supernatural;
but I would refer principally to the Process.
Before she was taken to Saint-Ouen, to be preached to in the morning,
I went alone, by permission, into Jeanne's prison, and warned
her that she would soon be led to the scaffold to be preached
to, telling her that, if she were a good Christian, she would
say on the scaffold that she placed all her deeds and words in
the ordering of Our Holy Mother Church, and especially of the
Ecclesiastical Judges. And this did she say on the scaffold, being
thereto requested by Maitre Nicolas Midi. This being noted and
considered, she was for a time sent back, after her abjuration;
although some of the English accused the Bishop of Beauvais and
the Delegates from Paris of favoring Jeanne's errors.
After this abjuration, and after taking her woman's dress which
she received in prison, it was reported to the Judges on the Friday
or Saturday following that Jeanne had repented of having put off
a man's dress and had taken a woman's dress. On this account,
my Lord of Beauvais sent me and Maitre Nicolas Midi to her, hoping
that we should speak to Jeanne and induce and admonish her to
persevere in the good intent she had on the scaffold, and that
she should be careful not to relapse. But we could not find the
keeper of the prison key,
(There were three keys to the prison,
one being in the possession of the Promoter, one of the Inquisitor,
and one belonging to the Cardinal.)
and, while we were waiting
for the prison guard, several of the English, who were in the
courtyard of the Castle, spoke threatening words, as Maître
Nicolas Midi told me, to the effect that he who would throw both
of us into the water would be well employed. And, hearing these
words, we returned; and, on the bridge of the Castle, Midi heard,
as he reported to me, like words used by others of the English;
at which we were much frightened, and went away without speaking
to Jeanne.
As to her innocence, Jeanne was very subtle with the subtlety
of a woman, as I consider. I did not understand from any words
of hers that she had been violated.
As to her final penitence, I do not know what to say, for, on
the Monday after
(May 28th.)
the abjuration, I left Rouen
to go to Basle,
(To what would end up to be a schismatic council,
then being held at Basle.)
on the part of the University of
Paris. Through this I knew nothing of her condemnation until I
heard it spoken of at Lisle in Flanders.
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