Joan of Arc was born in 1412 in Domrémy, a village in northeastern France, into a peasant family.
From her adolescence, she claimed to hear voices that she identified as Saint Michael, Saint Catherine, and Saint Margaret, which urged her to support the Dauphin Charles in the war against England.
In 1429, she participated in decisive military operations, especially in lifting the siege of Orléans, and that same year she accompanied Charles VII to Reims for his coronation, an act of enormous political legitimacy.
In May 1430, she was captured by Burgundian forces and handed over to the English.
Political motives and religious accusations
The trial against Joan was designed to discredit her as a figure inspired by God and, by extension, to question the legitimacy of Charles VII.
She was formally accused of heresy, schism, superstition, blasphemy, and disobedience to ecclesiastical authority.
She was also reproached for wearing men's clothing, which was considered a canonical offense.
The accusations were not based on military facts, but on a self-serving interpretation of her spiritual experience.
Development of the public trial and structure of the tribunal
The trial officially began on February 21, 1431, in Rouen, a city controlled by the English, and was presided over by Pierre Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, a supporter of England.
The tribunal was composed mostly of clergymen favorable to the English cause, which compromised its impartiality.
Joan did not have legal counsel or an ecclesiastical defender, despite having repeatedly requested one.
The interrogations took place in public and private sessions.
The preserved records show repetitive, tricky, and theologically complex questions aimed at inducing contradictions.
Joan responded with coherence and caution, refusing to pronounce on doctrinal issues she did not master and deferring to the authority of the universal Church, which frustrated the judges.
Favorable testimonies deliberately ignored
It is documented that the tribunal rejected or ignored testimonies favorable to Joan.
Inhabitants of Domrémy and French soldiers had previously testified about her piety, her irreproachable moral conduct, and her religious discipline.
These testimonies, collected later during the rehabilitation process, were never considered during the 1431 trial.
Nor was she allowed to present defense witnesses or examine the political context of her actions.
Treatment during imprisonment and interrogations
Joan was held in an English military prison and guarded by soldiers, rather than remaining in ecclesiastical custody as required by canon law.
There is no conclusive documentary evidence of direct physical torture, but it is recorded that she was explicitly threatened with the use of torment to force confessions.
These threats were recorded in the transcripts.
The psychological pressure was constant and systematic.
Abjuration, relapse, and sentencing
In May 1431, after weeks of interrogations and faced with the threat of immediate execution, Joan signed a partial abjuration.
Days later, she was accused of relapsing into heresy by returning to wearing men's clothing, a decision motivated by her personal safety in prison.
The tribunal used this fact as a legal basis to pass the maximum sentence.
On May 30, 1431, Joan of Arc was convicted of relapsed heresy and executed at the stake in the Old Market Square of Rouen.
She was nineteen years old.
Subsequent review and historical significance
In 1456, an ecclesiastical tribunal ordered by Pope Callixtus III annulled the proceedings due to serious legal irregularities.
Joan was officially rehabilitated and recognized as the victim of a political trial.
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Her case is one of the best-documented examples of judicial manipulation in the Middle Ages and a fundamental source for understanding the relationship between power, religion, and war.
