Joan of Arc Vindicated: Martyr Cleared 25 Years On

Pope Callixtus III ordered a formal retrial of Joan of Arc s case in 1456, and on July 7 the ecclesiastical court declared her innocent of all charges, annulling the 1431 conviction for heresy that had sent her to the stake at age nineteen. The verdict came twenty-five years too late to save her life, but it served the political interests of the French crown, which could not comfortably owe its legitimacy to a convicted heretic. Joan had appeared at the court of the Dauphin Charles in 1429, a seventeen-year-old peasant girl from Domremy who claimed that the voices of Saints Michael, Catherine, and Margaret had commanded her to drive the English from France and see Charles crowned king. Against all military logic, she was given armor, a horse, and command authority at the siege of Orleans. The besieged city was relieved within nine days of her arrival. Charles was crowned at Reims Cathedral on July 17, 1429, with Joan standing beside him. Her capture by Burgundian forces at Compiegne in May 1430 led to a trial orchestrated by Pierre Cauchon, the Bishop of Beauvais, who was politically allied with the English occupation. The trial was a judicial farce designed to produce a conviction. Joan was denied legal counsel, interrogated repeatedly by teams of theologians, and tricked into statements that could be construed as heretical. The charges centered on her wearing men s clothing and her claim to receive direct divine revelation, both threatening to ecclesiastical authority. Joan was burned at the stake in the marketplace of Rouen on May 30, 1431. She was tied to a tall pillar so the crowd could watch. The executioner later said he was terrified of being damned for burning a saint. English soldiers reportedly saw the word "Jesus" formed in the flames. The retrial of 1456 heard testimony from 115 witnesses, including childhood friends, soldiers who had fought alongside her, and clerics who had participated in the original proceedings. Many testified to the original trial s procedural violations and Cauchon s bias. The Catholic Church canonized Joan as a saint in 1920, and she remains one of France s most enduring national symbols.