Pierre Cauchon

Because what it does is it serves as this way of kind of saying that Joan of Arc is like a proto-Protestant of some type.

And I mean, really, the truth about this is Joan gets captured, right? And she's immediately handed over to Rouen, which is controlled by the English at the time, right? Because it's Normandy, right? That's [laughs] the traditional place that English kings, uh, control, right? And more particularly, she is in the hands of a bishop called, uh, Pierre Cauchon, and he is the Bishop of Beauvais, and technically, technically-

[laughs]

... right, he's allowed to do this, right? And it's him and also the academics at the University of Paris.

Right, and, and that can be confusing for us because it's already weird because it's like, wait, no, isn't Burgundy part of France? Like, yeah, yes and no.

It is now, it wasn't then, right? And what they are doing is very technically above board.

They're like, "Technically, I have the right to try Joan of Arc as a heretic." And they get her on these very specific and persnickety legal things, uh, dressing like a man, uh, saying that her visions are incorrect, and also disobedience, right? Because they're saying, "We are, we are representatives of the Church, sort of, yeah, and we're telling you not to do this, and you won't knock it off," right? And she does at a point in time say, "Yes, okay, I am a heretic," and then the visions tell her, "No, you should, you should put men's clothing back on." And there's this very, very careful legal framework that they put forward, but I and many other historians would argue they're doing that because it's dodgy, right? Like, this is very, very dodgy stuff, and if you had other more French-sympathetic bishops involved, they would be like, "What are you doing? You can't try her as a heretic." The papacy does not know about this, right? So when people say the Church, they often mean the Pope.

The Pope doesn't know this is happening.

The bones and muscles yield to violent impact, and life is not destroyed.

Jeanne having been bought by the English, they brought her to trial before a court composed of Pierre Cauchon, Lord Bishop of Beauvais, and a varying number of clerics, as Anatole France puts it, a veritable synod.

It was important to condemn not only the witch of the Armagnacs herself, but also the viper whom she had been able to crown king of France.

If they condemned her for witchcraft, they condemned all her works, including King Charles.

For English officials, possessing a captive claimed to receive divine counsel allowed them to craft a narrative where her influence was presented as both miraculous and malevolent, positioning England not just as a conqueror but as a protector against aberrant religious zeal that threatened Christian order across the realm.

In Rouen, the trial of Joan unfolded under Bishop Pierre Cauchon, whose own political ambition intertwined with English policy.

He opened the proceedings by accusing her of heresy based on two pillars: her wearing of men’s armor and bearing a sword, which defied ecclesiastical gender norms, and her claim to divine instruction that contradicted Catholic doctrine.

The evidence presented relied heavily on intercepted letters where Joan spoke in a masculine voice, alongside testimonies from soldiers who testified that she had commanded them with unorthodox tactics, thereby giving the trial a veneer of legal gravity for English readers eager to see an enemy condemned by ecclesiastical law.

The trial itself was a masterclass in ecclesiastical politics that the English leveraged at great risk.

Bishop Pierre Cauchon, under pressure from both London and Philip Re of Burgundy, chose to bring forward the strongest possible accusations.

The charges, her wearing men's clothes, claiming divine visions, refusing ecclesiastical authority, were not invented out of nowhere.

They had precedent in the heresy cases that plagued Europe.