Medieval Inquisition: Joan Of Arc

2. Introduction

The focus of this report is about Jehnanne d’Arc and her unmistakeable significance in history. It is also evident that the Medieval Inquisition had a number of procedures to discover to prosecute the heretics.

3. Jehnanne d’Arc

Joan of Arc is messenger from God, Military Leader of King Henry V’s Army and a national heroine of France. Born to a peasant family at Domrémy in North-east France 1412 she was heavily influenced in the Catholic Church and started hearing voices, which she believed was angels, when she was 13yrs old. As she acted on these voices she soon got the attention of the Dauphin (King Henry V), who was the head of the Armagnac’s, and other villages. Once she got this attention she had to go 250 miles through

Once she proved herself as a messenger of God and not the devils, Joan, lead the Dauphin’s Army, who were trying to gain control over Orléan from the English for 5 months. She took back Orléan in no more than 4 days during the Lancastrian phase of the Hundred Years’ War. Joan’s triumph on the ‘Siege of Orléan’ was the sign to the French people that she was a true prophet of God. Her victory over Orléan fast forward the Dauphin coronation by a year. The dauphin was crowned in the Cathedral of Mass as King Henry V. But that wasn’t enough for Joan, she wanted the English to be out of France forever. To do this Joan had to reunite the France under the rules of King Henry V. Reluctantly, the King let Joan have one day to try to take over Paris, but she wasn’t successful, instead she got shot with an arrow between the thigh and retreated. After the unsuccessful attempt to capture Paris, Joan did not give up, so she rallied a small fleet of her loyal followers and charged to Compiègne to attack the Burgundians. There she was captured by the Burgundians and sold to the English for 10,000 livres. Then she was put on trial for heresy mostly because she shunned the traditional roles and garb of women in her era for

The Inquisition starts with an investigation in which the townspeople gathered at a public place, although attendance was voluntary, those who didn’t attend became a suspect. There they ask any of the people to step forward and denounce themselves for easy punishment. They would also need to inform on the other heretics as well. ‘Legally, there had to be at least two witnesses, although conscientious judges rarely contented themselves with that number’ (The World Library: Online). The inquisitorial trial is the second phase of the inquisition. The Papal inquisition has lots of flaws in the procedure, which generally favored the prosecutor, the defendant was only entitled to some rights such as naming people who had the “most hatred” against them. If the prosecutor/s were named, the defendant would be sent free and charges would be dismissed, while the prosecutor/s was face life imprisonment. However, if the defendant is found guilty confessing 'in full' was the best hope of receiving a lighter punishment - but with little hope of escaping at least some punishment. The punishment could be torture, imprisonment, embarrassment or banishment. However, torture wasn’t issued until the 15 May 1252 Pope Innocent IV issued a papal bull entitled Ad extirpanda, which authorized the use of torture by inquisitors. Torture methods that