The Story of Joan of Arc the Witch-Saint

by M. M. Mangasarian

Returning to the question of the responsibility of the Catholic Church for the fate of Joan, there are these points to be touched upon. Being a matter of history that on the last day of May, fourteen hundred thirty-one, this young woman was publicly burned in the City of Rouen, in the square of the cathedral, the question arises: Who put her to death? Another important question is: Why was she put to death? And when we have answered these questions we will be in a position to discuss the much more important question of: Why Joan of Arc was recently translated into a saint by the pope.

Twenty-five years after the burning of Joan, when the city of Rouen was restored to the French king, and the English were finally driven across the Channel, it was decided to review the evidence upon which the Maid had been convicted and put to death. This was done; and with the result that she was acquitted of all the charges of heresy, insubordination to the Church, adultery, witchcraft, etc. What do you think was the motive of this revision? The French king had begun to realize the disgrace to which he had been exposed by the condemnation of the Maid as a witch. Being exceedingly pious—piety and crime were united in him as in many others of that day—he was tormented by the thought that the young woman who had assisted him in his war against the English, and had been the means of securing for him the crown of France, and had also officiated at his coronation in the cathedral of Rheims, was condemned as an agent of satan by the Church; which, if true, it would make him not only the target for the ridicule and derision of the whole Christian world, but, also, an illicit king of the French, who might refuse their allegiance to him because he was made king by a witch and not by an apostle of God. It is no wonder that a superstitious man like Charles VII, in a superstitious age, trembled, not only for his crown, but, also, for his life. Therefore, in order to make his succession legitimate it was necessary to prove that Joan was not a witch, but a true messenger of God. For if Joan was a witch, Charles VII was not king "by the grace of God," but by a trick of the devil. In self-defense the king of France was not only compelled to reopen the case against Joan, now that he was free from English dictation, but he also indicated in advance to the ecclesiastics the conclusion they would have to arrive at. The king could not have allowed, and he would not have allowed, the ecclesiastical council, convened at his request, to arrive at any other verdict than the one which would prove to France and Christendom that he was made king at Rheims, not by a witch who was excommunicated by the Church and flung into the fire, but by a real and inspired apostle of God.

Of course, it is a matter of history that it was by the help of Joan that Charles VII became King of France.

As already intimated, at the coronation ceremony Joan was not only present, but she assisted the Archbishop when the latter placed the crown upon the king's head. The inauguration was practically the work of Joan. It was the fulfillment of a prediction she had repeatedly made, that she would conquer the English and crown the French king in the City of Rheims. If she was a witch the coronation was invalid. The ceremony of the anointing of a king is one of the most solemn in the Catholic Church. The condemnation of Joan as a witch had not only stripped this ceremony of its sacredness, but it had also made it null and void, nay, more, a blasphemy. How could a king, anointed by the help of a witch, be the king of a Christian nation? To appreciate this argument we must remember how bigoted the people were in the Middle Ages. In self-defense, therefore, Charles VII was compelled to prove to the French, and to the whole world, that the woman to whom he owed his elevation to the throne was not a heretic.

Let us recapitulate. The King of France ordered the Church to make out a new certificate for Joan. The Church obeyed the French king, even as the same Church twenty-five years earlier had obeyed the King of England and condemned Joan to death. When the English were masters of France, the Catholic Church pleased them by delivering up the conqueror of England to be burned alive; when the English were driven out of the country and the French were again in control this sentence was reversed and Joan was proven to have been a dutiful child of the Church. Thus it will be seen that the Church swung with the English when the English ruled the land, and she swung with the French when the French had driven the English out of the country. The Church was with England at one time, and she was with France at another—but never with Joan. I am milder in my criticism than the facts warrant. I am making strenuous efforts to speak with immoderation of an "infallible institution."

But why was it to the interest of the English to have Joan declared a witch? Their motives were as personal as those of the French king. The English felt humiliated to think that a mere woman had whipped them, and therefore they were determined to prove that she was more than a woman—an agent of the devil. There was no secret about this. Their motive was very plain. It was to their interest to show that Joan was the personification of satan, and that consequently the English should not be blamed for running away from her presence, because who could withstand the devil? The English army did not go down before a girl, but before a sorceress. Even as the King of France did not wish it said that he owed his victory over the English to a witch, or that he was made king by an apostate, the English did not wish it said that they were conquered by a saint, for that would make God the enemy of the English. One king wanted Joan damned, and the Church accommodated him by damning her; another wanted Joan beatified, and the Church beatified her.

It is admitted that the English could not have burned Joan as a witch without the consent of the Church. They could have burned her as a prisoner, but that would not have answered their purpose—she must be declared a witch in order to vindicate the amour propre of the English people. It is the exclusive prerogative of the Church to decide questions of orthodoxy or heresy. No king has the right to admit or exclude any one from the communion of the Church. Whether or not Joan was a witch was a theological question and could only be decided by the ecclesiastical court. Neither could the King of France declare Joan of Arc innocent of heresy without the consent of the Church. It follows then that the principal actor in the trial, the condemnation and the death of the young woman under the English, and her subsequent vindication and beatification, was the Church of Rome, since without its consent the English could not have made a heretic of her, nor the French a saviour and a saint. A secular government may declare who shall be its military heroes, or who shall be court-martialed and disgraced, but only the Church enjoys the right to damn or to canonize. This point is so clinching that even the most zealous papist must admit that at one time, when all Europe was Catholic—England as much so as France—and the pope was as supreme in one country as in the other, a girl of nineteen, who had rendered heroic services to her oppressed country, could not have been declared a heretic and cast into the fire at the door of a cathedral, in the presence of bishops, priests, a cardinal and a representative of the holy Inquisition, without the knowledge and consent of the Holy Roman Catholic Church.

An attempt has been made to throw the entire blame of the proceedings against Joan of Arc upon the English. There is no doubt about the anxiety of the English to punish the Maid who had robbed them of the spoils of their victory over the French and brought dishonor upon their arms. But a mere military punishment, as already intimated, would not have been sufficient to satisfy the English—she had to be excommunicated from Christendom as one possessed of the devil. That was the only way to save the English of the disgrace of having been beaten by a woman, and the records show that the Church, instead of reluctantly carrying out the wishes of the English, was more than pleased to bring Joan to the stake. Letters were written from the office of the Inquisition to the English king, complaining against his lukewarmness in the matter of prosecuting the young woman. The Catholic University of Paris, also, sent a special communication to King Henry of England to remind him of his duty to help the Church to put down heresy. The English were urged to hand Joan over to the bishop and the Inquisition, that the ecclesiastics might proceed with her trial without delay. And when finally Joan faced her judges, forty in number, every one of them was an ecclesiastic, and out of the forty, thirty-eight were Frenchmen.

Moreover, the Archbishop of Rheims, who was also Chancellor of France, wrote a letter which is still in existence, in which he congratulated the French upon the capture of Joan of Arc, whom he denounces as a heretic—"a proud and rebellious child who refuses to submit to the Church." Being the superior of the Bishop of Beauvais, who was in charge of the trial, the Archbishop could have stopped the prosecution if he had the least sympathy or pity for the Maid. But to try to save a heretic would be the worst kind of heresy. That explains the utter desertion of Joan by all France—people, priest and king.

In this connection a comparison should be made between the zeal of the clergy to bring Joan to trial for heresy and the slowness and indifference with which the Church proceeded to obey the summons of the King of France twenty-five years after to reinstate her into the fellowship of Catholic Christendom. The records show that it required considerable urging and manoeuvring on the part of the French government to bring about a revision of the ecclesiastical sentence against the Maid. As long as Nicholas V was pope nothing was accomplished. The case was reopened under Pope Calixtus. Not until it was realized that further delay in the matter would greatly irritate, not only the French king, but also the populace, now freed from English dominion and seeking to live down the evil reputation of having harbored an apostate in their midst, did Rome stir itself in the matter. It will be seen that it was not the pope nor the Church that took the initiative in behalf of Joan of Arc. The Church only yielded to the pressure from the State, that had now become powerful. Had the English remained in control of France the Maid of Orleans would never have been remembered by the Catholic Church, much less restored to honor and immortality.