answersLogoWhite

0

Joan of Arc had soundly defeated the English at the raising of the siege of Orleans in May, 1429 and at The Battle of Patay, where over 2000 English soldiers were killed that June. This prevented the English from gaining control over all of France and having Henry VI, their king, become the king of France, but rather Charles VII, who Joan had conducted to Rheims to be crowned.

The English therefore feared and hated Joan, so that after she was captured by their ally, the Burgundians, who sold her to the English for 10,000 livres, they decided that they couldn't execute Joan for defeating them in battle, but they could get pro-English French clergy to try her for heresy. This mock trial was full of legal errors, Joan didn't even have a lawyer! All they could find against Joan was that she wore men's clothing, which was contrary to some obscure passage in The Bible.

The reason Joan wore men's clothing on the battlefield was to wear armor to keep from being hurt and in prison she wore men's clothing to keep from being raped by her low class English guards. So Joan was burnt at the stake on May 30, 1431.

25 years later the pope ordered a review of this trial at the request of King Charles VII and so many errors were found in it, and that it had all been a "put up job by the hatred of the English" that Joan was found not guilty of heresy and the entire trial declared null in July, 1456.

User Avatar

Velda Stokes

Lvl 10
3y ago

What else can I help you with?