CHAPTER 8
Prison

Joan was now in the hands of the Duke of Burgundy. The English wanted to put her on trial. But they were not the only ones who wanted Joan of Arc. Many important Frenchmen in the church didn’t like Joan, because she talked to saints and angels without any help or permission from them. The Catholic Church was willing to pay 6,000 francs for Joan, but the English king offered 10,000 for her capture. Only a king would be worth that big a ransom. One person offered no money for Joan: King Charles VII, the very man she had been working so hard to defend and help!

 

While her enemies haggled over price, Joan was kept in a castle tower. She was afraid of what the English would do to her. She tried to escape by jumping out of a window sixty to eighty feet above the ground. Although she didn’t get seriously hurt, she was found and returned to the tower.

On November 21, 1430, the duke sold Joan for 10,000 francs to the English king. The church planned to hold a special trial, called an Inquisition, at the University of Paris to punish Joan for the crime of saying she had been sent by God.

Joan’s trial would be held at Rouen (say: ROO-en), a French town that the English controlled. The English king of France, Henry VI, was living there at the time. He was only nine years old. The trial would be conducted by Pierre Cauchon, a French bishop who was loyal to the English.

Her own king, Charles VII, still did nothing to help Joan. Even though she served him so well, she got little in return. But Joan never stopped being loyal to the king.

The bishop made up a list of all Joan’s crimes against the church—everything from sorcery (or witchcraft, the use of magic) to wearing men’s clothes.

The Inquisition

In the twelfth century, the Catholic Church began holding trials to question and punish anyone they suspected of having beliefs that went against the church’s teachings. Their targets included Jews, Muslims, and heretics—people who spoke out against the church and its teachings. The person on trial was ordered to admit they were wrong. If they refused, they were tortured. The church had four major Inquisitions between the twelfth century and the mid-1800s: the Medieval, the Spanish, the Portuguese, and the Roman. Joan’s trial was part of the Medieval Inquisition.

 

On December 23, 1430, Joan was thrown into the prison in Rouen to await her trial. She had five guards, three of whom stayed inside her cell with her. Her ankles were put in shackles, and she was chained to her bed. She might have been put into chains because people thought she had the power to fly away.

Since Joan was being tried for religious reasons, the law said she ought to be held in a church prison with nuns as her guards. Instead she was being held in a tower surrounded by male guards and soldiers who treated her roughly.

Joan’s enemies, hoping to get evidence against her, even sent a man dressed as a priest to talk to her. As a faithful Catholic, Joan was grateful to be able to speak about her sins. But Joan was not a witch. She had not broken the law. So the spy had nothing to report.

On February 21, 1431, at eight in the morning, Joan of Arc entered the royal chapel in Rouen Castle. She was nineteen years old. The trial for her life was about to begin.