The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 6, Issue 1, Winter 2017 | Page 31

and blasphemer towards God and the Saints, a despiser of God
Himself in His Sacraments; a prevaricator of the Divine Law, of
sacred doctrine and of ecclesiastical sanctions; seditious, cruel,
apostate, schismatic, erring on many points of our Faith, and by
all these means rashly guilty towards God and Holy Church. And
also, because that often, very often, not only by Us on Our part
but by Doctors and Masters learned and expert, full of zeal for
the salvation of thy soul, you have been duly and sufficiently
warned to amend, to correct thyself and to submit to the disposal,
decision, and correction of Holy Mother Church, which you have
not willed, and have always obstinately refused to do, having
even expressly and many times refused to submit thyself to our
Lord the Pope and to the General Council; for these causes, as
hardened and obstinate in thy crimes, excesses and errors, WE
DECLARE THEE OF RIGHT EXCOMMUNICATE AND
HERETIC; and after your errors have been destroyed in a public
preaching, We declare that you must be abandoned and that We
do abandon thee to the secular authority, as a member of Satan,
separate from the Church, infected with the leprosy of heresy, in
order that you may not corrupt also the other members of Christ;
praying this same power, that, as concerns death and the
mutilation of the limbs, it may be pleased to moderate its
judgment; and if true signs of penitence should appear in thee,
that the Sacrament of Penance may be administered to thee. 3
Despite her excommunication, prior to her execution Joan received the sacraments
of Confession and the Holy Eucharist. On 30 May 1431 at Rouen, the English
burned Joan at the stake. Not satisfied with her death alone, the executioner had
her body burned again. The fire did not consume her heart, which the executioner
found intact; however, “for fear lest [her] remains . . . be used for witchcraft . . .
[he had it] thrown into the Seine.” 4
In 1450, Charles VII realized that Joan’s death as a heretic sullied his own
reign, as her heroism had led to his coronation. Accordingly, on 13 February 1450,
Charles tasked one of his counsellors, Guillaume Bouillé, “to inquire into the
conduct of the Trial undertaken against Jeanne by ‘our ancient enemies the
English,’ who, ‘against reason, had cruelly put her to death,’ and to report the
result of his investigations to the Council.” 5 Bouillé’s inquiry ended several
months later, after relatively few testimonies, in part because the French did not
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