Joan of Arc (36 page)

The chief source of information 150 years after its publication is Jules Quicherat (ed.),
Procès de condamnation et de réhabilitation de Jeanne d’Arc, dite La Pucelle: publiés pour la première fois d’après les manuscrits de la Bibliothèque royale, suivis de tous les documents historiques qu’on a pu réunir, et accompagnés de notes et d’éclaircissements
(J. Renouard, Paris, 1841–9). Since the end of the royal monarchy the Bibliothèque
royale
has become
nationale
; and other manuscripts have been found elsewhere. Quicherat’s volumes treat of: vol. 1, the process of condemnation; vol. 2, the preliminaries to the process of rehabilitation not used in the eventual process, chapters 1–4 of the process; vol. 3, the process continued, chapters 5–9; opinions published in Joan’s life; vol. 4, chroniclers and historians of the fifteenth century; vol. 5, contemporary poets, documents, etc.

The first three volumes of Quicherat have been almost replaced by two more editions: Pierre Tisset and Yvonne Lanhers (eds),
Jeanne, d’Arc, Procès de condamnation
, vols 1–3 (C. Klincksieck, Paris, 1960, 1970, 1971). These books deal with the 1431 trial. P. Duparc (ed.),
Procès en nullité de la condamnation
, vols 1–4 (C. Klincksieck, Paris, 1977, 1979, 1983, 1986, 1988). These deal with most of the process Duparc calls a process of nullification, but some of the material in Quicherat is not included.

English translations are available on the Internet and, until I had access to the three editions mentioned above, I had to rely on such translations. Their style is dated and in the case of the process of nullification they conceal the boring way in which the evidence was recorded by trained lawyers; and they omit passages – in the case of d’Aulon a crucial passage that was thought indelicate. I have tried to bring the translations into line with the originals, but it is often hard to change words. If Joan was called ‘
perniciosa, seditiosa et haeretica
’, it is difficult to avoid saying that she was considered ‘pernicious, seditious and a (or an) heretic’. For her original French there is no substitute.

For anyone with the time and the requisite languages, the discussions on the documents in Quicherat, Tisset and Lanhers, and Duparc are well worth reading.

Between the First and Second World wars, the leading Johannic scholar, an expert on the whole period of Valois rule, was Pierre Champion. He edited the nullification trial documents, which he called, as was normal then, the rehabilitation trial. He also wrote a specialised study of the fifteenth-century documents for a series called the Bibliothèque du XVe siècle:
Notice des manuscrits du Procès de réhabilitation de Janne d’Arc
(Bibliothèque du XVe siècle, Paris, 1930).