Source.—Waurin's Chronicles, 1422-1431, pp. 239-244. (Rolls Series.)

... "It is a sufficiently common report already spread abroad, as it were everywhere, how this woman who caused herself to be called Joan the maid, a false soothsayer, for two years or more, against the divine law and the condition of her female sex, has clothed and conducted herself in the dress and manner of man, a thing displeasing and abominable to God, and in such condition was carried before our capital enemy and yours, to whom and to those of his party she often gave it out, and even to churchmen, nobles, and people, that she was sent by God, presumptuously boasting herself that she often had personal and visible communication with Saint Michael and a great multitude of other angels and saints of Paradise, with Saint Katherine and Saint Margaret; by which false givings-out, and by the hope of future victories which she promised, she turned away the hearts of many men and women from the truth, and turned them towards fables and lies: she also clothed herself with armour suitable for knights and esquires, raised a standard, and with too great excess, pride, and presumption demanded to have the very excellent arms of France, which in part she obtained, and bore them in many expeditions and assaults, that is to say, a shield with two fleurs-de-lis of gold on a field azure, and a sword with the point fixed upwards in a crown; and in this condition she has taken the field, with the leadership of men at arms and archers, in armies and great companies, to do and perpetrate inhuman cruelties, wickedly shedding human blood, and causing also commotions and seditions of the people, inciting them to perjuries, rebellions, superstitions, and false beliefs, perturbing all good peace and renewing mortal war, suffering herself to be revered and adored by many persons as a sanctified soul, and otherwise acting damnably in many other matters too long to express, which nevertheless have been well enough known in many places, whereby nearly all Christendom has been greatly scandalized. But the Divine Power having pity on His loyal people, whom He has not long left in peril, nor suffered them to remain in the vain, perilous, and novel cruelties into which they had thoughtlessly thrown themselves, has been pleased to permit it in His great mercy and clemency that the said shameful woman has been taken in your army and siege which you were then maintaining on our behalf before CompiÈgne, and put by your good help into our obedience and governance. And because we were afterwards requested by the bishop in whose diocese she had been taken that this Joan, branded and charged with crimes of high treason against God, we would cause to be delivered to him as to her ordinary ecclesiastical judge, as well for reverence of our mother holy church, whose sacred ordinances we desire to prefer to our own deeds and wishes as is right, as also for the honour and exaltation of our true faith, we caused the said Joan to be given up in order that he might try her, without wishing that any vengeance or punishment should be inflicted upon her by our secular officers of justice, as it was reasonably lawful for us to do, considering the great damages and inconveniences, the horrible homicides and detestable cruelties and evils, as it were innumerable, that she had committed against our seignory and our loyal and obedient people. This bishop, the inquisitor of errors and heresies being associated with him, and a great and notable number of famous masters and doctors of theology and canon law being summoned with them, commenced with great solemnity and due gravity the trial of this Joan, and after he and the said inquisitor, judges in this behalf, had on many different days questioned the said Joan, they caused her confessions and assertions to be maturely examined by the masters and doctors, and generally by all the faculties of learning of our very dear and much loved daughter the University of Paris, before which the said assertions and confessions were sent, according to whose opinion and deliberation the said judges found this Joan superstitious, a soothsayer by means of devils, a blasphemer of God and of the saints, a schismatic, and erring many times from the law of Jesus Christ. And to bring her back into the union and communion of our holy mother the church, to cleanse her from such horrible and pernicious crimes and sins, and to keep and preserve her soul from perpetual torment and damnation, she was often, during a long time, very lovingly and gently admonished that all her errors being rejected by her should be put away, and that she should humbly return into the way and straight path of truth, or otherwise she would put herself in great peril of soul and body; but the very perilous and mad spirit of pride and outrageous presumption, which is always exerting itself to try to impede and disturb the path and way of loyal Christians, so seized upon and detained in its bonds this Joan and her heart, that for no holy doctrine, good counsels or exhortation that could be administered to her, would her hardened and obstinate heart humble or soften itself, but she often again boasted that all things that she had done were well done, and she had done them at the commandment of God through the angels and the said holy virgins who visibly appeared to her: and what is worse, she recognized not, nor would recognize, any upon earth save God only and the saints of Paradise, rejecting the authority of our holy father the pope, the general council and the universal church militant. And then the ecclesiastical judges, seeing her said disposition pertinaciously, and for so long a space, remain hardened and obstinate, caused her to be brought before the clergy and people there assembled in very great multitude, in whose presence her case, crimes, and errors were preached, made known, and declared by a notable master and doctor of theology, for the exaltation of our faith, the extirpation of errors, the edification and amendment of Christian people. And there, again, she was lovingly admonished to return to the union of holy church, correcting her faults and errors, in which she still remained pertinacious and obstinate. This the judges aforesaid seeing and considering, they proceeded further and pronounced against her the sentence in such case by law prescribed and ordained; but before the said sentence was read through she began seemingly to change her disposition, saying that she wished to return to holy church, which willingly and joyfully heard the aforesaid judges and clergy, who thereto received her affectionately, hoping that her soul and body were redeemed from perdition and torment. Then she submitted herself entirely to the ordinance of the Church, and orally revoked and publicly abjured her errors and detestable crimes, signing with her own hand the schedule of the said revocation and abjuration; and so our pitiful mother holy church rejoicing over the sinner showing penitence, desiring to bring back to the shepherd, with the others, the returned and recovered sheep which had wandered and gone astray in the desert, condemned this Joan to prison to do salutary penance; but she was hardly there any time before the fire of her pride, which seemed to be extinguished, rekindled in her with pestilential flames by the breathings of the enemy, and the said unhappy woman immediately fell back into the errors and false extravagances which she had before uttered and afterwards revoked and abjured, as has been said. For which causes, according to what the judgements and institutions of holy church ordain, in order that henceforward she might not contaminate the poor members of Jesus Christ, she was again publicly preached to, and as she had fallen back into the crimes and faults she was accustomed, left to secular justice, which immediately condemned her to be burned. And then she, seeing her end drawing near, recognized clearly that the spirits which she had said had appeared to her many times before were wicked and lying spirits, and that the promises which these spirits had formerly made to her of delivering her were false, and so she confessed it to have been a mockery and deceit; and she was taken by the said lay justice to the old market-place in the town of Rouen, and was there publicly burnt in the sight of all the people."