Joan Of Arc - Heresy

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What do the sources for the Trial of Joan of Arc tell us about contemporary attitudes towards heresy? Joan of Arc was born into a prosperous peasant family in Lorraine, France, in 1412. This was a period of political divide in France as they faced defeat by the English in the ‘Hundred Years War’. Some, such as the Burgundians, wished to accept defeat and surrender but many did not. Joan of Arc claimed to have been inspired by divine visions and voices, beginning in her teens, to save France from the English and their Burgundian allies. She lead the French military on many successful campaigns against the invading English, and had ‘The Dauphin’ crowned as King Charles VII in Paris in July 1429. However when she was captured in battle and handed over to the English, they used her unorthodox claims to try her as a Heretic at Rouen, the center of English rule in France. There are several primary sources presented to us about the trial of Joan of Arc, from the manuscript of an anonymous author written in 1500, to a letter written by Joan herself along with extracts of the transcript of the trial. From each of these we can see the great positive impact of a person claiming to have been influenced by the divine if they are to be believed. However, one can also see just how much of an uproar having opinions that conflicted with those of the church caused. The first source, the anonymous chronicle found in a manuscript at Orleans, does not deal in too much detail with that of the attitude of people towards Heresy. However it does go into great detail about the life of Joan of Arc and how she mat have come to be portrayed as a Heretic, claiming that she “always let it be understood that she was divinely inspired and that she has the duty under this divine inspiration to place the Dauphin in possession of the Kingdom of France”. Initially people were skeptic of a young
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