Scott Alexander (author/host)

The physical notes didn't survive the centuries, alas.

If my memory is right, the original minute was lost in a World War II bombing, but copies of it did.

Basically, every time she demands her legal rights that she has no plausible way of knowing about, but they're honour-bound to grant her, they leave it out of the official transcript.

Back to the text.

They end up concluding that she must be a heretic because she A. wears men's clothes and B. refuses to submit to the Pope.

Then they convict her of heresy and witchcraft, tell her that if she doesn't repent they'll burn her, and if they do, they'll let her go.

And then when she repents, in quotes, they throw her back in prison and only give her men's clothes to wear and convict her of relapsing into heresy when she wears them instead of going naked.

Then they burn her.

Many footnotes here.

The first one after not submitting to the Pope.

This is the bit they changed.

She in fact said she would submit to no authority's judgment as to the authenticity of her visions other than the Pope, which is barely not heretical.

And another footnote there.

There were a few more things on their list of accusations, but the men's clothes were clear proof of defiance of the court and the refusal to accept the judgment of the Pope was clear proof of heresy.

And the rest they couldn't really make stick.

Another footnote after her repenting, in quotes, by signing a small note when all the bishop present tell her to, with an X, which was her symbol for disregard this, the latter is a lie, while laughing at them.

And the footnote about only giving her men's clothes to wear?

This was actually the less nasty of the two narratives about why she went back to wearing men's clothing.

The nastier is that she was assaulted by her jailers while she was in women's clothing and wore men's clothes because she could defend herself better this way.

She blamed the bishops for not keeping her in a civilized, ecclesiastical prison instead of guarded by English soldiers, which one witness of the trial said Cauchon hadn't done because it would offend the English.