The king Joan crowned, Charles VII, did not protest her trial or death. He treated her as if she never existed because association with a condemned heretic undermined his own legitimacy. He only moved to rehabilitate her memory 19 years later, once his political position was secure and he needed to validate his coronation.
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Despite being mediated by scribes, the detailed records from Joan's trial and rehabilitation offer an exceptionally rare opportunity to hear the wit, courage, and personality of a 15th-century peasant girl in her own words. This direct voice is a primary source of her enduring historical power.
Despite their desperation, the Dauphin's court didn't blindly trust Joan. They subjected her to a rigorous vetting process, including a physical examination to confirm her virginity and a theological inquiry by scholars at Poitiers. This was a form of medieval due diligence to mitigate the immense risk of backing a fraud or heretic.
Her authority was tied to two specific goals: relieving Orléans and crowning the king. After achieving these, her continued push for war lacked the same clear divine mandate. This perceived mission creep eroded her support at court and led to failures like the assault on Paris.
The trial's primary goal was not justice but to delegitimize Charles VII. By convicting Joan as a witch, the English hoped to prove that Charles's coronation was a "satanic fraud," thereby restoring the legitimacy of their own claimant to the French throne.
Contrary to the popular narrative of an English show trial, 123 out of 131 legal and theological experts involved were French. These individuals were loyal to the English-backed Burgundian faction, highlighting the deep internal divisions within France during the war.
The Dauphin's court did not accept Joan in a vacuum. Decades-old prophecies foretelling that a virgin would save France provided the political and cultural cover necessary to support her seemingly outlandish mission. This pre-existing narrative made her claims plausible and her backing politically defensible.
After recanting, Joan resumed wearing male clothes. While significant, the legally damning act was admitting her voices had returned. This classified her as a "relapsed heretic," an unforgivable crime in the eyes of the Church for which the only punishment was death. A court clerk noted this in the margin as "Responsio mortifera"—a fatal reply.
The court ritual where Joan "identified" the Dauphin she had already met was a deliberate piece of political theatre. This staged "pantomime" was not a genuine test but a public relations exercise designed to cement the narrative of her divine gifts and the Dauphin's legitimacy in the minds of the entire court.
After Joan was captured, Charles VII's regime strategically distanced itself. The official line was that God allowed her capture as punishment for her pride and folly. This narrative protected the king from the embarrassment of her failure and allowed him to move on.
After abjuring her visions, Joan was stunned to learn her sentence was not release but perpetual imprisonment on bread and water. This crushing blow replaced one form of death with another, stripping away her core identity and likely fueling her decision to recant her recantation and face the flames on her own terms.