Jeanne D'Arc: Her Life And DeathOliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
History
Jeanne D'Arc: Her Life And Death
Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
France -- History; Joan, of Arc, Saint, 1412-1431
It was then told her that this was not enough, and that our Holy Father
was too far off; also that the Ordinaries were judges each in his
diocese, and it was necessary that she should submit to our Mother the
Holy Church, and that she should confess that the clergy and officers
of the Church had a right to determine in her case. And of this she was
admonished three times.
After this the Bishop began to read the definitive sentence. When a
great part of it was read, Jeanne began to speak and said that she would
hold to all that the judges and the Church said, and obey in everything
their ordinance and will. And there in the presence of the above-named
and of the great multitude assembled she made her abjuration in the
manner that follows:
And she said several times that since the Church said her apparitions
and revelations should not be sustained or believed, she would not
sustain them; but in everything submit to the judges and to our Mother
the Holy Church.
*****
In this strange, brief, subdued manner is the formal record made.
Manchon writes on his margin: _At the end of the sentence Jeanne,
fearing the fire, said she would obey the Church_. Even into the bare
legal document there comes a hush as of awe, the one voice responding in
the silence of the crowd, with a quiver in it; the very animation of
the previous outcry enhancing the effect of this low and faltering
submission, _timens igneum_--in fear of the fire.
The more familiar record, and the recollections long after of those
eye-witnesses, give us another version of the scene. Èrard, from his
pulpit, read the form of abjuration prepared. But Jeanne answered that
she did not know what abjuration meant, and the preacher called
upon Massieu to explain it to her. "And he" (we quote from his own
deposition), "after excusing himself, said that it meant this: that if
she opposed the said articles she would be burnt; but he advised her to
refer it to the Church universal whether she should abjure or not. Which
thing she did, saying to Èrard, 'I refer to the Church universal whether
I should abjure or not.' To which Èrard answered, 'You shall abjure at
once or you will be burnt.' Massieu gives further particulars in another
part of the Rehabilitation process. Èrard, he says, asked what he was
saying to the prisoner, and he answered that she would sign if the
schedule was read to her; but Jeanne said that she could not write, and
then added that she wished it to be decided by the Church, and ought
not to sign unless that was done: and also required that she should be
placed in the custody of the Church, and freed from the hands of the
English. The same Èrard answered that there had been ample delay, and
that if she did not sign at once she should be burned, and forbade
Massieu to say any more."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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