Donald Spoto’s new biography of Joan of Arc is like bringing reality TV into a 15th century courtroom.
Based on original transcripts from her legendary heresy trial, “Joan: The Mysterious Life of the Heretic Who Became a Saint” re-creates how this illiterate French teenage girl defied the powers of organized religion, her voice resounding through the centuries, bringing that courtroom drama back to life.
Since her death in 1431 at age 19, Joan has mesmerized generations, inspiring a deluge of biographies, plays, poems, novels and movies.
In this latest work, the broad strokes of the story are familiar. After hearing the voice of God directing her to go to battle for France during the Hundred Years’ War, Joan dressed in men’s clothes and led soldiers in many victories. Captured by the English, she was burned at the stake as a heretic.
The drama of this particular narrative, however, is the day-by-day account of her trial: Who said what, when and why.
Spoto is a prolific biographer and former theology professor whose books have chronicled the lives of everyone from Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Alfred Hitchcock to Jesus and St. Francis.
His new book is almost cinematic in its detailed presentation of a stunning miscarriage of justice.
Spoto devoted 30 years of research into primary documents of Joan’s life, showing how inquisitors at the heresy trial attempted to prove she was a witch.
The chief judge, Pierre Cauchon, was a Catholic bishop on the side of the English who ignored both canon and civil law. He ordered the minutes of the trial deliberately falsified at critical points, Spoto reveals, to ensure Joan’s execution.
“She was a political pawn destined to die on fabricated charges of religious impropriety – a predicament much like that of Jesus Christ,” he writes.
Church law stated all people under 25 accused of heresy must have a lawyer, but this teenager was denied a legal advocate, forced to defend herself in front of a rigged jury of about 60 clergy and theologians, all loyal to the English.
“Paid from an English purse, they were expected to be steadfast in their commitment to find Joan guilty,” he writes.
Joan never abandoned her faith in God, however.
“It is better to obey my sovereign Lord God rather than men,” she said, putting a priority on her spiritual experience.
She died amid the flames, singing out the name of her Lord Jesus.
Twenty-five years later, the pope’s appellate court condemned her trial and shredded a copy of the original trial document.
Ultimately canonized as a saint, Joan is the only person in history to be condemned as a heretic and later resurrected as a heroine of Christian history.
“If Joan was right in her insistence that the unwarranted takeover of one country by another is repugnant,” concludes Spoto, “then she is more than a historical curiosity: she remains a prophetic witness for every generation.”
Staff writer Colleen O’Connor can be reached at 303-820-1083 or at coconnor@denverpost.com.
—————————————-
NONFICTION
Joan
The Mysterious Life of the Heretic Who Became a Saint
Donald Spoto
$24.95
