Saint Joan

An English Chaplain and a nobleman sit at a table in a tent at an English camp. The nobleman is an imposing man in his mid-forties. While the nobleman reads the Book of Hours contentedly, the Chaplain seethes silently. The nobleman praises the “workmanship” of the Book of Hours, though he laments how unfortunate it is that, nowadays, “instead of looking at books, people read them.” The English-born Chaplain doesn’t share the nobleman’s flippant mood, however: the English have been defeated and he’s bitter about it. Angrily, he imagines strangling the “witch” who has brought about England’s many recent defeats.

The nobleman is more concerned with the Bastard of Orleans (Dunois), as he is a renowned commander. The Chaplain counters that Dunois is “only a Frenchman,” which upsets the nobleman, who believes this nationalist rhetoric to be destructive, as “men cannot serve two masters.” If serfs pledge allegiance to their country, it’s “goodbye to the authority of their feudal lords, and goodbye to the authority of the Church.” The nobleman asserts that they must burn the witch, and that he’s waiting for the Bishop of Beauvais to set these plans into action.

The nobleman’s page enters to announce the presence of Peter Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais. The nobleman introduces himself to Cauchon as Richard de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and his Chaplain as Master John de Stogumber. The men sit around the table and discuss their shared problem: “the young woman from Lorraine.” Stogumber believes that Joan is a sorceress and Warwick thinks she should be burned at the stake.

Cauchon approaches the problem of Joan more cautiously: they must not only act on their own opinions, he cautions, but also on those of the French court. “A Catholic court,” corrects Warwick. Cauchon insists that, though sacred in their goals, Catholic courts ultimately consist of mortal men, like all other courts. And because the court consists of mortal Frenchmen, it will be difficult to convince them that Joan is a witch merely because the French army defeated the English army.

Cauchon feels that the men should attribute the French victory more to Dunois’s military prowess than to Joan’s supposed sorcery. Stogumber is convinced of Joan’s sorcery, however; he recounts hearing that Joan was pierced through the throat by an English arrow yet continued to fight for the rest of the day. Warwick is less superstitious than the Chaplain, but he still wonders why it was only upon Joan’s arrival that the French became successful in battle.

Cauchon suggests that the devil is working through Joan in order to destroy the Catholic Church and “damn[] the souls of the entire human race.” Because most of the “miracles” Joan has performed have natural explanations, Cauchon reasons that she is guilty of heresy, not witchcraft. Warwick insists they burn Joan, but Cauchon maintains that the Church’s first obligation is not to execute her, but to save her soul. Only the secular court can condemn Joan to death. If Joan continues with her heresy, however, Cauchon will gladly hand her over to be burned.

Warwick is enthusiastic about working with Cauchon to burn Joan, and Cauchon accuses him of “treat[ing] the Church as a mere political convenience.” Cauchon insists that he is no political bishop: his priority is Joan’s soul. Stogumber accuses Cauchon of being a traitor and valuing the interests of the Church over those of England, which offends Cauchon. Warwick defends his and Stogumber’s eagerness, explaining to Cauchon his fear that the English will be defeated unless somebody stops Joan. 

Stogumber interrupts to question how Joan can be accused of heresy when she prays nonstop. With gusto, Cauchon explains his condemnation of Joan. “She acts as if she herself were The Church,” insists Cauchon. Joan wants it to be she and not the Church who crowns Charles king. Further, she claims to receive messages directly from God—without the aid of the Church. In short, Joan rejects the Church’s authority.

Cauchon believes the devil is using Joan to spread a “cancerous” form of heresy in order to destroy the Church’s power. He lists heretics from history who have acted as Joan acts now, such as “the man Hus” who “infected all Bohemia,” and “a man named WcLeef” who “spread pestilence in England. Joan, Cauchon insists, is not so different than “Mahomet.” All these heretics share the destructive mindset that the individual’s voice takes precedent over “the Church’s accumulated wisdom and knowledge,” and Cauchon believes such thinking needs to be stopped before it spreads to the masses. 

Warwick isn’t a churchman, so he’s unimpressed with Cauchon’s heresy lecture. He encourages Cauchon to consider the “temporal institutions of the world, as well as the spiritual ones.” Warwick believes that Joan’s views threaten to destroy the existing feudal system. Under Joan’s system, nobility would be required to surrender their land to one king, who would then present the seized land to God. Under this new system, feudal lords (mid-level nobility) would lose their land and power, and serfs would only be required to pledge allegiance to the king. In this way, Joan presents a similar threat to the Church as she does to the feudal system: in either case, she eliminates the need for intermediary authority figures, leaving individual, common people answerable only to one king or God. Warwick calls Joan’s philosophy “Protestantism.”

Cauchon agrees that Joan’s political position is problematic. He ties it to a component of Joan’s heresy that he calls “nationalism,” wherein individuals pledge allegiance to their regions over allegiance to the Church. Cauchon deems nationalism “anti-Church.” The Chaplain, whose simplicity renders him unable to follow Warwick and Cauchon’s dialogue, nevertheless cries out for Joan’s burning. Cauchon and Warwick reach a point of agreement as they realize the more nuanced ways in which Joan’s philosophies make her their common enemy. Cauchon and Warwick’s debate has left the simple-minded Stogumber confused, but he’s still on board with putting Joan to death on the basis that she “rebels against Nature” by wearing men’s clothing. In the end, the three men agree that Joan must be stopped.