LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Joan of Arc: Trial
built 226 days ago
Joan of Arc became a semi-legendary figure for the next four centuries. The main sources of information about her were chronicles. Five original manuscripts of her condemnation trial surfaced in old archives during the nineteenth century. Soon historians ... located the complete records of her rehabilitation trial, which contained sworn testimony from 115 witnesses, and the original French notes for the Latin condemnation trial transcript. Various contemporary letters also emerged, three of which carry the signature "Jehanne" in the unsteady hand of a person learning to write. This unusual wealth of primary source material is one reason DeVries declares, "No person of the Middle Ages, male or female, has been the subject of more study than Joan of Arc.
Source:
Danish filmmaker Dreyer's dramatization of the trial and martyrdom of Joan of Arc remains one of the most striking and original films ever made. Shot entirely in close-ups and utilizing techniques years ahead of his contemporaries, Dreyer's deft cinematography and direction captures the intense emotional and spiritual turmoil of the young martyr--immortalized by the French actress Falconetti in her sole screen performance. The original version, thought lost forever, was discovered in the janitor's closet of a Norwegian mental institution in 1981.
Source:
The transcripts of her trial (never accurately reflected in modern films about Joan) reveal the true modus operandi of these court sessions. It is not a trial of a heretic, it is a trial in which one historical tradition is being brushed by another. It is, yet again, the bloodline of the Grail being suppressed by orthodoxy. It is France being subjugated by Britain and Rome. What one immediately notices in the testimony of Joan at her trial is how closely her responses seem to match those of the Templars and Cathars tried for heresy. She is asked essentially the same types of questions, and her answers are at times so identical as to match word for word.
Source:
Abstract: Annotated translations of selected excerpts from the testimony, during the posthumous investigations and formal appeal of Joan of Arc's case, given in the depositions of former tribunal members who had served at Joan of Arc's Condemnation trial. The translation is accompanied by clarifications and commentary.
Dreyer's silent masterpiece, based directly on trial transcripts, is by far the best Joan of Arc movie. Bresson's later version is ... quite good. In English, the best is probably the one with Ingrid Bergman as Joan. Dreyer's film is considered by a number of critics to be the single greatest silent movie. New York Times
Source:
Even her name is disputed; or at least, the last thing she would have called herself is Joan of Arc. At her trial, she gave her given name of Jeanne as Jhenne, the spelling then common in her home region of Lorraine. When the grateful Dauphin granted her brothers a coat of arms, they chose two lilies - standing for purity - and a raised sword in her honour, and took the noble name du Lys, the name by which the sixteenth-century essayist Michel de Montaigne referred to her. Joan herself liked to be known as the Maid, or La Pucelle.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Trial