In Our Time - The Siege of Orléans

Episode Date: May 24, 2007

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Siege of Orléans, when Joan of Arc came to the rescue of France and routed the English army with the help of God. The perfidious English then burnt her as a heretic in Rouen marketplace. At least that's the story we're told but the truth involves the murky world of French court politics, labyrinthine dynastic claims, mass religious hysteria and English military and political incompetenceLooking back on the events that followed, the Duke of Bedford wrote to King Henry VI and declared “all things prospered for you till the time of the siege of Orleans, taken in hand God knoweth by what advice”.But what happened at the siege of Orleans, did Joan of Arc really rescue the city and how significant was the battle in changing the course of the 100 Years' War and the subsequent histories of England and France?With Anne Curry, Professor of Medieval History at the University of Southampton; Malcolm Vale, Fellow and Tutor in History at St John’s College, Oxford; Matthew Bennett, Senior Lecturer at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Thanks for downloading the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com.uk forward slash radio four. I hope you enjoy the programme. Hello. In 1422, Henry V, warrior hero on his way to conquer France, died, as did King Charles I, 6th of France. The French aristocracy were at war with each other.

English soldiers occupied Paris, and Charles's crown was disputed, contested by his own son, the dauphin, and the infant King of England, Henry the 6th. But as the English army in 1428 pressed down through France, the only thing that seemed to stand between the English king and the French crown was the city of Orleans. Looking back on the events that followed, the Duke of Bedford wrote to King Henry the 6 and declared that all things prospered for you till the time of the siege of Orleans taken in hand, God know us, by what advice? And in 1429, Joan of Arc made her entrance into Orle and into history.

But what happened at the siege of Orleans? Did Joan of Arc really rescue the city and how significant was the battling change in the course of the Hundred Years' War and the subsequent histories of England and France? With me to discuss the siege of Orleans are Anne Currie, Professor of Medieval History at Southampton University, Malcolm Vale,

fellow and tutoring histories in John's College Oxford, and Matthew Bennett, senior lecturer at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. Anne Currie, in 1428, the English army were camped outside of Leone. It's a city as big as big as. London was then, 20 or 30,000 people we tow with great walls and fortifications. How well equipped were the English? Can you give us some idea of the army that got there and what shape they were in? Well, it may not seem very important to us, but the English had raised about 4,300 men for this campaign.

This was, if you like, the big push. They'd got about 2,700 recruited in England, who'd sailed across in July 1428, and they'd raised another 1,600 from the garrisons within Normandy and France. Of course, by the time they got to Orleans, they'd taken a few other places, so they'd had to install garrisons in those. But we're probably talking about at least 3,500 English soldiers camped around Orleans. You'd need it in that number because Orleans, as you said, was a pretty big place. I'd say 30,000, probably the biggest place that the English had ever tried to besiege in the whole of the 100-year-s war period.

It's got 30 towers around it, five gates, although the French had blocked some of those off to make the city more defensible. And it's got this very important fortified bridge, Le Tourelle, across the River Loire to the south of it. So it's a substantial fortification in its own right with a lot of guns inside it, a garrison, probably about 200 men, but the civilian citizens there waiting to defend their city too. and then this great big English army camped outside it, setting up bust steeds, they've got guns, they've got minors, this is going to be a big event.

But the people in Orlean, had quite a long time for prepare for this siege, hadn't they? The Earl of Salisbury had taken the army across in about July and gone through, and he arrived there in about October. And they knew he was coming all that time, so they stocked up, I presume. They didn't, and to be honest, I don't know why it took them so long,

whether it was sort of English incompetence at that point, we don't know, but they'd met with the troops recruited in Normandy and France at Chart, then they'd marched down, they'd taken the places around Orleans because they had to do that to stop the French relieving armies or

foodstuffs getting into the city. So you could say that was a sort of military exercise in isolating Orleans before they laid siege to it. So they arrive there about the 12th of October. I think we think that they've set up their siege camps around the city.

And we think that Oleanes was especially well defended both as a city and in terms of its preparation for the siege, bringing in food and I suppose livestock and all the rest of this. They would have done that and of course it's perhaps not a very sensible time if you had to besiege anywhere because you've had the harvest not all that long ago so it would have been well provided with food. They'd burnt the suburbs round about. That was a pretty typical thing because for besiegers there's always the big problem of getting food to their army as well, particularly food for the horses. We've got examples on other occasions in the 15th.

century, where they actually have to send horses away from sieges because they can't sustain them there as well as the besieging soldiers. Can you tell us a little more about this fortified bridge, Le Torel, and how significant it was that the English took it? It took the English probably another fortnight after they got there to take it. We think that they didn't take Le Torel until about the 24th of October, so that shows how difficult it was to take. If you can imagine a structure on the south bank of the Loire,

It has one rectangular tower and it's connected to a round tower that's actually in the river itself. There's then a drawbridge between it and the bridge proper, so it was a way of isolating the city and it was well defended. So it took the English

quite a lot of bombardment in order to take it. But eventually they did on the 24th of October and it was on that same day that Salisbury gets shot in the face. It may be indeed in connection with that assault. Earl of Salisbury shot, he's led the expedition. He has. And I've read in everything I've read that you three have provided for us,

that this was a very significant blow. Well, he was a great veteran of the wars. He'd served, you know, Henry IV, Henry V. He'd been very prominent in the conquest of France to date. And he was the leading commander. In fact, when he dies, it's actually quite hard for them to find anybody else to substitute for him. And even worse, he lingers for about 10 days or so. They take him to somewhere else.

but he dies. It's one of the first artillery casualties of any war. About half his face seems to have been shot off as well, and it may have ended up with a kind of window embedded in his face as well, so a pretty gruesome death, I think. Malcolm Vale. The notion at the time, as I understand it, was that the English king was the rightful king of France.

In fact, as I understand it, sorry, a rightful king of France. As I understand it, we claimed that until 1801, with the English of the right for king of France. Can you explain how the English thought themselves to be right for kings of France? It stems from Edward III's claim to the throne of France, which, of course, Henry V and then Henry V and then Henry VI inherit in the 15th century.

The English claim to the throne of France is based through the female line because the ancient Capitian dynasty of France, which is one of the most, if not the most long-standing, long-lived dynasty, in medieval Europe, dies out in 1328 in the male line. There are a number of claimants, one of which is Ebbled III of England through the right of his mother. This is a claim which is then implemented in the 14th century after 1340,

when Ebert III assumes the title, and then Henry V as not the direct descendant, but are certainly a descendant through the line of John of Gaunt, then makes this claim, and indeed begins to implement perhaps the claim to the throne of France in a rather radical, innovative way which means a war of conquest and occupation of northern France,

which Edward III hadn't really attempted. This is something that makes Henry V's reign, perhaps really rather different and unique. You get this implementation of the claim with a focus very much on Normandy, the Victory Adjinkor, and then pushing into the rest of France. This leads to

ultimately a peace treaty, one of a number of peace treaties made between England and France in the course of the later Middle Ages, none of which are ever completely fulfilled or implemented. This is the big problem, they're never ever fulfilled. This is the Treaty of Trois, 1420, in which the then Valwa King of France, Charles VI, who is in a state of insanity, makes over the kingdom in effect to Henry V and his heirs,

that Henry VIII during Charles VI's lifetime will act as Regent of France and then it will pass to the Lancasterian line, the line of Lancasterian England, rather than the son of Charles the 6th, who is in effect disinherited, that is the future of Charles the 7th, Jones Dofer, Joan of Arc's Dofair. And this is really why the English are outside Orleans in 14,

As I understand it, the idea of Henry V, becoming King of France, wasn't thought of as a bad thing. He was a great hero, well, by some it was, but it wasn't, the whole of France didn't rise against it. There was a feeling that he would be a good king and he would be good. Is there something in what I'm saying? Well, if you'd met Henry V, perhaps you would have taken the view that this was a real king. What else did you got?

I mean, the comparison with the people on the French side was, is not in their favour, shall we say. I mean, this was a remarkable man, a charismatic figure, who showed every sign of being able to carry this notion, this embodiment of the two kingdoms in his person. The great problem, of course, is that he dies. And he dies early, prematurely, struck down by dysentery in 1422, shortly before Charles' the Sixth of France actually dies.

So this is the English problem. Henry V is clearly a very competent, very great king. I sometimes wonder what would have happened in the course of European history if Henry VIII had met Joan of Arc, whether they would felt that they had a lot in common and this would have changed the whole destinies of the two kingdoms, of two nations, England and France. But certainly, yes, there are people within France who are, it seems, quite prepared to support Henry V and the Lancasterian claim

for all kinds of reasons, some self-serving, some more altruistic, whatever. But there is this element which means that there are, as it were, willing collaborators within the French themselves from all classes of society, from the clergy, from the nobility, from inhabitants of the towns and so on, who see the Lancastrian claim as being valid. I mean, we might find this very strange today. that we in the world of unitary nations, and so on, that these are nations which have very different destinies.

But in this period, the idea of a composite or multiple kingdom is not totally alien, by any means. Castilian Aragon are going to become united in the course of Poland, Lithuania, this kind of thing. And the Burgundians are great supporters of the English. And they even, six years after, six years after Henry Vifter, they come to Orleans to support. the English. Now the English power doesn't

stop with the death of Henry of the 5th. They keep powering on, don't they? Yeah. Yeah. In a sense the Burgundian hand is forced in that one major reason for the Burgundian support as it seems of the English claim and of Henry V and his heir, Henry

the 6th and his regent John Duke of Bedford, is the fact that the Duke of Burgundy is murdered in 1419 by partisans of the so-called Orly Armaniac dofinist faction. I mean, the faction of the head of which Charles of 6 is,

as far as we know, legitimate son-in-air, Charles the 7th, is in effect the figurehead, the leader. The fact that John Ophilus of Burgundy is struck down means that his son, his heir, has got to make a choice. How can he ally himself? How can he stay in the allegiance of his father's murderer? There was a story told of a much later king of France in the 16th century, France is the first,

who was being shown around the more. mausoleum of the Dukes of Burgundy, at the Charterhouse of Chantmole, Carthusian Monastery, outside Dijon. And they produced the skull of John the fearless Duke of Burgundy. And the monk, Carthusin, points to the hole in the skull and said, my lord, that's the whole through which the English entered France. So, Matthew, Bennett, the English are camped outside the city.

They've taken Leite Tyrell, they've lost their commander, the Burgundians are there. Can you take us back to the front lines? What's happening now at the end of 28, 1428? I think essentially you have to understand the siege as being a form of slow strangulation. I mean, if you're conceiving an attack on a 45 place, there are three things you can do. You can either go sort of over, under or through. You can go over the walls by escalade.

You can try and batter them down with artillery, increasingly gunpowder artillery in this point. Or you can go under with miners, although that very much depends upon the terrain. terrain itself. But these are all dangerous and expensive things to do and may lead to the loss of trained personnel. So there's a tendency with the small forces employed at the time, rather just to surround and starve the besieged city. How effective were the English at surrounding this very large city, which Anne told us about at the beginning of the programme, did they have the resources to surround it properly? I mean, I think the answer to that is probably no.

They've constructed these bastides, which we can think of as kind of blockhouses, each with their own little garrisons and fortified. What they're trying to do is just reduce the possibility of access to the city for French supplies chiefly, but also reinforcements. And effectively, they'd closed off the area around to the north and the west. And they also had a small fortification on the south bank of the Loire and another to the east. But in order to really stop the French being reinforced inside the city,

they needed to have an entire encircling. And they couldn't really manage. They hadn't been able to manage it in the time anyway. Can you talk, again, Angari, at the beginning, so it seems at a rather small force, 4,07, and then even smaller because they garrisoned towns and cities on the way down to a lane. Can you give us some idea of how that was broken up? Who was doing what in that force?

Well, I mean, effectively, forces at this time divided up really between the men at arms who are fighting men, who are usually serving for money. I mean, it's often forgotten in this so-called feudal society that serving in the armed forces of the crown, and especially overseas, really required you to be paid and supported. And in fact, they're contracted troops. So you have groups of these men at arms, often, you know, penny packets with their archers, the famous English archers, the people who had obviously helped to win battles like Agincourt and others, who were used aggressively for aggressive patrolling, I suppose, is the best way that you could conceive it.

But you're talking about little penny packets of people who are trying to prevent the French having access and also can, on occasion, can launch attacks. But as we've explained, the city is extremely well defended. And so it isn't a matter of a constant attack, not even like the siege warfare of the First World War. It's about sitting and waiting and looking for an opportunity. And feeding your own army, there was something called the Battle of the Herrings

in which Sir John Falstaff was involved, anachronistically, as we're now placed in a different period and in a different character by Shakespeare. But that's as may be. What was the Battle of the Herrings? Why was that useful to refer to it? The Battle of the Hedings, obviously, it has a humorous title, but what it was, in fact, was a supply convoy that the English forces were bringing in,

and there were barrel loads of salted fish. Salted fish, very important for supporting the troops, you know, providing continued protein and so on. And, in fact, what had happened was that the French got wise of this supply convoy coming in and launched a sortie, an attempt to attack it, to disrupt it, maybe overrun it. and in fact the command was a man called Sir John Fastolff, who later in Shakespeare that he takes the name. I don't think Fastolphe was a kind of jolly,

beery fellow that you get in Shakespeare. I think he was a cold calculating soldier who did very well out of the war. But nonetheless, I mean, what happens is that the French launched this attack, and because the English are bringing the wagons with the barrels on, they form them into a circle to defend themselves, and then their archers shoot out from it. And the French are defeated, because what the English are very good at

is fighting a defensive battle with the use of their archery. And, of course, from the English point of view, it's a great joke, you know, that it was, we beat them off with our fish, you know. The, and if they, of course, if they got all the ins, they have access to the South, and so that was the great strategic importance. In 1429, there's a letter,

The English receive a letter, part of which declares, surrender to the maid, who is sent here from God, the King of Heaven, the keys to all of the good cities you've taken and violated in France. I am sent from God, the King of them, to chase you all out of France, body for body, every last one of you. That was sent by Joan of Arc. Now, how did a 17-year-old illiterate girl from Dom Ramey and Lorenne come to be writing letters to the English army? I think it's best to view this, really, from the point of view of view of,

of leadership. We've heard from Malcolm that, in fact, the English were better led and were much more confident. And the French faction, who supported the Dofam, were certainly down on their uppers in the late 1420s. So this girl who's born in Domremy in Eastern France, nowhere in particular of no great stock. Of hasn't stock, it's always said,

effectively. But, yes. But has visions. She was born 1412, has started having visions as a 13-year-old in 1425. And people come from heaven to speak to her. There's the archangel Michael, and then there are the two patron saints of France of Margaret and St. Catherine,

who come and tell her that she is the chosen one to defend France. Or that is how the story pans out anyway. And she's so convinced of this that she's actually able to go to a local, called military commander, Robert de Baudricor, and persuade him. Effective, this is May 28, she goes, and initially she doesn't get much of a hearing. But she's so persuasive, and as you pointed out from the letter, her oratory is so powerful that she persuades first a couple of nights in Baudrecault's following, and later Bauderker himself, to take her to meet the Dauphal.

Can I, Mark and I come to you, this religious fervry in her lady, hadn't been a religious war until then, and she sort of turned it into a religious war and a crusade. What she seems to be doing is sort of injecting this degree of religious zeal into a conflict, which had not had that character before. So, yes, you're right. I mean, in a sense it is an attempt to try and convert the Hundred Years' War into a crusade, in which the French, as a kind of chosen people, in fact the successors of the Israelites. And this is something that stretches from way back in French royal propaganda,

certainly into the 13th century, when the idea that, I mean, God's mission on earth has been vested in the people of France, the French people, the inhabitants of that territorial space known as the Kingdom of France, are put into that category. What Joan is trying to do, I think, is to bring peace.

I mean, it's a curious irony that she makes war to bring peace. and the peace that she wants to bring is in effect a union of England and France in an alliance of some form which will then, in her mind, act as a joint

crusading force against the real enemy and the real enemy is the inviddle which is the Turks. So we've got some idea of where she came from from Matthew and the religious dimension that came in from Malcolm Ankara but I think people would still be fascinated

to know how this 17-year-old girl who was, we know, illiterate, and the phrase is from present time, managed to, we can understand it perhaps persuading a local lord, but how did they then persuade the Domewant to let her lead a relief army to all in? It's quite a jump, isn't it?

I have a more cynical view on this. I think the French, you're getting pretty scared by this point. I mean, we've talked about the English and the sort of stalemate of the siege. After Salisbury's death, they have to bring in other commanders. Some of the troops desert is actually quite a lot of commentary on desertion during

the siege, and despite the success, of the Battle of the Herrings. I think the English are worried. We know the Duke of Bedford, even before Joan turns up, has written to England asking for more military help. But, of course, because there's no radio or television in those days, they don't know that the French are equally worried and equally wanting some sort of major thing to happen,

major breakthrough. And I think in Joan, they find that. Joan is the secret weapon, if you like. Now, whether she's doing all of this on her own volition or whether she's set up in the... some kind of way because we're dealing a very superstitious age. I think she's set up personally. But we are dealing. Yeah, I think it's part of

faction fighting at the French court that she is I think she has the visions and I think she comes to local notice. I think she is then persuaded to go or taken to Shino and the king doesn't need much persuading because the king is a very superstitious man. He believed in his astrologer probably more than he believed in his military advisors. There's a lot of prophecy about a virgin saving France.

This even goes back to Geoffrey of Monmouth, a good sort of English writer, who says that a virgin will ride in arms on the backs of English archers and the sex and the flower of her virginity will remain secret. People who were desperate, and the French were desperate,

seized on these sorts of prophecies and said, lo and behold, here we've got this virgin. And that letter must be seen in that context. Which he dictated. Yeah, they would send it out in large quantities, to try to scare everybody. And they tested, as I understand it,

they tested her religion. Well, they... Not very thoroughly. But they tested her virginity as well. They certainly tested her virginity, and that seems to be okay all the way through. If there's one thing we know about Joan, is she was a Pusel.

She was a virgin. And both sides did that, both the French and the English. And if she hadn't been, the English, would have really exploited that point. So, Matthew Bennett, she arrived with the French relief army at the end of April.

The English had been there for 18. and I'm not sort of everybody is. Whatever. And very soon, literally within a few days, the English defeated. What happened? What did she do right?

Well, again, if we go back to the leadership and the belief of those people who are fighting, that warriors, the soldier who are fighting, are on the French side, if they didn't believe that their leaders were going to lead them to victory, they would certainly not fight very well.

Given a charismatic figure, and in actual fact, you know, a semi-divine figure, And this is well attested. We're not the most heavily documented woman in the Middle Ages, aren't we? Yeah. The thing is, who carries her own banner?

She has her own banner, she has her own banner carefully crafted, so she can be seen in the fore leading it. I mean, this is something to inspire. In full armour. There's another prophecy in bead about that, that a woman carrying a banner will lead men to victory. Sorry, you were saying.

No, something to inspire the soldiers, when the going gets tough, when the action takes place. And of course, I mean, perhaps if she is actually wounded during the course, as she had she been wounded at the very first action, then her credibility might have gone. And the point about wearing armour is important, because what she does is extraordinary.

She is a transvestite figure at a time when, that is essentially contrary to the laws of God and man. And she's able to present herself to people as a kind of superhuman, which seems to have affected the French morale very dramatically. What sort of a military leader do we know that Joan was from the evidence? Well, the evidence is it's disputed in that there is a certain amount of debate within the, among contemporaries, whether she actually does have a major role in the military activity.

I'm personally inclined to believe that she is not a great military leader in the terms of she's not the sort of person who is able to lay artillery or to do all this kind of thing, particularly. effectively. But again, as Matthew said, the primary importance is morale boosting. It's symbolic. The banner is very important. But the banner, of course, does have a military function.

I mean, it is a rallying point. I mean, all medieval battles and engagements. The banner is the point at which round troops will gather, will rally. It gives signals in battles and so on. But the fact that this is a banner which has the words Jesus Maria on it, with the flurderly, an image of God as the omnipotent God with two angels at their side. This is converting this war again into something rather different from what it had been.

It's interesting that at her trial of condemnation, she said that she loved her banner 40 times more than her sword. She also said, I went forward with my banner, I never killed anyone. The betrayal she gives of herself there, I think, is not as a military leader. As a standard banner. perhaps the stories about that. I do find it very hard to imagine how she could tilt with a lance because it took years and years of training, as Matthew will know. Not that they do that nowadays, but it takes a lot of training.

They do nothing else to sound, don't it? It's interesting that in fact she's represented as a warrior, but most of that is in her afterlife. It's, you know, in the rehabilitation trial. That's when she's described as somebody who can charge with the lance and so on, which really takes a lot of skill and training to be able to do that, a lot of strength. Can I just ask you a deep detail?

We've got a chance here to get into some interesting detail. She arrives with... She's leading this relief force. She's got there. Nobody's quite pinpoint how she managed to convince them. But she's got there. She's leading them. And in a few days,

she leads a force that ends the siege and chases the English out of New Orleans. Can you just tell me what tactically or what militarily, you're a military story, what she did that made that happen? Well, I mean, again, we want to be a bit cautious before we say she did it, because she accompanies the French leaders who, I mean, they're bringing a relatively substantial force, couple of thousand men. More than the English.

Yes, and they're actually advanced quite cautiously. They come along the south bank of the river, which is where the English are not, for the most part. And indeed, Joan is supposed to have said, well, you know, you're taking me the wrong way, which will be leaping straight at the English throats and so on. And what they do is they then pick off the more vulnerable of these blockhouses on the south bank and to the east of the city. Because, I mean, it may be, as Anna has suggested,

that the English were actually just needed to be pushed and it was all going to go wrong for them. On the other hand, as I said, had the initial assaults failed, then perhaps the English would have recovered their confidence and it would not have gone that way. I think there are two additional factors. I mean, Matthew is absolutely right, but two additional things,

in that which favoured Joan, in that shortly before her arrival, there had been a Burgundian withdrawal that the troops of the Dukes of Burgundy, as a result of a row between Burgundy and the Duke of Bedford on the English side, had withdrawn, and therefore a denuded part of the besieging army. And secondly, the wind changed,

the direction of the wind changed, which, of course, was vital for the bringing of provisions and supplies to the beleaguered town. And this, of course, is one of the miracles, which is attributed to Joan of Vucca. The Count of Dunois, when he is testifying to the trial of rebutitation,

says, when that wind changed, that's what really did it for me. That's what made me believe in him, believe in her. And this brought the supply convoy of barges with the vittles for Orleans into the city. I mean, I think it's not much of a siege if actually you can get in to relieve it,

and that's what Joan did. And Matthews mentioned this fortification. It was at Saoomou. It's a few kilometres to the east of Orleans. Actually, she and her army managed to get past it. The English are still there. They don't realise that the French have got past them and into Orleans. Once they're in Orleans, they can stage a number of sorties against these English bastides. And, of course, the really crucial one is against Le Turel. If you like, that is the crucial point, because if the French can retake that bridge,

they can bring in all the troops and all the food they need. and so I think it's on the 7th or the 8th of May, not entirely sure. If it's the 8th, May, it's a Sunday, the Sunday after Accention. That might actually be relevant because the Vikings, of course, did naughty things like that. But Joan may have seen it as a way of showing God's will on a day. They go in there. There are about 600 English in there, and effectively they massacred. Some are taken prisoner.

William Glastdale, who's been the Bay of Aloncantan, again a veteran of the war, is thrown over into the river, and he drowns, dies by drow. It's all terribly exciting stuff, which is a little bit like the siege warfare of the Western Front, because while Joan and her forces are attacking from the South Bank through the Augustinian Abbey there, the people inside the town are actually trying to bridge the gap. They've broken the bridge down to the north of LATRL, and they're bridging the gap, and there's actually records of a carpenter who provided the pieces of wood

that they had to be put together to make them long enough to bridge the gap so they could creep over from, so effectively in the rear of the... It is dramatic stuff. The kind of thing that gets represented cinematographically in films, including them his recent one. And then she led, or was at the front of, the army which pushed the English further and further north and defeated them at the Battle of Patei

and eventually expelled them from the city of Reims, which was important for the French to have back. Can you just briefly tell us why? Yeah, an interesting thing there is after all the ends, they pick off all the other places that the English have taken. And it's as the English are trying to go to the rescue of one of them, that she intercepts them at Pate. That's a great disaster because a lot of people are captured.

In fact, Suffolk's captured at one of the other sieges, then Lord Talbot's captured at the Battle of Pateau. So effectively, the English are without leaders, and Fasdolf runs away as well. That makes it possible for Charles to raise an even bigger army and to join with her and to march eastwards to the crowning. city of Reims. If he is going to have any credibility, remember he's still

Dauphin at this point, he needs to be anointed with the oil of Clovis and crowned King of France. In Ream. And they get to Reims, the place surrenders without any fighting, and they get in and the coronation is effected on the 17th of July. So you could say that's an even greater achievement for Joan, and certainly for Charles, than the raising of the siege of Orleans. But very soon afterwards, a few months after, she's captured at the siege of Compiand. Can you, she's captured by the Burgundians? Can you just tell us more about that, Martha Ler.

Yes, I mean, she's, after the coronation ceremony, it's July 1429, isn't it? I mean, she's rather a loose end. I mean, where is she going next? What are her own side going to do with her? She's raised the siege of Orleans, or that's what's perceived, she's got the king or helped to get the king crown, the dofand crowned at Rands. What next? Where do we go now?

Do we drive the English out of France? Well, that's quite a tall order in 1429. I mean, there's quite a lot of France, which is not only in English hands, but in some cases rather reluctant to go over to the French firewall regime. Where next? So she starts to engage in a series of campaigns, some which seem to be more or less on her own initiative on which she persuades the commanders that they should go and besiege some of these places.

And she is captured, as you say, at Compienne. this means that she falls into the hands of Burgundian troops and the troops of John of Luxembourg was a Burgundian vassal and she then becomes a prisoner of war basically and she's treated just in effect rather like any other prisoner of war she's a very valuable prisoner of war and she's then sold by the Burgundians to the English regime to John Duke of Bedford as Regent of France

and she is then at the behest and initiative of the University of Paris tried for heresy. The charges are first brought by the Professor's Doctors and Masters of University of Paris who are in the Anglo-Baghundian city. You see, this Lancastrian regime has got some pretty willing collaborators. I mean, there are willing executioners' idea.

There are plenty of willing collaborators here. Who served to gain from supporting the Anglo-Bagandian regime. I mean, all these people, in some ways, are careerists within the church, within the universities and so on. and they stand to lose their benefits, which are by far one of the most important things in their lives, I mean, this is what sustains them,

if they defect from that particular religion. So there is quite a large body of the upper clergy of Northern France and the Duchy of Normandy, who are in effect Anglo-Bagandian. I think there's another point to throw in here, and that is just before she's captured, the young Henry VIth is brought to France. He lands in Calais on the 23rd of April, St George's Day,

a chosen day, and he's taken to Rouen. In fact, he's there all the time she is there for her trial. I think this, in the light of Malcolm's comment, these people actually couldn't be disloyal to their king. This person is only what, nearly ten at this point, there's a great devotion to the child and also to the air of Henry V. There's a sort of lingering memory.

They certainly could not have acted against him at that point. How did Matthew Bennett, And how did Joan, we have masses of transcripts, as I understand. She was put on trial from heresy. How did she conduct herself at the trial? Well, I think essentially what she does is that she protests that she is a valid vessel for God's word. The charges are that she's had direct communication with God, which is a heresy.

And also the other thing about being like a man in dress and cuff. Well, I think this does cause her enormous difficulty. Although she, you know, she's totally defends what she's done as having been the right thing, towards the end of the process she does go, she does recant, she, and she takes, and at that moment she puts on a woman's dress as well in order to try and reintegrate herself into the social expectations, I think you, I think you might say, but then steps back from it. I mean, it is, it is. Then recant, recanting.

Yes, indeed. Yes, it's on this very day, 24th of May, 1430, one actually. It's a well-time programme. She cracks. She cracks for the first time in the series of interrogations after these many months of very, very wearying and sessions, in which she hasn't been tortured, which is something. I mean, that the trial was not conducted, because as the members of the tribunal, Bar 3, said, that would bring slander and dispersions on the trial if jurorice was applied, I mean, physical duress was applied to the accused. What did the French do about it? She's been, she's delivered for the, she's delivered for the,

Yes, well, they did they not Did they not ride? Did they try to rescue? Did they try to buy her back? What did they do? They did nothing at all, because as Malcolm said, she'd outlived her usefulness. I mean, after the coronation at Reams, she wants to attack Paris. Now, that will be an absolutely huge undertaking.

We're talking about 70,000 in that city. It'd just be impossible. Charles didn't have the military wherewithal. Moreover, the Burgundians in the English had now come to a deal. And so he couldn't chance that. She tries it. And that's because when she fails, and you can imagine, somebody sent from God once they fail.

As Matthew had said, if she'd failed right at the beginning of the siege of Orleans, that would have been it. She fails, and once she's failed, Charles doesn't want anything to do with her. Moreover... So she's hard to dry? Yeah, also, I think they realise there's a danger of heresy. The University of Paris have been going on about

this for some time now. He doesn't want to be associated with a heretic. He doesn't want it claim that he became king of France through sorcery, so he keeps well out of it. Matthew meant 20 years later, after her death, 20 years after her death,

after being burned, to death in Ruhr, she was given a retrial and found innocent. So how did the ground shifted? Well, I think part of it that the ground literally has shifted politically

because the French crown has recovered Normandy and specifically Rourne. So it's a suitable moment at which to make this political statement, whereas earlier it might not have been. And there is, there is the idea of difficulty that she's been tried as a heretic, so it's, you know,

through ecclesiastical court, and it's not necessarily for the secular power to, to, you know, to challenge that. I mean, is that appropriate? But, I mean, I'm not sure that I can tell you exactly why that moment was chosen. It just obviously seemed politically fortuitous. Yeah, they tried for quite some time, but I think it wasn't possible until Normandy was reconquered by Charles. Also, they'd lobbied the Pope, and there's a quite a nice sort of, um, uh, um, uh, family element here, her mother was still alive, and just as nowadays, parents want to clear the reputations of their children, like daughters, their granddaughters, the deserters in the First World War, her mother was putting pressure on for her daughter to be cleared of the stain

of heresy. Despite that, despite the growing cult of Joan of Mark, it might seem, it would seem puzzling to someone like me that it's not until 1920, considerably, that she's canonised. Now, what happened in the hundreds of years? Intervening years, well, then. for quite a long time, not very much, and it's things start getting underway in the 19th century. I mean, to my mind, I mean,

the Joan of Art that we have, which we've received, is in some ways a creation of the 19th century. I mean, she's a creation of the French Third Republic, with all its divisiveness, with all these various parties within France, which all want to claim Joan of Arc. And they all can do it. And they all can.

There's something for everyone. It's coming in who say she's an ordinary person, the right wing say, To this day. And the right wing says she is, after La France. There's something for everyone in Joan of Hart. Something for everyone.

And this is what makes her the figure of national unity, really, when in a way she is as much a figure of national division, given that there are three separate days now in month of May in France on which she's celebrated by different people. I think also, I think she's during the, say, 17th, early 18th century, she's not a significant place. She's not needed politically. Then you have the revolution.

You have, after that, you have, you know, all the troubles of the 19th century. And I think the French are casting around for a national hero. But also, I think it's fair to say, in addition to what Malcolm said, that in many ways the whole Middle Ages invented in the 19th century. And our reception, you know, our reception of it is through that. Not just in France, of course. She was a heroine for the suffragettes when they released Emmeline Pankhurst from prison on one occasion. They had a woman at the head of their parade dressed as Joan of Archie,

the hero for everybody. When she was canonised, she had to be a miracle. It has to be a miracle. And her miracle was the wind changing at the siege of Orleans. In the intervening time, though, Angaria, were she a cult? Did people, was there a shrine? Were miracles performed in the name of Joina? There was a mystery play performed at Orleans, at least from the 1450s,

possibly connected with the trial of rehabilitation, but some people put it as far back as 1434. And there's a lot of writing about her in that period, and there certainly is a cult at Dom Ramey. I mean, the House still survives there. It was a great dispute the other year when it was snow-send. But it was abolished, of course, that cult at the French Revolution, along with everything else. But Napoleon was astute enough to say that it should be allowed as a local cult.

So I think there is this local interest in her. But it is in the 19th century, particularly after the Franco-Prussian War, the French want to find great moments of their past because they've had, as recently, some very bad moments. So they're casting around looking for good. great moments of success. Malcolm Burke, briefly. Yes, well, I mean, in a way, one of the striking things to me about the Joan of Arc story

is that this is, A, the patron state of France, who is charged, condemned, tried, and executed by Frenchmen. She's a saint of the Catholic Church, who is actually condemned by a tribunal, a actually legally constituted tribunal for its time, of the Catholic Church. So there's plenty of, lots of night ironism parallels. She's distinctly other.

Well, and we'll have to stop there with the distinctly other. Thank you, Hank Perry, Malcolm Hale and Matthew Bennett. Thank you very much. And next week we'll be talking about the 14th century philosopher William Ockham, he of Occam's riser. Thanks for listening. We hope you've enjoyed this Radio 4 podcast. You can find hundreds of other programmes about history, science and philosophy at bbc.com.com.