 Joan of Arc2 
Although Joan had united the French behind Charles and had put an end to English
dreams of hegemony over France, Charles opposed any further campaigns against the English.
Therefore, it was without royal support that Joan conducted (1430) a military operation
against the English at Compiegne, near Paris. She was captured by Burgundian soldiers, who
sold her to their English allies. The English then turned her over to an ecclesiastical
court at Rouen to be tried for heresy and sorcery. After 14 months of interrogation, she
was accused of wrongdoing for wearing masculine dress and of heresy for believing she was
directly responsible to God rather than to the Roman Catholic Church. The court condemned
her to death, but she penitently confessed her errors, and the sentence was commuted to
life imprisonment. Because she resumed masculine dress after returning to prison, she was
condemned again—this time by a secular court—and, on May 30, 1431, Joan was
burned at the stake in the Old Market Square at Rouen as a relapsed heretic.
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