Key notes in Scene 6

• This is not trial by jury under civil law, but is an ecclesiastical court, addressing heresy. De Stogumber and Courcelles press for criminal charges to be leveled, but the judges refuse to allow such trivialities to occupy the time of their court.

• George Bernard Shaw sets out to restore the reputation of Joan’s judges, which has been subject to defamation following her posthumous rehabilitation. It is important to his purpose that the bishop and the Inquisitor are seen to be acting in good faith; Joan is challenging the fundamentals of their world-view, and their reaction should not be seen as shallow malice. George Bernard Shaw wants us to recognize that this is an extremely significant historical moment, so we must not be distracted by suspicion that this is a petty clash of personalities, or a mere divergence of opinions. Thus the Inquisitor speaks out against cruelty, and Cauchon condemns torture and ‘forced confessions’.

• Crucially, Joan refuses to deny that the voices she heard came directly from God. In privileging her own judgement above that of the Church she condemns herself. Ladvenu identifies in her ‘a terrible pride and self-sufficiency’. Roman Catholicism insists on the need for priests, and the mediation of the institution between individual worshippers and their God. It was one of the principal innovations of Protestantism to argue against the need for such mediation, and to stress the importance of the individual’s direct relationship with God.

• In medieval Europe, church services were invariably conducted in Latin, a language ordinary members of the congregation did not understand, while the ability to read the scriptures was the province of priests and monks alone. Protestantism required individual church members to be able to read the Bible, so the spread of literacy and use of vernacular languages was encouraged. In this scene, we are again reminded that Joan is illiterate and needs assistance even to write her name. Her spirit might have been Protestant, but the times were Roman Catholic, and that tension lies at the heart of her tragedy.

• Reference is made to Joan’s attempt to escape by leaping from a tower sixty feet high. Such an act would appear tenable only for someone with supernatural powers, and it is significant that although she dared to make the jump, Joan was injured in the process. This future saint was not blessed with capabilities denied to other human beings; rather, George Bernard Shaw insists, she was reckless in her single-mindedness. Her recklessness might be perceived as foolishness, but it is a manifestation of that same strength of will which enabled her to inspire those soldiers who followed her. She was not different in kind, but manifested greater intensity of purpose than most other people.

• Warwick’s allegiance to the order upheld by the feudal aristocracy takes precedence over his observance of religious imperatives, to the point of risking damnation, in the bishop’s view. Feudalism and the medieval Catholic Church were based on assumptions that were essentially international. At this point in history, it was becoming evident that despite their shared horizons there was no guarantee of an alignment of interests between the institutions. Indeed, the Inquisitor declares that ‘All secular power makes men scoundrels’ (pg 118) There are clear indications that the old European social and cultural order is starting to disintegrate.

• Through his characterization of de Stogumber, George Bernard Shaw, the Irish dramatist, continues his attack on English arrogance. The chaplain believes that the voices of saints heard by Joan would necessarily have spoken English. George Bernard Shaw detected an assumption amongst the English of divinely ordained privilege. But note that Joan takes a common language to be the basis for shared national identity. Ironically, a solid grounding for nationalist sentiment, so greatly feared by the feudal order, is already evident in de Stogumber’s chauvinism. His name is French, but his outlook is aggressively English, with all the insularity that this might imply from a continental European point of view. The chaplain is Joan’s most vociferous opponent, but his crude sense of national identity makes him in effect her close ally. Perhaps the shock he experiences when witnessing her burning at the end of the scene is not such a complete reversal as it initially appears.

• The Inquisitor notes that heresies often begin with saintly simplicity. This is an important observation, for George Bernard Shaw recognized that a very thin line separated heresy and saintliness in a case such as Joan’s. If the Church accepted the authenticity of her voices and visions then she would be a saint; if it denied their divine origin, she would be a heretic. This is the pivotal point on which the historical reversal of Joan’s reputation rested.

• The Inquisitor is allowed a long soliloquy in which he condemns the dangers of unorthodox behaviour. This outlook will offend modern liberal sensibilities, but George Bernard Shaw has Lemaitre speak emphatically against cruelty. This may seem to contradict the popular view of the Inquisition, as an institution that operated with uncompromising severity, but George Bernard Shaw’s point is that secular morality is inadequate to grasp the compassionate basis of Inquisitorial judgement, summed up in the declaration that ‘if you hate cruelty, remember that nothing is so cruel in its consequences as the toleration of heresy’ (pg 123). Within the terms of his understanding of the world, Lemaitre is a man of real integrity, although we should not overlook his declaration that habit has inured him to public burnings. When a meaningful system for living is reduced to the dull workings of habit, some form of change is surely necessary.

• Joan confronts her inquisitors with an earthy common sense. There is a clear disjunction between their sophisticated understanding and her own impassioned but simple beliefs. Employing characteristically colloquial idiom she calls her prosecutor, Courcelles, ‘a rare noodle’ because he mindlessly follows precedent (pg 128). The effect is comic, especially when Courcelles repeats the term. George Bernard Shaw seeks to intensify the audience’s feeling of warmth towards the artless honesty of the Maid. But it is important to recognize that precedent was paramount in this feudal, Catholic society, with its resistance to change and its respect for established authority. Joan’s rejection of the patterns of the past was nothing short of revolutionary.

• The characterization of Cauchon becomes a matter of great importance at this stage of the play. He has the perspicacity to see how Joan’s Protestant denials of the Church threaten its future, and he responds with a sense of the historical moment, rather than reacting with the hostility of blind prejudice. He laments the barbarity of the English soldiers who conduct the burning. Cauchon is keen to halt their impropriety. The Inquisitor advises him not to hurry; the court itself has proceeded correctly, and if the English now violate the proper order of execution it ‘may be useful later on: one never knows’ (pg 139). This prescient insight suggests that Lemaitre would not have been entirely surprised that, 5 hundred years later, Joan would be canonized as a saint by that very Church that had excommunicated her, and had handed her over to her doom. He recognizes the quality of innocence within the guileless young woman.

• Warwick remarks to Ladvenu that Joan’s case is concluded. The monk replies enigmatically that ‘It may have just begun’ (pg 142). Here is further apparent prescience, with another intelligent and sensitive member of the Catholic Church recognizing some of the implications for history of Joan’s life and death. The comment also serves to prepare the audience for the surprises in the Epilogue.

the Holy Office : the Inquisition

Moab : region of Jordan, to the east of the Dead Sea

Ammon : region to the north of Moab

St Athanasius : (c.296 – AD 373) Bishop of Alexandria for 45 year commencing in AD 328