click here to view Saint Joan (misc.)
click to view: Saint Joan played by Angela Sallocker (1935) (Germany)
Joan of Arc b: 1412
executed 1431: age 19.
..'Joan's cross-dressing, claims to divine guidance, and success had aroused suspicions of sorcery, but her subsequent trial and execution for heresy were acts intended primarily to discredit the Valois cause. In response to an accusation by representatives of the University of Paris, her Burgundian captors delivered her for trial at Rouen on Christmas Eve, after seven months of imprisonment at Compiegne, under the direction of Bishop Pierre Cauchon.
Eloquent in testimony and steadfast when threatened with torture, Joan submitted to the charges of cross-dressing only when weakened by illness and faced with execution. She was sentenced to a life of imprisonment and penance.
After only a few days Joan "relapsed," resuming men's clothes once again, and was condemned. Joan, only nineteen years old, was burned at the stake in the public marketplace of Rouen on May 30, 1431.
Courageous to the end, she insisted on her innocence and asked the executioner to hold the cross high so she could see it through the flames. Joan remained a controversial figure, and in 1456 Charles VII arranged the annulment of her conviction mainly to clear himself of a suspect association'.
Joan was canonized by Pope Benedict XV. in 1920.
click here to view: Saint Joan played by Renee Falconetti (1928) dir. Carl Berger U.S.A
JOan played by Jean Seberg (1957) from adaptation by Bernard Shaw, U.S.A - click here to view
