The Trial of Joan of Arc :being a verbatim report of the proceedings from the Orleans manuscript/The Reading of the Sentence
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THE READING OF THE SENTENCE
Here follows the Definitive Sentence, pronounced by the Bishop of Beauvais, after the abjuration and the [signing of the] schedule, beginning:
IN THE NAME OF THE LORD, AMEN
All pastors of the Church who would faithfully lead God's people, must carefully and diligently watch lest the devil, through his subtle arts, seduces and deceives the flock of Jesus Christ, to do which he labours ceaselessly. Wherefore there is need of great diligence to resist his false and sinful wiles.
Since you, Jeanne, commonly called the Pucelle, have been found guilty of many errors in the Faith of Jesus Christ, for which you have been called to judgment, and concerning which you have been heard; and since all the points and articles of your trial, your confessions, answers and assertions have been examined by Us, and the whole trial has been seen and deliberated upon by the masters and doctors of the Faculty of Theology in Paris, as well as by a number of prelates and doctors in law, both canon and civil, who are in this town of Rouen, by whom you have been charitably admonished with long appeals for your change of heart.
Notwithstanding these warnings and remonstrances, and after the adjuration made to you, you have rashly and wantonly fallen into sin.
Wherefore, that you may make salutary penance, We have condemned you, and do now condemn you by this Definitive Sentence to perpetual imprisonment,[64] with the bread of sorrow and the water of affliction, that you may weep for your sins, and nevermore commit them. Saving Our grace and moderation, if hereafter you shall deserve them.
[Here, and out of chronological order, Orleans inserts an incorrect version of the scene at St Ouen. This I have replaced above by the correct version taken from d'UrfÈ.]
[64] There is a doubt as to the especial meaning attached to the words carcer perpetuas. The Rev. Father Thurston, S.J., in Studies for September 1924, writes: "'Lifelong prison" . . . is, undoubtedly, the natural and obvious translation; but the phrase, I submit, is shown by sundry Inquisition records to mean simply a permanent prison as opposed to the makeshift: buildings which were casually employed for the purpose.' I think, however, that the usual meaning of perpetuas, perpetual or lifelong, is more likely to be correct.
