Documentary Record
The life of Joan of Arc is one of the best documented of her era. This is especially remarkable when one considers that she was not an aristocrat but rather a peasant girl. In one of history's genuine ironies, this fact is due partly to the trial record kept by the same individuals who attempted to eradicate her name from memory, and partly due also to the records of the later appeal of her case after the war when the trial was investigated and its verdict was overturned.
During the investigation and trial itself, a trio of notaries headed by chief notary Guillaume Manchon, took notes in French which were then collated each day following the trial session. About four years later, these records were translated into Latin by Manchon and University of Paris master Thomas de Courcelles. Five copies were produced, three of which are still in existence.
Jules Quicherat published the first unabridged version of the trial record in the first volume of his 5 volume Proces de condamnation et de rehabilitation de Jeanne d'Arc in Paris in the 1840s. But it was not until 1932 that the first unabridged English translation became available when W.P. Barrett published his Trial of Joan of Arc in New York.
The 1928 film The Passion of Joan of Arc, hailed as a cinematic masterpiece, was based on the trial record.
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