SENTENCE OF DEATH
Wednesday, May 30, 1431
9:00 A.M.
In the Name of the Lord, Amen.
At all times when the poisoned virus of heresy attaches itself with persistence to a member of the Church and transforms him into a member of Satan, extreme care should be taken to watch that the horrible contagion of this pernicious leprosy do not gain other parts of the mystic Body of Christ. The decisions of the holy Fathers have willed that hardened heretics should be separated from the midst of the Just, so that to the great peril of others this homicidal viper should not be warmed in the bosom of pious Mother Church. It is for this that We, Pierre, by the Divine Mercy, Bishop of Beauvais, and We, Brother Jean Lemaitre, Deputy of the renowned Doctor, Jean Graverend, Inquisitor of the Evil of Heresy, specially delegated by him for this Process, both Judges competent in this Trial, already, by a just judgment, have declared this woman fallen into divers errors and divers crimes of schism, idolatry, invocation of demons and many others. But because the Church closes not her bosom to the child who returns to her, we did think that, with a pure spirit and a faith unfeigned, you have put far from you your errors and your crimes, considering that on a certain day you did renounce them and did publicly swear, vow, and promise never to return to your errors and heresies, to resist all temptations, and to remain faithfully attached to the unity of the Catholic Church and the communion of the Roman Pontiff, as is proved at greater length in a writing signed by your own hand. But after this abjuration of your errors, the Author of Schism and Heresy had arisen in your heart, which he had once more seduced, and it had become manifest by your spontaneous confessions and assertions - O, shame! - that, as the dog returns again to his vomit, so have you returned to your errors and crimes; and it had been proved to us in a most certain manner that you have renounced your guilty inventions and your errors only in a lying manner, not in a sincere and faithful spirit. For these causes, declaring you fallen again into your old errors, and under the sentence of excommunication which you have formerly incurred, WE DECREE THAT YOU ARE A RELAPSED HERETIC, by our present sentence which, seated in tribunal, we utter and pronounce in this writing; we denounce you as a rotten member, and that you may not vitiate others, as cast out from the unity of the Church, separate from her Body, abandoned to the secular power as, indeed, by these presents, we do cast you off, separate and abandon you; - praying this same secular power, so far as concerns death and the mutilation of the limbs, to moderate its judgment towards you, and, if true signs of penitence should appear in you, [to permit] that the Sacrament of Penance be administered to you.
SENTENCE OF EXCOMMUNICATION
Wednesday, May 30, 1431
Following the Sentence of Death, the Sentence of Excommunication was pronounced. It reads in part:
We, the Judges, say and decree that you have been on the subject of your pretended divine revelations and apparitions lying, seducing, pernicious, presumptuous, lightly believing, rash, superstitious, a divineress and blasphemer towards God and the Saints, a despiser of God Himself in His Sacraments; a prevaricator of the Divine Law, of sacred doctrine and of ecclesiastical sanctions; seditious, cruel, apostate, schismatic, erring on many points of our Faith, and by all these means rashly guilty towards God and Holy Church. And also, because that often, very often, not only by Us on Our part but by Doctors and Masters learned and expert, full of zeal for the salvation of your soul, you have been duly and sufficiently warned to amend, to correct yourself and to submit to the disposal, decision, and correction of Holy Mother Church, which you have not willed, and have always obstinately refused to do, having even expressly and many times refused to submit yourself to our Lord the Pope and to the General Council; for these causes, as hardened and obstinate in your crimes, excesses and errors, WE DECLARE YOU OF RIGHT EXCOMMUNICATE AND HERETIC; and after your errors have been destroyed in a public preaching, We declare that you must be abandoned and that We do abandon you to the secular authority, as a member of Satan, separate from the Church, infected with the leprosy of heresy, in order that you may not corrupt also the other members of Christ; praying this same power, that, as concerns death and the mutilation of the limbs, it may be pleased to moderate its judgment; and if true signs of penitence should appear in you, that the Sacrament of Penance may be administered to you.