Joan of Arc was killed because an English-backed church court condemned her as a relapsed heretic and turned her over to be burned at the stake, in a trial driven as much by politics as by religion.

What officially got her killed

The church court in Rouen charged Joan with heresy and related offenses , including:

  • Claiming to receive visions and voices from God and the saints.
  • Refusing to fully submit those visions to the judgment of the Church.
  • Wearing male soldiers’ clothing, which they framed as violating divine and church law.

In May 1431, under intense pressure and the threat of immediate burning, Joan signed a document of abjuration (a recantation), promising to give up men’s clothing and her claims about the voices. For that, her death sentence was temporarily reduced to life imprisonment.

A few days later, she returned to wearing men’s clothes and said her voices had come back. Under canon law at the time, someone who had once abjured but then “relapsed” into the same supposed heresy could be condemned to death. The judges declared her a relapsed heretic , which legally allowed them to hand her over for execution by burning.

On 30 May 1431, at about 19 years old, Joan was burned at the stake in the marketplace of Rouen, in English-controlled Normandy.

The deeper reason: politics and war

Behind the religious language, Joan’s death was deeply political :

  • She had led French forces to key victories in the Hundred Years’ War , especially lifting the siege of OrlĂ©ans and helping Charles VII be crowned king of France.
  • Her success and her claim that God supported Charles VII threatened the English claim to rule France. If her visions were accepted as genuine, they strongly reinforced the legitimacy of the French king and undermined English authority.
  • By condemning her as a heretic and “false prophetess,” the English and their allies tried to discredit not only Joan but also the French cause and Charles VII’s coronation.

In other words, she was killed not just for what she believed, but for what those beliefs meant on the battlefield and in the political struggle for France.

What happened after her death

Years later, even people within the Church viewed her trial as a miscarriage of justice.

  • In 1456, a retrial ordered by the pope and Charles VII formally declared Joan innocent and condemned the original trial as corrupt and unfair.
  • Over time she came to be seen as a martyr, and in 1920 the Catholic Church canonized her as a saint.

So when people ask “why was Joan of Arc killed,” the short answer is: she was executed as a relapsed heretic in a politically motivated trial designed to destroy her influence and weaken the French cause in the Hundred Years’ War.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.