ABSTRACT
Powers who have bravely explored those dark years,5 and equally to George Huppert's remarkable chapter on the sixteenth-century historiography of Joan of Arc.6
Various sensitive issues stood in the way of early modern writers. How, for instance, were they to account for the verdict and execution of Joan without exposing the Church as either merciless or misled, and the King as too timid to rescue her from prison, or worse still, envious of the fame won by a mere peasant girl? To give the Pucelle a large share in the eviction of the English armies was to minimize the achievements of Charles the Victorious (as the once retiring Dauphin would henceforth be called) and of his successors, or the validity of a war effort costly enough in men and money not to be wasted on propaganda for a divine mission one could hardly hope to repeat. It would have been inopportune, at any time after 1525, in a country deeply upset by the Reformation, to anathematize a group of clerks for having thus deluded an innocent girl or themselves. Nor was it advisable to recall the tales of witchcraft used against Joan while the witch hunt against women allegedly possessed of the devil was at its peak, and the least suspicion of occult practices could lead to a trial. As George Huppert wryly puts it, anyone writing at the time had best say least.
