Alternative historical interpretations of Joan of Arc

These alternate historical interpretations are distinct from avowedly fictional representations of Joan in art, literature, and popular culture.

In 1819, Pierre Caze published La Vérité sur Jeanne d'Arc, which argued that Joan of Arc was the illegitimate daughter of the Queen, Isabeau of Bavaria, and Duke Louis of Orléans.

In the words of Regine Pernoud and Marie-Veronique Clin, "Yet amateur historians still insist that all these people – as well as Charles VII, the duke of Alençon, Dunois, Bertrand de Poulengy – carried out an intricate plot to disguise Joan's authentic royal parents.

The likelihood of this is extremely thin, since the trial of nullification records sworn testimony from numerous witnesses who were present at the execution and confirmed her identity.

Vignier subsequently found in the family muniment-chest the contract of marriage between "Robert des Armoise, knight, and Jeanne D'Arcy, surnamed the Maid of Orleans."

In 1740 there were found in the archives of the Maison de Ville (Orléans) records of several payments to certain messengers from Joan to her brother John, bearing the dates 1435, 1436.

M. Delepierre has brought forward a host of other documents to corroborate the same fact, and show that the tale of her martyrdom was invented to throw odium on the English.

[10] In 1921, anthropologist Margaret Murray argued that Joan was correctly identified as a witch by the religious authorities who condemned her to death, but that what they called witchcraft was, in fact, a survival of the pagan "old religion" of pre-Christian Europe.

Beginning with the trials in Lorraine in 1408 the Church moved triumphantly against Joan of Arc and her followers in 1431, against Gilles de Rais and his coven in 1440, against the witches of Brescia in 1457.