- Isabelle Romée
Isabelle Romée, also known as Isabelle de Vouthon and Isabelle d'Arc (1377 – 1458) and Ysabeau Romeeref|Ysabeau, was the mother of
Joan of Arc . She was a native ofVouthon , a village nearDomrémy-la-Pucelle where she and her husbandJacques d'Arc settled. Together they owned about 50 acres of land and a modest house. Isabelle Romée may have earned her surname from a pilgrimage to Rome. Surnames were not universal in the early 15th century and a woman could maintain a different one from her husband's.ref|backgroundIsabelle Romée gave her daughter a religious, Catholic upbringing and taught her the craft of spinning wool. She also had two surviving sons: Pierre and Jean. Like the rest of the immediate family, she was ennobled by royal grant in December 1429. She moved to
Orléans in 1440 after her husband's death and received a pension from the city.ref|pensionIsabelle Romée spent the rest of her life restoring her daughter's name. She petitioned
Pope Nicholas V to reopen the court case that had convicted Joan of heresy. An inquiry finally opened in 1449. On7 November 1455 , after the reign ofPope Callixtus III had begun, she traveled toParis to visit the delegation from theHoly See . Although she was over seventy years old she addressed the assembly with a moving speech. It began, "I had a daughter, born in legitimate marriage, whom I fortified worthily with the sacraments ofbaptism andconfirmation and raised in the fear of God and respect for the tradition of the Church," and ended, "…without any aid given to her innocence in a perfidious, violent, and iniquitous trial, without a shadow of right… they condemned her in a damnable and criminal fashion and made her die most cruelly by fire."ref|speech The appeals court overturned the conviction on7 July 1456 .Portrayals
*
Selena Royle in the 1948 film "Joan of Arc" starringIngrid Bergman .
*Jacqueline Bisset in the 1999 television miniseries "Joan of Arc" starringLeelee Sobieski .Notes
# As inscribed on a memorial plaque in Notre-Dame Cathedral dated April 22, 1894.
# Pernoud and Clin, p. 221.
# Pernoud and Clin, p. 147.
# Pernoud and Clin, pp. 156–157.ee also
* [http://www.jeanne-darc.dk/ Jeanne d'Arc. Online University research project.]
*Joan of Arc bibliography
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