Hello, my name's David Rumsman and this is past-present future, the History of Ideas podcast.

Today in our series Politics on Trial, I'm going to be talking about the trial of Jonah Bark. In 1431, when she was

accused of heresy, convicted, and burned at the stake, she was 19 years old. In so many ways,

a very different trial from the trial of Socrates, but in some ways oddly similar. One of the big

differences is this was literally a witch hunt. It was a show trial, but it was also a real

drama. The two trials that I'm going to be talking about today and next time. Today, Joan of Arc,

next time the trial of Thomas Moore, which took place just over 100 years later, both provide

the basis for great modern plays, actual dramas. In the case of Joan of Arc, it is George

Bernard Shaw's St. Joan. And in the case of Thomas Moore,

it's Robert Bolts, a man for all seasons. Actually, the two that are coming after that are also

in the background, at least, of great plays. Then it's Mary Queen of Scots, and that's Maria

Stuart by Schiller. And after that, the trial of Galileo, before the the Inquisition and that's Brecht's the life

of Galileo but in those two Mary Queen of Scots and Galileo the trial isn't what's on stage in the play

it's a background event the drama is laid out in a series of more personal interactions but in

A Man for All Seasons and St. Joan, the trial itself

is the centrepiece of the drama. It's the climax of the drama. And in both cases,

the playwrights have drawn pretty heavily and pretty accurately on the transcript of the trial.

And in both cases, there is an extensive transcript, which we have to believe is relatively

accurate.

I mean, it's presumably not entirely accurate.

It's not like a recording, but it reads in both cases relatively true to an event one can

imagine.

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