Hello,
After reading the 'Story of Joan' of Arc by Arthur Lang I wanted to fact-check some point of the story as told by the author. As far as I can tell, the two main primary sources are court transcripts of her trial by the English as told by English and French scribes actually present at the trial. There are details to the story, however, than can only be exacted from private letters and other correspondence. Mains question is, whose correspondence?
Also, I was unaware of the existence of a 'fake' Joan of Arc that was feasted and pampered by the people of France both before and after she was found out as a fraud. This revelation was fascinating to me and I'd love to read more about it, preferably in the form of materials based on primary sources.
Please help me identify any and all relevant sources of the Story of Joan of Arc.
THE major source on Joan is the Latin translation of her trial, which was completed almost immediately after the fact. It's widely available in a great modern English translation: Daniel Hobbins, trans. and ed., The Trial of Joan of Arc. He works from the Latin; however, we do have two surviving French versions, just they are later copies. Hobbins compared the contemporary Latin with the later French and thinks they're pretty much identical (but notes where there are minor differences in his translation's endnotes).
The next set of sources is from Joan's rehabilitation or nullification trial, after her death. It includes testimony from her supporters during her life. So there is thirty years' worth of "saint-making" and legend-building going on, but it still contains valuable details. It's never been translated into English, but I found [a summary of it online] (http://faculty.smu.edu/bwheeler/ijas/pinzino.html) if you're interested.
Educated (and definitely sympathetic) commentary from during and shortly after Joan's life comes from Christine de Pizan and Jean Gerson, but that won't give you the kind of biographical details you're seeking.
If you're interested, I recently fielded a question about Joan's military role where I drew pretty heavily on the trial record and rehabilitation trial testimonies.
I highly recommend picking up Hobbins' edition of the trial record.
"Fake Joan of Arc"--Joan had a couple of female contemporaries operating as mystics/visionaries in France, or at least trying to, and quite a few imitators. Would Catherine de Rochelle, Claude des Armoises, or Jeanne de Sermaize sound right?
Catherine comes up in Joan's trial--Joan describes revealing Catherine as a false visionary, for which Catherine later turned on Joan and testified against her. On Claude des Armoises--who I think is who you probably mean--I believe the primary source is Pierre Sala, a Parisian courtier, recounting the story rather after the fact (he wasn't born until 1457). Dude wrote a lot of books, though. I'm not sure where in his corpus you can find the story. Recently, scholars have proposed it is just that--a story, a "novel," rather than an actual occurrence. But this is not my wheelhouse, so to speak; I haven't read any of it firsthand so I can't judge, sorry!
ETA: Pierre tells a more lavish version of the story, but he's not the only one! (a.k.a ETA I was wrong). There's an earlier French source, and then Johannes Nider (yeah, that Johannes Nider--this is NOT an impartial source) talks about her in the Formicarius. I'm not aware of an English translation, though.