Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc (c. 1412–1431) is one of the most extraordinary figures in European history — a teenage peasant girl who, claiming divine guidance, reversed the course of the Hundred Years' War, secured the coronation of the French king, and was burned at the stake for heresy before being vindicated and canonized as a patron saint of France. Born to a propertied peasant family in Domrémy, a village in the Duchy of Bar in northeastern France, Joan grew up during a devastating period of the Hundred Years' War when English forces and their Burgundian allies controlled much of northern France, including Paris. From around age thirteen, Joan reported hearing the voices of Saint Michael the Archangel, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, and Saint Margaret of Antioch, who told her it was her divine mission to drive the English from France and see the Dauphin Charles crowned king. In 1429, at age seventeen, Joan convinced the French court to give her command of an army. She led French forces to a stunning victory at the Siege of Orléans — a city considered the last barrier to complete English domination of France — lifting the siege in just nine days after months of failed attempts by French commanders. She then led Charles VII through hostile territory to Reims, the traditional coronation city, where he was crowned on July 17, 1429, in a ceremony that transformed the political and psychological landscape of the war. Captured by Burgundian forces at Compiègne in May 1430 and sold to the English, Joan was subjected to a politically motivated ecclesiastical trial at Rouen. The trial, presided over by Bishop Pierre Cauchon, was conducted with numerous procedural irregularities. The charges centered on heresy, witchcraft, and the wearing of men's clothing. On May 30, 1431, at approximately nineteen years of age, Joan was burned at the stake in the marketplace of Rouen. Her reported last word was 'Jesus.' Twenty-five years later, a posthumous retrial ordered by Pope Callixtus III declared her innocent and pronounced the original trial null and void. Joan was beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1920. Her trial transcripts, which survive in remarkable detail, provide one of the most vivid portraits of any medieval individual.