Joan of Arc
Key Facts
- Has her first visions at age 13 in Domrémy and believes she is charged with a divine mission
- Lifts the siege of Orléans in May 1429, a decisive victory that earns her the title Maid of Orléans
- Has Charles VII crowned at Reims on July 17, 1429, restoring royal legitimacy
- Captured by the Burgundians at Compiègne in May 1430, sold to the English
- Convicted of heresy and burned at the stake in Rouen on May 30, 1431, before turning 19
- Rehabilitated by a retrial in 1456, canonized in 1920 by Pope Benedict XV
Biography
Joan of Arc was born around 1412 in Domrémy, a small village in Lorraine, into a modest peasant family. From the age of thirteen, she claimed to hear the voices of saints, including Saint Michael, Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret, who entrusted her with a divine mission: to drive the English out of France and have the Dauphin Charles crowned at Reims. Against the backdrop of the Hundred Years' War, with France devastated and the kingdom fragmented, this young shepherdess with no military training would accomplish one of the most astonishing feats of medieval history.
In 1429, after convincing captain Robert de Baudricourt to take her to the Dauphin at Chinon, Joan obtained command of an army. Within weeks, she lifted the siege of Orléans, a strategic city held for months by the English, in May 1429. This resounding victory earned her the name "the Maid of Orléans." In the following months, she won several decisive battles along the Loire, opening the road to Reims.
On 17 July 1429, Charles VII was crowned King of France at Reims Cathedral, fulfilling the prophecy Joan had proclaimed. This was the pinnacle of her mission: the sovereign's legitimacy was restored in the eyes of the kingdom and of Europe. Joan then sought to retake Paris, but the assault failed and she was gradually sidelined from military decisions by the king's advisers.
In May 1430, during a sortie near Compiègne, Joan was captured by Burgundian soldiers allied with the English. Sold to the English for ten thousand livres, she was tried at an ecclesiastical court in Rouen, presided over by Bishop Pierre Cauchon. Accused of heresy and witchcraft, notably for wearing men's clothing, she was condemned and burned at the stake in Rouen's Vieux-Marché square on 30 May 1431. She was not yet twenty years old.
Her memory was not extinguished with the flames. In 1456, a retrial quashed the 1431 verdict and solemnly rehabilitated her. Beatified in 1909, she was canonised on 16 May 1920 by Pope Benedict XV and declared a secondary patron saint of France. Joan of Arc is today one of the most celebrated figures in world history, a universal symbol of courage, faith and resistance against oppression.