Jeanne D'Arc

Jeanne d'Arc, known in English as Joan of Arc, was a young French peasant girl who, in the early 15th century, led the French army to a series of remarkable victories that changed the course of the Hundred Years' War. She was born around 1412 and burned at the stake at the age of 19 in 1431. In a world where women had no place on the battlefield and where France was on the verge of collapse under English occupation, Jeanne convinced a king, an army, and a nation to follow her. She is the patron saint of France, one of the most studied figures of the Middle Ages, and a symbol of courage, faith, and patriotism that has endured for nearly 600 years.

Jeanne was born into one of the most turbulent periods in French history. The Hundred Years' War between France and England had been grinding on since 1337, and by the early 15th century, England had seized control of much of northern France. The 1420 Treaty of Troyes had effectively handed the French crown to the English king Henry V, disinheriting the French prince known as the Dauphin, Charles. After Henry V and the French king Charles VI both died in 1422, an infant English king sat on the claimed throne of France, while the Dauphin Charles held on in the south. The English and their Burgundian allies controlled Paris and much of the country. France as a unified kingdom teetered on the edge of extinction.

Jeanne was born in the village of Domrémy, in the Duchy of Bar in northeastern France, to a peasant family. Her father, Jacques d'Arc, was a small farmer, and her mother, Isabelle, gave Jeanne her religious education. Domrémy was a loyalist village surrounded by pro-Burgundian territory, and Jeanne grew up acutely aware of the war. Around the age of 13, she later testified, she began hearing voices in her father's garden: those of Saint Michael the Archangel, Saint Catherine, and Saint Margaret. At first these voices simply encouraged her to live a pious life, but over time they grew insistent, telling her that God had chosen her for a mission of overwhelming importance. She was to go to the Dauphin, help him be crowned King of France, and drive the English from the country.

4. How did a teenage peasant girl gain command of an army?

In May 1428, Jeanne travelled to Vaucouleurs, the nearest stronghold loyal to the Dauphin, and asked the garrison captain, Robert de Baudricourt, for an escort to reach Charles. He dismissed her. She returned in January 1429, and this time her quiet conviction and piety won him over. Dressed in men's clothes for safety, she made an 11-day journey across enemy-held territory and arrived at the Dauphin's court at Chinon. Charles was reportedly so impressed by what she told him in a private audience that he agreed to have her examined by theologians at Poitiers. They found nothing improper about her, only piety and sincerity. Charles then gave the 17-year-old a horse, armour, and an army, and sent her to relieve the besieged city of Orléans.

5. What happened at Orléans, and why was it so decisive?

Orléans was the last major French stronghold on the Loire River, and its fall to the English would have opened the south of France to conquest. By 1429 it had been under English siege for months and the situation was desperate. Jeanne arrived with fresh troops and a sense of divine purpose that electrified the French forces. Between 4 and 7 May 1429, the French launched a series of attacks on the English fortifications surrounding the city. Jeanne was wounded by an arrow but returned to the fighting to urge a final assault. On 8 May, the English abandoned their siege. The relief of Orléans was a turning point in the Hundred Years' War. For the first time in a generation, France had a decisive victory, and it had been led by a teenage girl from a village that most people had never heard of.

6. How did Jeanne secure the coronation of Charles VII?

The relief of Orléans was followed immediately by a bold campaign along the Loire Valley. Jeanne had promised Charles that she would see him crowned at Reims, the traditional site of French royal coronations, deep in enemy-held territory. In the weeks that followed, French forces won a string of victories, culminating at Patay on 18 June 1429, where the French cavalry routed an English army before it could form its defensive lines. Jeanne remained with the main body of the army rather than the vanguard that led the assault, but her presence and insistence on aggressive pursuit had driven the campaign that made the victory possible. Town after town then opened its gates to the French advance. On 17 July 1429, Charles was crowned King Charles VII of France at Reims Cathedral, with Jeanne standing at his side holding her standard. She had fulfilled the central promise of her mission.

7. How was Jeanne captured, and what happened next?

After the coronation, Jeanne's position grew more complicated. An attempt to retake Paris in September 1429 failed, and the energy of her campaign began to stall. In May 1430, while attempting to defend the town of Compiègne from a Burgundian attack, she was pulled from her horse and captured. Charles VII made no effort to ransom or rescue her. The Burgundians sold her to their English allies for 10,000 francs, and she was transferred to Rouen, the administrative capital of English-occupied France, where she was held in a military prison. For months she sat in chains, guarded by English soldiers, waiting for a trial that had been designed from the outset to destroy her.

8. What happened at Jeanne's trial?

The trial began in Rouen on 9 January 1431, presided over by Pierre Cauchon, the Bishop of Beauvais, a man widely regarded as a tool of the English interest. The charges against Jeanne included heresy and the wearing of men's clothes, which violated Church law. Jeanne had no legal counsel and faced a court of trained theologians alone. She defended herself with remarkable intelligence and composure, deflecting many of the traps set for her. Under immense pressure, threats of torture, and the fear of being burned alive, she eventually signed a document of abjuration, recanting her claims of divine visions. She was sentenced to life imprisonment. Within days, however, she withdrew the abjuration and reasserted that her voices were real. The court declared her a relapsed heretic, and she was condemned to death.

9. How did Jeanne die, and how was her reputation restored?

On 30 May 1431, Jeanne d’Arc was burned at the stake in the marketplace of Rouen. She was 19 years old. Witnesses reported that she called out the name of Jesus repeatedly as the flames rose, and that few who were present doubted they had witnessed something terrible and unjust. The English secretary who attended the execution was said to have wept, declaring that they had burned a saint. The Hundred Years’ War continued for another 22 years, ending in French victory in 1453. In 1455, Pope Calixtus III authorised a retrial at the request of Jeanne’s mother and surviving family, conducted by the Inquisitor-General of France, Jean Bréhal. In 1456, every charge against her was annulled and the original verdict declared fraudulent and void. She was beatified in 1909 by Pope Pius X and canonised as a saint by Pope Benedict XV on 16 May 1920.

10. What is Jeanne d'Arc's legacy today?

Jeanne d'Arc is one of the most remarkable figures in the history of any country. With no military training, no social standing, and no power beyond her own conviction, she altered the fate of a nation. Her story has inspired writers, artists, and leaders across the centuries, from Shakespeare, who portrayed her in Henry VI, to Mark Twain, who called her the most extraordinary person history had produced. She is the patron saint of France, honoured on a national holiday each year on the second Sunday of May. Statues of her stand in cities across France and beyond. She is claimed by nationalists and feminists alike, by the devout and the secular, each generation finding in her something that speaks to its own moment. At her core, she remains what she always was: a young woman of extraordinary courage who refused to be told that what she believed was impossible.