Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc was about nineteen when she was tied to a tall plastered pillar in Rouen's Old Marketplace and burned alive on the 30th of May 1431. She asked to see a cross as she died. An English soldier made her one from a stick, which she kissed and held against her chest. A few years earlier, she had been a peasant girl in a village in northeast France who could not read or write. How did an illiterate teenager come to lead armies, crown a king, and frighten the English so badly that they called her a creature of the devil? Why did a church court go to such lengths to destroy her, only for another court to reverse every word of its verdict twenty-five years later? And how did a girl convicted of heresy become a patron saint of France and a figure claimed by the entire spectrum of French politics?
When she was about thirteen, around 1425, Joan testified that a figure she identified as Saint Michael appeared to her in a garden, surrounded by angels. Afterward she wept, because she wanted them to take her with them. Saint Michael was a patron saint of the Domrémy area, seen as a defender of France, and she said she had these visions often, frequently when the church bells rang. Her visions also included Saint Margaret and Saint Catherine, two virgin saints known for striving against powerful enemies and keeping their virtue to death. Joan said she swore a vow of virginity to these voices. When a young man from her village claimed she had broken a promise of marriage, she insisted she had made him none, and an ecclesiastical court dismissed his case. A prophecy circulating in the French countryside, drawn from the visions of Marie Robine of Avignon, promised an armed virgin would come to save France. Another, attributed to Merlin, said a virgin carrying a banner would end France's suffering. Joan implied she was that promised maiden, reminding people of a saying that France would be ruined by a woman but restored by a virgin.
The Hundred Years' War had begun in 1337, over the status of English territories in France and English claims to the French throne, and nearly all of it was fought on French soil. By the time of Joan's birth, the French king Charles VI suffered recurring bouts of mental illness and could often not rule. In 1407, the Duke of Burgundy ordered the assassination of the Duke of Orléans, igniting a civil war between factions known as the Armagnacs and the Burgundians. Henry V of England invaded in 1415 and exploited these divisions, and the Burgundians took Paris in 1418. During a period of the king's illness, his wife Isabeau of Bavaria signed the Treaty of Troyes, which married their daughter Catherine of Valois to Henry V and effectively disinherited the future Charles VII, then known as the Dauphin. This fed rumors that the Dauphin was not the king's son at all. In 1422, Henry V and Charles VI died within two months of each other, leaving the nine-month-old Henry VI as the nominal heir to an Anglo-French dual monarchy while the Dauphin also claimed the crown. The Burgundians controlled Reims, the traditional site of French coronations, and the Dauphin had not yet been crowned.
In May 1428, Joan asked her uncle to take her to the nearby town of Vaucouleurs, where she petitioned the garrison commander Robert de Baudricourt for an armed escort to the court at Chinon. Baudricourt refused harshly and sent her home. In July, Burgundian forces raided Domrémy, set fire to the town, and forced Joan and her family to flee. She returned to Vaucouleurs in January 1429, was refused again, but had now won the support of two of Baudricourt's soldiers, Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy. After a third meeting in February 1429, Baudricourt finally let her travel to Chinon with an escort of six soldiers. Before leaving, Joan put on men's clothes provided by her escorts and the people of Vaucouleurs, and she wore men's clothes for the rest of her life. Charles VII met her for the first time in late February or early March 1429, when she was seventeen and he was twenty-six. They had a private exchange that made a strong impression on him. Her confessor, Jean Pasquerel, later testified that Joan had reassured the Dauphin he was Charles VI's son and the legitimate king. His council still needed more assurance, so they sent her to Poitiers to be examined by theologians, who declared her a good and devout Catholic. At Tours, women directed by Charles's mother-in-law Yolande of Aragon verified her virginity, to test whether she could be the prophesied virgin savior.
In the last week of April 1429, Joan set out from Blois with an army carrying supplies for the relief of Orléans, arriving on the 29th of April. The English had nearly isolated the city by capturing the smaller bridge towns on the Loire, and after almost a century of war the Armagnacs were demoralized. Jean, the Bastard of Orléans, got her into the city, where she was greeted enthusiastically. At first she was treated as a figurehead to raise morale, flying her banner without any formal command. She always seemed to be present where the fighting was most intense, staying with the front ranks and giving the soldiers a sense she fought for their salvation. On the 4th of May, the Armagnacs attacked the fortress of Saint-Loup, and Joan arrived as the soldiers were retreating from a failed assault. Her appearance rallied them, and they took the fortress. They captured Saint-Jean-le-Blanc on the 6th of May, and Joan pressed them onward to seize the English fortress of les Augustins. On the morning of the 7th of May, the Armagnacs attacked the main English stronghold, les Tourelles. Joan was wounded by an arrow between the neck and shoulder while holding her banner in the trench, but returned to encourage the final assault. The English retreated on the 8th of May, ending the siege. At Poitiers she had been asked for a sign, and had answered it would come if she were brought to Orléans. Many took the lifting of the siege to be that sign, while the English saw a peasant girl defeating their armies as proof she was possessed by the devil.
After Orléans, Joan insisted the army should march promptly to Reims to crown the Dauphin. Charles let her accompany the army under John II, Duke of Alençon, who worked closely with her and regularly took her advice. First they had to clear the Loire bridge towns of Jargeau, Meung-sur-Loire, and Beaugency. At Jargeau she was struck by a stone that split her helmet as she climbed a siege ladder, banner in hand. The English garrison at Beaugency surrendered on the 18th of June, and the retreating English army met the Armagnacs that day at the Battle of Patay. Hidden English archers were detected and scattered by the Armagnac vanguard, and a rout decimated the English army. Joan arrived too late to join the decisive action, but her urging to pursue had made the victory possible. The army left Gien on the 29th of June to march on Reims, and the advance was nearly unopposed. Auxerre surrendered after three days of negotiation, and only Troyes resisted before negotiating a surrender. Reims opened its gates on the 16th of July 1429. Charles's consecration took place the following morning, with Joan given a place of honor, where she announced that God's will had been fulfilled.
After the coronation, Joan's fortunes turned. She joined the unsuccessful siege of Paris on the 8th of September 1429, where she was wounded in the leg by a crossbow bolt and the Armagnacs suffered 1,500 casualties. Charles ended the assault the next morning, and scholars at the University of Paris argued she had failed to take Paris because her inspiration was not divine. A failed siege of La-Charité-sur-Loire in November and December diminished her reputation further. At the end of March 1430, without documented permission from Charles, she set out to relieve Compiègne, besieged by the Burgundians. On the 23rd of May 1430, during a sortie against the Burgundian camp at Margny, she was captured and surrendered to a pro-Burgundian nobleman. The English paid 10,000 livres tournois to obtain her and moved her to Rouen, and there is no evidence Charles tried to save her. Her trial for heresy opened on the 9th of January 1431, overseen by Bishop Pierre Cauchon, a partisan of Burgundy and the English crown. She was accused of blaspheming by wearing men's clothes, of acting on demonic visions, and of refusing to submit her words to the church. The trial had many irregularities. She was held by English soldiers rather than churchwomen, was interrogated without legal counsel, and there is evidence the records were falsified. Yet she showed great control. Asked whether she knew she was in God's grace, a scholarly trap, she replied that if she was not, she hoped God would put her there, and if she was, she hoped she would remain so. A court notary later testified the interrogators were stunned.
On the 24th of May 1431, at the churchyard of the abbey of Saint-Ouen, Joan signed an abjuration agreeing not to bear arms or wear men's clothing. She exchanged her clothes for a woman's dress and let her head be shaved, but was returned to her cell in chains. Witnesses at the later rehabilitation trial said guards placed men's clothes in her cell and forced her to wear them, and that she suffered mistreatment and rape attempts. When Cauchon found she had resumed men's clothing and heeding her voices, this was enough to convict her of relapsing into heresy. After her death her remains were thrown into the Seine. In 1456, an inquisitorial court reinvestigated and overturned the verdict, declaring it tainted by deceit and procedural errors. The rehabilitation trial had run from the 7th of November 1455 to the 7th of July 1456 and heard from about 115 witnesses, and the court ordered a cross erected on the site of her execution. The war itself ended with a French victory at the Battle of Castillon in 1453. Centuries later, after the Franco-Prussian War, Joan became a rallying point to reclaim Lorraine, the province of her birth. Pope Benedict XV canonized her on the 16th of May 1920, and in 1922 she was declared one of the patron saints of France. By the 1960s she was the subject of thousands of books, and her image has been claimed by figures as different as Philippe Pétain, Charles de Gaulle, and the Communist resistance, making her a permanent reference in arguments about French identity.
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Common questions
Who was Joan of Arc and why is she famous?
Joan of Arc was a French peasant girl, born around 1412, who became a military leader during the Hundred Years' War. She is famous for her role in the siege of Orléans and for insisting on the coronation of Charles VII, and she is honored as a patron saint of France.
When and how did Joan of Arc die?
Joan of Arc was burned at the stake on the 30th of May 1431 in Rouen's Old Marketplace, at about the age of nineteen. She was executed after a heresy trial found her to have relapsed by resuming men's clothing and heeding her visions, and her remains were thrown into the Seine River.
Why did Joan of Arc wear men's clothes?
Joan of Arc began wearing men's clothes before traveling to Chinon, with garments provided by her escorts and the people of Vaucouleurs, and she wore them for the rest of her life. She testified it was her own choice by the command of God and his angels, and cross-dressing was the subject of five of the articles of accusation against her.
What did Joan of Arc do at the siege of Orléans?
Joan of Arc arrived at Orléans on the 29th of April 1429 as part of a relief army and rallied the demoralized Armagnac soldiers, flying her banner where fighting was fiercest. She was wounded by an arrow at les Tourelles on the 7th of May but returned to encourage the final assault, and the English retreated on the 8th of May.
Was Joan of Arc's conviction ever overturned?
Yes. In 1456 an inquisitorial court overturned Joan of Arc's verdict, declaring it tainted by deceit and procedural errors. The rehabilitation trial ran from the 7th of November 1455 to the 7th of July 1456 and heard from about 115 witnesses.
When was Joan of Arc made a saint?
Joan of Arc was canonized by Pope Benedict XV on the 16th of May 1920. Two years later, in 1922, she was declared one of the patron saints of France, and her feast day is the 30th of May, the anniversary of her execution.