Joan of Arc
Based on Wikipedia: Joan of Arc
The Teenager Who Changed History
In the spring of 1429, a seventeen-year-old peasant girl in men's clothing arrived at the besieged city of Orléans carrying a homemade banner. Nine days later, the English army that had strangled the city for months simply gave up and walked away.
This was Joan of Arc.
Her story sounds like myth. A girl from a farming village starts hearing voices from saints at age thirteen. These voices tell her she must save France from English conquest. She convinces the uncrowned French king to give her an army. She leads that army to victory after victory. Then, at nineteen, she burns at the stake as a heretic, condemned by a court that called her visions demonic.
Every part of that story is documented fact.
France in Ruins
To understand Joan, you need to understand the France she was born into. It was a country tearing itself apart.
The Hundred Years' War had been grinding on since 1337—nearly a century of intermittent warfare between England and France. The conflict began over English territorial claims in France and competing claims to the French throne itself. By Joan's birth around 1412, almost all the fighting had taken place on French soil. The economy was devastated. Fields lay fallow. Trade routes were dangerous. Peasants lived in fear of soldiers from both sides.
But the external war was only half the problem. France was also fighting itself.
King Charles VI suffered from recurring bouts of mental illness that left him unable to rule for long stretches. During these periods, two powerful nobles fought for control: the Duke of Orléans, the king's brother, and the Duke of Burgundy, his cousin. In 1407, the Duke of Burgundy had the Duke of Orléans assassinated in the streets of Paris. This triggered a civil war between their factions—the Armagnacs (supporters of the Orléans family) and the Burgundians.
The English king Henry V saw his opportunity and invaded in 1415. The Burgundians, nursing their grudge against the Armagnacs, eventually allied with the English invaders against their own countrymen.
Then things got worse.
In 1419, the Dauphin—the heir to the French throne, the future Charles VII—attempted to negotiate peace with the Duke of Burgundy. During the meeting, the Dauphin's Armagnac supporters murdered the duke. Whether the Dauphin ordered this or simply failed to prevent it remains unclear, but the political consequences were catastrophic. The new Duke of Burgundy threw in fully with England. King Charles VI, in one of his lucid periods, declared his own son unfit to inherit the throne and accused him of murder.
Then Charles VI's wife, Queen Isabeau of Bavaria, signed the Treaty of Troyes. This extraordinary document gave the French throne not to her own son, but to the children of her daughter Catherine and Henry V of England. It essentially handed France to the English.
Rumors spread that the Dauphin wasn't really Charles VI's son at all—that he was the product of an affair between the queen and the murdered Duke of Orléans. Whether these rumors were true, believed, or simply politically convenient remains debated. What mattered was that they gave people reason to question whether Charles had any right to be king.
When both Henry V and Charles VI died in 1422, the situation became absurd. The English claimed that a nine-month-old baby—Henry VI of England—was now rightfully king of both England and France. Meanwhile, the Dauphin Charles also claimed the French throne. But he hadn't been crowned, he controlled only a fraction of France, and his own mother had signed a treaty calling him illegitimate.
This was the France Joan of Arc was born into. A country occupied by its enemies, betrayed by its nobles, and ruled by a king who couldn't prove he was the king.
Voices in the Garden
Joan grew up in Domrémy, a small village in northeastern France. Her father, Jacques d'Arc, was a reasonably prosperous peasant farmer with about fifty acres of land. He supplemented the family income as a village official, collecting taxes and organizing the local watch. Joan had three brothers and a sister. She never learned to read or write—her mother taught her religion, and she learned household work, spinning wool, and helping with the family's animals.
Her name, incidentally, wasn't really "Joan of Arc" during her lifetime. Spelling was wildly inconsistent in the fifteenth century. Her last name appears in contemporary documents as "Darc," "Tarc," "Dart," and even "Day." Her father's name was written as "Tart" during her trial. The elegant "d'Arc" with its aristocratic apostrophe came later. She probably never heard herself called "Jeanne d'Arc" at all—the first written record of that spelling appears in 1455, twenty-four years after her death.
Joan called herself something else entirely: "Jeanne la Pucelle"—Joan the Maiden. The word emphasized her virginity, which was central to her identity and mission.
Domrémy occupied a strange position in the civil war. Much of the village technically lay within the Duchy of Bar, whose feudal allegiances were unclear. Though surrounded by pro-Burgundian territory, the villagers were loyal to the Armagnac cause—which meant loyal to the Dauphin Charles. By 1419, the war had reached their area. In 1425, when Joan was about thirteen, Domrémy was attacked and cattle were stolen.
It was around this time that Joan began having visions.
She later testified that a figure she identified as the Archangel Michael, surrounded by angels, appeared to her in her father's garden. She wept, she said, because she wanted them to take her with them. Over the following years, she had frequent visions—often when church bells were ringing. Saint Margaret and Saint Catherine also appeared to her. These were probably Margaret of Antioch and Catherine of Alexandria, two virgin martyrs popular in her region. Both had been tortured and killed for their faith while refusing to compromise their virtue.
Joan swore a vow of virginity to these voices.
What are we to make of these visions? Believers see them as genuine divine communication. Skeptics have proposed various explanations—epilepsy, schizophrenia, migraines with aura, or simple fabrication. The historian's honest answer is: we don't know. What we can say is that Joan clearly believed in them completely, and that belief gave her extraordinary confidence and purpose.
Something else was circulating in the French countryside during Joan's youth: prophecy. A woman named Marie Robine of Avignon had reported visions promising that an armed virgin would come forth to save France. Another prophecy, attributed to the legendary wizard Merlin, said a virgin carrying a banner would end France's suffering. There was even a saying that France had been destroyed by a woman—presumably Queen Isabeau and her treaty—but would be restored by a virgin.
Joan knew these prophecies. She told people she was the promised maiden.
The Long Road to Chinon
In May 1428, Joan asked her uncle to take her to the nearby town of Vaucouleurs. She wanted to see the garrison commander, Robert de Baudricourt, to request an armed escort to the Dauphin's court at Chinon.
Baudricourt refused harshly and sent her home.
Two months later, Burgundian forces raided Domrémy. They set fire to the town, destroyed the crops, and forced Joan and her family to flee with everyone else. When she returned to Vaucouleurs in January 1429, she tried again.
Baudricourt refused again.
But this time, something had changed. Two of Baudricourt's soldiers, Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy, believed in her. They began advocating on her behalf. Meanwhile, word of Joan had spread far enough that Charles II, Duke of Lorraine, summoned her to Nancy. The duke was ill and hoped this girl with her rumored supernatural powers might cure him. Joan offered no cures. Instead, she scolded him for living with his mistress.
Whatever the duke thought of this rebuke, the meeting raised her profile. In February 1429, Baudricourt agreed to see her a third time. By now, the military situation had worsened. The English had captured an Armagnac relief convoy at the Battle of the Herrings during the siege of Orléans. The conversations with Joan, combined with Metz and Poulengy's advocacy, finally convinced Baudricourt to let her go.
Before she left, Joan put on men's clothes provided by her escorts and the people of Vaucouleurs. She would wear men's clothes for the rest of her life. This choice would later become a central charge against her at her trial, but at the time it served practical purposes. She was traveling with soldiers through dangerous territory. Women's clothing would have marked her as vulnerable. Men's clothing offered both protection and a statement that she was something other than an ordinary woman.
Joan traveled with an escort of six soldiers to Chinon, where she finally met the Dauphin in late February or early March 1429. She was seventeen. He was twenty-six.
Testing the Maiden
Joan told Charles she had come for two purposes: to raise the siege of Orléans and to lead him to Reims for his coronation.
These two goals were connected. Reims was the traditional site where French kings were crowned. The sacred ritual performed there, using holy oil supposedly delivered by a dove at the baptism of Clovis in the fifth century, was believed to confer divine legitimacy on the monarch. But Reims was in Burgundian territory. Charles couldn't get there. He couldn't be properly crowned. And without that coronation, his claim to the throne remained legally and spiritually questionable.
Joan promised to change that.
Charles and Joan had a private conversation that made a strong impression on him. According to Joan's later testimony, she reassured him that he was truly Charles VI's son and the legitimate king. Whatever exactly passed between them, Charles took her seriously enough to order further investigation.
He sent her to Poitiers to be examined by a council of theologians. They questioned her extensively about her visions and her faith. Their conclusion was carefully hedged: she was a good person and a good Catholic, but they couldn't determine whether her inspiration was divine. However, they agreed that sending her to Orléans could be useful and would serve as a test. If she succeeded, her divine mission would be proven.
Charles's mother-in-law, Yolande of Aragon, arranged for Joan to be physically examined by women who verified her virginity. This wasn't mere prudishness. If Joan claimed to be the prophesied virgin savior of France, her virginity was evidence. It also demonstrated the purity of her devotion and proved she hadn't consorted with the Devil. The examination confirmed: she was indeed a maiden.
The Dauphin commissioned plate armor for her. She designed her own banner—a white field with gold fleurs-de-lis and an image of Christ. She had a sword retrieved from under the altar at the church of Sainte-Catherine-de-Fierbois, supposedly guided by her voices to its location.
Around this time, she began consistently referring to herself as "Joan the Maiden."
The Siege Breaks
Orléans was the last major obstacle between the English and the remainder of Charles's territory. If it fell, the English could sweep through the Armagnac heartland. The city had been under siege since October 1428. The English had captured most of the smaller bridge towns along the Loire River, nearly isolating Orléans from resupply.
But the siege wasn't going perfectly for the English either. They didn't have enough troops to completely encircle the city. The Burgundians had recently withdrawn from the siege due to disagreements about who would control captured territory. The English commanders were debating whether to continue.
Still, after nearly a century of war, the Armagnac forces were demoralized. They expected to lose. They had been losing for a long time.
Before Joan left for Orléans, she dictated a letter to the Duke of Bedford, the English commander in France. She warned him that she was sent by God to drive him out of France. The letter's tone was extraordinary—a teenage peasant girl essentially declaring war on England in the name of heaven.
In late April 1429, Joan set out from Blois as part of an army carrying supplies for Orléans. She arrived on April 29th and met the commander Jean, the Bastard of Orléans—an illegitimate son of the murdered Duke of Orléans and a capable military leader. The city wasn't completely cut off, and he got her inside, where the population greeted her enthusiastically.
Joan's initial role was symbolic. She flew her banner on the battlefield. She wasn't given formal command or included in military councils. But she quickly gained the devotion of the troops. She always seemed to be where the fighting was fiercest. She stayed with the front ranks. She gave the soldiers the sense that they were fighting for their salvation, not just for territory or politics.
And the commanders, despite not including her in formal planning, often took her advice.
On May 4th, the Armagnacs attacked an outlying English fortification called the bastille de Saint-Loup. Joan learned of the attack after it had already begun. She rode out with her banner to find Armagnac soldiers retreating after a failed assault. Her arrival rallied them. They attacked again and captured the fortress.
On May 5th, there was no combat—it was Ascension Thursday, a holy day. Joan dictated another letter to the English warning them to leave France. She had it tied to a crossbow bolt and fired into their lines.
On May 6th, the Armagnacs resumed their offensive and captured another position the English had abandoned. The siege that had lasted seven months was collapsing in days.
The English gave up the siege entirely on May 8th. They withdrew their forces and retreated.
Joan had arrived at Orléans on April 29th. Nine days later, the siege was over.
The Road to Reims
The victory at Orléans transformed Joan from an interesting curiosity into a symbol of divine favor. The prophecies had come true. A maiden with a banner had saved France.
Joan pushed for immediate aggressive action. Her strategy was simple: don't give the English time to regroup. Pursue them. Drive them out. The Loire Campaign that followed was a series of rapid assaults on English-held positions along the Loire River.
The decisive moment came at the Battle of Patay on June 18th, 1429. The English longbowmen, who had devastated French cavalry at Agincourt and countless other battles, were caught before they could set up their defensive positions. The French cavalry smashed into them. English casualties may have reached two thousand men. The French lost perhaps a dozen.
It was a reversal of everything the English had come to expect. And it opened the road to Reims.
Town after town surrendered or simply opened its gates as the French army approached. The Burgundians controlled Reims, but they weren't prepared to defend it against a victorious army accompanied by a girl who was rapidly becoming legendary. On July 17th, 1429, Charles VII was crowned King of France in Reims Cathedral.
Joan stood at his side, holding her banner.
She later said that her banner had been through the labor and deserved to share the honor.
The Fall
If Joan's story had ended at the coronation, it would be a straightforward tale of miraculous triumph. But she lived for two more years, and those years were marked by frustration, failure, and tragedy.
After the coronation, Joan participated in an attempt to recapture Paris in September 1429. The assault failed. She was wounded by a crossbow bolt to the leg. The king ordered a retreat.
In November, she joined the siege of La Charité-sur-Loire. That failed too.
These defeats damaged her standing at court. The same nobles who had celebrated her at Reims now questioned her judgment. The king's counselors had always been skeptical of her influence. Without the momentum of constant victory, their skepticism found more receptive ears.
Joan was still a powerful symbol, still devoted to her mission. But the court was moving toward negotiation with the Burgundians rather than continued warfare. Joan's insistence on driving out the English completely no longer aligned with royal policy.
In early 1430, she organized a company of volunteers to relieve the town of Compiègne, which was under siege by Burgundian forces. On May 23rd, during a sortie from the city, she was pulled from her horse and captured by Burgundian troops.
She tried to escape multiple times, at one point jumping from a tower—a fall of about seventy feet. She survived but was injured and recaptured.
King Charles VII made no serious effort to ransom her or rescue her.
In November 1430, the Burgundians sold Joan to the English for ten thousand livres—a sum equivalent to a king's ransom. The English turned her over to the church courts for trial on charges of heresy.
The Trial
Joan's trial was conducted by Bishop Pierre Cauchon, a Burgundian sympathizer who had been driven from his diocese of Beauvais by Armagnac forces. He had reasons beyond theology to want Joan condemned.
The charges against her were numerous. She was accused of blaspheming by wearing men's clothes. Her visions were declared demonic rather than divine. She was charged with refusing to submit her words and deeds to the judgment of the church—essentially, with the arrogance of claiming direct communication with God outside church authority.
The trial was conducted in Latin, which Joan didn't understand. She had no legal counsel. The procedures violated church law in numerous ways that would later be documented when the verdict was overturned.
Yet Joan's responses during the trial reveal remarkable intelligence and spirit. When asked if she was in a state of grace—a trick question, since claiming certainty of grace was itself considered heresy—she replied: "If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me." Her interrogators were reportedly stunned.
When asked whether Michael appeared to her naked, she answered: "Do you think God has not wherewithal to clothe him?"
The court found her guilty on multiple counts. On May 24th, 1431, facing imminent execution, she signed a document abjuring her sins and agreeing to stop wearing men's clothes. Her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
Within days, she was wearing men's clothes again. The reasons are disputed. She later said she had been molested by guards, and the men's clothes offered some protection. Others argued she was simply recanting her abjuration.
Whatever the reason, the court declared her a relapsed heretic.
On May 30th, 1431, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake in the marketplace of Rouen. She was about nineteen years old. Witnesses reported that she called out to Jesus as she died and that a dove was seen flying from the flames—though this last detail may be hagiography rather than history.
The executioner reportedly said he greatly feared to be damned for burning a holy woman.
Rehabilitation and Sainthood
Twenty-five years after Joan's death, the Hundred Years' War finally ended with French victory. Charles VII had eventually won—partly through continued military success, partly through the Burgundians switching sides again, partly through English war weariness.
In 1456, with the war over and Charles secure on his throne, an inquisitorial court reinvestigated Joan's trial. The new court examined the original proceedings in detail and found them riddled with procedural errors, judicial misconduct, and outright fraud. The verdict was overturned. Joan was declared innocent.
But she was not yet a saint. The Catholic Church moved slowly.
Her beatification—the step before sainthood—didn't occur until 1909. Her canonization came in 1920, under Pope Benedict XV. In 1922, she was declared one of the patron saints of France.
Nearly five hundred years had passed between her execution and her recognition as a saint.
Legacy and Meaning
Joan of Arc has been claimed by nearly every political movement in French history. Monarchists cite her devotion to the crown. Republicans point to her as a daughter of the people who rose against foreign occupation. Catholics venerate her faith. Nationalists celebrate her as a symbol of French identity. Feminists see an early example of a woman exercising military and political power in a world that offered women almost none.
After the French Revolution, she became a national symbol of France itself—a rare figure whom royalists and republicans could both admire. Napoleon promoted her cult. So did the Third Republic. During World War II, both the Vichy collaborators and the Free French resistance claimed her as their patron.
She has been portrayed in countless works of art and literature. Mark Twain wrote a novel about her. George Bernard Shaw wrote a play. Carl Dreyer's 1928 silent film about her trial is considered one of the greatest movies ever made. She appears in video games, comic books, and anime.
What makes her story so compelling across centuries and ideologies?
Perhaps it's the sheer improbability. A peasant girl from an obscure village heard voices, believed them utterly, convinced a desperate king to trust her, won battles that turned the tide of a century-long war, was betrayed, tried by enemies pretending to be judges, and died calling on God while flames consumed her.
She was nineteen.
Perhaps it's the tension between her faith and her fate. She believed God spoke to her. The church that claimed to represent God on earth condemned her as a heretic. Five centuries later, that same church declared her a saint.
Perhaps it's simply this: she acted. In a time of paralysis and despair, when everyone had reasons to do nothing, she insisted on doing something. She was wrong about many things—her visions may have been hallucinations, her military strategy was sometimes reckless, her theology was unorthodox. But she moved. She changed things. She mattered.
The English eventually lost France anyway. The Hundred Years' War ended two decades after Joan's death. Perhaps it would have ended the same way without her.
But perhaps not.
And regardless, she showed what a single person, burning with conviction, could accomplish against impossible odds. That example has outlived the war she fought, the kingdom she saved, and the church that killed her.
Five hundred years later, we're still telling her story.