In 1429, a seventeen-year-old peasant girl from Domrémy convinced the desperate French Dauphin, Charles VII, that God had sent her to save France from English occupation. Within months she had lifted the siege of Orléans, turned the tide of the Hundred Years' War, and escorted Charles through enemy territory to be crowned king at Reims Cathedral. Her military career lasted barely a year. Her legend has lasted six centuries.
Joan claimed to hear the voices of Saints Michael, Catherine, and Margaret, who instructed her to drive the English from France. A panel of theologians examined her for weeks before declaring her mission credible. She was given armour, a banner, and command of a relief force. At Orléans, she rallied demoralised troops, led charges from the front, took an arrow between the neck and shoulder, pulled it out, and returned to fight.
After Orléans, Joan pushed for a rapid march to Reims, arguing that the coronation would unite French loyalty. She was right — towns surrendered along the route, and Charles's crowning undermined English claims to the throne. But her influence waned as court politics reasserted themselves. In May 1430, she was captured by Burgundian forces, sold to the English, and tried for heresy by a church court in Rouen.
The trial transcripts survive — one of the richest documents of the medieval world. Joan, illiterate but razor-sharp, parried questions from trained theologians with remarkable composure. Asked whether she was in God's grace, she replied: "If I am not, may God put me there; if I am, may God so keep me." She was convicted and burned at the stake on 30 May 1431, aged nineteen. A retrial in 1456 declared her innocent, and she was canonised in 1920.
