Joan of Arc – Jeanne d’Arc (1412 – 1431)

Saint of the Roman Catholic church and French national heroine.

Saint Jeanne d’Arc, The Maid of Orleans is a recognized Saint of the Roman Catholic Church. Although she was excommunicated and burned at the stake for heresy by local officials in 1431, central Church officials would later nullify her excommunication, declaring her a martyr unjustly executed for a secular vendetta. Her legend would grow from there, leading to her beatification in 1909 and her canonization in 1920. The details of the life of Jeanne d’Arc form a biography which is unique among the world’s biographies in one respect: It is the only story of a human life which comes to us under oath, the only one which comes to us from the witness-stand.

The role she played in the Hundred Years’ War.

This war started, with interruptions, from 1337-1453, and began as a dynastic conflict between the English and French royal houses which both laid claim to the French throne. Initially this war went badly for France; the Dauphin, later King Charles VII, had to withdraw for safety to the Castle of Chinon from the English and their allies, the Burgundians. In 1429, the country lass Jeanne d’Arc, managed to reach him at the castle, led by divine inspiration. This started her military successes: with a small army she marched on Orleans which she managed to rid of the English.

Her success was a powerful momentum for French national consciousness. New successes at Patay and Reims followed. The performance of the Pucelle (Virgin) d’ Orleans led to a change in the war in favour of the French. It culminated in the coronation of Charles VII in Reims cathedral on 17 July 1429, in which Jeanne d’Arc held her standard above Charles’s head. A complete English defeat seemed unavoidable, but the siege of Paris in September failed, due to lack of the necessary means. In May 1430, she fell into the hands of the Burgundians, who delivered her to the English. In February 1431, a trial began against her in which she was condemned as a witch. On 30 May 1431, she died at the stake on the Place du Vieux Marché in Rouen.

Sixteenth-century France made her a national heroine.

The men of subsequent centuries took her story for their plays and poems, her image for their statues. She became the spirit of France, the maiden, the holy warrior, the Republican and Napoleonic symbol for opposition to the English and for those who would protect France from foreign domination.

In the Second World War Charles de Gaulle used her standard, the Cross of Lorraine, as the symbol of Free France.

In 1920 she was canonized as a saint by Pope Benedict XV.