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Joan of Arc ( French: Jeanne d'Arc [ʒan daʁk]; Middle French: Jehanne Darc [ʒəˈãnə ˈdark]; c. 1412 – 30 May 1431) is a patron saint of France, honored as a defender of the French nation for her role in the siege of Orléans and her insistence on the coronation of Charles VII of France during the Hundred Years' War.
- Overview
- Joan of Arc's Trial Was an International Sensation
- Death, Then Sainthood
- HISTORY Vault: Joan of Arc: Soul on Fire
The French heroine and saint was labeled a heretic, fraud, sorceress and cross-dresser.
The English claimed many offenses against Joan of Arc. But when they burned her at the stake in Rouen, France on May 30, 1431, they not only immortalized the 19-year-old, but made her a national symbol for the French cause during the long-fought Hundred Years’ War.
Born a peasant in a small French village, the illiterate girl claimed to hear divine voices and see visions of St. Michael, St. Catherine of Alexandria and St. Margaret of Antioch from the age of 13. Their message: Help Charles VII, heir of Charles VI, be named the rightful king of France.
Convincing Charles to let her fight—and dressed as a man—Joan led the liberation of Orleans, triumphed with other victories against the English, and soon Charles VII was crowned. But a series of missteps, including her failure to liberate Paris followed, and on May 23, 1430, she was captured by the Duke of Burgundy’s men, jailed for more than a year and put on trial for charges including heresy, witchcraft and violating divine law for dressing like a man.
At the time of Joan’s trial, which began January 9, 1431, her notoriety could not have been greater, writes historian Helen Castor in her 2015 book Joan of Arc: A History.
“As the opening of the trial record noted, ‘The report has now become well known in many places that this woman, utterly disregarding what is honourable in the female sex, breaking the bounds of modesty, and forgetting all female decency, has disgracefully put on the clothing of the male sex, a striking and vile monstrosity. And what is more, her presumption went so far that she dared to do, say and disseminate many things beyond and contrary to the Catholic faith and injurious to the articles of its orthodox belief.’
Perhaps no event during the Middle Ages created a bigger international sensation, writes Daniel Hobbins in his 2005 book, The Trial of Joan of Arc. “‘Such wonders she performed,’ wrote the German theologian Johannes Nider, ‘that not just France but every Christian kingdom stands amazed.’”
According to the trial transcript, Joan was questioned repeatedly not only about the voices she heard, but on why she chose to dress as a man.
“It is both more seemly and proper to dress like this when surrounded by men, than wearing a woman’s clothes,” she told the judges. “While I have been in prison, the English have molested me when I was dressed as a woman. (She weeps.) I have done this to defend my modesty.”
Joan of Arc, as painted by artist Jules Bastien-Lepage, in the moment when Saints Michael, Margaret, and Catherine appear to her in her parents’ garden, rousing her to fight the English invaders in the Hundred Years War.
During the trial, St. Mary’s University notes, Joan faced six public and nine private examinations, culminating in The Twelve Articles of Accusation, which included the charges of dressing in men’s clothing and hearing voices of the divine. The church officials found her guilty, urging her to repent in order to save her life.
The trial itself was an ecclesiastical procedure covered under canon law—a heresy investigation carried out as an inquisition, according to Hobbins.
On May 24 Joan signed a retraction, and, on the condition she would dress as a woman, her death sentence was reduced to life in prison. But four days later, she said the voices had returned and she was again found dressed in men’s clothing. All 27 trial masters pronounced her a relapsed heretic.
According to Hobbin’s trial translation, they declared: “Whenever the deadly poison of heresy infects a member of the Church, who is then transformed into a member of Satan, utmost care must be taken to keep the contagion of the disease from spreading to other parts of the mystical body of Christ.”
A statue of Joan of Arc in the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, where she was beatified.
“We say and determine that you have falsely imagined revelations and divine apparitions, that you are a pernicious temptress, presumptuous, credulous, rash, superstitious, a false prophetess, a blasphemer against God and his saints, scornful of God in his sacraments, a transgressor of divine law, sacred doctrine, and ecclesiastical decrees; that you are seditious, cruel, apostate, schismatic, straying in many ways from our faith; and that in these ways you have rashly sinned against God and his Church.”
On May 30, 1431, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake.
The Hundred Years’ War waged on until 1453, with the French finally beating back the English invaders. In 1450, Joan’s guilty verdict was overturned by a Rehabilitation Trial ordered by Charles VII. Joan’s legend grew, and, in 1909 she was beatified in the famous Notre Dame cathedral in Paris by Pope Pius X. In 1920, she was canonized by Pope Benedict XV.
A teenage girl so dangerous, she had to be burned at the stake. Discover how an illiterate peasant girl took command of an army and placed a king on the throne of France.
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- Lesley Kennedy
Nov 9, 2009 · Joan of Arc, a peasant girl, became a military leader in medieval France. After being burned at the stake by authorities, she became a beloved martyr and saint.
- 4 min
Aug 13, 2022 · Destined to save the French from English incursion, she was burnt at the stake in 1431 at the age of 19 after a corrupt Church trial found her guilty of heresy.
Jun 5, 2024 · Joan of Arc, national heroine of France, a peasant girl who, believing that she was acting under divine guidance, led the French army in a momentous victory that repulsed an English attempt to conquer France during the Hundred Years’ War. Captured a year afterward, Joan was burned to death as a heretic.
Nov 24, 2009 · On May 30, 1431, at Rouen in English-controlled Normandy, Joan of Arc, the peasant girl who became the savior of France, is burned at the stake for heresy. Joan was born in 1412, the daughter of...
The court found her guilty of heresy and she was burned at the stake. The verdict was later nullified at Joan's rehabilitation trial, which was overseen by the Inquisitor-General, Jean Bréhal, in 1456. Considered a French national heroine, she was declared a saint by the Roman Catholic Church in 1920.
