Joan of Arc (1412-1431)

   Joan, or Jeanne d'Arc as she is known in France, was born at Domremy, near Nancy.  She was a strong and healthy child, of good peasant stock, and like most peasants of the time, she never learned how to read or write.  She grew up as a devout Catholic under her deeply religious mother.  Joan called herself Jeanne la Pucelle (Joan the Maid).  By the age of 13, Joan was having religious visions and hearing what she believed were the voices of saints.  These voices in time persuaded her that God himself (or herself) had chosen her to help King Charles VII of France drive the English from French soil, who at the time occupied much of France during the Hundred Year's War.  Early in 1429, at the age of 17, Joan left to serve the will of God.

    The people of southern France had recognized young King Charles VII as their ruler since 1422.  However, his enemies, the English and the Burgundians (French who supported the English), controlled Paris and the nothern region of France.  The people there did not acknowledge Charles as their king.  Charles had never been crowned, since the city of Reims, where French kings had historically been crowned, lay in the hands of the English.  To further compound the situation, the constant quarreling of his advisors and the empty state of the treasury made Charles's rule extremely difficult.  His situation was so desparate that he was willing to listen to a young girl, a peasant even, who had arrived at his castle in Chinon claiming to have heard the voices of saints.

    While many believed upon first hearing Joan's story that she was indeed a witch or an agent of the devil, members of the clergy accepted Joan's beliefs, so Charles gave her armor, a banner, and the command of troops.  Joan set out with her army in April of 1429 to rescue Orleans from the English.  At first, the French commanders were hesitant to obey her.  However, they soon realized that all went well when they followed her orders.  Joan's forces broke the siege of Orleans in a mere 10 days, and the English fled.

    After this victory, Joan persuaded Charles of the need for a coronation.  For a deeply religious person like Joan, Charles was not a true king unless he was crowned in the cathedral at Reims.  She led Carles and his military escort through enemy territory, and her troops defeated the English in several battles along the way.  Joan entered the city in triumph and stood beside Charles when he was crowned king on July 17, 1429.

    At this time the impatience of youth began to surface in Joan - afterall, she was only 17, a time when most teenage girls in America are concerned with clothes and boys, Joan was saving all of France.  Joan asked Charles to let her take her army and try and liberate Paris, but the king doubted her chances at the current time.  However, he let her make an attempt nonetheless.

   In September 1429, Joan was wounded in a minor battle near Paris.  In May 1430, the Burgundians captured her at Compiegne.  Although important prisoners could demand exorbitant ransoms, the English were determined not to give her up to the French.  They acquired her for a large sum.

    The English saw Joan as an agent of the devil.  How else could a young peasant girl nearly single-handedly defeat the English at every turn?  They imprisoned her and tried her on charges of witchcraft and heresy (disbelief in the accepted religion).  She was beat, bullied, tortured, and even raped by the prison guards on a daily basis - but she continued to insist that her visions and voices had come from God, and she adamantly refused to recant her beliefs.  However, a tribunal of French clergy sympathetic to the English sentenced her to death.

    On May 30, 1431, Joan was burned at the stake before a large crowd in Rouen.  Her courageous death led many to fear that they had witnessed the martyrdom of saint.  And they did.  However, since heretics could not receive a Christian burial, her ashes were thrown into the Seine River.

    In 1455, Joan's family asked for a new trial to reconsider the charges against Joan.  Pope Callistus III granted a hearing.  In 1456, he pronounced Joan innocent.  Pope Pius X  beatified (set up preliminary steps towards sainthood) her, and Pope Benedict XV declared Joan a saint in 1920.  Her feast day, the day of her death, is May 30.

Joan of Arc - The World's Only Female Paladin?

   Perhaps no other person in history exemplifies the virtues of the paladin as greatly as Joan of Arc.  She was deeply religious, extremely courageous, and despite all odds and physical hardships, she fought for what she believed in, to the death.  Although she was a woman, she died a death most men would have done anything to avoid - even renouncing their faith.  Joan, however, did not - her mere nineteen years of life probably were more worthwhile and meaningful than the lives of ten ordinary men.  Sadly, like the paladins of myth and legend, Joan too was betrayed by the very people she swore her life to fight for and protect.  King Charles VII did nothing to attempt a rescue of the woman who had helped crown him king, and left her to die by the hands of the English.

Joan of Arc Facts

Joan's armor, a full suit of gothic platemail crafted to fit her body, weighed around eighty pounds.  How a seventeen year old girl of average build and height could bear such a load into battle is a mystery historians will ponder for ages.

The only thing Joan could read or write was her own name.