Divine voices guided a young girl to lead the French against the English. Burned as a heretic in 1431, the Maid of Orléans was both shaped and destroyed by the religious fervor and politics.
BY THE END of 1430 the rulers of England and France, who had been locked in a war for decades, became increasingly preoccupied by the fate of an 18-year-old peasant girl. In December the faculty of the University of Paris wrote a letter to the king of England, who controlled Paris at that time: “We have recently heard that the woman called The Maid is now delivered into your power, (and)… must humbly beseech you, most feared and sovereign lord… to command that this woman shall be shortly delivered into the hands of the justice of the Church.”
The Maid was Joan of Arc, whose role in liberating the city of Orléans in 1429 had put courage back into the hearts of the embattled French. Even so, her capture soon after was a morale boost for the English, who immediately set out to vilify the woman who had done so much damage to their military campaigns. Shortly after the letter from the University of Paris was written, her trial took place. After the guilty verdict was handed down, Joan was executed in Rouen on May 30, 1431, by being burned alive.
Once her ashes had been scattered in the Seine River, Joan’s detractors hoped her name would be erased from history, but her name has burned more brightly in the hearts and minds of the French ever since then. The humble farm girl turned the tide for the French in the closing years of the Hundred Years’ War. Her claims that the divine voices she heard would lead France to victory made her one of the most celebrated figures of late medieval history. (Read more about the history of the devil in the Middle Ages.)
Portrayed by her enemies as a heretic, a witch, and a madwoman, she was later pardoned and eventually recognized as a saint by the Catholic Church. Today, she is a national hero of the French. Although historians regard Joan’s role as one of many factors in the winning of a complex war, her presence both as a warrior and spiritual visionary sparked the beginnings of France’s rise as a great European power.
Martyrdom of the Maid Joan of Arc, bound and dressed in a white chemise, is led to her execution site in the market square of Rouen. The pope annulled her conviction in the 1450s, and she was canonized in 1920. Painting by Isidore Patrois, 1867. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen
By the end of 1430 the rulers of England and France, who had been locked in a war for decades, became increasingly preoccupied by the fate of an 18-year-old peasant girl. In December the faculty of the University of Paris wrote a letter to the king of England, who controlled Paris at that time: “We have recently heard that the woman called The Maid is now delivered into your power, (and)… must humbly beseech you, most feared and sovereign lord… to command that this woman shall be shortly delivered into the hands of the justice of the Church.”
The Maid was Joan of Arc, whose role in liberating the city of Orléans in 1429 had put courage back into the hearts of the embattled French. Even so, her capture soon after was a morale boost for the English, who immediately set out to vilify the woman who had done so much damage to their military campaigns. Shortly after the letter from the University of Paris was written, her trial took place. After the guilty verdict was handed down, Joan was executed in Rouen on May 30, 1431, by being burned alive.
Once her ashes had been scattered in the Seine River, Joan’s detractors hoped her name would be erased from history, but her name has burned more brightly in the hearts and minds of the French ever since then. The humble farm girl turned the tide for the French in the closing years of the Hundred Years’ War. Her claims that the divine voices she heard would lead France to victory made her one of the most celebrated figures of late medieval history.
Portrayed by her enemies as a heretic, a witch, and a madwoman, she was later pardoned and eventually recognized as a saint by the Catholic Church. Today, she is a national hero of the French. Although historians regard Joan’s role as one of many factors in the winning of a complex war, her presence both as a warrior and spiritual visionary sparked the beginnings of France’s rise as a great European power.
The Warrior Maid
Joan of Arc was born in 1412 in Domrémy, a small village in northeastern France near the border of the lands controlled by the English. From the age of 13, Joan claimed to have heard divine voices and seen visions of St. Michael, St. Catherine of Alexandria, and St. Margaret of Antioch. These divine messengers, she said, were urging her to go to the aid of the man who was the rightful king of France: Charles of Valois, son of Charles VI, whom the English had disinherited.
Touched by the War Often depicted as a fierce warrior, Joan also recoiled from the grim realities of battle, according to accounts. During the first day she fought to lift the siege of Orléans, she is said to have wept for the fallen on both sides. 15th-century helmet. British Museum, London
Because Paris lay deep in English-held territory, Charles had been forced to set up a makeshift court at Chinon on the Loire River. In 1428, Joan traveled there to explain her divine mission to Charles, but was turned away before she could meet with him. She returned to Chinon the following year and was able to convince a panel of theologians of her claim that she had been sent to “liberate France from its calamities.” They granted the teenager an audience with the exiled heir.
Joan informed Charles that divine voices wished her to fight the English and that her participation would lead to his coronation at Reims, the sacred site where France’s kings were crowned. After much examination, she won over Charles and his followers. They decided to put her to use at Orléans, a city under English siege.
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