Joan of Arc
- Jasmine Grace
- 4 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
France, 1429. Between the invading English forces and the English-Allied Duke of Burgundy, much of the northern regions of France were conquered. The French King, Charles VI, had died five years prior, but the new king had not yet been crowned. The French monarchy was in question. Both Dauphin Charles, son and heir of Charles VI, and the English king Henry VI, battled for the crown. Dauphin Charles, despite being the son of the last French king, was not able to crown himself. Reims, in northern France, was the traditional place where French Kings were crowned and held their coronation ceremonies. Unfortunately for Charles, the enemy held the land around Reims.
Until a girl was brought to him, 17 years old, wearing men's clothing and claiming she heard the voice of God. Charles and his advisors were unsure what to do about her at first. They weren't even sure they should let her speak with Charles. Two days after she arrived, she was finally granted an audience with the Dauphin (a title bestowed upon the heir to the crown) and his counsel. She said she wanted to go to war with the English, and that she would have Charles crowned at Reims. That girl was Joan of Arc, and she would indeed go on to lead the French into battle against the English.
Joan of Arc
Joan was the daughter of a tenant farmer, a farmer who didn't own the land they made a living from and had to pay rent on it. Their region was under threat of war, and many of the family's neighbors had already fled. At 16 years old, Joan said she heard the voices of angels and was being told to go to war with the English in the name of Dauphin Charles. She went to the nearest group of soldiers loyal to the Dauphin, but the captain didn't take her claims seriously. She was sent home, and it wasn't until the following year when she showed up once more, calmly, politely, and with an air of patience and well-spoken persuasion, that the captain decided he would bring her to the Dauphin. Joan, dressed in men's clothes, and 6 armed men traveled eleven days through enemy territory to reach Charles.
It took weeks of questioning and tests Joan had to pass before Charles granted her a squire and several hundred soldiers. Joan, along with her brothers, set towards Orléans with their force. Orléans had been under siege, but Joan was told they must wait for reinforcements before they could free the city.
They waited for days, then days became a week. Joan was resting, when she jumped up and announced that she was going to attack the English.
Joan had not been given any formal command over any French troops. She was believed to be there for the inspiration and morale of the soldiers. But she grabbed her sword and hurried to an English fort in the east, and discovered there was already an attack in progress. Her arrival inspired the French, and they were able to take control of the fort. But that wasn't enough for Joan. She led the soldiers to take 2 more English forts. She was then wounded in battle but returned quickly to the fight, and her example led the French to further victories. Joan helped clear the Loire Valley to get to Reims, where the French and English armies met head-on. Joan promised victory to Charles, and she was right.
By July, they had reached Reims, and Dauphin Charles was crowned and became Charles VII.
The Downfall
Even with her initial promise fulfilled, Joan didn't relent. She wanted to keep waging war with the English. While she and the French armies had some victories, none were as prominent as taking back Reims. Joan had several losses during this period as well.
The Capture
Near Compiègne, Joan twice repelled attacks by Burgundy soldiers but was ultimately outflanked by their English reinforcements. She and her soldiers were forced to retreat. While Joan was protecting the rear as the rest of the soldiers crossed the Oise River to safety, the enemy knocked her from her horse, and she was unable to remount. She gave herself up, and she was taken to Margny where the Duke of Burgundy wanted to see her.
Charles VII was working towards a truce with the Duke but did nothing to try to get Joan released. Joan, however, didn't let herself fade away quietly. She was moved to increasingly remote castles as she kept attempting to escape.
The Trial
Joan was eventually tried as a heretic in a Church court. Her claim of visions and voices of God disrupted the hierarchy of the Church, and so the Church framed her visions as blasphemy. Throughout the trial, she kept threatening and attempting to escape and was therefore assigned to have guards in her cell at all times, and was sometimes kept in chains. She swore to tell the truth during her trial, and she did, but through every interrogation, she refused to divulge what she'd said to Charles because her interrogators were enemies of the Crown.
Her trial threatened the credibility of Charles VII. If she was found guilty, then that meant the King of France owed the crown on his head to a heretic and a witch. But despite that, he made no efforts to save her or help prove her innocence.
The Church held 70 charges against her, including blasphemous assumptions about the voices and visions she had, and wearing men's clothes. During the trial, the number of charges dropped from 70 to 12, but Joan fell very ill in prison at this time. She was threatened with torture, as she still wasn't giving the Church all the information and admissions they wanted, but Joan was, at that point, convinced death was imminent for her. When asked where her loyalties lay, she said they were with God. She also said she could be tortured to death, but her responses would not change, and she was hearing the voice of God and that she had not been led astray.
But in the end, she was found guilty. She was tied to a pyre and burned. By all accounts, Joan remained full of faith to the very end.
The Legacy
20 years later, through the efforts and requests of Charles VII and Joan's surviving family, inquiries were opened into Joan's trial, and she was eventually found innocent of her accused crimes.
Then, in 1920, Pope Benedict the XV canonized Joan of Arc, making her officially a saint. Then the French Parliament, in the same year, declared an annual festival in her honor.
Written by Jasmine Grace, University Intern
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