S JOAN OF ARC (1412-1431)

 Born of a fairly well-to-do peasant couple in the southeast of Paris, Joan was only 12 when she experienced a vision and heard voices that she later identified as Saints 

    Michael the Archangel, Catherine of Alexandria, and Margaret of Antioch. During the Hundred Years War, Joan led French troops against the English and recaptured the cities of 

    Orléans and Troyes. This enabled Charles VII to be crowned as king in Reims in 1429. Captured near Compiegne the following year, Joan was sold to the English and placed on trial 

    for heresy and witchcraft. Professors at the University of Paris supported Bishop Pierre Cauchon of Beauvis, the judge at her trial; Cardinal Henry Beaufort of Winchester, England, 

    participated in the questioning of Joan in prison. In the end, she was condemned for wearing men’s clothes. The English resented France’s military success–to which Joan contributed. 

    In 1431, Joan was burned at the stake in Rouen, and her ashes were scattered in the Seine River. A second Church trial 25 years later nullified the earlier verdict, 

    which was reached under political pressure. Remembered by most people for her military exploits, Joan had a great love for the sacraments, 

    which strengthened her compassion toward the poor. Popular devotion to her increased greatly in 19th-century France and later among French soldiers during World War I. 

    Burned at the stake as a heretic after a politically-motivated trial, Joan was beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1920.





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