Joan of Arc

1412 – 1431

Joan of Arc, known in French as Jeanne d'Arc, was a French peasant girl from Domrémy who claimed visions of saints Michael, Catherine, and Margaret directing her to support Charles VII against the English, and who led French forces to victory at the relief of Orléans in 1429 and at Patay later that year. Her wartime conduct included threatening letters to enemy commanders demanding immediate surrender or extermination, the storming of Saint-Pierre-le-Moûtier in 1429, and the unsuccessful assault on Paris in September 1429 in which she was wounded leading an attack on the Saint-Honoré gate. Captured by Burgundian forces at Compiègne in May 1430 and handed to the English, she was tried for heresy and cross-dressing by a pro-English ecclesiastical court at Rouen and burned at the stake on May 30, 1431, at age nineteen.

Last checked: May 10, 2026, 1:06 PM