Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc was a French visionary and wartime leader during the Hundred Years War. She helped lift the siege of Orleans in 1429, supported Charles VII's coronation at Reims, was captured by Burgundian forces, tried by an English-backed church court, and executed in 1431.

Born: c. 1412 CE
Died: 1431 CE
Role: Wartime leader

French wartime leader (c. 1412-1431)

c. 1412-1431 CE

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Portrait of Joan of Arc in armour with her banner

Quick facts

Profile details

Additional identity and tagging details that are not already covered in the introduction.

Also known as: Jeanne d'Arc, Joan

Facts

Joan of Arc timeline facts

Selected specifics from this profile's life story.

c. 1412-1428: Voices and mission
1429: Orleans
1430-1431: Capture and trial
After 1431: Legacy

Life Journey

A village girl who changed the direction of a war

Follow Joan's life from Domremy to Orleans, Reims, trial and memory.

1 of 5/Voices and mission

Next: Orleans

c. 1412-1428

Voices and mission

Joan grew up in Domremy during a war-torn period and came to believe that saints had given her a mission to help the Dauphin Charles.

1429

Orleans

Joan joined French forces at Orleans and helped inspire the attacks that lifted the English siege in May 1429.

1429

Reims and legitimacy

Joan pushed Charles to Reims, where his coronation strengthened his claim to be the rightful king of France.

1430-1431

Capture and trial

Joan was captured near Compiegne, handed to the English, tried by an English-backed church court and executed at Rouen in 1431.

After 1431

Legacy

Joan's conviction was later overturned, and her memory became central to French ideas of courage, sacrifice and national resistance.

c. 1412-1428

Voices and mission

Joan grew up in Domremy during a war-torn period and came to believe that saints had given her a mission to help the Dauphin Charles.

Complete chronology

Full overview and deeper context for every journey step.

c. 1412-1428

Voices and mission

Joan was born into a village world shaped by insecurity, local violence and the wider collapse of French royal confidence. Her claim that saints commanded her to aid the Dauphin Charles was extraordinary, but it arrived when the Valois cause badly needed hope. Joan's importance began before battle. She gave political despair a language of divine purpose, making resistance feel possible again.

A message can become powerful when it answers the fear of an entire political community.

1429

Orleans

Orleans was strategically and emotionally vital. Joan did not command alone, but her presence changed the atmosphere of the campaign. French forces acted with renewed aggression, attacked English siege positions and lifted the siege. The victory showed that English pressure could be broken and that Charles's cause was not doomed.

Morale can alter military reality when it changes what commanders and soldiers dare to attempt.

1429

Reims and legitimacy

The march to Reims turned battlefield momentum into political legitimacy. French kings were traditionally crowned there, and Charles VII's coronation allowed supporters to present him as an anointed monarch rather than a regional claimant. Joan's campaign therefore attacked the Treaty of Troyes not only with arms, but with ceremony and belief.

A crown can be a weapon when legitimacy is the thing being fought over.

1430-1431

Capture and trial

Joan's enemies understood that her symbolic power had to be destroyed as well as contained. Her trial attacked the spiritual claims that had made her politically dangerous. Condemned as a heretic, she was burned at Rouen in 1431. The execution removed Joan from the war, but it could not undo what Orleans and Reims had already changed.

Destroying a person does not always destroy the meaning others have attached to them.

After 1431

Legacy

Joan's posthumous reputation outgrew the immediate politics of 1431. A later rehabilitation trial overturned the verdict against her, while French victory made her intervention look prophetic rather than futile. She became one of the most powerful figures in French historical memory: soldier, martyr, saint and symbol of a kingdom recovering itself.

Historical memory often grows strongest when a life is short but its consequences are immense.

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