Joan of Arc (1412–1431)

A patron saint of the French nation, Joan of Arc was born in the village of Domremy, in the Vosges region of eastern France. Her father owned a small estate and served as a village official. At the time of her birth and childhood, much of France lay in ruins from the conflict with England that had begun more than seventy years earlier. The war had started over English claims to the French throne, claims supported by the powerful dukes of Burgundy. While the English controlled Paris, the capital, the Burgundians held Reims, the traditional site of French coronations. For this reason, the heir to the French throne, the son of King Charles VI, remained an uncrowned dauphin (eldest son of a king) while the English fought for the claim of Henry VI, an infant who ruled through the regent John of Lancaster.

Inspired by visions of the saints to defend France from its powerful enemies, the sixteen-year-old Joan rode to the French camp at Vaucouleurs to demand an audience with the dauphin. At first mocked and refused, she persisted and eventually won over the garrison commander. Arriving in the dauphin's presence at the chateau of Chinon, she asked Charles permission to lead an army to the relief of Orléans, a French city then holding out against an English siege. In a desperate situation, and with little realistic hope of success, the dauphin agreed. In just nine days, however, Joan led the French to victory at Orléans. She was rewarded with co-command of an army, with which she defeated the English at the Battle of Patay. She then marched to Reims, where she witnessed the coronation of the dauphin as Charles VII of France on July 17, 1429.

After the coronation, Joan continued to lead the French against the scattered enemy troops in northern France. At the town of Compiègne, she was captured by a company of Burgundians and then sold to the English. The English governor in France, Duke Henry of Bedford, put her on trial for religious heresy. Her impassioned defense proved futile, as the English and Bishop Cauchon of Beauvais, an ally of England who presided at the trial, were determined to see her dead. She was convicted and burned at the stake in Rouen on May 30, 1431.

Joan's inspired leadership of the demoralized French army proved a turning point in the Hundred Years' War. By the Treaty of Arras in 1435, the Burgundians ended their alliance with the English, who lost Rouen in 1449 and their last stronghold at Calais in 1558. Under the successors of Charles VII, a unified French kingdom emerged that would develop by the end of the Renaissance into the largest and wealthiest realm in Europe.