I’m going to talk about the story of Joan of Arc because I’ve always admire this woman for her courage, determination and firm faith. She’s a patron saint of France and she spent all her life protecting and encouraging the people who lived in her country. Joan was born in 1412 in Domremy, in the kingdom of France.In her youth, Joan did household chores and helped his father in the fields. Her religious education came from her mother.
In 1425 the war arrived in Domremy and the castle was attacked and ploundered. In this year Joan had her first vision from a figure identified as Saint Micheal: the angel appeared to the girl, at the age of thirteen, teling her to help Prince Charles to save France from the English domination.
Later she was taken to Prince Charles. They met for the first time in the court of Chinon, where she told him about her vision and that she had come to lead him to Reims for his coronation. They had a private conversation and Charles, convinced of Joan’ s devotion, sent the girl in a relief army directly to Orléans.Joan arrived in 1429 bringing hope to the French army.
The English abandoned the siege nine days after her arrival.For this event the French army started to believe in Joan, after another victory at Patay, in the Loire Compagnie. The French army could advance unopposed on Reims, where Charles was crowned as the King of France and Joan was at his side.
Thanks to this victory, the war of the French army lifted, leading France to the victory of the Hundred Years, several decades later.After some lost battles, the court lost faith in her. So Joan organized a group of volunteers to relieve Compiegne , which had been besieged by the Burgundian. The battle, unfortunately, didn’t go as planned, and Joan was captured by the enemy and handed to the English.
There is not any evidence that Charles tried to save Joan: she was put on a trial for heresy, accused of having blasphemed by wearing men’s clothes, of acting in based on visions that were demoniac, and refusing to submit her word and actions to the Church because she affirmed that she would have been judged only by God.Joan defended herself by saying that she performed the deeds that God instructed her to do.
During the trial, Joan didn’t give a particular reason of why she crossdressed.She was presented with a abjuration document, for this Joan had to wear women’s dress and and not bear arms, and she had her head shaved.Later she was put in a cell and kept in chains.In the end, forty-two assessors voted for her death. She was allowed to receive the Holy Sacraments, and then taken to Rouen’s Vieux-Marché,where she her sentence of condemnation was read in pubblic .She was tied to a pillar for execution by burning, on 30th may 1431.
She burned while she was dying, and her remains were thrown into the Seine River.
In 1456 an inquisitorial court reinvestigated Joan’s trial and declared her innocent. So Joan has been revered as a martyr,an obedient of the church and a early feminist and a symbol of freedom and independence.For all of this she is a saint and a symbol of France
