Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc (c. 1412–1431) was a peasant girl from Domrémy who led French troops against the English in the Hundred Years' War, now a patron saint of France. From about 1425 she saw visions, and in February 1429 she set out in men's clothes to the Dauphin.

She announced she would lift the siege of Orléans and see Charles VII crowned at Reims. She reached Orléans in April 1429 carrying her banner, and the English abandoned the siege nine days later. She persuaded Charles to ride to Reims, where he was crowned with her beside him.

Burgundian troops captured her at Compiègne in 1430 and sold her to the English. Pierre Cauchon tried her for heresy at Rouen; she was burned in the Old Market on 30 May 1431, aged about nineteen. A court annulled the verdict in 1456, and Pope Benedict XV canonised her in 1920.