Joan of Arc

Joan was born in Domrémy, a village in northeastern France, the daughter of a farmer. France was then losing the Hundred Years' War against England and its Burgundian allies, and the heir to the French throne, Charles, had not been crowned. From about thirteen Joan said she heard the voices of Saint Michael, Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret, who told her to help Charles. In 1429, at seventeen, she persuaded a local commander to send her to Charles, who, after she was examined by theologians, let her ride with the army to relieve the besieged city of Orléans. The siege was lifted within days, and after further victories she stood beside Charles when he was crowned at Reims. In 1430 she was captured by the Burgundians and sold to the English. At Rouen a church court friendly to the English tried her for heresy; the records of her answers survive. She was condemned and burned at the stake on 30 May 1431, aged about nineteen. A later court overturned the verdict in 1456, and she was declared a saint in 1920.

Faith: French Catholic heroine executed in 1431; canonized in 1920 by Pope Benedict XV. Source: Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)