Definitions for "Joan of Arc"
Keywords:  vii, peasant, charles, arc, saint
French heroine and military leader inspired by religious visions to organize French resistance to the English and to have Charles VII crowned king; she was later tried for heresy and burned at the stake (1412-1431)
French peasant girl who raised the (English) siege of Orleans (1429), which marked the turning point in the Hundred Years War. (p. 391)
(1412-1431), patron saint of France, also called Jeanne d'Arc and the Maid of Orléans. A peasant girl who rallied the French forces to victory in support of the dauphin Charles, later Charles VII of France, she was captured by Burgundian soldiers in 1430 and sold to the English who turned her over to an ecclesiastical court to be tried as a heretic. Charles VII of France failed to defend her and she was eventually burned at the stake in 1431. The church retried her case 25 years later and declared her innocent. She was canonised in 1920.