Joan of Arc: Between History and Legend

Unraveling the real story of the Maid of Orléans — through faith, fire, and history.

Introduction

Few figures in medieval history stir the imagination like Joan of Arc. A peasant girl from the small village of Domrémy, she claimed to hear divine voices, led French troops to pivotal victories in the Hundred Years' War, and died burned at the stake—only to be canonized centuries later. Her story is both fact and folklore, embraced by historians, the Church, and popular culture alike.

This article explores Joan of Arc's history—the known facts, disputed visions, and enduring myths. From her meteoric rise as a female warrior in a war-torn medieval France to the spiritual symbolism she carries today, we trace her path across the blurred line between history and legend.

The France Joan of Arc Was Born Into

Born in 1412 during the Hundred Years' War, Joan of Arc entered a kingdom fractured on several fronts. The 1420 Treaty of Troyes had declared that the English king — not the French dauphin Charles — would inherit the throne of France, and large swaths of northern territory lay under Anglo-Burgundian control. In this tense landscape, royal authority was contested, loyalties were split, and France's very survival as a unified kingdom seemed uncertain.

Joan's home village of Domrémy, in the duchy of Bar, sat near the fault line between rival factions. Raids, shifting alliances, and rumors of advancing armies were part of village life. Local people prayed for protection to saints and the Virgin Mary while living with the daily reality of war taxes, destroyed crops, and displaced families. It was from this borderland world — half-rural, half-battle zone — that a teenage peasant girl would come forward claiming a divine mission to restore France.

• Dynastic crisis: Two claimants to the French crown, with the English king recognized in Paris and the dauphin Charles holding court in the Loire valley.
• Internal civil war: French factions — especially Armagnacs and Burgundians — fighting each other as well as the English.
• Everyday hardship: Villages like Domrémy exposed to pillaging, shifting front lines, and spiritual anxiety about sin, war, and God's judgment.

A Peasant Childhood in Domrémy

Joan was born to Jacques d'Arc, a moderately prosperous farmer and minor village official, and Isabelle Romée, known for her piety. Unlike the armored heroine of later paintings, the historical Joan grew up doing ordinary rural work — tending animals, spinning wool, helping with harvests, and walking to the small village church for Mass and confession. She was probably illiterate, like most peasants of her time, and dictated the letters we know from her campaigns and trial.

Witnesses at her later rehabilitation trial described Joan as serious, devout, and unusually dedicated to prayer. She spent time in church, gave alms when she could, and was known for making vows to the Virgin Mary. This reputation for honesty and religious sincerity mattered when she later appeared at court: the dauphin's counselors were not only assessing a military volunteer, but a young woman whose character and faith might convince God-fearing elites that her mission was more than a wild fantasy.

The Visions and Divine Mission

At about thirteen, Joan began to report visions and voices that she believed came from Saint Michael, Saint Catherine, and Saint Margaret. At first, the messages urged her to live a good Christian life; only later, she said, did they reveal a specific mission: drive out the English, lift the siege of Orléans, and bring Charles to Reims to be crowned as the rightful king of France.

For Joan, these experiences were not vague inspirations but precise instructions from God. She described the voices as beautiful and authoritative, accompanied at times by dazzling light. Medieval churchmen took such claims seriously — visions could come from God, the devil, or human imagination — so her story was examined by theologians before she was allowed near the army. They did not certify her as a prophet, but they found nothing obviously heretical in her beliefs or behavior and allowed Charles to employ her.

Modern writers have suggested many explanations for Joan's visions — from spiritual ecstasy and intense religious imagination to medical theories such as migraines or neurological conditions. Whatever their cause, the historical record is clear on one point: her absolute confidence in these voices shaped her courage in battle, her defiance at trial, and the way contemporaries remembered her as someone who genuinely believed she was acting under divine command.

“I am not afraid… I was born to do this.” — Joan of Arc

The Maid of Orléans — Military Triumph and Symbolism

In April 1429, Joan joined a French relief force heading toward Orléans, a besieged city whose fall could have opened the Loire valley to further English advance. She rode in white armor, carrying a banner with the names of Jesus and Mary, and quickly became a focus of hope for soldiers and townspeople. Within days of her arrival, the French launched a series of coordinated assaults on the English fortifications around the city, breaking the siege after months of stalemate.

The victory at Orléans was followed by the Loire campaign and a rapid march to Reims. French forces, with Joan present at the front, captured key bridges and towns, routed an English army at Patay, and opened the road to the traditional coronation site. On 17 July 1429, Charles was crowned Charles VII of France in Reims Cathedral, with Joan standing near the royal banner. In barely three months, the “Maid of Orléans” had helped transform a demoralized war into a story of divine favor and renewed French confidence.

Capture, Trial, and Execution

In 1430, while trying to help defend the town of Compiègne, Joan was captured in a skirmish by Burgundian troops, allies of the English. Rather than being treated as a prisoner of war, she was sold to the English and taken to Rouen, the political center of their occupation government in northern France. There, a church court led by Bishop Pierre Cauchon opened a months-long inquiry meant as much to discredit Charles VII as to condemn the “Maid.”

The trial records show dozens of interrogations in which Joan faced trained theologians without legal counsel. She was pressed about her visions, her refusal to submit them unconditionally to the court, and especially her choice of clothing — wearing men's military dress in camp and prison. In a moment of pressure, she signed an abjuration promising to abandon her “errors,” but when she later resumed male dress in her cell, the judges treated this as a relapse into heresy.

• Main accusations: claiming divine authority for her mission, disobeying church officials, and wearing male clothing against contemporary gender norms.
• Political context: condemning Joan undermined Charles VII by portraying his consecration as the work of a heretic rather than God's chosen servant.
• Verdict: she was condemned as a relapsed heretic — legally more serious than first-time error — and handed over to secular authorities for punishment.

On May 30, 1431, at the age of about nineteen, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake in the market square of Rouen. Contrary to a common myth, she was executed for heresy and stubborn disobedience, not formally for witchcraft. Eyewitness accounts describe her calling on the name of Jesus as she died, a detail later emphasized by those who saw her not as a criminal, but as a martyr.

Myth-Making and Canonization

After her death, Joan's story did not end — it changed shape. In 1456, a posthumous retrial ordered by the papacy and Charles VII declared the Rouen judgment null and void. Witnesses from Domrémy, soldiers, and clergy testified to her piety and courage, portraying the original proceedings as unjust and politically motivated. Joan was formally cleared of heresy and remembered as someone who had died “in the grace of God.”

Over the following centuries, she was romanticized in chronicles, plays, and paintings. Monarchists praised her loyalty to the king, revolutionaries admired her as a child of the people, and later nationalists claimed her as a symbol of French resistance to foreign occupation. Like other dramatic episodes explored in History Prime's history of the Inquisition and our article on the Black Death, Joan's trial and death became a lens through which later generations argued about power, justice, and faith.

In 1909 she was beatified, and in 1920 the Catholic Church canonized her as Saint Joan of Arc, patron saint of France. By then, her image circulated widely in print, alongside other iconic 15th-century figures such as Leonardo da Vinci, Mehmed II the Conqueror, and the explorers and inventors featured in our articles on the printing press, Columbus’s 1492 voyage, and Machu Picchu. The once-local peasant girl from Domrémy had become a global cultural icon.

Myths and Misconceptions About Joan of Arc

• Myth: Joan of Arc was executed as a witch.
  Reality: Her sentence described her as a relapsed heretic. Accusations of sorcery were part of the atmosphere around the trial, but the formal legal charge focused on heresy and disobedience, especially her return to male clothing.
• Myth: Joan personally led cavalry charges and fought hand-to-hand in every battle.
  Reality: She wore armor, rode with the troops, and sometimes stood in the most dangerous positions, but she served above all as standard-bearer, strategist, and motivator working alongside experienced commanders rather than replacing them.
• Myth: Joan was a lone rebel against the Church.
  Reality: She saw herself as a faithful medieval Catholic and attended Mass whenever she could. Her conflict was with a particular court aligned with English interests, not with the idea of the Church itself.
• Myth: Joan was immediately hailed as a saint after her death.
  Reality: Although some contemporaries regarded her as a martyr, official recognition took centuries. She was rehabilitated in 1456 but not canonized until 1920, after long debate about her life, visions, and legacy.
• Myth: Modern science has definitively explained Joan's visions as a specific illness.
  Reality: Scholars have suggested many possibilities, from neurological conditions to psychological stress, but there is no single, proven medical diagnosis. Historians instead focus on how those visions were understood in Joan's own time.

Joan of Arc—Legend vs. Reality

The Joan of Arc legend continues to blur the line between truth and tale. Her story is interpreted through countless lenses: religious, feminist, political, and cultural.

Conclusion: Joan of Arc's Enduring Legacy

Today, Joan of Arc remains a powerful symbol across cultures. For the faithful, she is a saint; for feminists, a pioneer; for historians, a case study in how individuals can shape the world. Her life bridges the gap between historical reality and mythic resonance, making her one of the most complex and captivating figures in all of human history.

So, was Joan of Arc real? Undoubtedly. But how much of what we “know” is Joan of Arc history, and how much is legend, will likely remain one of the enduring mysteries of the past.

Her story also helps place the 15th century in a wider frame. The same age that saw Joan riding beneath the walls of Orléans also witnessed the rise of new powers and technologies — from the Ottoman advances under Mehmed II to the information revolution explored in our article on the printing press. Seen alongside these changes, Joan of Arc becomes not only a singular heroine, but part of a broader century in which war, faith, exploration, and innovation reshaped the medieval world.