Jeanne d’Arc is a heroine of France and a Roman Catholic saint. Born to a peasant family at Domrémy in north-east France, Joan said she received visions of the Archangel Michael, Saint Margaret, and Saint Catherine instructing her to support Charles VII and recover France from English domination late in the Hundred Years’ War. On 23rd May, 1430, she was captured at Compiègne by the English-allied Burgundian faction, then put on trial by the pro-English Bishop of Beauvais Pierre Cauchon on a variety of charges. She was convicted on 30th May, 1431 and burned at the stake when she was about 19 years old. Twenty-five years after her execution, an inquisitorial court authorized by Pope Callixtus III examined the trial, pronounced her innocent, and declared her a martyr. Joan of Arc was beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1920. She is one of the nine secondary patron saints of France. 


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