Joan of Arc is known as the Maid of Orléans and helped Charles VII during the Hundred Years’ War.
Born around 1412 in Domrémy, Joan said that saints had instructed her to support the French dauphin, Charles, and oppose the English occupation. In 1429 she reached the French forces at Orléans, whose relief became a major turning point in the conflict.
Joan helped escort Charles to his coronation at Reims in July 1429. The English captured her near Compiègne in 1430, and an ecclesiastical court condemned her for heresy. She was executed at Rouen on 30 May 1431, aged about nineteen.
A retrial ordered by Pope Callixtus III declared the original proceedings invalid in 1456. Pope Benedict XV canonized Joan in 1920. She is a national heroine of France as well as a Catholic saint.