Joan of Arc Timeline

In July 1428, the English started to surround Orléans and nearly isolated it from the rest of Charles's territory by capturing many of the smaller bridge towns on the Loire River. The siege threatened the last major stronghold blocking an English advance deeper into France.

Image source: Siege of Orléans

Around February 1429, the English captured an Armagnac relief convoy at the Battle of the Herrings during the Siege of Orléans. Around this time, Baudricourt agreed to a third meeting with Joan, ultimately leading him to support her journey to Chinon.

Image source: Battle of the Herrings

Joan arrived at the city of Orléans in April 1429, wielding her banner and bringing hope to the demoralized French army. Her presence galvanized the defenders and marked a turning point in the siege.

In the last week of April 1429, Joan set out from Blois as part of an army carrying supplies for the relief of Orléans. The convoy fought its way into the besieged city, boosting morale and enabling counterattacks against the English lines.

The English siege of Orléans was broken on 8 May 1429, a decisive turning point in the Hundred Years' War. As early as 1429, Orléans began holding an annual celebration in honor of the raising of the siege on that date, which Joan came to centralize.

Following the Loire campaign and the opening of Reims, Charles VII was crowned king of France, fulfilling Joan's insistence that he be crowned. The coronation legitimized his claim to the throne and strengthened the Armagnac cause.

Reims opened its gates on 16 July 1429, allowing Charles VII to be crowned in the traditional coronation city of French kings. Joan had insisted on the coronation of Charles VII as essential to saving France from English domination.

Image source: Reims

After Charles's coronation, Joan participated in the unsuccessful siege of Paris in September 1429. The attack failed to retake the capital from the Burgundians and English, marking a setback for the French cause.

Image source: Siege of Paris (1429)

After the failed siege of Paris, Joan participated in the failed siege of La Charité in November 1429. Another setback for the French forces, it demonstrated the limits of their momentum following the victories earlier in the year.

Image source: La Charité-sur-Loire

In early 1430, Joan organized a company of volunteers to relieve Compiègne, which had been besieged by the Burgundians—French allies of the English. She set out with her company at the end of March 1430 to relieve the town.

Image source: Siege of Compiègne

Despite Joan's execution, Charles remained king of France, even as a rival coronation was held for the ten-year-old Henry VI of England at Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris in 1431. The dual coronations underscored the contested nature of the French throne.

In 1435, the Burgundians signed the Treaty of Arras, abandoning their alliance with England. This diplomatic shift deprived the English of their most important French ally and paved the way for French reconquests.

Image source: Congress of Arras

Twenty-two years after Joan's death, the Hundred Years' War ended with a French victory at the Battle of Castillon in 1453, and the English were expelled from all of France except Calais. Joan's efforts had helped set the stage for the final French triumph.

Image source: Battle of Castillon

On 23 May 1430, Joan accompanied an Armagnac force which sortied from Compiègne to attack the Burgundian camp at Margny, northeast of the town. During the engagement she was captured by the Burgundians and subsequently handed over to the English.

Joan was put on trial for heresy in Rouen on 9 January 1431. The trial, conducted under English auspices, sought to discredit her and her claims of divine guidance through charges of heresy.

Image source: Trial of Joan of Arc

Joan was declared guilty and burned at the stake on 30 May 1431, aged about nineteen. Her execution made her a martyr in French eyes and did not halt the eventual French recovery in the Hundred Years' War.

On 15 February 1450, a few months after he regained Rouen, Charles ordered Guillaume Bouillé, a theologian and former rector of the University of Paris, to open an inquest into Joan's trial. This began the formal process of reexamining her conviction.

Image source: François Claude Amour, marquis de Bouillé

In 1452, a second inquest into Joan's trial was opened by Cardinal Guillaume d'Estouteville, papal legate and relative of Charles, and Jean Bréhal, the recently appointed Inquisitor of France, who interviewed about 20 witnesses.

Image source: Guillaume d'Estouteville

In 1454, Jean Bréhal forwarded a petition from Joan's mother, Isabelle, and Joan's two brothers Jean and Pierre, to Pope Nicholas V. This petition helped initiate the process that would lead to the overturning of Joan's conviction.

Image source: Jean Bréhal

After Nicholas V died in early 1455, the new pope Callixtus III gave permission for a rehabilitation trial, appointing three commissioners to oversee the process. The trial began on 7 November 1455 at Notre Dame Cathedral when Joan's mother publicly delivered a formal request for her daughter's rehabilitation.

Image source: Rehabilitation trial of Joan of Arc

In 1456, an inquisitorial court reinvestigated Joan's trial and overturned the verdict, declaring that it was tainted by deceit and procedural errors. The rehabilitation trial ended on 7 July 1456 at Rouen Cathedral, having heard from about 115 witnesses.

By 1435, a play, Mistère du siège d'Orléans (Mystery of the Siege of Orléans), portrayed Joan as the vehicle of the divine will that liberated Orléans. She had become a central part of the annual celebration held by the city since 1429.

The first written record of Joan being called 'Jeanne d'Ay de Domrémy' is in 1455, twenty-four years after her death. She had been called this name in Charles VII's 1429 letter granting her a coat of arms, though no standard spelling of her name existed before the sixteenth century.

In the sixteenth century, Joan became known as the 'Maid of Orleans'. Louis XII commissioned a full-length biography of her around 1500, cementing her place in French historical memory.

During the French Revolution, Joan's reputation came into question because of her association with the monarchy and religion, and the festival in her honor held at Orléans was suspended in 1793.

Image source: French Revolution

In the nineteenth century, hundreds of works of art about Joan—including biographies, plays, and musical scores—were created in France, and her story became popular as an artistic subject in Europe and North America. Merging qualities associated with both genders, Joan has inspired numerous artistic and cultural works for centuries.

Image source: Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc

In 1803, Napoleon Bonaparte authorized the renewal of the Orléans festival and the creation of a new statue of Joan at Orléans, stating, 'The illustrious Joan...' His endorsement restored public commemoration of Joan in France.

Image source: Napoleon

In 1849, the Bishop of Orléans Félix Dupanloup delivered an oration that attracted international attention, and in 1869 he petitioned Rome to begin beatification proceedings for Joan of Arc, launching the path toward her sainthood.

Image source: Félix Dupanloup

In 1894, Pope Leo XIII pronounced that Joan's mission was divinely inspired, an important step in the Church's official recognition of Joan that preceded her beatification and canonization.

Image source: Pope Leo XIII

At her 1903 canonization trial, one of the Promoters of the Faith argued that Joan's visions may have been manifestations of hysteria. Despite such objections, the proceedings moved forward toward her beatification.

Image source: Canonization of Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc was beatified by Pope Pius X in 1909, formally recognizing her as blessed and advancing her cause toward sainthood within the Catholic Church.

Image source: Beatification

Joan of Arc was canonized by Pope Benedict XV on 16 May 1920, becoming a saint of the Catholic Church. Nearly five centuries after her death, the peasant girl who saved France was officially recognized for her holiness.

In an apostolic letter dated 2 March 1922, Pope Pius XI declared Joan one of the patron saints of France, two years after her canonization. She is honored as a defender of the French nation for her role in the siege of Orléans and the coronation of Charles VII.