60 Fun Facts About Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc was born into what kind of family?

Peasants, though far from the poorest in the village: her father also served as a local official, collecting taxes and heading the watch.

In which village in north-east France was Joan of Arc born around 1412?

Domrémy. The village has since added her nickname to its own: it is now Domrémy-la-Pucelle, 'Domrémy of the Maid'.

Which war between England and France was Joan of Arc born into?

The Hundred Years' War. Despite its name it dragged on, with long truces, for 116 years, from 1337 to 1453, and was already in its eighth decade when she was born.

What did Joan of Arc's mother, Isabelle Romée, spend her last years doing?

Clearing Joan's name. Her appeals to the pope at last brought a retrial, and at its opening in Notre-Dame in Paris she pleaded in person for justice for her daughter.

Where did two of Joan's brothers serve?

Her army. Jean and Pierre both fought alongside her, and when the king ennobled the whole family they took a new name, du Lys, from the lilies on its coat of arms.

Rather than 'Jeanne d'Arc', which spelling appears on Joan of Arc's surviving signatures?

Jehanne. She never learned to read or write and dictated her letters, yet three of the last carry her own signature: this medieval spelling of Jeanne, with no surname at all.

Which Irish playwright wrote the play Saint Joan?

George Bernard Shaw. His preface argues that her judges gave her a fairer trial than a modern court would, and his biographer called the result 'a tragedy without villains'.

Which saint did Joan say first appeared to her, with angels, in her family's garden when she was about thirteen?

Michael. Joan told her judges she saw the archangel and his angels as plainly as she saw them, and that she wept when they left because she wished they had taken her along.

Which two female saints did Joan say spoke to her and guided her mission?

Margaret and Catherine. Asked at her trial whether St Margaret spoke English, Joan shot back: why would she, when she was not on the English side?

A prophecy that a maid would come from an oak wood near Joan of Arc's home was credited to whom?

Merlin. The saying came from an old book of the wizard's prophecies, and courtiers asked her about the oak wood near her village; Joan told her judges she put no faith in it.

The captain Joan begged for an escort told her kinsman to take her home and do what?

Box her ears. Robert de Baudricourt said it more than once, her kinsman Durand Laxart recalled, yet at their third meeting he gave Joan her escort and sent her off with the words 'Go, and let come what may.'

Which sick nobleman summoned Joan to Nancy for a cure, only to be scolded over his mistress?

The Duke of Lorraine. Joan told him she knew nothing of cures and urged him to take back his wife, then asked him for an escort; he sent her away with four francs and a horse.

How did Joan's escort avoid enemy soldiers while riding to the Dauphin?

By night. English and Burgundian soldiers held the roads, one of her escorts recalled, so the party rode mostly in darkness for eleven days and still reached the Dauphin's court unharmed.

At which royal residence did Joan first meet the Dauphin Charles in early 1429?

Chinon. To test her, Charles is said to have hidden among his courtiers, but she picked him out at once and then spoke with him alone.

A theologian with a thick regional accent asked what language Joan's voices spoke; what did she reply?

"A better one than yours." Seguin, a Dominican professor who spoke the Limousin dialect, told the story himself years later; his panel at Poitiers still found only good in her and advised sending her to Orléans.

Before Joan was given troops, court ladies led by the Dauphin's mother-in-law examined her to confirm what?

Her virginity. Yolande of Aragon reported the finding to the Dauphin herself, which backed Joan's claim to be the promised Maid, and then helped ready the supply convoy for Orléans.

Where did Joan say the sword her voices revealed was found?

Buried by an altar, in the church at Fierbois, by her own account. Joan said the clergy there rubbed the sword and the rust fell away at once, without effort.

Who led the relief army out of Blois singing hymns, on Joan's orders?

A company of priests. Joan had a banner made for them at Blois, and they led the soldiers and the supply wagons out of town singing Veni Creator Spiritus.

The Bastard of Orléans testified that what suddenly changed as Joan arrived, letting the supply boats reach the city?

The wind. It had been blowing against the boats, and the city's commander swore it turned the moment she spoke; from then on, he said, he put his hope in her.

How did Joan send the English a warning on Ascension Day 1429?

Tied to an arrow. The letter was shot into the English lines at Orléans with a cry of 'Read, here is news!'; they shouted back insults that left her in tears.

At Les Tourelles in Orléans, what befell Joan exactly as she had foretold?

She was wounded. A letter written from Lyon on 22 April had already recorded her prediction; she went back to the fight all the same, and the fort fell that evening.

When the English abandoned the siege of Orléans, why did Joan forbid her captains to pursue them?

It was a Sunday, the townsmen testified. The armies had faced each other in battle order that morning, but she would neither attack nor give chase; within ten days of her arrival, a siege of nearly seven months was over.

Joan told the Duke of Alençon to move from where he stood; what happened there moments later?

A cannonball killed a man, the lord who had stepped into his place. Alençon told the story himself: Joan had promised his anxious wife to send him home unharmed.

What did Joan do after a stone knocked her off a ladder at Jargeau?

Cheered the men on. Thrown down when the stone struck her helmet, she rose crying 'Up, friends, up!', and the town fell that same day.

Which weapon did Joan of Arc's army overrun at Patay before its users could dig in?

The longbow. A startled stag made the hidden English archers shout and give away their position, and the French horsemen charged before they were ready; the rout ended England's name for invincibility.

Which English commander escaped the rout at Patay while the other leaders were captured?

Sir John Fastolf. Accused of cowardice for leaving the field, he was later cleared, and the real man was a brave career soldier, nothing like Shakespeare's Falstaff, who borrowed his name.

Which town, where a 1420 treaty had promised France to England's king, gave in once Joan began filling its moat?

Troyes. After days outside the walls the Dauphin's council could not agree what to do; Joan argued for an assault, had the moat filled with wood, and the town yielded before the attack began.

In which city was Charles VII consecrated king on 17 July 1429, with Joan given a place of honour?

Reims. Asked later why her banner, and not the other captains', was carried into the cathedral that day, Joan said it had shared the hardship, so it was only right that it should share the honour.

After a crossbow bolt wounded Joan before Paris in 1429, what did the king's council order next day?

A retreat from the city. Joan and the Duke of Alençon wanted to attack again, but they were overruled, and before the month was out the king had disbanded the army.

Outside which besieged town was Joan captured by Burgundian troops in May 1430?

Compiègne. As her sortie fell back, the way into the town was closed with her rearguard still outside, and a Burgundian soldier dragged her from her horse.

What did Joan tell a rival visionary who promised to find hidden treasure to pay the king's soldiers?

Go home to your husband, and mind your house and children. Joan sat up two nights to see the woman's 'white lady', saw nothing, and told the king the visions were mere folly.

How did Joan try to escape from Beaurevoir castle?

Leapt from the tower, against the advice of her voices, she admitted. She had learned she was sold to the English and feared for the town she had tried to save; she was hurt but survived.

The English paid 10,000 livres for Joan, the sum French custom set for a captive of what rank?

A king or prince. The bishop who bargained for her said so in writing, while admitting that Joan was no such captive; her own king made no recorded attempt to buy her back.

Which bishop presided over Joan's trial for heresy?

Pierre Cauchon. Joan warned him in open court that he put himself in great danger by judging her, and a generation later a papal court threw out his verdict as unjust and deceitful.

Why did the bishop of Beauvais claim the right to preside over Joan of Arc's trial?

She was captured in his diocese, he argued. Yet he could not hold the trial there: his own cathedral city had gone over to the French king, so he needed special leave to sit in English-held territory.

In which city, the English headquarters in France, was Joan tried and executed?

Rouen. Though a church court tried her, she was kept in chains in the castle under male guards and not in a church prison guarded by women, one of the abuses later used to overturn the verdict.

Most clergy who judged Joan had ties to which pro-English institution?

The University of Paris. It sat in a capital under English and Burgundian rule and backed the English king's claim to the crown; when the judges sent it her case, it denounced her in violent terms.

How did Joan answer the trap question of whether she was in God's grace?

"If not, may God put me there", she said, "and if I am, may God keep me so." The Church taught that no one could be sure of grace, so a yes meant heresy and a no was a confession.

After showing Joan the instruments of torture in May 1431, what did her judges vote to do?

Not to use them. Joan had told them that even if they tore her limb from limb she would say nothing more, and that she would afterwards swear anything she did say had been forced from her.

How did witnesses say the abjuration in Joan's trial record differed from the one she signed?

It was far longer. Several witnesses, among them the usher who read the paper to her at Saint-Ouen, said it held only six to eight lines, and he swore the long text in the record was not the one she signed.

What act, days after her abjuration, allowed the court to condemn Joan as a relapsed heretic?

Resuming men's clothing. Witnesses at the retrial said her guards had taken her dress and left only the male clothes; she also told the judges her voices had rebuked her for abjuring out of fear.

By the accounts of those who watched her burn, what word did Joan cry out to the very end?

Jesus. She called the name through the flames until the end, witnesses said, and a secretary to the English king is said to have gone home crying that they had burned a saint.

What stands today on the market square where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake?

A church dedicated to her, completed there in 1979. In 1431 she was hurried to the pyre on that square without the sentence from a lay court that the law required.

Who gave Joan the small cross, made from a stick, that she kissed as she died?

An English soldier. He made it on the spot when she begged for a cross; she kissed it and slipped it inside her dress, and another was then fetched from the church nearby for her to embrace.

Into which river were Joan's remains thrown after her execution?

The Seine. Nothing was left to venerate, so the 'relics found under her stake' that surfaced in a Paris pharmacy in 1867 drew attention until 2007, when tests showed an Egyptian mummy's rib and a cat's bone.

Which rival child king was crowned at Notre-Dame in Paris in 1431, months after Joan's death?

Henry VI of England. The crowning was meant to answer the one Joan had won for his rival, but it changed little: before the decade was out Paris itself had gone over to Charles.

After Castillon ended the war Joan had fought in, which port was England's last foothold in France?

Calais. England clung to it for another century, until a French siege took it in 1558, in the reign of Mary I.

What did Joan's retrial order torn up?

The accusations: the articles drawn up against her. The court found they had been falsely drawn from her answers, declared the whole trial null, and ordered a cross raised on the spot where she had burned.

Which writer greeted Joan's victories with a joyful poem finished two weeks after the coronation?

Christine de Pizan. Her pen had been silent for years, spent, it is thought, in a convent; Joan's victories moved her to one last poem.

Which ruler let Orléans revive the yearly festival for Joan that the Revolution had stopped?

Napoleon Bonaparte. He was First Consul at the time, and wrote that Joan proved no miracle was beyond French genius when national independence was at stake.

Which American humorist called his 1896 novel about Joan of Arc the best of all his books?

Mark Twain. He meant the book as his bid to be taken for a serious writer, and is said to have modelled his Joan on his eldest daughter, Susy.

At her trial, Joan was pressed about childhood dances around which landmark near her village?

A fairies' tree, an old beech the villagers also called the Ladies' Tree. Her judges hoped to tie her voices to witchcraft; she said she had sung there more than danced, and woven garlands for Our Lady.

In their first private talk, what is Joan said to have assured the anxious Dauphin?

That he was the true heir, and the old king's son. Rumour said otherwise, and his own mother had signed the treaty that disinherited him; he came away saying Joan had told him secrets only God could know.

Which religion counts Joan of Arc among its saints, alongside Victor Hugo and Sun Yat-sen?

Cao Dai. Founded in French-ruled Vietnam in 1926, it blends Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism with a Catholic-style hierarchy, so its saints come from East and West alike.

After Joan's death, who accepted an impostor named Jeanne des Armoises as the real Joan?

Her own brothers. They travelled with her from town to town collecting gifts from Joan's admirers, until she met the king and could not tell him the secret the real Joan had once shared with him.

Joan of Arc's feast day, 30 May, is the anniversary of which event?

Her execution, in 1431. The date a church court sent her to the stake as a heretic is now kept by that Church in her honour, and France adds a national day for her on the second Sunday of May.

What news is Joan said to have announced at Vaucouleurs before any messenger had arrived with it?

A French defeat in battle, at Rouvray, where an attack on an English supply convoy loaded with Lenten herring was beaten off. When word of it arrived, the story goes, the captain finally gave her an escort.

Why did Joan's siege of La Charité fail in the winter of 1429?

Supplies ran short. Joan wrote to nearby towns begging for gunpowder and saltpetre, but after a month of bad winter weather the army withdrew, leaving its guns behind.

Gilles de Rais, a marshal who fought beside Joan and was later executed for murder, is often linked to which fairy-tale villain?

Bluebeard. Rais later squandered so vast a fortune that his family had the king bar him from selling more land; the fairy-tale link itself is disputed.

What did Joan, who led assaults banner in hand, tell her judges about killing in battle?

She had never killed anyone, she said: she carried her banner into the attack precisely so that she would not have to, and she liked it forty times better than her sword.