Keith Gates: Music

Jeanne d'Arc (c. 1412 - May 30, 1431) asserted that she had visions from God that told her to recover her homeland from English domination late in the Hundred Years' War. She gained prominence when she overcame the dismissive attitude of veteran commanders and lifted the siege of Orleans in only nine days. She led the French army to several important victories and led King Charles VII to his coronation. She was captured by the English and tried by an ecclesiastical court led by Bishop Pierre Cauchon, an English partisan; the court convicted her of heresy and she was burned at the stake when she was nineteen years old. Twenty-four years later, the Vatican reviewed the decision of the ecclesiastical court, found her innocent, and declared her a martyr. She was beatified in 1909 and canonized as a saint in 1920.