She was put on trial by Bishop Pierre Cauchon on accusations of heresy, which included blaspheming by wearing men's clothes, acting upon visions that were demonic, and refusing to submit her words and deeds to the judgment of the church.

[15] Her father was a peasant farmer[16] with about 50 acres (20 ha) of land,[17] and he supplemented the family income as a village official, collecting taxes and heading the local watch.

[23] The future French king Charles VII had assumed the title of Dauphin (heir to the throne) after the deaths of his four older brothers[25] and was associated with the Armagnacs.

[30] During a period of illness, Charles's wife Isabeau of Bavaria stood in for him and signed the Treaty of Troyes,[31] which gave their daughter Catherine of Valois in marriage to Henry V, granted the succession of the French throne to their heirs, and effectively disinherited the Dauphin.

[37] Much of Domrémy lay in the Duchy of Bar,[38] whose precise feudal status was unclear;[39] though surrounded by pro-Burgundian lands, its people were loyal to the Armagnac cause.

[53] During Joan's youth, a prophecy circulating in the French countryside, based on the visions of Marie Robine of Avignon [fr], promised an armed virgin would come forth to save France.

[56][d] In May 1428,[59] she asked her uncle to take her to the nearby town of Vaucouleurs, where she petitioned the garrison commander, Robert de Baudricourt, for an armed escort to the Armagnac court at Chinon.

[67] In July 1428, the English had started to surround Orléans and had nearly isolated it from the rest of Charles's territory by capturing many of the smaller bridge towns on the Loire River.

[70] Baudricourt agreed to a third meeting with Joan in February 1429, around the time the English captured an Armagnac relief convoy at the Battle of the Herrings during the Siege of Orléans.

Joan was wounded by an arrow between the neck and shoulder while holding her banner in the trench on the south bank of the river but later returned to encourage the final assault that took the fortress.

[118] Prominent clergy such as Jacques Gélu [fr], Archbishop of Embrun,[119] and the theologian Jean Gerson[120] wrote treatises in support of Joan after this victory.

[123] Charles allowed her to accompany the army under the command of John II, Duke of Alençon,[124] who collaboratively worked with Joan and regularly heeded her advice.

[133] Meanwhile, the English army from Paris under the command of Sir John Fastolf had linked up with the garrison in Meung and traveled along the north bank of the Loire to relieve Beaugency.

[139] After the destruction of the English army at Patay, some Armagnac leaders argued for an invasion of English-held Normandy, but Joan remained insistent that Charles must be crowned.

[151] Joan and the Duke of Alençon favored a quick march on Paris,[152] but divisions in Charles's court and continued peace negotiations with Burgundy led to a slow advance.

Bishop Pierre Cauchon of Beauvais, a partisan supporter of the Duke of Burgundy and the English crown,[193] played a prominent part in these negotiations,[194] which were completed in November.

[200] She was accused of having blasphemed by wearing men's clothes, of acting upon visions that were demonic, and of refusing to submit her words and deeds to the church because she claimed she would be judged by God alone.

[248] Witnesses at the rehabilitation trial stated that Joan was subjected to mistreatment and rape attempts, including one by an English noble,[249] and that guards placed men's clothes in her cell, forcing her to wear them.

According to the trial record, Joan said that she had gone back to wearing men's clothes because it was more fitting that she dress like a man while being held with male guards, and that the judges had broken their promise to let her go to mass and to release her from her chains.

[257] At this point, she should have been turned over to the appropriate authority, the bailiff of Rouen, for secular sentencing, but instead was delivered directly to the English[258] and tied to a tall plastered pillar for execution by burning.

[264] Charles remained king of France,[265] despite a rival coronation held for the ten-year-old Henry VI of England at Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris in 1431.

[273] 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,[274] who interviewed about 20 witnesses.

[279] Bréhal submitted a summary of his findings to theologians and lawyers in France and Italy,[280] as well as a professor at the University of Vienna,[281] most of whom gave opinions favorable to Joan.

[304] Many of these explanations have been challenged;[g] the trial records designed to demonstrate that Joan was guilty of heresy are unlikely to provide the objective descriptions of symptoms needed to support a medical diagnosis.

[325] Cross-dressing may have helped her maintain her virginity by deterring rape:[326] witnesses at the nullification trial stated that Joan gave this as one of the reasons for returning to men's clothes after she had abjured wearing them.

[333] Her image, changing over time, has included being the savior of France, an obedient daughter of the Roman Catholic Church, an early feminist, and a symbol of freedom and independence.

[376] Her claim of virginity, which signified her virtue and sincerity,[377] was upheld by women of status from both the Armagnac and Burgundian-English sides of the Hundred Years' War: Yolande of Aragon, Charles's mother-in-law, and Anne of Burgundy, Duchess of Bedford.

[378] Joan has been described as a model of an autonomous woman who challenged traditions of masculinity and femininity[379] to be heard as an individual[380] in a patriarchal culture[380]—setting her own course by heeding the voices of her visions.

In the nineteenth century, hundreds of works of art about her—including biographies, plays, and musical scores—were created in France, and her story became popular as an artistic subject in Europe and North America.

[386] Her legacy has become global, and inspires novels, plays, poems, operas, films, paintings, children's books, advertising, computer games, comics and popular culture across the world.