Read more about Joan of Arc at: Wikipedia Official Site: Public Domain Saint Joan of Arc, nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans" ( , ; ca. 1412 Joan of Arc was beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1920. She is – along with St. Denis, St. Martin of Tours, St. Louis IX, and St. Theresa of Lisieux – one of the patron saint of France. Joan asserted that she had visions from God that instructed her to recover her homeland from English domination late in the Hundred Years' War. The uncrowned King Charles VII sent her to the siege of Orléans as part of a relief mission. She gained prominence when she overcame the dismissive attitude of veteran commanders and lifted the siege in only nine days. Several more swift victories led to Charles VII's coronation at Reims and settled the disputed succession to the throne. Down to the present day, Joan of Arc has remained a significant figure in Western culture. From Napoleon onward, French politicians of all leanings have invoked her memory. Famous writers and composers who have created works about her include: Shakespeare (Henry VI, Part 1), Voltaire (The Maid of Orleans poem), Schiller (The Maid of Orleans play), Verdi (Giovanna d'Arco), Tchaikovsky (The Maid of Orleans opera), Mark Twain (Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc), Arthur Honegger (Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher), Jean Anouilh (L'Alouette), Bertolt Brecht (Saint Joan of the Stockyards), George Bernard Shaw (Saint Joan) and Maxwell Anderson (Joan of Lorraine). Depictions of her continue in film, theatre, television, video games, music and performance. The historian Kelly DeVries describes the period preceding her appearance in the following terms: "If anything could have discouraged her, the state of France in 1429 should have." The Hundred Years' War had begun in 1337 as a succession dispute over the French throne with intermittent periods of relative peace. Nearly all the fighting had taken place in France, and the English army's use of chevauchée tactics (similar to scorched earth strategies) had devastated the economy. The French population had not recovered from the Black Death of the previous century and its merchants were isolated from foreign markets. At the outset of Jeanne d'Arc's appearance, the English had nearly achieved their goal of a dual monarchy under English control and the French army had not achieved any major victories for a generation. In DeVries's words, "The kingdom of France was not even a shadow of its thirteenth-century prototype."
Joan of Arc has not been a contender in any CBUB matches.
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Joan of Arc
