Excerpts from the Trial of Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc (Jeanne d'Arc) was born in northeast France around 1412 and was executed in 1431. An illiterate young woman from a peasant family, she claimed that the archangel Michael, Saint Margaret, and Saint Catherine of Alexandria appeared to her in visions and told her to lead the armies of France to defeat the invading English late in the Hundred Years' War. She successfully led the French to recover the city of Orléans and in a string of subsequent battles in 1429 and 1430. Captured in 1430, she was tried for heresy and witchcraft in the English-controlled city of Rouen, found guilty, and was burned at the stake. Her conviction was nullified by a later church trial in 1456, and Joan was canonized as a saint in 1920.

Link to the source: Excerpts from the Trial of Joan of Arc