Joan of Arc and the lifting of the siege of Orleans
- Date
- 1429 CE
- Category
- Military & conflict
- Region
- France
- Era
- Post-Classical / Medieval
- Significance
The siege of Orleans, begun by English forces in October 1428, marked the high tide of English power in the Hundred Years' War.
The city was the last great stronghold barring the English advance south of the Loire toward the territory of the uncrowned dauphin Charles, and its fall seemed likely to seal the conquest of France. In early 1429 a teenage peasant girl from Domremy, Joan of Arc, convinced that divine voices had charged her with saving France, persuaded Charles to let her join the relief army. Arriving at Orleans in late April, she galvanised the demoralised French troops, and within days of her arrival the principal English forts were stormed and the siege was abandoned on 8 May 1429. The victory broke the aura of English invincibility that had prevailed since the disaster of Agincourt in 1415 and opened the way for Charles to be crowned Charles VII at Reims that July, with Joan at his side. Though Joan was captured, tried and burned at the stake in 1431, the relief of Orleans is regarded as the military and psychological turning point of the war, which ended in French victory in 1453 and helped consolidate a more unified French monarchy.
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Empires active in 1429 CE
- Malacca Sultanate1400 CE – 1511 CE
- Aztec Empire1428 CE – 1521 CE
- Ming Dynasty1368 CE – 1644 CE
- Kanem-Bornu Empire700 CE – 1900 CE
- Ottoman Empire1299 CE – 1922 CE
- Solomonic dynasty1270 CE – 1974 CE
Related military & conflict events
- The Ottoman conquest of Constantinople29 May 1453 CE
- Sack of Angkor and Abandonment of the Khmer Capital1431 CE
- Timur's invasion and sack of Delhi1398 CE
- Mongol sack of Baghdad ends the Abbasid Caliphate10 February 1258 CE
- Second Battle of Bach Dang: Dai Viet destroys the Yuan-Mongol fleet9 April 1288
- Mongol Invasions Topple the Pagan Empire of Burma1277-1287 CE (Pagan collapse, 1287)
Further reading
The wider story
Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire
Vivid, thematic popular history by a top Byzantinist.
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