Renaissance

Answer

Joan of Arc, also Jeanne d'Arc (1412 to 30 May 1431) is a national heroine of France and a saint of the Roman Catholic Church. She believed she had visions from God that told her to recover her homeland from English domination late in the Hundred Years' War. The uncrowned King Charles VII sent her to the siege at Orleans as part of a relief mission. He did this because of all of Joan's honesty. Initially treated as a figurehead by veteran commanders, she gained prominence when she lifted the siege in only nine days. Several more swift victories led to Charles VII's coronation at Rheims, which settled the disputed succession to the throne.

The renewed French confidence outlasted her own brief career. Court intrigues slowed further offensive action. She was wounded during an unsuccessful attempt to recover Paris and fell prisoner at a battle outside Compeigne the following spring. A politically motivated trial convicted her of heresy. The English regent John, duke of Bedford had her burnt at the stake in Rouen. The ENGLISH saw her as an agent of the devil and that is why she was burnt. She had been the heroine of her country at the age of seventeen. She died at just nineteen. Some twenty-four years later, Pope Callixtus III reopened the case and a new finding overturned the original conviction. Her piety to the end impressed the retrial court. Pope Benedict XV canonized her on 16 May 1920.

Joan of Arc has remained an important figure in the collective imagination of Western culture. From Napoleon to the present, French politicians of all leanings have invoked her memory. Major writers and composers who created works about her include Shakespeare, Voltaire, Schiller, Verdi, Tchaikovsky, Twain, Shaw, and Brecht. Depictions of her continue in film, television, and song.

Joan of arc was also known as "the Maid of Orleans," she was a 15th century Catholic saint, and national heroine of France. A peasant girl born in Eastern France, Joan led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years' War, claiming divine guidance, and was indirectly responsible for the coronation of King Charles VII.
a 15th century saint and a national heroine of France
Joan of Arc is a sanit of France, she died when burnt alive as she dressed as a man to fight England.
A young peasant woman who helped France by leading soldiers against the English.
Joanne o ark was a French warrior

from Modern Catholic Dictionary by John A. Hardon, S.J. Doubleday & Co., Inc. Garden City, NY 1980

Inquisition. The special court or tribunal appointed by the Catholic Church to discover and suppress heresy and to punish heretics. The Roman Inquisition of the middle twelfth century, with its ecclesiastical courts for trying and punishing heretics, arose during the ravages of the anti-social Albigensian sect, whose doctrines and practices were destructive not only of faith but of Christian morality and public order. While Church authorities would condemn a person found guilty of heresy, it was the civil power that actually inflicted the penalty. The reformation of the heretic was first sought. By exhortations and minor punishments he was urged to give up his heresy. Many did. Only the relapsed heretics who were found guilty were turned over to the civil government for punishment required under civil law. The fact that secular law prescribed death must be understood in the light of those days when heresy was anarchy and treason and leniency in criminal codes was unknown. Like all institutions that have a human character abuses crept in.

The Spanish Inquisition, set up by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in 1478 and empowered by Pope Sixtus IV, was directed against the lapsed converts from Judaism, crypto-Jews, and other apostates whose secret activities were dangerous to Church and State. The civil government had great influence in the administration of this Inquisition, and the Spanish ecclesiastical tribunal accused of scandalous cruelty must share its condemnations with them. The latter worked during these days in defiance of the Holy See, which often condemned inquisitors because of their cruelties. Even so, these cruelties have been grossly exaggerated, and the fact that the Inquisition did tremendous good in saving the Latin countries from anarchy has been forgotten. Much falsehood surrounds the events of this period, which should be judged by the standards of those times, not by modern ideas of the human person and of religious freedom.

More Europeans were literate because of several things:

• Improving economies
• A growing interest in religious works
• An interest in record keeping

Many Muslims and Jews were forced out of Spain.

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