Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc, nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans," was born in 1412 in Domrémy, Bar, France. Is considered a heroine of France for her rule during the Lancastrian phase of the Hundred Year's war, and was canonized as a Roman Catholic saint. She was born to Jacques d'Arc and Isabelle Romée.
Joan of Arc was a peasant girl who, believing that she was acting under divine guidance, led the French army in a momentous victory at Orléans that repulsed an English attempt to conquer France during the Hundred Year's War. She became the greatest national heroine of her compatriots, and her achievement was a decisive factor in the later awakening of French national consciousness.
In her mission of expelling the English and their Burgundian allies from the Valois kingdom of France, she felt herself to be guided by the voices of St.Michael, St Catherine of Alexandria, and St.Margaret of Antioch. Joan was endowed with remarkable mental and physical courage, as well as a robust common sense, and she possessed many attributes characteristic of the female visionaries who were a noted feature of her time. These qualities included extreme personal piety, a claim to direct communication with the saints, and a consequent reliance upon individual experience of God’s presence beyond the ministrations of the priesthood and the confines of the institutional church.
She said these voices commanded her to aid the Dauphin, Charles, in his fight against England and Burgundy, and to see him crowned as the King of France at Reims. Reims was the traditional location where French kings were crowned. But because Reims was in English hands, Charles had not been able to hold a coronation ceremony yet, though his father had been dead for years.
After subsequently defeating the English again at the Battle of Patay, Joan brought Charles to Reims, where he was officially crowned King Charles VII on July 17. On the way from Reims, Joan and the Duke of Alencon suggested that the French attempt to take English-controlled Paris. But after a promising first day of fighting, Charles called off the assault on Paris; he was running low on funds. He recalled the army south and disbanded much of it. Charles then named Joan and her family to French nobility, in thanks for Joan's services to France.
Joan continued to fight for Charles's interests, but her luck had run out. In May of 1430, while holding off Burgundian troops at the Battle of Compiegne so the French townspeople could flee, Joan was captured by John of Luxembourg. Joan was so popular and such a valuable symbol to the pro-Charles side (the Armagnacs) that the English and Burgundians knew killing her immediately would cause an outrage and create a martyr. Instead, they enlisted the church to discredit her first.
After two escape attempts, including a leap from sixty-foot tower, Joan came to trial under Bishop Pierre Cauchon for suspected heresy and witchcraft. Cauchon, who continually tried to make her admit that she had invented the voices, found her guilty of heresy. Before being handed over to secular authorities, Joan signed an abjuration admitting that her previous statements had been lies. But after a few days, she said she hadn't meant the abjuration, and she was sentenced to burn at the stake. Only nineteen, Joan was burned on May 30, 1431.
https://www.sparknotes.com/biography/joanofarc/summary/
The Black Death was a devastating global epidemic of bubonic plague that struck Europe and Asia in the mid-1300s. The plague arrived in Europe in October 1347, when 12 ships from the Black Sea docked at the Sicilian port of Messina. People gathered on the docks were met with a horrifying surprise: Most sailors aboard the ships were dead, and those still alive were gravely ill and covered in black boils that oozed blood and pus. Sicilian authorities hastily ordered the fleet of “death ships” out of the harbor, but it was too late: Over the next five years, the Black Death would kill more than 20 million people in Europe – almost one-third of the continent’s population.
There were recurrences of the plague in 1361–63, 1369–71, 1374–75, 1390, and 1400. Modern research has suggested that, over that period of time, the plague was introduced into Europe multiple times, coming along trade routes in waves from Central Asia as a result of climate fluctuations that affected populations of rodents infested with plague-carrying fleas.The rate of mortality from the Black Death varied from place to place: whereas some districts, such as the duchy of Milan, Flanders, and Beárn, seem to have escaped comparatively lightly, others, such as Tuscany, Aragon, Catalonia, and Languedoc, were very hard hit. Towns, where the danger of contagion was greater, were more affected than the countryside, and within, the towns, the monastic communities provided the highest incidence of victims.
This dramatic fall in Europe ’s population became a lasting and characteristic feature of late medieval society, as subsequent plague epidemics swept away all tendencies of population growth. Inevitably it had an enormous impact on European society and greatly affected the dynamics of change and development from the medieval to Early Modern period. A historical turning point, as well as a vast human tragedy, the Black Death of 1346-53, is unparalleled in human history.
https://www.history.com/topics/middle-ages/black-death
https://www.britannica.com/event/Black-Death
https://www.historytoday.com/archive/black-death-greatest-catastrophe-ever
The English army was significantly outnumbered by the French and additionally stuck in foreign territory. During the cause of the battle however, the English managed to take 1000 of French prisoners. After that, the English sent a messenger to the French commander with a warning to withdraw or be destroyed. Due to the lack of reaction to this message on the side of the French, the English then went on to brutally slaughter a great number of their prisoners. The reasons for this are debated by historians but cannot be determined with security. It might have been an attempt of intimidating the remaining French or a reaction to the lack of available English soldiers to guard the prisoners. Regardless, the French army started to withdraw from the battlefield in order to save the other French prisoners.
https://www.biography.com/people/joan-of-arc-9354756
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Joan-of-Arc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_of_Arc
https://www.sparknotes.com/biography/joanofarc/summary/
THE BLACK DEATH
The Black Death was a devastating global epidemic of bubonic plague that struck Europe and Asia in the mid-1300s. The plague arrived in Europe in October 1347, when 12 ships from the Black Sea docked at the Sicilian port of Messina. People gathered on the docks were met with a horrifying surprise: Most sailors aboard the ships were dead, and those still alive were gravely ill and covered in black boils that oozed blood and pus. Sicilian authorities hastily ordered the fleet of “death ships” out of the harbor, but it was too late: Over the next five years, the Black Death would kill more than 20 million people in Europe – almost one-third of the continent’s population.
There were recurrences of the plague in 1361–63, 1369–71, 1374–75, 1390, and 1400. Modern research has suggested that, over that period of time, the plague was introduced into Europe multiple times, coming along trade routes in waves from Central Asia as a result of climate fluctuations that affected populations of rodents infested with plague-carrying fleas.The rate of mortality from the Black Death varied from place to place: whereas some districts, such as the duchy of Milan, Flanders, and Beárn, seem to have escaped comparatively lightly, others, such as Tuscany, Aragon, Catalonia, and Languedoc, were very hard hit. Towns, where the danger of contagion was greater, were more affected than the countryside, and within, the towns, the monastic communities provided the highest incidence of victims.
This dramatic fall in Europe ’s population became a lasting and characteristic feature of late medieval society, as subsequent plague epidemics swept away all tendencies of population growth. Inevitably it had an enormous impact on European society and greatly affected the dynamics of change and development from the medieval to Early Modern period. A historical turning point, as well as a vast human tragedy, the Black Death of 1346-53, is unparalleled in human history.
https://www.history.com/topics/middle-ages/black-death
https://www.britannica.com/event/Black-Death
https://www.historytoday.com/archive/black-death-greatest-catastrophe-ever
The Battle of Agincourt
The Battle of Agincourt took place in 1415 on the 25thof October near the city of Azincourt in northern France.
The Battle was part of the 100 years war between England and France. King Henry 5thhad invaded France with a small army and huge goals. After some months of fighting with modest success, Henry 5thaimed for Callae in order to draw his soldiers back over the canal.
The English army was significantly outnumbered by the French and additionally stuck in foreign territory. During the cause of the battle however, the English managed to take 1000 of French prisoners. After that, the English sent a messenger to the French commander with a warning to withdraw or be destroyed. Due to the lack of reaction to this message on the side of the French, the English then went on to brutally slaughter a great number of their prisoners. The reasons for this are debated by historians but cannot be determined with security. It might have been an attempt of intimidating the remaining French or a reaction to the lack of available English soldiers to guard the prisoners. Regardless, the French army started to withdraw from the battlefield in order to save the other French prisoners.
This stunning English victory is of such high significance as it foreshadows the development of war in Europe. While the number of lost soldiers on the French side added up to 8000, the English lost only 100 men. The battle of Agincourt gave a glance at the way warfare was about to become. Primarily it initiates the rise of projectile weapons as the English army made use of longbows to protect their soldiers. In the cause of this heavy armor and cavalry could not be relied on anymore. Europe would spend the next century adapting to the new methods of warfare. This is why the Battle of Agincourt is considered a turning point in History.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Agincourt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDnKciXrmnc
HENRY V
Henry V was one of the great warrior kings of medieval England, famous for his victory against the French at the Battle of Agincourt.
Henry was born in 1386 or 1387, the son of Henry IV. On his father’s exile in 1398, Richard II took the boy into his own charge, treated him kindly, and knighted him in 1399. He showed his military abilities as a teenager, taking part in the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403. He then spent the next five years fighting against Owen Glendower's rebellion in Wales. He was also keen to have a role in government, leading to disagreements with his father.
Henry IV died in 1413, and the 26-year-old prince took the throne as Henry V. Conspiracies soon arose among his onetime friends to unseat him in favor of Richard II’s heir Edmund Mortimer.
On October 25, 1415—the feast day of St. Crispin—Henry’s army defeated a much larger French force at Agincourt. Henry kept control of the battle, encouraging his troops and fighting hand-to-hand.
In 1420 the French king Charles VI sued for peace. The Treaty of Troyes placed Henry in control of France for the remainder of Charles VI’s life and promised that the English line would succeed to the French throne. Henry married Charles’ daughter Catherine. The royal couple arrived in England in 1421, and their only son, the future Henry VI, was born soon after.
In May of 1422 Henry won his last victory in the Siege of Meaux. He died on August 31, 1422, of battlefield dysentery.
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