1429
Siege of Orleans Lifted
A seventeen-year-old peasant in a suit of white armor rode through the gates of the starving city and, in nine days, broke an English siege that had choked Orleans for seven months. Joan of Arc had told her captains where to attack and been right. The Dauphin's men were now believers.
Charles VII Crowned at Reims
With Joan standing beside him in the cathedral of the ancient coronation city, the Dauphin was anointed with holy oil and became, at last, the legitimate king of France. English-held Paris seemed suddenly negotiable. The war's spiritual momentum had flipped in a single liturgical afternoon. The ceremony used the holy ampulla traced to Clovis's baptism, linking Charles to the deepest roots of French sacred kingship.
Battle of Patay
Joan of Arc's forces caught the English army of Talbot and Fastolf still deploying from the march and overran them. John Talbot was captured; the English field army in the Loire was annihilated. It was the reverse of Agincourt in every respect, and it proved that Joan's resurgence was military, not merely spiritual.
Joan Examined at Poitiers
Before accepting Joan's offer of military service, Charles VII's theologians spent three weeks interrogating her at Poitiers about her voices, her chastity, and her orthodoxy. They found nothing heretical. The university cleared her to ride to Orleans. Medieval bureaucracy had performed its one great anti-bureaucratic act. The theologians concluded her prophecies could be tested at Orleans, a remarkably pragmatic verdict for a medieval ecclesiastical commission.