13. Joan of Arc, the World’s Most Famous Female Warrior
France’s national heroine Joan of Arc, also known as the Maid of Orleans (1412 – 1431), is perhaps the world’s most famous female warrior of all time. As a teenager, this prodigy led French armies to victory against rampaging English invaders in the Hundred Years War. At the head of her forces, she won a series of victories that revived French national spirit, and turned the tide of the war. Feats are hardly expected from a girl born into a peasant family in Lorraine, who was noted for her piety since childhood.
At an early age, Joan began seeing visions from various saints, who directed her to save France. At the time, her country was exhausted, downtrodden and demoralized after a series of humiliating defeats at the hands of the English. The French crown was also in dispute between the French Dauphin, or heir to throne, and the English King Henry IV. At age sixteen, Joan left home, and led by voices and visions from the saints, traveled to join the Dauphin. In 1429, she convinced the French heir to give her an army, which she took to relieve French forces besieged by the English at Orleans.
