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The Most Formidable Women in History that Made Men Cower Before Them

Khalid Elhassan April 23, 2022 35 min

11. A Powerful Warrior Saint

Badass Women - Saint Joan of Arc — Saint Joan of Arc. Emaze

Manacled to her bed with chains, Joan of Arc was incessantly harassed by her inquisitors at all hours of day and night in an effort to break her will and spirit. She adamantly refused to confess to wrongdoing, and her accusers were unable to prove either heresy or witchcraft. In frustration, they turned their attention to how she had donned male attire on the field of battle. On grounds that such cross-dressing violated biblical injunctions, they convicted her. On May 30^th, 1431, she was taken on a cart to her site of execution in Rouen, where the nineteen-year-old Maid of Orleans was burned to death.

Two decades later, a new Pope ordered an inquisitorial court to reexamine Joan of Arc’s trial. It debunked all the charges against her, cleared her posthumously, and declared her a martyr. In 1803, Napoleon Bonaparte made her a national symbol of France. Five centuries after her death, she was beatified in 1909, then canonized as a Saint in 1920. Today, Saint Joan of Arc is one of the patron saints of France, and the most famous female warrior of all time.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.