圣女贞德(1412年～1431年)

Joan of Arc, Saint

法语作Jeanne d'Arc

法国军事女英雄。她是农家女孩，从年幼起即相信自己听到米迦勒、凯瑟琳、玛格丽特等圣徒的声音。当她将近十六岁时，她内在的声音开始催促她帮助法国王子，并从英法百年战争中把法国从英国的征服尝试中拯救出来。穿着男人的衣服，她拜访王子并说服他、他的顾问和教会当局来支持她。有了她令人信服的话，她把法国军队团结起来，1429年解除了英军的奥尔良之围。不久，她又在巴泰打败英军。王子在理姆斯加冕为查理七世，贞德随侍在侧。她的巴黎之围没有成功，1430年被勃艮地人俘获，并被卖给英国人。她遭查理放弃，被递解到卢昂的宗教法庭（受支持英国人的法国教士把持），被判行巫和异端。她激烈地自我辩护，但最後放弃而被判终生监禁；当她再度指出她受到圣启时，她被烧死於桩上。直到1920年，她才被追諡为圣徒。

English version：

1412年～1431年

Joan of Arc, Saint

French military heroine. She was a peasant girl who from an early age believed she heard the voices of Sts. Michael, Catherine, and Margaret. When she was about 16, her voices began urging her to aid France's Dauphin (crown prince) and save France from the English attempt at conquest in the Hundred Years' War. Dressed in men's clothes, she visited the Dauphin and convinced him, his advisers, and the church authorities to support her. With her inspiring conviction, she rallied the French troops and raised the English siege of Orléans in 1429. She soon defeated the English again at Patay. The Dauphin was crowned king at Reims as Charles VII, with Joan beside him. Her siege of Paris was unsuccessful, and in 1430 she was captured by the Burgundians and sold to the English. Abandoned by Charles, she was turned over to the ecclesiastical court at Rouen, controlled by French clerics who supported the English, and tried for witchcraft and heresy (1431). She fiercely defended herself, but finally recanted and was sentenced to life imprisonment; when she again asserted that she had been divinely inspired, she was burned at the stake. She was not canonized until 1920.