Joan of Arc (above) arrived at the siege of Orléans today in 1429. The English army hoped to take the city, which would have been a decisive victory in their long running war with France. Joan, a 17 year-old farm girl, claimed God had sent her to rescue her country, and this was the first public test of her calling. She held a banner in the battle and was wounded in the neck, but reappeared on the field, inspiring the French troops. A few days later, the English army retreated from Orléans, the siege was over, and Joan’s reputation was made.
‘The Voice said to me: “Go into France!” I could stay no longer. It said to me: “Go, raise the siege which is being made before the City of Orléans. Go!” it added, “to Robert de Baudricourt, Captain of Vaucouleurs: he will furnish you with an escort to accompany you.” And I replied that I was but a poor girl, who knew nothing of riding or fighting.’ Joan of Arc, giving testimony at her trial
It is the feast of St Tropez, whose name was given to the swanky town on the French Riviera. His legends say he was a gladiator at the time of the Emperor Nero (therefore around the year 60), and after he was converted by St Paul, confessed he was a Christian during an event in which the Emperor was praising the goddess Diana. He was promptly decapitated, and his body, after being put into a boat with a dog and a cock, floated off to France, landing where St Tropez now is. Meanwhile his head, thrown into the river, ended up in Pisa. A proper cock and dog story.
Today is also St Endellion’s day, the Cornish saint who lived in the 6th century. She sailed across the sea from South Wales to evangelise Cornwall, living as a hermit on milk and water. In medieval times, her shrine was a place of pilgrimage.
It is St Catherine of Sienna’s day, a 14th-century nun who threw the weight of her sanctity into the arena of papal politics. A later papacy banned paintings of her with stigmata as being inappropriate for a woman, but the law was later repealed, as long as she was shown with her wounds emitting light rather than blood.
‘Be the person God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.’ Catherine of Sienna
Image: The Met