什麼是聖女貞德

Joan of Arc, Saint

法語作Jeanne d'Arc

法國軍事女英雄。她是農家女孩，從年幼起即相信自己聽到米迦勒、凱瑟琳、瑪格麗特等聖徒的聲音。當她將近十六歲時，她內在的聲音開始催促她幫助法國王子，並從英法百年戰爭中把法國從英國的征服嘗試中拯救出來。穿著男人的衣服，她拜訪王子並說服他、他的顧問和教會當局來支援她。有了她令人信服的話，她把法國軍隊團結起來，1429年解除了英軍的奧爾良之圍。不久，她又在巴泰打敗英軍。王子在理姆斯加冕為查理七世，貞德隨侍在側。她的巴黎之圍沒有成功，1430年被勃艮地人俘獲，並被賣給英國人。她遭查理放棄，被遞解到盧昂的宗教法庭（受支援英國人的法國教士把持），被判行巫和異端。她激烈地自我辯護，但最後放棄而被判終生監禁；當她再度指出她受到聖啟時，她被燒死於樁上。直到1920年，她才被追諡為聖徒。

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.