Joan Of Arc Research Paper

Joan of Arc

She was a peasant girl living in medieval France born in 1412 who by the age of 13 had begun to hear voices which she believed had been sent by God to give her a mission of overwhelming importance. She was being told to save France by expelling its enemies, and to install Charles as its rightful King. Joan convinced the prince at the time to allow her to lead a French army to the besieged city of Orleans, where they achieved a momentous victory over the English. After that Joan of Arc was captured by Anglo-Burgundian forces where she was tried for witchcraft and heresy and burned at the stake at the age of nineteen.

1st Crusade

The first of the Crusades began in 1095, when armies of Christians from Western Europe responded to Pope Urban II’s plea to go to war against Muslim forces in the Holy Land. After the First Crusade attained its goal with the capture of Jerusalem in 1099, the attacking Christians set up numerous Latin Christian states, even as Muslims in the region asserted to wage holy war to regain control over the province. Deteriorating relations between the Crusaders and their Christian allies in the Byzantine Empire concluded in the sack of Constantinople in 1204 during the Third Crusade. Near the end of the 13th century, the rising Mamluk dynasty in Egypt delivered the final reckoning for the Crusaders, collapsing the coastal stronghold of Acre and lashing the European invaders out of Palestine and Syria in 1291.

Black Death

The Black Death arrived in Europe by ocean in 1347 when Genoese exchange ships docked at the Sicilian port of Messina after a long expedition through the Black Sea. The people who congregated on the docks to greet the ships were met with a dismaying surprise. Most of the sailors ...

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...land surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, as Justinian’s armed forces subjugated part of the previous Western Roman Empire. Many prodigious monuments of the empire would be constructed under Justinian, including the domed Church of Holy Wisdom. Justinian also transformed and organized Roman law, establishing a Byzantine legal code that would withstand for centuries and help silhouette the modern concept of the state. At the time of Justinian’s death, the Byzantine Empire ruled supreme as the largest and most powerful state in Europe. Amount overdue experienced through war had left the empire in dire financial straits, however, and his successors were forced to heavily tax Byzantine citizens in order to keep the empire afloat. Furthermore, the majestic army was stretched too thin, and would skirmish in vain to maintain the territory conquered during Justinian’s rule.