Foundations

Joan of Arc (c. 1412-1431) was born in Domrémy, a village in eastern France, during the Hundred Years' War, when English armies and their Burgundian allies controlled much of France and the rightful heir, Charles, had not even been crowned. At about thirteen, Joan began to hear what she described as the voices of St. Michael, St. Catherine, and St. Margaret, telling her to drive the English out and bring Charles to be crowned at Reims. This was an astonishing claim from a girl who could not read or write and had never held a weapon. Yet she persuaded the dauphin to let her lead troops, and in 1429 she helped lift the siege of Orléans and saw Charles VII crowned king. Captured by the Burgundians and sold to the English, she was tried by a pro-English Church court on charges of heresy and witchcraft. At nineteen she was burned at the stake in Rouen. Twenty-five years later a new trial cleared her name, and in 1920 the Church canonized her. Joan matters because she shows that holiness and courage do not depend on age, learning, or status. She is the patron saint of France and of soldiers, and a model of doing God's will even when powerful people call you mad or evil. Her virtue is moral courage: standing firm in conviction when the whole tide runs against you.

In 1347 a ship docked at Messina in Sicily carrying sailors already dying of a horrifying disease. Within four years the Black Death — most likely bubonic plague, spread by fleas on rats — killed perhaps a third of all Europeans, between 25 and 50 million people. Whole villages emptied. Priests died giving last rites; farmers died in their fields; cities lost half their people in months. No one understood the cause; some blamed God's wrath, some blamed Jews (leading to terrible, unjust pogroms the Church often condemned), some fled, some prayed. The plague broke the medieval order. With so many workers dead, the survivors could demand higher wages, and the rigid feudal system that bound serfs to the land began to crack. Overlapping this catastrophe was the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453), a long, on-and-off struggle between England and France over who should rule France and over English lands on the continent. English longbowmen won stunning victories at Crécy (1346) and Agincourt (1415), where massed arrows shredded the flower of French knighthood — a sign that the age of the armored noble was ending. The war devastated the French countryside for generations. Together, plague and war shattered the confidence of a civilization that had built soaring cathedrals and believed in a stable, God-ordained order. People grew obsessed with death and judgment. Yet the crisis also cleared the ground: a freer peasantry, growing towns, and a restless new spirit were stirring that would soon bloom into the Renaissance.

This week we begin Part Three of YOUCAT, 'Life in Christ' — how a Christian actually lives. Its starting point fits perfectly with a week about society in crisis: the human person is made not for isolation but for community. YOUCAT teaches that 'the human person needs life in society' because we develop our gifts, meet our needs, and grow in love only with and for others (YOUCAT 321-323). From this flows the idea of the common good: the sum of conditions that allow individuals and groups to flourish — things like justice, peace, security, and respect for each person's dignity (YOUCAT 327-328). Government and authority exist to serve this common good, not the private interest of the powerful (YOUCAT 326). The Black Death and the Hundred Years' War were, in a way, breakdowns of the common good — disease and war tore at the very conditions people need to thrive. The Church's social teaching insists that every person, from a king to a plague-orphaned peasant, has equal dignity and that society must be ordered toward the good of all, especially the weakest. This is also where the principle of solidarity is rooted: we are responsible for one another.

Close the day by reviewing the timeline and key terms. Add today's two dates (Black Death 1347-1351; Hundred Years' War 1337-1453) to your running course timeline, and write one sentence answering: 'What did the late medieval crisis destroy, and what did it open up?'