Introduction

Joan of Arc has long piqued the historical imagination, for it seems impossible that a peasant-maid could have led the French army, crowned her king, and then been burned as a heretic, only later to be found a saint. This volume of original essays seeks to shed light on these mysteries, but also to explain why, even in the 20th century, Joan of Arc remains such a potent symbol.

Scholars here employ the latest tools of historical analysis, literary criticism, and feminist inquiry to reveal why veterans of her military campaigns found her to have been a remarkable commander; why so many of her contemporaries and near-contemporaries, churchmen and poets alike, found it possible to accept the validity of her mission and her voices; why modern politicians and literary and cinematic artists have used her as the symbolic vehicle for their own visions; and why the Catholic Church finally decided to canonize her in 1920.

The essays are heavily cross-referenced, and are capped off with a reflective epilogue by Régine Pernoud, long the dean of Joan scholars and former director of the Centre Jeanne d'Arc at Orleans. Also includes maps.