Fresh Verdicts on Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc has long piqued the historical imagination for it seems impossible that a peasant-maid couldhave 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 verterans of her military campaigns found her to have been a remarkable commander; why so many of her contemporaries and near-contemporaries churchman 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 R gine Pernoud long the dean of Joan scholars and former director of the Centre Jeanne d'Arc at Orleans. Also includes maps.