My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Throughout history there have been figures that have risen meteorically only to come crashing to earth very quickly. In all of medieval European history, no figure rose so dramatically or fell so quickly as Joan of Arc, the teenage peasant girl who claimed to hear voices from angels and saints and rallied the battered French forces against the invading English. And despite her precipitous fall, few other figures from this time have endured in popular imagination. So, who was she, what exactly did she do, and was she the real deal or a delusional peasant? In this book, Helen Castor seeks to inject some flesh and blood into this enduring myth.
If this is your first time reading about Joan of Arc, it is important to note that this book is not a straight, cradle-to-grave biography. This book rather puts Joan in her historical context by going all the way back to the invasion of France by that equally famous figure from this period, King Henry V of England, and proceeding from there. In the first act, Ms. Castor shows how, through the English invasion and internal divisions of the French court, much of northern France fell into English hands. This is incredibly valuable context, but it can be rather complicated too. There is a great deal of medieval politics and backstabbing going on that Ms. Castor does not always do a great job of explaining. The point Ms. Castor makes by the end though is that things look incredibly bleak for the French by the time Joan arrives at court.
When Joan does arrive and the French decide to give her an army, things dramatically change. Joan lifts the siege of the critical city of Orleans and begins to push the English back with a handful of victories that look something akin to miracles. Ms. Castor does a great job of explaining how Joan, a teenage peasant girl with no military experience claiming to hear messages from God, got an audience with the Dauphin and began to push the English back, but she doesn't do a great job of explaining why the French would entrust her with an army in the first place. At the same time, to preserve the linear story she is telling about this period in history, Ms. Castor doesn't tell us anything about Joan's background until her capture and trial at the hands of the English. On top of that, one of the more frustrating parts about his book is the fact that there are no campaign or battle maps included. There is only one map that shows the status quo in France just prior to Joan's arrival at court. While it is a detailed map, I found myself having to refer to that one map over and over again and not always finding where everyone was. Even some simple black and white maps inserted into the text would've helped a great deal.
The last major aspect of Joan's story Ms. Castor deals with is her trial, execution, and then retrial decades later. The popular myth of Joan's trial is that it was a hit job designed to pass a guilty verdict upon a girl who had become such a nuisance to the English so quickly. The story Ms. Castor relates though is one where the jurists were deadly serious about Joan's potential heresy and genuinely were trying to correct her error and save her soul and her life. Though things do not end well for Joan, her retrial decades later casts aspersions on that first trial. Thus, by the end of the book, I was left with two contradictory thoughts about Joan's trial, that it was both a preordained hit job and a sincere search for the truth of her claims. Ms. Castor does not really giver her own analysis and opinions about the whole matter, leaving it up to the reader to decide for themselves.
Ultimately, this book is a great introduction to the period. By the end of it, I had a better understanding of the times Joan lived in and just how vital a role she played in turning back the English invasion, even though she only campaigned for a little over a year and would not live to see France recovered by the French. And yet, I still feel as though there were big gaps left unexplained. Ms. Castor doesn't do enough to dispel the confusion that reigned prior to Joan's arrival. And while a great deal of Joan's history is answered in this book, I am still left with a great number of questions, the biggest one being whether or not Joan was the real deal, a person who was chosen by God to deliver France from the English, or just a delusional peasant girl. Ms. Castor never even attempts to answer that question and, perhaps, there is no definitive answer to that question. Still, an attempt at answering that question would've been nice. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in reading an introduction to Joan of Arc and her times. Just don't expect all of your questions to be answered by the end of it.
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