Her thorough knowledge of sources allowed the scholar to depict Joan of Arc with regard to the role models she followed as a young woman. The scholar monitors Joan’s fate from her birth through her rehabilitation in 1456, introducing the world in which she lived her short but extraordinary life. The book explains how she might have been viewed by her contemporaries, to what extent she met their expectations and what about her defied them: it depicts traditional view of the figures of a virgin, a shepherdess and her chosen knight, and, primarily, explains the sources of Joan’s political sympathies and an unshakeable loyalty to Charles VII, demonstrating a thin line between witchcraft and sainthood. In her work, Colette Beaune links many views and approaches, including anthropology, history of mentalities, history of literature, and political and social history, in order to render a complex view of Joan of Arc and the world of her contemporaries.
From French translated by Kateřina Svátková.