In Joan of Arc, historian Helen Castor returns to the subject of powerful medieval women that she explored so successfully in She Wolves.
The story of the Maid of Orleans is well-trodden ground: the Library of Congress has more than 1,400 books related to the topic in its collection. Castor brings a new twist to familiar accounts, signaled in the use of "a history" rather than "a biography" as a subtitle. Instead of starting with Joan, she begins with the turbulent history of 15th century France, placing Joan's achievements within the context of the bloody civil war that began with the assassination of Louis, Duke of Orleans, at the instigation of his brother, the Duke of Burgundy, in 1407.
Castor takes the reader step-by-step through the labyrinthine saga of a France divided between Burgundians, the supporters of the French royal family, and the opportunistic claims of England's Henry V to the French crown. Joan appears in the narrative one-third of the way through, when all hope of the French dauphin claiming his throne seems lost. Even after Joan emerges, though, Castor never loses sight of the larger picture, placing her within the context of previous French visionaries, French and English political courts and the realities of 15th century warfare.
Written with both scholarly rigor and the narrative tension of a historical thriller, Castor's Joan of Arc makes the story of St. Joan more understandable, more complex and more extraordinary. --Pamela Toler, blogging at History in the Margins