The Virgin Warrior: The Life and Death of Joan of Arc (review)

One can safely estimate that, since 1429, more than 10,000 works—textual, visual, and musical—have been devoted to St. Joan of Arc, authored in languages ranging from French and English to Japanese and Maltese. Of these, many are biographies claiming to portray the "true" Joan. So, pace claims made by this book's author and others, critical biographies of her did and do exist, but because the "truth" of such a unique personage changes with time and culture, another update is needed. Paradoxically, the Internet's boundless information, much of which is unselective at best, thus necessitates a sane, concise biography as never before. Larissa Juliet Taylor has assimilated what historian Philippe Contamine (even before the Internet) deemed "the discouraging mass of Johannic scholarship" to fashion a critical account freshly attuned to current concerns yet faithful to all or most existing evidence.

This book begins with a chronology of Joan's life and trials. Its preface states its deliberate focus on Joan in her own time, to avoid subsequent mythologizing—followed by the prologue's efficient summary of the Hundred Years' War up until her birth. Chapter 1, vividly re-creating her childhood—mainly based on nullification trial testimony—evinces little to nothing about "Jehannette" presaging anything extraordinary. Chapter 2 compares Joan's voices and visions to those of other medieval female saints and visionaries;whereas the latter tended to be self-mortifying and—despite powerful experiences—finally ineffectual because of enclosure, Joan's militant visions, overt self-confidence, and real-world exploits by contrast enabled her to improve her world. Chapter 3, on her mysterious interview with Charles at Chinon, rightly underscores Yolande of Aragon's influence, along with the Poitiers theologians' guardedly affirmative findings, which validated her participation with Charles's army at Orléans. Joan's role in this crucial victory both militarily and symbolically transformed her from mere "mascot" into France's savior; from "harlot" to redoubtable threat to the English (chapter 4). In assessing her other glorious victories (chapter 5), Taylor aptly invokes Joan's gender (and virginal purity), age and, class, which, intriguingly, allowed her greater freedom of action than that enjoyed by the noble male knights, confined by social codes and past (losing) history. Chapter 6 depicts Joan's deteriorating relations with the ever-calculating Charles and now jealous courtiers; she even supposedly foresees her downfall. Chapters 7 through 9 tell of her capture, many prisons, trial, and execution.

Throughout her mission, Taylor's Joan differs from the traditionally characterized intensely devout, naive peasant girl manipulated by powerful nobles, then victimized by shrewd, university-educated clerics: rather, she was a pucelle with a plan. More impressive still, Joan could readily adapt her plan to unforeseen circumstances, thereby retaining her prophetic charisma. For just as she had first learned to mobilize collective yearning and belief (prevailing prophecy) to make herself an "answer," then rapidly mastered the arts of warfare to become chef de guerre and not just a figurehead, Joan as defendant revealed herself an astoundingly quick study in legal-inquisitional language and other maneuvers. If such skills could not save her from the fire, they immortalized her by their enduringly provocative ambiguity as well as their clarity, thus expanding her martyrdom's significance. Despite her enemies' ruthless efforts and Charles's self-protective policies, she triumphs in the end, as chapter 10 (her nullification trial) and epilogue (her 1920 canonization) attest. Four appendices, an index, and notes on further reading (the only possibly weak aspect of the book, but this is a difficult task) complete the volume's usefulness.

Photographs and maps of the actual sites marking Joan's career effectively supplement Taylor's astute analyses. In all, despite some odd source usage (e.g., the infamously zealous Ayroles here looks respectable;"Barrett" is basically the great Pierre Champion [uncredited] in translation), Taylor gives important new scholarship its due...