A young girl of peasant origin has visions and suddenly finds herself at the head of an army, defeating the English and Burgundians and leading the Dauphin to the royal anointing in Reims. But a little later she is captured and burned to death after a show trial at the age of only 19. Gerd Krumeich completes his decades of research on the Maid of Orléans with this book and presents a masterful biography that will stand the test of time.
Much has been written and poetised about the Maid of Orléans - and yet Gerd Krumeich offers a surprisingly new view of the French national heroine. Based on a broad study of sources, he uses her as a paradigm to show how a still pre-modern "I" asserts itself against powerful institutions like the Church and insists on an individual relationship with God. In this religiousness of free decision lies one key to understanding the Virgin, another in her "proto-national" conviction that the English have no place in France. The book impressively traces the stages of a life that was so extraordinary that the suspicion arose again and again that Joan of Arc was in fact a man - a thesis that Krumeich convincingly refutes.
Group
Books (first-hand)
Author
Krumeich, Gerd
Title
Jeanne d'Arc. Seherin, Kriegerin, Heilige
Details
With 18 ill., 1 genealogical table, 2 maps. 399 pp.
State
new
Verlag C. H. Beck oHG Wilhelmstr. 9 80801 München Deutschland
