Helen Castor, Joan of Arc Meet the Author


Helen Castor, Joan of Arc

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Helen Castor is a media `` Midi veal `` medieval historian. Her latest

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work is Joan of Arc. She retells the story of the made in man's clothing

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who led the French to an lovable series of victories against English

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invaders until she was captured, tried and burnt at the stake by the

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English. Helen Castor, for those who have

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perhaps only the hideous notion of who Joan of Arc was what she did,

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with their remainders of the arc of her career.

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Joan of Arc was one of the most extraordinary figures in medieval

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history. Early France was experiencing an appalling period of

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crisis at war with England and also divided with itself in a civil war.

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In 1429, Joan of Arc appeared as if from nowhere, a peasant girl,

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probably about 17 years old, declaring that she had been sent by

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God to drive the English out of France and restorer the king to his

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throne. What she did, soft top. She let her cane, the leader of one half

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of the French, to the coronation. After that the wheels came off.

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Yes, she was captured, charged with heresy and burned.

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The historian today is fortunate because she is one of the few people

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in the middle ages about whom there is a considerable written record.

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The English tried her and took copious notes of all the trials and

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proceedings. And then the French staged a sort of anti`trial and

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recorded that. We have pages and pages of

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testimony, including from Joan herself.

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It is extraordinary. She went on to become an legendary figure in

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France. What we found was all romantic imagery is `` imagery. She

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is a national heroine but the real drama gets lost on that.

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The real Joan gets lost in that. It is extraordinary. Myth`making again

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almost as soon as she appeared and then gathered pace after she left.

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Every age has remade as Jordan and SMH for her own ends.

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She was a difficult and spiky character who had immense charisma.

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A tremendous impact on her contemporaries, including the King

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of France. But she is difficult for us to get a handle on because,

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absolutely central to her story is a religious visions which drove her

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own hands of the way society in which she was operating responded to

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that. The medieval approach to religion is something we have

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difficulty as modern people understanding.

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I think we do and sometimes it is seen as if Joan brought God into

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this war and that was one of her great powers. She said, I am

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bringing God's will to work here. One of the things we have to

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understand is that France was struggling with its sense of itself

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as God's chosen people, the great Christian kingdom, and yet it was

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riven with the vision and bore. How could these things be? So for John

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to bring a question from God that he might intervene in the world when

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all was lost was very powerful. One of the things that happened since I

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finished writing the book at the beginning of the year is that a

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resonance in watching the news that actually the power of unbending

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religious faith, uncompromising religious faith in warfare, is

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something that is beginning to see more directly real to us even here

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in our secular ways. I was going to ask, it is not too

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symbol to draw comparisons. Not at all. If someone lives in a

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world where God's hand intervenes and there is no room for

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compromise. Joan sees the truth of God on her side and the prosecutors

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say that he cannot be on her side because he is on the side. Something

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has got together and Joan has to die.

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Used to be an academic and `` academic. You switched. You are

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still a professional historian but you write books for a general

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audience. Why did you do that? I found I wanted to write books in a

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rather different way. I didn't want to abandon any of the regular, the

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discipline and the training that I got from academic life but I wanted

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to write narrative history. Another popular historian wrote

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recently that you have to make a choice between telling a really good

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tale but possibly finessing some of the complexities and being someone

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who sets out the clues by which they reached their conclusion. The first

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of that appeals to us but the latter is surely more honest to the

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difficulties of writing history. That is certainly true but what I am

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aiming for is to do both. There are extensive pages of notes were I am

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doing my Hercule Poirot that, showing the comparisons I have come

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to. I hope there is an honesty to the narrative part of the book

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because I as a historian have to make those decisions and decide

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which sources to follow, which accounts. Which balancing of

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evidence I find most convincing. Briefly, your last project was

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She`Wolves which was explicitly feminist. About women in the middle

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ages that tried to rule England as Queens. This is a book about another

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medieval women. To what extent it all is Joan of Arc a model for

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someone who modern feminists are to know about?

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I think it is someone that modern people ought to know about. Her role

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as a feminist icon is extraordinarily interesting. As in

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almost any other area of life, she is being used as a role model by

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both sides. Some will say she is a scourge of modern feminism. And yet

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suffragettes stressed like her. She is not unlike other figures like

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Elizabeth the first and Margaret Thatcher in that she didn't like

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other women around her. She is keen on being the exception rather than

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the start of a wave. But a woman who did the impossible is always worth

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looking at. Thank you very much.

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Still some rain to come. It would be totally dry. This weather front has

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introduced Lott a lot workload during the day. Temperatures have

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been in the low 20s when we

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