Joan : the mysterious life of the heretic who became a saint

Resource Information

The work Joan : the mysterious life of the heretic who became a saint represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in University of Missouri Libraries. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Joan : the mysterious life of the heretic who became a saint

Title remainder

the mysterious life of the heretic who became a saint

Statement of responsibility

Donald Spoto

Creator

• Spoto, Donald, 1941-

Subject

• Biography
• Christian women saints -- France -- Biography
• Biographies
• Joan, of Arc, Saint, 1412-1431

Genre

• Biography
• Biographies

Language

eng

Summary

• According to biographer and theologian Spoto, Joan of Arc is a girl for the 21st century. She asserted and fought for the ideal that nations shouldn't invade and occupy others for the sake of empire building, a message to contemplate in today's political landscape. But it's unfair to read our contemporary concerns back into her 15th-century story, says Spoto. In this engaging and at times gripping biography, he examines Joan's life and particularly her faith in the face of a church threatened by her visions. Spoto details what is known or surmised about Joan's early life and military career, but the book's most fascinating aspect is the suspenseful day-by-day account of her year-long trial and conviction for heresy. Here we see the Maid's (as she called herself) sense of God's instructions for her life, and her efforts to obey God above all else, including earthly church authority. Spoto helps us understand her threat to political and ecclesiastical figures. The only person to have been condemned for heresy and later sainted, Joan of Arc continues to capture the popular imagination and is, Spoto argues, "the sign that God is free to act as He wills to act, not as we presume He ought to act."
• "Since her death at the age of nineteen in 1431, Joan of Arc has maintained a remarkable hold on our collective imagination. She was a teenager of astonishing common sense and a national heroine who led men in battle as a courageous warrior. Yet she was also abandoned by the king whose coronation she secured, betrayed by her countrymen, and sold to the enemy. In this meticulously researched biography, Donald Spoto expertly captures this astonishing life and the times in which she lived. Neither wife nor nun, neither queen nor noblewoman, neither philosopher nor stateswoman, Joan of Arc demonstrates that anyone who follows their heart has the power to change history."--BOOK JACKET

Biography type

individual biography

Cataloging source

TEF

Dewey number

• 944/.026/092
• B

Index

no index present

LC call number

DC103

LC item number

.S68 2007

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography