The First Biography of Joan of Arc

Father Daniel Rankin and Claire Quintal have translated the original French manuscript biography of Joan of Arc, adding as well the first English translation of a brief chronicle of great moments in Joan's career. The original authors of both documents remain anonymous, although the author of the manuscript biography gives a clue to the time it was written. He explains that he compiled the work "By order of the King, Louis XII of that name." That places the writing before 1515, the year Louis XII died.This edition includes not only the fully translated manuscript of the biography and chronicle of Joan of Arc, but expert commentary and explanation by Rankin and Quintal, who have also retained the literary tone of the sixteenth-century text. An appendix offers the first text in English about Joan's close friend, Ambrose de Lore.