Joan of Arc was one of the greatest figures of the Middle Ages - a woman who has fascinated historians ever since. From her sudden arrival on the pages of history, in the spring of 1429, to her humiliating execution at the stake in Rouen in 1431, Joan of Arc achieved astonishing feats that changed the face of the Kingdom of France. The standard biographies of Joan do not give her a human she is a witch, a whore, a saint or a warrior, bound up in myth and legend. Edward Lucie-Smith’s aim was 'to listen to all the witnesses - to Joan herself, to those who knew her, to the chroniclers who recorded her career, to those who preserved fragments of information about her in other documents, such as the royal accounts, and to try to construct from their testimonies a convincing portrait'.