Discerninghearts.com presents Inside the Pages, Insights, from today's most compelling authors.

I'm your host, Chris McGregor, and I'm delighted to be joined by Dr. Vincent Ryan, who is an assistant professor of history at Aquinas College.

But Dr. Ryan, we go inside the pages of The Maid of Orleone,

The Life and Mysticism of Joan of Arc,

written by Sven Stolpe and published by Ignatius Press.

Vincent, thank you so much for joining me.

Happy to be here.

The Maid of Orleone, the life and mysticism of Joan of Arc.

It is a fascinating take on a tale that has been told in many different ways, hasn't it?

It has.

John Mark is certainly one of the more written about figures and history, certainly one of the most written about people during the Middle Ages,

you know, partially because, I mean, she's so remarkable, but what adds, I think, to the mountain of books that seemingly is no end to being produced,

is the fact that she's one of the best documented people of the medieval period due to the various trials that she experienced during her life.

And then her posthumous rehabilitation trial was another environment where a lot of eyewitnesses

about her life, family members came forward.

So we know much more about her than even lots of, you know, aristocrats and kings

and queens because of all these illegal proceedings that she was involved in.

And it gives, oh, sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead. Keep going.

Well, and with all that, I mean, so there's so much evidence and her voice, you know, that we have direct access through the transcripts of these trials that make her, you know, on top of the remarkable things that she was involved in.

The interest of people, whether they're religiously inclined or secularly inclined,

she remains really since her, since she came onto the scene in 1429, ever since then,

she remains this figure of great fascination.

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