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book. Welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval from History Hit, I'm Matt Lewis.

Joan of Arc is a name that's instantly recognizable to most. A controversial figure in her own

day she has remained so ever since, often being adopted as a talisman for French nationalism.

But how much do we really know or understand about a young woman who ignited France's

fight back against England during the Hundred Years War, but paid the ultimate horrific price

at the age of just 19? In my case, I think the answer is not as much as I'd like to know,

so I'm delighted to welcome Dr Hannah Scoda, a fellow and tutor in medieval history at the University

of Oxford to help me discover more. Thank you very much for joining us Hannah.

It's a pleasure. Thank you for asking me.

I guess the first question is, what do we know about Joan of Arc as a young lady? Where did she come

from? What do we know about her family and her background? So we know Joan was one of five children

and she was the daughter of a prosperous peasant called Jacques Dark, and she lived in a small village

called Don Hamie in, it was known as the bar area of France. And what one really needs to kind of

get a sense of at this stage, I think, is that France is completely divided to the extent it

doesn't really even make sense to talk about France. So it's largely divided between two factions,

the Burgundians on the one hand faction led by the Duke of Burgundy and the Ar Maniacs on the

other hand faction led by the Duke of Ar Maniac and the Doe Fung. And so they increasingly,

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