History Matters and Theatre Matters: Jeanne d’Arc at the Siege of Orléans

Abstract

In the aesthetic framework of the fifteenth-century mysteries –cyclical pieces whose purpose is to materialize on the scene the great Biblical events considered as foundations of the moral and social order shared by the spectators–, Le Mystère du Siège d’Orléans (1456) contributes to the construction of the character of Joan of Arc. Composed from documents and testimonies, often contradictory, which belong to a contemporary historical period of the work, it does not ignore the sacred matter, with whose help, and since the dramatic conception of the Mystère, the historical events of recent years are oriented in the construction of the memory of France.