November 30, 2021 • 22 mins
We recently talked about Stede Bonnet, a wealthy landowner who ditched it all for a life of piracy. Bonnet though was not the only aristocrat to turn his back on his life for a life plundering the high seas. Jeanne de Clisson is another noble-turned-pirate who got into the revenge business - upon her husband Olivier's execution by the King of France.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership
with I Heart Radio. Welcome to criminal Lea where it's
pirate season. We're continuing to explore the lives and motivations
of some of the most notorious freebooters throughout history. I'm
(00:23):
Maria from Marquis and I'm Holly Fry and we recently
talked about Steve Bonnet, who was a wealthy landowner who
ditched it all for a life of piracy. And while
no one is certain why Bonnet decided to become a pirate,
he was not the only aristocrat to turn his back
on his life for instead a life of plundering the
(00:44):
high seas. Jean de Clisson is another noble turned pirate.
She was born Jean Louise de Belleville, Dame de Montegiu,
the daughter of Maurice the fourth of Belleville Montigieu and
Latisse de Partiny, in Bellevue Servie, Belvigny, France, in thirteen hundred.
(01:05):
Her family had ruled in the area for hundreds of years.
When her father, the family's last male heir, died in
three Jin, who was just three years old at the time,
became the last surviving member of the noble family. Her
story begins not unlike many other women born into fourteenth
century wealthy families, when she was twelve years old, she
(01:27):
was married to nineteen year old Geoffrey de chateaubriand the
heir to one of the key defensive estates in the region.
While marriage at twelve maybe shocking by today's standards, it was,
as we've said before, not really a rare occurrence at
this point in time. During the Middle Ages, couples were
allowed to marry without parental consent as long as they
had hit puberty, and puberty was generally considered aged twelve
(01:51):
for girls and fourteen for boys, and if you were
royal or part of the aristocracy, where strategic alliances were
very common, you may have married even younger. Jeune and
Joffrey were not married for love. Jin and Jeffrey had
two children, a daughter, Louise and a son Jeoffrey, who
both would one day inherit the family's massive estates. But
(02:15):
in thirty six, Jeffrey, to be clear, the elder, not
the son, died of causes that we actually can't verify.
So as a young widow with two children, Jan now
found herself in control of a group of lordships just
south of the Breton border. Two years later, she remarried
(02:35):
to Guy of pantiev of the House of Pantievre. While
some sources suggest that the marriage ended when Jeanne met
the love of her life, it's also reported that her
in laws, in an effort to protect their heritage and property,
lodged a grievance with the Catholic Church to end this union.
Either way, According to papal records, in February of thirty
(02:57):
Pope John they annulled Juan and Geese marriage, and that
meant that it was then invalid in the eyes of
the Catholic Church. Just a few months later, on April thirty,
June sought a dispensation from the Holy See to marry
Olivier de Clisson. So what's the Holy See? The Vatican
(03:19):
City State is the seat of the Catholic Church and
it's the headquarters of the Holy See. The Holy See
is the government basically of the Roman Catholic Church. Think
of it as the Church's diplomatic arm and it's the
Pope who exercises authority over both the Vatican City State
and the Holy See. Asking for a marriage dispensation was
(03:40):
asking the Church to overlook the Catholic law in order
for a marriage to be considered valid. That could have
been as simple as asking for permission for a Catholic
to marry a non Catholic, or perhaps marry a person
who had not been baptized. So enter Olivier de Clisson
Olivia A was a wealthy Breton holding Chateau de Clisson,
(04:03):
a manor house in Nantes and lands at Blin if
you remember. When she was widowed, Jeune inherited land south
of the Breton border, and their combined assets essentially made
them a fourteenth century power couple. Jeune and Olivier were
an exception to many marriages at the time as well,
not because of their power or combined wealth, although that
(04:25):
was formidable, but instead because they were in love. The
couple went on to have five children. Two of their children,
Maurice and Yome, passed away very early in their lives.
Their son, Olivier, who was nicknamed the Butcher for his
brutality in battle, and his sisters Isabeau and Jeune would
survive until adulthood. Just when everything seems to be going
(04:49):
along fine, we all know that count last war broke out.
The best way to describe what was going on here
is that there was a war, the Hundred Years War,
then a second war, the War of Breton Succession, which
was an important conflict within the Hundred Years War. The
Hundred Years War, for a little context here, was fought
(05:11):
between England and France. It lasted from May of thirteen
thirty seven to October of fourteen fifty three, which, with
some quick math, actually makes the joke how long was
the Hundred Years Work not so obvious. It lasted a
hundred and sixteen years, four months, three weeks, and four days.
(05:33):
The War of Breton Succession began four years after this
whole thing began, so in thirteen forty one, and it
ended in thirteen sixty five. While it may seem like
an internal matter for France, England definitely had a stake
in it. We'll talk more about that in just a bit.
Both of the conflicts began for similar reasons, an air,
(05:56):
or specifically the lack thereof. We're going to take a
break here for a word from our sponsor. When we return,
we will be talking about why dying without an heir
could turn into a war welcome back to criminalia. Before
(06:19):
we can talk about the catalytic visions turned to piracy,
first we need to talk about war. In thirty eight,
King Charles the Fourth of France died without a male
heir to the throne. We make that distinction of male
heir because when Charles died, he left behind a young
daughter and a pregnant wife. Here is the problem. Charles
(06:42):
the Fourth needed to follow Salak law, which means that
females were excluded from the line of succession to a throne.
Salek Law was a legal code first issued some time
between the year's five hundred and seven to eleven. It
contained a list of offenses and their fines. It also
included civil law decrees such as a line of succession enactment. Now,
(07:08):
if that unborn child that was still in the mix
when he passed was a male, he would, without questions,
succeed the throne. But the baby born after Charles's death
was a girl, whom they named Blanche and who would
later become Duchess of Orleans. That meant Charles's successor was
(07:28):
left to the nobles. Let's fast forward a few years
to seven. England and France went to war over who
had the right to rule France, a fight that not
only questioned the legitimate heir to the French throne, but
also included conflicts over English territorial possessions in France, among
(07:49):
other problems. Of course, Brittany, where Jeanne and Olivier called home,
became a key focal point in the Hundred Years War
for both of the two powers. Both King Edward the
Third of England and King Philip the sixth of France
had their eyes on the region as the position between
England and France that could offer a strategic advantage. They
(08:11):
both knew it could be an advantage to either power, though,
But what we're most interested in here is the War
of Breton succession. This war changed Jeune's life, and the
war began when Duke John the Third of Brittany, also
known as John the Good of Brittany, died childless. And
here we go again, there is no heir. After his death,
(08:34):
his half brother Jean de Montfort contested and claimed that
he was the rightful heir, but so did Charles de Blois,
who was not related through blood but was the husband
of the late Duke's niece. It's all very complicated, but
basically everyone wants a little piece of power. Montford was
backed by Edward the third of England. Du Blois and
(08:55):
his wife, jean du Pontiev had the support of Philip
the sixth on the second and Charles the fifth of France.
You may recognize that name the House of Pontier from
earlier when we talked about Jeune's second husband and their
a nullment. This was a prominent family. That's why they're
making moves here. The contested heir to the throne problem
(09:17):
is what kicked off the War of Breton succession. Olivier
and Jeanne, like many nobles at the time, were afraid
that they could lose their land and their other holdings
to the English if England's choice for air was victorious.
Those with money favored Charles du Bois as Duke of Breton.
In two Olivier took on the role of one of
(09:39):
Charles's military commanders, siding with the French against the English
back claimant. But during the campaign, rumors swirled that Olivier
was actually an English sympathizer, that he had turned sides. Okay,
the real rumors were actually just swirling in one man's head.
But that was enough because that may m was Charles Dubois,
(10:02):
and he questioned whether or not Olivier had intentionally given
up Vaughn when the English besieged it in two But
as usual when we're talking about events from nearly seven
hundred years ago, accounts can differ on the exact details,
for instance, the reason for this growing distrust. A few
(10:23):
accounts claim that Olivier had defected to the English side,
but there isn't much more detailed to that. Almost all
accounts suggest it wasn't until he was captured in battle
that his loyalty was actually questioned, And specifically, it was
the amount of his ransom that caused Charles to raise
an eyebrow. Why was the amount so low? Clearly that
(10:45):
had to mean that Olivier must be conspiring with the
King of England. Right, So we're going to take a
break for a word from our sponsor, and when we
come back we will talk about how Olivier de Clisson
was accused of being a trainer. Welcome back to Criminalia.
(11:10):
Now let's talk about why Jeanne wanted revenge against the
French and what she did about it. So we have
Olivier captured on the battlefield and imprisoned by the English,
and as probably comes as no surprise, we have two
versions of his imprisonment. One version suggests that he was
(11:30):
imprisoned by the English and while he was locked up,
a truce was agreed upon and the prisoners of war
were released. The alternate version is that his ransom was paid,
it was pretty low, I hear, and he was released
and the truce didn't happen until later. We do not
actually know how Olivier was sprung, but we do know
(11:51):
that in January of thirty three, the Truce of Malstrois
was signed between England and France, one of many that
would be signed in the war. Olivier and fifteen other
Breton lords were invited to a tournament on French soil,
and as it was technically now peacetime between the two countries,
the Breton lords assumed that things would be on the
(12:14):
up and up. Yeah, But because there's always a butt,
King Philip the sixth, now to believing that Olivier was
a trader, ordered him arrested at the tournament. Charles did
just that and sent the captive to Paris, where he
was tried for treason. On August two three. There was
(12:38):
a totally bogus and one sided trial other than Charles
suspicion as to why the ransom was that low. There
was no actual proof of guilt found against Olivier, but
he was sentenced to death and executed by beheading. And
things didn't actually end there. They got worse. His body
(12:59):
and his head were shipped to different regions of France
and put on public display as a warning to others.
The desecration of his corpse was considered shameful. That kind
of thing was normally only reserved for common criminals. It
was not something that happened to people of the noble class.
(13:20):
So Jeune was not only grief stricken over losing her husband,
a man that she had legitimately married for love, but
she was now also angry and humiliated at his treatment postmortem.
His body was strung up by the armpits at the
gallows of Montfaucon in Paris as a warning to others,
(13:40):
and enraged. Jeune and her two sons, Jeffrey and Olivier,
went to see the other gruesome display that was Olivier's
head on a pike in Brittany's capital of Nantes. Then
she rallied support. She sold everything. She sold her jewels,
her clothing, the furniture that decorated the family's castles, and
(14:01):
she sold all her land. With the money she raised,
she bought three ships and built a pirate fleet. She
wasn't seeking pirate treasure, though. She was a widow and
a mother of seven children, and she was seeking her
own kind of justice. Upon Olivier's execution by the King,
June did not remarry, as her social status may have suggested. Instead,
(14:26):
she did all of this that Marius just described, and
she got into the revenge business. She wanted revenge on
Charles du Bois, on the King of France, and on
France itself. She built what became known as the Black Fleet,
comprised of three black ships with red sails, a fleet,
it said that struck terror into the hearts of French
(14:48):
sailors throughout her thirteen year long career plundering French warships
in the English channel. Thirteen years thirteen years, man, that
is a career of revenge right there. Yes, she named
her flagship my Revenge. An alternate version of this story
(15:10):
adds an additional element to her revolt, so before taking
to the seas, It said she assembled other discontented nobles,
and together they raged a bloody rampage against the King's followers,
killing all the royal nobles they could find as they
rode across the battlefield. While she may or may not
have begun her campaign against the French on land, Jin
(15:33):
was as ruthless as any other pirate. At sea. She
developed a reputation for vengeance and cruelty, and was nicknamed
the Lioness of Brittany. It said she and her pirate
crew would attack French ships and kill the French crews.
According to legend, she would personally be had anyone of
nobility who was found on board. Typically pirates would have
(15:55):
kept aristocrats for ransom, but as we've said, Jin was
not seeking wealth. Some versions of her legend report that
she would leave one, perhaps two sailors alive just to
tell the story. Other versions suggests that no one got
out alive, and that all of the ships that she
attacked she also sank. Jin's life as a pirate is
(16:17):
sometimes split into two pirty pieces. So first, as we know,
she was an independent pirate with her own fleet of
ships and a loyal crew, but Some accounts also reference
an alliance she established with the English, possibly as a privateer,
to keep French ships out of the English Channel. She
(16:38):
also used the Black Fleet to fairy supplies to English
troops fighting in France. June continued her battle even after
her royal rival, King Philip the sixth died. She remained
allied against the French, and when it comes to whether
or not she got her revenge on Charles du Bois, well,
she didn't. The man who started the rooms that eventually
(17:01):
killed her husband was killed and his army was defeated
in the Battle of r A in thirteen sixty four,
which was a deciding battle in the War of Breton Succession.
The war eventually concluded with the Treaty of Gerond in
thirteen sixty five, when Jean montforce Air was officially recognized
by France as ruler of Brittany. So she did marry
(17:23):
once more, although there actually isn't much written about it.
In thirteen fifty six, soon after ending her life of piracy,
she married Gautier de Bentley, who had been one of
the King of England's military deputies. Sir Bentley, for his
service had been rewarded with land and castles. The most
common end to a pirate story doesn't look like this.
(17:48):
Jin story ends where she settles in one of those
castles in a port town on the Brittany coast, and
it's there she died in thirteen fifty nine. So we
can discuss revenge in the groggery today, we can. Yeah,
(18:10):
I wanted to think about putting something together that felt
like it referenced June's obvious fire, because you don't go
on a revenge trek for thirteen years unless really really
got a lot of passion for the project. And so
(18:31):
this cocktail is called Red Sales. I'm so glad that
you went with the Black Fleet. Like when I was
reading how she painted up her ships and the red stay,
I was like, that's got to be something about Yeah,
it's a vocative. So this is called Red Sales, and
it is a red cocktail, and it starts with an
(18:51):
ounce and a half of cinnamon whiskey. Oh my god,
I'm with you right here. You might not be, because
I'm going to commit a cur hime further down for
what I know to be your taste, but in fact, yeah,
so it's one and a half ounces of cinnamon whiskey,
one half ounce of Grand Marnier, one half ounce of
(19:12):
simple syrup, and one half ounce of lemon juice, and
you're gonna pour that into your shaker, shake it with ice,
then strain it over ice, and you will top that
with cranberry. So it's a beautiful red You get cinnamon flavor,
you get that Grand Marnier, like that candied orange flavor
with some smoke on it. I know Maria does not
always love mixing citrus with cranberry, which is the actually
(19:36):
just talked about that. Yeah, but I mean like it's
got other friends in there. I'd give it a try. Yeah,
it's got enough going on, and particularly the cinnamon whiskey.
Doesn't think that doesn't so much do what I think
you don't like about that mixture of of citrus and cranberry.
But it is it's a very um oh, it's a
delicious one. It has sort of a nice sense ation
(20:00):
of like drinking a red hot in cocktail form. But
for people that don't like drinks that taste like alcohol,
you're set because you get the cinnamon flavor, but the
whiskey is overwhelmed in it's that sort of burning whiskey
flavor by everything else. Yes, Now, if you want to
(20:24):
make a non alcoholic version of this, what I would
do is, instead of that cinnamon whiskey, start with like
an ounce of cinnamon syrup. If you can't find cinnamon
syrup where you are, you can literally just make simple syrup.
And remember that's an easy formula. It's like one cup
of sugar to one cup of water, and you can
(20:45):
add cinnamon to it. You have cinnamon sticks, it's even better,
and oil that together and let the sugar dissolve and
then strain off any sticks if you use sticks in it,
and then you're you're golden. So you can use that
a little bit of orange sir up to get that
Grand Marnier in there. Again, if you don't have orange syrup,
you could also put a little orange juice in. That's
(21:06):
totally fine. Keep your simple syrup and your lemon juice
and your cranberry and you get a very similar flavor.
It's a little lighter because that's cinnamon whiskey. It's got
a lot of flavor on it, like it's unmistakable. I
don't know that you can perfectly replicate what that does
to your palette, but it'll be pretty close and that
(21:26):
is Red Sails. I must say I am loving right now.
So at the end of the season we do our
top three drinks and I obviously have not tried this
one yet because we just started talking about it, but
just based on ingredients, I'm like, well, that could be
on the top three. Yeah, I don't even know. I
haven't even had it yet, but we will see. It
(21:47):
did turn out nicely, and it's one of those ones
that when you drink it, think of and the thirteen
years and it's sort of oddly satisfying to like drink
it and think of her. I can see that it's fiery. Yes,
it feels right for her legacy. If you make it,
we hope you love it, and we want to thank
(22:08):
you once again for spending this time with us this week.
We will be right back here next week, and in
the meantime, we can't wait for more Criminalia. We're getting
near to the end of Pirate season, so get ready.
Criminalia is a production of Shonda land Audio in partnership
(22:30):
with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shonda land Audio,
please visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership
with I Heart Radio. Welcome to criminal Lea where it's
pirate season. We're continuing to explore the lives and motivations
of some of the most notorious freebooters throughout history. I'm
(00:23):
Maria from Marquis and I'm Holly Fry and we recently
talked about Steve Bonnet, who was a wealthy landowner who
ditched it all for a life of piracy. And while
no one is certain why Bonnet decided to become a pirate,
he was not the only aristocrat to turn his back
on his life for instead a life of plundering the
(00:44):
high seas. Jean de Clisson is another noble turned pirate.
She was born Jean Louise de Belleville, Dame de Montegiu,
the daughter of Maurice the fourth of Belleville Montigieu and
Latisse de Partiny, in Bellevue Servie, Belvigny, France, in thirteen hundred.
(01:05):
Her family had ruled in the area for hundreds of years.
When her father, the family's last male heir, died in
three Jin, who was just three years old at the time,
became the last surviving member of the noble family. Her
story begins not unlike many other women born into fourteenth
century wealthy families, when she was twelve years old, she
(01:27):
was married to nineteen year old Geoffrey de chateaubriand the
heir to one of the key defensive estates in the region.
While marriage at twelve maybe shocking by today's standards, it was,
as we've said before, not really a rare occurrence at
this point in time. During the Middle Ages, couples were
allowed to marry without parental consent as long as they
had hit puberty, and puberty was generally considered aged twelve
(01:51):
for girls and fourteen for boys, and if you were
royal or part of the aristocracy, where strategic alliances were
very common, you may have married even younger. Jeune and
Joffrey were not married for love. Jin and Jeffrey had
two children, a daughter, Louise and a son Jeoffrey, who
both would one day inherit the family's massive estates. But
(02:15):
in thirty six, Jeffrey, to be clear, the elder, not
the son, died of causes that we actually can't verify.
So as a young widow with two children, Jan now
found herself in control of a group of lordships just
south of the Breton border. Two years later, she remarried
(02:35):
to Guy of pantiev of the House of Pantievre. While
some sources suggest that the marriage ended when Jeanne met
the love of her life, it's also reported that her
in laws, in an effort to protect their heritage and property,
lodged a grievance with the Catholic Church to end this union.
Either way, According to papal records, in February of thirty
(02:57):
Pope John they annulled Juan and Geese marriage, and that
meant that it was then invalid in the eyes of
the Catholic Church. Just a few months later, on April thirty,
June sought a dispensation from the Holy See to marry
Olivier de Clisson. So what's the Holy See? The Vatican
(03:19):
City State is the seat of the Catholic Church and
it's the headquarters of the Holy See. The Holy See
is the government basically of the Roman Catholic Church. Think
of it as the Church's diplomatic arm and it's the
Pope who exercises authority over both the Vatican City State
and the Holy See. Asking for a marriage dispensation was
(03:40):
asking the Church to overlook the Catholic law in order
for a marriage to be considered valid. That could have
been as simple as asking for permission for a Catholic
to marry a non Catholic, or perhaps marry a person
who had not been baptized. So enter Olivier de Clisson
Olivia A was a wealthy Breton holding Chateau de Clisson,
(04:03):
a manor house in Nantes and lands at Blin if
you remember. When she was widowed, Jeune inherited land south
of the Breton border, and their combined assets essentially made
them a fourteenth century power couple. Jeune and Olivier were
an exception to many marriages at the time as well,
not because of their power or combined wealth, although that
(04:25):
was formidable, but instead because they were in love. The
couple went on to have five children. Two of their children,
Maurice and Yome, passed away very early in their lives.
Their son, Olivier, who was nicknamed the Butcher for his
brutality in battle, and his sisters Isabeau and Jeune would
survive until adulthood. Just when everything seems to be going
(04:49):
along fine, we all know that count last war broke out.
The best way to describe what was going on here
is that there was a war, the Hundred Years War,
then a second war, the War of Breton Succession, which
was an important conflict within the Hundred Years War. The
Hundred Years War, for a little context here, was fought
(05:11):
between England and France. It lasted from May of thirteen
thirty seven to October of fourteen fifty three, which, with
some quick math, actually makes the joke how long was
the Hundred Years Work not so obvious. It lasted a
hundred and sixteen years, four months, three weeks, and four days.
(05:33):
The War of Breton Succession began four years after this
whole thing began, so in thirteen forty one, and it
ended in thirteen sixty five. While it may seem like
an internal matter for France, England definitely had a stake
in it. We'll talk more about that in just a bit.
Both of the conflicts began for similar reasons, an air,
(05:56):
or specifically the lack thereof. We're going to take a
break here for a word from our sponsor. When we return,
we will be talking about why dying without an heir
could turn into a war welcome back to criminalia. Before
(06:19):
we can talk about the catalytic visions turned to piracy,
first we need to talk about war. In thirty eight,
King Charles the Fourth of France died without a male
heir to the throne. We make that distinction of male
heir because when Charles died, he left behind a young
daughter and a pregnant wife. Here is the problem. Charles
(06:42):
the Fourth needed to follow Salak law, which means that
females were excluded from the line of succession to a throne.
Salek Law was a legal code first issued some time
between the year's five hundred and seven to eleven. It
contained a list of offenses and their fines. It also
included civil law decrees such as a line of succession enactment. Now,
(07:08):
if that unborn child that was still in the mix
when he passed was a male, he would, without questions,
succeed the throne. But the baby born after Charles's death
was a girl, whom they named Blanche and who would
later become Duchess of Orleans. That meant Charles's successor was
(07:28):
left to the nobles. Let's fast forward a few years
to seven. England and France went to war over who
had the right to rule France, a fight that not
only questioned the legitimate heir to the French throne, but
also included conflicts over English territorial possessions in France, among
(07:49):
other problems. Of course, Brittany, where Jeanne and Olivier called home,
became a key focal point in the Hundred Years War
for both of the two powers. Both King Edward the
Third of England and King Philip the sixth of France
had their eyes on the region as the position between
England and France that could offer a strategic advantage. They
(08:11):
both knew it could be an advantage to either power, though,
But what we're most interested in here is the War
of Breton succession. This war changed Jeune's life, and the
war began when Duke John the Third of Brittany, also
known as John the Good of Brittany, died childless. And
here we go again, there is no heir. After his death,
(08:34):
his half brother Jean de Montfort contested and claimed that
he was the rightful heir, but so did Charles de Blois,
who was not related through blood but was the husband
of the late Duke's niece. It's all very complicated, but
basically everyone wants a little piece of power. Montford was
backed by Edward the third of England. Du Blois and
(08:55):
his wife, jean du Pontiev had the support of Philip
the sixth on the second and Charles the fifth of France.
You may recognize that name the House of Pontier from
earlier when we talked about Jeune's second husband and their
a nullment. This was a prominent family. That's why they're
making moves here. The contested heir to the throne problem
(09:17):
is what kicked off the War of Breton succession. Olivier
and Jeanne, like many nobles at the time, were afraid
that they could lose their land and their other holdings
to the English if England's choice for air was victorious.
Those with money favored Charles du Bois as Duke of Breton.
In two Olivier took on the role of one of
(09:39):
Charles's military commanders, siding with the French against the English
back claimant. But during the campaign, rumors swirled that Olivier
was actually an English sympathizer, that he had turned sides. Okay,
the real rumors were actually just swirling in one man's head.
But that was enough because that may m was Charles Dubois,
(10:02):
and he questioned whether or not Olivier had intentionally given
up Vaughn when the English besieged it in two But
as usual when we're talking about events from nearly seven
hundred years ago, accounts can differ on the exact details,
for instance, the reason for this growing distrust. A few
(10:23):
accounts claim that Olivier had defected to the English side,
but there isn't much more detailed to that. Almost all
accounts suggest it wasn't until he was captured in battle
that his loyalty was actually questioned, And specifically, it was
the amount of his ransom that caused Charles to raise
an eyebrow. Why was the amount so low? Clearly that
(10:45):
had to mean that Olivier must be conspiring with the
King of England. Right, So we're going to take a
break for a word from our sponsor, and when we
come back we will talk about how Olivier de Clisson
was accused of being a trainer. Welcome back to Criminalia.
(11:10):
Now let's talk about why Jeanne wanted revenge against the
French and what she did about it. So we have
Olivier captured on the battlefield and imprisoned by the English,
and as probably comes as no surprise, we have two
versions of his imprisonment. One version suggests that he was
(11:30):
imprisoned by the English and while he was locked up,
a truce was agreed upon and the prisoners of war
were released. The alternate version is that his ransom was paid,
it was pretty low, I hear, and he was released
and the truce didn't happen until later. We do not
actually know how Olivier was sprung, but we do know
(11:51):
that in January of thirty three, the Truce of Malstrois
was signed between England and France, one of many that
would be signed in the war. Olivier and fifteen other
Breton lords were invited to a tournament on French soil,
and as it was technically now peacetime between the two countries,
the Breton lords assumed that things would be on the
(12:14):
up and up. Yeah, But because there's always a butt,
King Philip the sixth, now to believing that Olivier was
a trader, ordered him arrested at the tournament. Charles did
just that and sent the captive to Paris, where he
was tried for treason. On August two three. There was
(12:38):
a totally bogus and one sided trial other than Charles
suspicion as to why the ransom was that low. There
was no actual proof of guilt found against Olivier, but
he was sentenced to death and executed by beheading. And
things didn't actually end there. They got worse. His body
(12:59):
and his head were shipped to different regions of France
and put on public display as a warning to others.
The desecration of his corpse was considered shameful. That kind
of thing was normally only reserved for common criminals. It
was not something that happened to people of the noble class.
(13:20):
So Jeune was not only grief stricken over losing her husband,
a man that she had legitimately married for love, but
she was now also angry and humiliated at his treatment postmortem.
His body was strung up by the armpits at the
gallows of Montfaucon in Paris as a warning to others,
(13:40):
and enraged. Jeune and her two sons, Jeffrey and Olivier,
went to see the other gruesome display that was Olivier's
head on a pike in Brittany's capital of Nantes. Then
she rallied support. She sold everything. She sold her jewels,
her clothing, the furniture that decorated the family's castles, and
(14:01):
she sold all her land. With the money she raised,
she bought three ships and built a pirate fleet. She
wasn't seeking pirate treasure, though. She was a widow and
a mother of seven children, and she was seeking her
own kind of justice. Upon Olivier's execution by the King,
June did not remarry, as her social status may have suggested. Instead,
(14:26):
she did all of this that Marius just described, and
she got into the revenge business. She wanted revenge on
Charles du Bois, on the King of France, and on
France itself. She built what became known as the Black Fleet,
comprised of three black ships with red sails, a fleet,
it said that struck terror into the hearts of French
(14:48):
sailors throughout her thirteen year long career plundering French warships
in the English channel. Thirteen years thirteen years, man, that
is a career of revenge right there. Yes, she named
her flagship my Revenge. An alternate version of this story
(15:10):
adds an additional element to her revolt, so before taking
to the seas, It said she assembled other discontented nobles,
and together they raged a bloody rampage against the King's followers,
killing all the royal nobles they could find as they
rode across the battlefield. While she may or may not
have begun her campaign against the French on land, Jin
(15:33):
was as ruthless as any other pirate. At sea. She
developed a reputation for vengeance and cruelty, and was nicknamed
the Lioness of Brittany. It said she and her pirate
crew would attack French ships and kill the French crews.
According to legend, she would personally be had anyone of
nobility who was found on board. Typically pirates would have
(15:55):
kept aristocrats for ransom, but as we've said, Jin was
not seeking wealth. Some versions of her legend report that
she would leave one, perhaps two sailors alive just to
tell the story. Other versions suggests that no one got
out alive, and that all of the ships that she
attacked she also sank. Jin's life as a pirate is
(16:17):
sometimes split into two pirty pieces. So first, as we know,
she was an independent pirate with her own fleet of
ships and a loyal crew, but Some accounts also reference
an alliance she established with the English, possibly as a privateer,
to keep French ships out of the English Channel. She
(16:38):
also used the Black Fleet to fairy supplies to English
troops fighting in France. June continued her battle even after
her royal rival, King Philip the sixth died. She remained
allied against the French, and when it comes to whether
or not she got her revenge on Charles du Bois, well,
she didn't. The man who started the rooms that eventually
(17:01):
killed her husband was killed and his army was defeated
in the Battle of r A in thirteen sixty four,
which was a deciding battle in the War of Breton Succession.
The war eventually concluded with the Treaty of Gerond in
thirteen sixty five, when Jean montforce Air was officially recognized
by France as ruler of Brittany. So she did marry
(17:23):
once more, although there actually isn't much written about it.
In thirteen fifty six, soon after ending her life of piracy,
she married Gautier de Bentley, who had been one of
the King of England's military deputies. Sir Bentley, for his
service had been rewarded with land and castles. The most
common end to a pirate story doesn't look like this.
(17:48):
Jin story ends where she settles in one of those
castles in a port town on the Brittany coast, and
it's there she died in thirteen fifty nine. So we
can discuss revenge in the groggery today, we can. Yeah,
(18:10):
I wanted to think about putting something together that felt
like it referenced June's obvious fire, because you don't go
on a revenge trek for thirteen years unless really really
got a lot of passion for the project. And so
(18:31):
this cocktail is called Red Sales. I'm so glad that
you went with the Black Fleet. Like when I was
reading how she painted up her ships and the red stay,
I was like, that's got to be something about Yeah,
it's a vocative. So this is called Red Sales, and
it is a red cocktail, and it starts with an
(18:51):
ounce and a half of cinnamon whiskey. Oh my god,
I'm with you right here. You might not be, because
I'm going to commit a cur hime further down for
what I know to be your taste, but in fact, yeah,
so it's one and a half ounces of cinnamon whiskey,
one half ounce of Grand Marnier, one half ounce of
(19:12):
simple syrup, and one half ounce of lemon juice, and
you're gonna pour that into your shaker, shake it with ice,
then strain it over ice, and you will top that
with cranberry. So it's a beautiful red You get cinnamon flavor,
you get that Grand Marnier, like that candied orange flavor
with some smoke on it. I know Maria does not
always love mixing citrus with cranberry, which is the actually
(19:36):
just talked about that. Yeah, but I mean like it's
got other friends in there. I'd give it a try. Yeah,
it's got enough going on, and particularly the cinnamon whiskey.
Doesn't think that doesn't so much do what I think
you don't like about that mixture of of citrus and cranberry.
But it is it's a very um oh, it's a
delicious one. It has sort of a nice sense ation
(20:00):
of like drinking a red hot in cocktail form. But
for people that don't like drinks that taste like alcohol,
you're set because you get the cinnamon flavor, but the
whiskey is overwhelmed in it's that sort of burning whiskey
flavor by everything else. Yes, Now, if you want to
(20:24):
make a non alcoholic version of this, what I would
do is, instead of that cinnamon whiskey, start with like
an ounce of cinnamon syrup. If you can't find cinnamon
syrup where you are, you can literally just make simple syrup.
And remember that's an easy formula. It's like one cup
of sugar to one cup of water, and you can
(20:45):
add cinnamon to it. You have cinnamon sticks, it's even better,
and oil that together and let the sugar dissolve and
then strain off any sticks if you use sticks in it,
and then you're you're golden. So you can use that
a little bit of orange sir up to get that
Grand Marnier in there. Again, if you don't have orange syrup,
you could also put a little orange juice in. That's
(21:06):
totally fine. Keep your simple syrup and your lemon juice
and your cranberry and you get a very similar flavor.
It's a little lighter because that's cinnamon whiskey. It's got
a lot of flavor on it, like it's unmistakable. I
don't know that you can perfectly replicate what that does
to your palette, but it'll be pretty close and that
(21:26):
is Red Sails. I must say I am loving right now.
So at the end of the season we do our
top three drinks and I obviously have not tried this
one yet because we just started talking about it, but
just based on ingredients, I'm like, well, that could be
on the top three. Yeah, I don't even know. I
haven't even had it yet, but we will see. It
(21:47):
did turn out nicely, and it's one of those ones
that when you drink it, think of and the thirteen
years and it's sort of oddly satisfying to like drink
it and think of her. I can see that it's fiery. Yes,
it feels right for her legacy. If you make it,
we hope you love it, and we want to thank
(22:08):
you once again for spending this time with us this week.
We will be right back here next week, and in
the meantime, we can't wait for more Criminalia. We're getting
near to the end of Pirate season, so get ready.
Criminalia is a production of Shonda land Audio in partnership
(22:30):
with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shonda land Audio,
please visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Maria Trimarchi
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