Posted on 08/02/2021 7:18:09 AM PDT by CheshireTheCat
On this date in 1343, a noble widow’s career in piracy got its start where such ventures more usually end: the scaffold.
Olivier III de Clisson, a powerful Breton noble nominally loyal to France, had been persuaded to ally with England’s Edward III in what nobody yet realized was the opening stage of the Hundred Years’ War.
Intriguing to advance a claim to the French throne, Edward knew right where to look. “Brittany was France’s Scotland, choleric, Celtic, stony, bred to opposition and resistance, and ready to use the English in its struggles against its overlord as the Scots used the French in theirs,” Barbara Tuchman wrote. And the Breton War of Succession was just the sort of pretext for meddling.
Clisson was one of the great lords of the region, and in the feudal era where liege relationships counted more than “nationality,” his alliance would swing a considerable network of retainers to the English cause.
He was hardly the only one, according to Jonathan Sumption’s The Hundred Years War...
(Excerpt) Read more at executedtoday.com ...
Have a friend that owns a tower from the Hundred Years War in France, built-out the interior - very nice place.
This dude’s wife was awesome!!!!
I’m surprised this story was never made into a Hollywood movie.
Me too. I am surprised a lot of the things covered on Executed Today haven’t been made into movies.
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