Do you know the story of Jeanne de Clisson, the Lioness of Britanny? When her husband Olivier de Clisson IV, a wealthy Breton nobleman, was executed by French king for treason in 1343, she sold all his estates, raised an army, and started attacking French forces in Brittany!
Her husband Olivier de Clisson IV had fought on the French side during the War of the Breton Succession which started in 1341. However during 1342 Siege of Vannes, the French king suspected Olivier of treason. He lured him to Paris on pretense of tournament and had him executed!
Jeanne the Clisson swore vengeance and raised an army after selling her estates. With the support of the English king she even built her own fleet which was painted black with red sails and attacked French ships in the English channel. Her flagship was named My Revenge!
Jeanne de Clisson went on a brutal campaign against French with her mercenaries. Her warships with experience sailors captured many French ships and she killed almost entire enemy crew, leaving only few survivors to report back to the French of her brutal attacks!
Jeanne did not spare the noblemen either, but the opposite. Instead of demanding ransom for them, she had all the captured nobles who were loyal to the French king beheaded! Her campaign lasted for 13 years until she "retired", married again and settled in Hennebont in Brittany.
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It's crazy how Americans bought the myth that during the time of Columbus people thought that the earth was flat, a complete lie popularized by quasi-historian Washington Irving in 1828.
This globe was literally made before Columbus' discovery, and has no America on it.
Washington Irving completely invented a fictional dialogue between Columbus and the Council of Salamanca, where the clergy supposedly objected him on the ground that the earth was flat.
His fraudulent book would become the most popular book on Columbus in English-speaking world.
This lie was then picked on in America and expended as some sort of anti-Catholic anti-medieval founding myth, where Columbus was supposedly representing enlightenment rationalism against irrationality and dogmatism of the Church.
The idea that monarchy and republic are opposed to each other is a modern thing.
The term republic (res publica) was often used to describe medieval kingdoms.
Even by 16th century the Kingdom of France was still called both a republic and a monarchy at the same time!
The Kingdom of France defined itself by the phrase of "chose publique" (res publica) from 1350s to 1580s, also using the word respublique, to describe the relation between the King of France and his subject.
The term was then replaced by State (État).
The absolutist French monarchy which emerged in 17th century preferred the term State over republic, and talked of the "good of the State".
However the term state also comes from earlier medieval concepts like status regis at regni (the state of the king and the kingdom).
16th century Romans developed an interesting tradition of "talking statues", attaching anonymous political commentary on statues.
The Pasquino was the first of such statues.🧵
The Pasquino is an old statue in Rome dating back to Antiquity.
It was one of many random statues in Rome until early 16th century when Cardinal Oliveiro Carafa decorated the statue with Latin epigrams on the occasion of the Feast of Saint Mark.
The Cardinal's actions unintentionally inspired ordinary Roman people to start writing satirical poems and attaching them to the Pasquino.
It is speculated that these were first only consisting of lowbrow humor, but they soon began including controversial political criticism!