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The Mongols Dined Atop their Live Enemies and Other Fascinating Historic Facts

Khalid Elhassan March 2, 2020 36 min

Battle of the Kalka River - Mongol Empire — Mongols feasting atop captives. Pintrest

Bare chests were the height of fashion. Wikimedia Commons

7. When a Bare Breast Was the Height of Fashion

King Charles VII of France was besotted with his mistress, Agnes Sorel (1422 – 1450), who bore him four daughters. Nicknamed “The Lady of Beauty”, the stunning Sorel was the first famous French royal mistress. She was more than just a bimbo: Sorel used her influence over the otherwise weak Charles VII to encourage him to resist the invading English, then rampaging through France.

She throve in the limelight, reveled in being the center of attention, and went out of her way to ensure that she became and remained a constant subject of gossip. One way she did that was by walking around with one naked boob hanging out. Sorel’s sense of style was widely imitated, leading a prominent bishop to denounce the new fad of “front openings through which ones sees the teats, nipples, and breasts of women“. Many of the contemporaries who praised Sorel’s beauty also denounced her as a “bad example to modest and honest women“. However, she could afford to ignore them, because the one person who mattered, King Charles, was crazy for her.

Also Read: Mistresses and Lovers of Historical Figures Who Left Their Mark on History.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.