An Angry Noblewoman Out for Revenge
Jeanne de Clisson (1300 – 1359), also known as the Lioness of Brittany, was one of France’s most prominent female pirates. She was an unlikely criminal: a Breton noblewoman born in the town of Belleville-sur-Vie into a prominent family, which had ruled the area for centuries. She was married at age twelve and bore her husband two children, before he died in 1326. She remarried in 1328, but that marriage was annulled two years later, so she remarried once more, this time to a wealthy Breton named Olivier Clisson. In 1342, during the Hundred Years War, Jeanne’s husband was military commander of a town that was captured by the English, and he was taken prisoner.
The English released Olivier Clisson soon thereafter in a prisoner exchange – the only Frenchman to be released. Between that and an unusually low ransom requested by the English, his French compatriots suspected him of treason. He was tried and convicted by a court of French aristocrats, and beheaded in 1343. Jeanne viewed her husband’s execution as a cowardly and criminal act, took her young sons to see their father’s head mounted on a spike, and vowed revenge. As seen below, the widow turned pirate, preyed on French ships in the English Channel, and tortured and executed every French nobleman she came across.
