'Medieval women could make accusations': The true story of a 15th-Century sexual assault survivor's quest for justice

A new book offers a remarkable account of one woman's legal battle after suffering a brutal attack in 1472 in the French city of Dijon. It defies our modern assumptions about women's lives in the Middle Ages.

Jehanne was a relative stranger in the city of Dijon in the winter of 1472, when she was subject to an incident of horrific violence. She was heavily pregnant at the time. What happened next, traced by historian Sara McDougall in her new book Justice for Jehanne, offers a surprising snapshot of medieval justice that upends widespread assumptions about the age. 

Warning: This article contains upsetting details of sexual assault.

Based on records of an investigation into the assault, the book takes the form of a medieval detective story, teasing out: What really happened that night? And who was the woman at the centre of it? 

Born in Lorraine in northeastern France to a poor family, Jehanne had travelled south to Dijon. In this era, identity was a slippery thing. In 1472, she reported her age to the investigator as "about 32". Births were not marked, so no one could be quite sure of how old they were. She said she was married: the "wife of Jehan of Relanges". 

At that time, clothing above all dictated how someone should be treated, and Jehanne's would have demanded a measure of respect. Her clothing was elegant, according to witnesses. The long hood draped carefully over her golden tresses when out in public denoted her status as a respectable married woman.

In Dijon these were violent, war-ravaged times. Fighting raged between Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, and King Louis XI of France, and the city under imminent threat of invasion as the king advanced into the Burgundy countryside.

To protect Dijon, the duke had stationed mercenaries around its walls. But these wild and lawless men had subjected the municipality to their own reign of terror. 

"There were recurrent problems of men at night looking for potential victims to extort or abuse or hold for ransom or abduct," McDougall tells the BBC. "The city authorities were not happy about it. This was a major point of conflict between the city and the duke." 

On the evening of 3 January 1472, Jehanne and her female host heard a heavy thump on the front door. They were faced with two local men who demanded the women come with them. After they refused, one of the men fled to a nearby inn to gather some of the Duke's mercenaries.

According to Jehanne, the men dragged her to a nearby field and assaulted her. It didn't matter that she was pregnant, they shouted. They'd heard her unborn child was a priest's, and therefore illegitimate. 

Jehanne described the men seeking "carnal company" with her, while she thrashed in the snow. They were ultimately prevented by her heavy pregnancy and intense struggle. She described being beaten and thrown on her stomach, and being terrified for the health of her unborn child. 

What happened next is surprising given our modern conception of the Middle Ages. It's commonly thought that rape and sexual assault were considered so shaming that female survivors were routinely treated as outcasts by their communities, and ultimately forced into sex work. This notion can be traced to a popular book called Medieval Prostitution (first published in 1988, and updated in 2010) by Jacques Rossiaud. 

McDougall, a history professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, set out to fact-check Rossiaud's account, armed with a brief reference he made to an unnamed pregnant woman who was sexually assaulted by mercenaries in Dijon. The woman was at first too ashamed to share her ordeal with the authorities, Rossiaud wrote. And many sexual assault survivors like her purportedly ended up in brothels. 

The individual sounds a lot like Jehanne. But when McDougall started researching the case – pouring over 70 pages of densely inscribed parchment preserved in Dijon's municipal archive – a very different story emerged. 

The details of Jehanne's testimony were recorded by an investigator who worked on behalf of the city authorities, Jaques Borestel.

Hearing reports that mercenaries had abducted and assaulted a pregnant woman, Borestel had set out immediately to gather details about the victim and suspected perpetrators. 

His first interview with Jehanne took place the day after the attack. He found her lying in bed, stricken from her ordeal and fearful for her baby. She readily supplied Borestel with details of the attack and as much information about the assailants as she could recall. The next day, Jehanne gave birth to a baby girl. 

Jehanne's decision to share her story was a little unusual. There were plenty of deterrents for such honesty. 

The city hardly had a gleaming record on criminal justice. The penalty for abduction and assault was technically death. But most crimes weren't prosecuted. In short, Jehanne didn't have much to gain by making her complaint.

With the information supplied by Jehanne, Borestel was able to quickly round up most of the attackers.

After interrogation, the men denied assaulting Jehanne. Borestel arranged a meeting where Jehanne faced her attackers and repeated her version of events. When they still didn't confess, municipal officials agreed that it was acceptable to take "extraordinary" measures. One man was tortured using a method similar to waterboarding. Eventually, all confessed. 

Armed with confessions, the city decided on the appropriate punishment: death. But there was a problem. As mercenaries, the men were technically under the purview of the duke. The duke had recently issued a statement condemning the mercenaries' behaviour, and claiming that he wanted Dijon's residents to feel safe. Now he had an opportunity to publicly punish wrongdoing. Would he take it? 

A short while later, the municipal officials received word from the ducal authorities. They recommended the men walk free. The municipality pushed back, attempting to buy themselves time. In the interim, they commissioned a new investigation: into Jehanne herself. They didn't intend to put Jehanne on trial, but they wanted to assess her legitimacy as a plaintiff. As Borestel wrote in no uncertain terms, he would investigate whether she was a "preudefemme" (respectably married) or a "loose woman". 

Borestel interviewed neighbours and others who might have information on Jehanne. Many said that she appeared to be a respectable woman – no one shamed or blamed her for suffering the assault. But details contradicting the story she had told Borestel soon came to light. 

One neighbour said Jehanne gave birth to another child, two years prior, in a nearby monastery. The father was thought to be a priest with whom Jehanne shared a room at the time. It seemed Jehanne hadn't seen her husband for a number of years.

Borestel met with Jehanne again to confront her with this latest evidence. Since he'd last spoken to her, she'd been threatened by defenders of the mercenaries. Despite the looming threat of reprisals, neighbours and acquaintances had helped her find places to hide out. She'd eventually landed at a hospital, where she was working.

Jehanne admitted to Jaques that she had previously uttered a few untruths. She acknowledged that her husband had left her several years ago to fight in the war. After that, she met a priest and became his mistress, bearing two of his children.

So, did this make Jehanne a "loose woman" after all? In her own summation, as recorded by Borestel: "It was better to be loose with her body to make her living than resort to stealing from people." 

This aligned with the complicated sexual morality of the times. Sex before marriage was supposedly forbidden but in practice was widely permitted. Priests were supposed to be celibate, but had mistresses and sired illegitimate children. Prostitution was supposedly a grave moral sin, but was widely tolerated.

Jehanne was not who she said she was – not the prim wife that she had initially depicted herself as. She was, it turns out, "living in sin". But the interesting thing was that it didn't matter. 

Prosecutors, even after hearing Borestel's latest evidence, decided to continue pursuing her case. The fact she had borne the illegitimate offspring of a priest turned out to be immaterial. The officials wanted those mercenaries dead. 

However, there was another problem. The mercenaries were no longer in prison. 

The ducal authorities had claimed the men were members of the clergy, and therefore subject only to clerical laws. Although patently absurd – clergy were forbidden from bearing weapons – the municipal authorities' hands were tied. After two months in prison, the men walked free.

It becomes impossible to track what happened to Jehanne next. Did she become a prostitute? It's possible – there are some Jehannes in Dijon around this time who did. But the records are too fragmentary to say with any certainty.

Regardless of where her tale ended, McDougall relished the opportunity to get to know the small sliver of this Jehanne, preserved in a sheaf of 600-year-old court documents. "I have great admiration for her. I'm so struck by the ways in which she continued to stand up for herself." Despite the inhospitable times, "she saw herself as having agency and choices." 

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Even more importantly, Jehanne's story challenges assumptions about the Middle Ages. "This medieval society did not engage in victim blaming and shaming to any extent that I can find," says McDougall. "Women could make accusations. They didn't have to have perfect recall, and they didn't have to be perfect virgins." Even after Jehanne made her complaint, neighbours rallied to her aid. 

Life was indisputably punishing for medieval women, and some survivors were no doubt treated poorly. But this Jehanne was able to report a crime, be taken seriously, find friendship during the ordeal, and achieve a small measure of justice. Whatever she did next, she could at least carry that with her.

Justice for Jehanne: The Tale of a Medieval Survivor by Sara McDougall is out now.

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