In the winter of 1472, the city of Dijon, France, became the stage for a remarkable legal drama. On the mayor鈥檚 orders, an investigator named Jaques Borestel went door-to-door questioning his neighbors about an alleged sexual assault鈥攁nd about the victim鈥檚 history and place in the community. At the center of Jaques鈥檚 inquiry was a woman named Jehanne, who took the unusual step of making a criminal complaint in an age when victims of sexual violence did so at their own peril. Justice for Jehanne follows Jaques鈥檚 investigation as he uncovers one woman鈥檚 story of resilience and survival.
Applying forensic analysis to witness testimony and Jaques鈥檚 case files, Sara McDougall finds in Jehanne a woman of many lives and many secrets. An outsider on her own in Dijon, Jehanne had every reason to distrust the local authorities, who regularly extorted money from the city鈥檚 most vulnerable residents. Separating facts from falsehoods, McDougall challenges preconceptions about the experiences of marginalized women in medieval France, showing how neighbors, clergy, and other residents aided Jehanne throughout her legal struggles鈥攁nd how justice of a sort was exacted from her attackers.
Richly detailed and powerfully told, Justice for Jehanne paints an unforgettable portrait of a woman who mounted an extraordinary response to a crime that was so difficult to prosecute at the time, and of a community that gave her shelter, protection, and acceptance as she endeavored to survive on her own terms.
Sara McDougall is professor of history at John Jay College of the City University of New York and is on the faculty in Biography and Memoir, French, History, and Medieval Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center. She is the author of Royal Bastards: The Birth of Illegitimacy, 800–1230 and Bigamy and Christian Identity in Late Medieval Champagne. Her fellowships include the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library.
"Gripping. . . . Jehanne’s complex life and legal proceedings are made vivid through McDougall's smart, approachable narrative. . . . An exceptionally strong addition to women’s history and gender justice."鈥�Booklist, starred review
"Colorful. . . . Jehanne’s story makes for a fascinating reassessment of medieval norms."鈥�Publishers Weekly
“Chambermaids and dukes, innkeepers and officials, soldiers and priests rub shoulders in this absorbing tale about prosecuting rape in an age wracked with war and plague. Sara McDougall asks searching questions about men and women, justice and mercy, and power and the law that are as pertinent to our own times as they were in Jehanne’s own.”—Justine Firnhaber-Baker, author of House of Lilies: The Dynasty That Made Medieval France
“Combining the best traditions of rigorous historical inquiry with the drama of true crime, McDougall pulls us into a story that she ultimately reveals as not monstrous, not somehow remote, but fundamentally human—messy, sometimes horrific, sometimes kind, but always human.”—David M. Perry, coauthor of The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe
“McDougall’s meticulous yet captivating book about rape and its prosecution in medieval France challenges the dual scholarly orthodoxy that rape mattered as a crime only insofar as it impinged on male property and privilege and that a raped woman’s honor was permanently destroyed by being assaulted. But this book does more than upturn scholarly orthodoxy. It also provides a startling and—I hope—mortifying mirror to our own legal and public culture around rape.”—Eleanor Johnson, author of Monstrous Bitch: A History of Terrifying Women
“Justice for Jehanne is an impressively researched and beautifully written recovered history of a medieval woman’s life as seen through the prism of the very worst thing that happened to her. In reconstructing Jehanne’s sexual assault, its investigation, and the community response, McDougall upends what we think we know about the mores and morals of the fifteenth century as well as our current age.”—Sarah Weinman, author of Without Consent: A Landmark Trial and the Decades-Long Struggle to Make Spousal Rape a Crime
“Justice for Jehanne is a beautifully written and impeccably researched evaluation of one of the late medieval period’s most enigmatic people. McDougall brings the late medieval society in which Jehanne lived to life. This is essential reading for anyone interested in the late medieval world.”—Eleanor Janega, author of The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval on Women's Roles in Society
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