Pierre Cauchon ( French pronunciation: [pjɛʁ koʃɔ̃] ; 1371 – 18 December 1442) was a French Catholic prelate who served as Bishop of Beauvais from 1420 to 1432. He was a strong partisan of English interests in France during the latter years of the Hundred Years' War . He was the judge in the trial of Joan of Arc and played a key role in her execution. The Catholic Church overturned his verdict in 1456.
27-502: Cauchon is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: Pierre Cauchon (1371–1442), bishop of Beauvais Joseph-Édouard Cauchon (1816–1885), Canadian politician, physics textbook author, and railroad investor Martin Cauchon (born 1962), Canadian lawyer and politician Robert Cauchon (1900–1980), Canadian politician [REDACTED] Surname list This page lists people with
54-633: A clerical delegation. Shortly after he returned, he learned that Joan of Arc had been taken captive near Compiègne . The Burgundians held her at the keep of Beaulieu near Saint-Quentin . Cauchon played a leading role in negotiations to gain Joan of Arc from the Burgundians for the English. He was well paid for his efforts. Cauchon claimed jurisdiction to try her case because Compiègne was in his diocese of Beauvais . The goal of Joan of Arc's trial
81-582: A part of the backdrop of the latter phase of the Hundred Years' War finally won by the French at the Battle of Castillon in 1453, and in which various English kings tried to establish their claims to the French throne . The treaty arranged for the marriage of Charles VI's daughter Catherine of Valois to Henry V, who was made regent of France and acknowledged (along with his future sons) as successor to
108-655: A post near Rheims . He defended the University of Paris in a quarrel against Toulouse . Cauchon sought advancement through noble patronage. He allied himself with Duke John the Fearless of Burgundy and later his successor, Philip the Good . In 1407, Cauchon was part of a mission from the crown of France to attempt to reconcile the Schism between the rival claimants to the papacy: Boniface IX and Gregory XII . Although
135-497: A sewer; in fact it was Jean d'Estivet, one of the promoters of the trial, who was found dead in a sewer. Treaty of Troyes The Treaty of Troyes was an agreement that King Henry V of England and his heirs would inherit the French throne upon the death of King Charles VI of France . It was formally signed in the French city of Troyes on 21 May 1420 in the aftermath of Henry's successful military campaign in France. It forms
162-478: Is different from Wikidata All set index articles Pierre Cauchon Cauchon came from a middle-class family in Rheims . He entered the clergy as a teenager and went to Paris, where he studied at the University of Paris . Cauchon was a brilliant student in the liberal arts . He followed with studies in canon law and theology and became a priest. By 1404, Cauchon was curé of Égliselles and sought
189-545: The Council of Basel . He was active for the unsuccessful English side in the peace negotiations that ended in reconciliation between the French and the Burgundians. Cauchon divided his later years between his new diocese and a residence in Rouen. His last action was to finance construction of a vault at the cathedral of Saint-Pierre de Lisieux. Cauchon died abruptly of heart failure at the age of 71 on 15 December 1442 in Rouen. He
216-411: The surname Cauchon . If an internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that link by adding the person's given name (s) to the link. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cauchon&oldid=1031515315 " Category : Surnames Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description
243-561: The Duke of Burgundy. Cauchon took part in the royal marriage negotiations surrounding the Treaty of Troyes . He became Bishop of Beauvais in 1420. Bishop Cauchon spent most of the next two years in service to the king. He returned to his diocese with the deaths of Charles VI and Henry V . He departed for a visit to Rheims in 1429 when Joan of Arc and the French army approached for the coronation of Charles VII . Cauchon had always allied with
270-485: The Duke of Orléans had been planning to usurp the throne. It is also known that Cauchon had been the dean of the University of Paris, where he had studied, and that, by 1423, he became Henry VI of England 's personal counsellor. The French Estates-General opened in 1413 to raise funds for an expected war against the English. Cauchon formed part of a commission charged with proposing sanctions and reforms. During
297-460: The French throne. The Dauphin Charles was disinherited from the succession. The Estates-General of France ratified the agreement later that year after Henry V entered Paris. Charles VI, King of France , began his reign by suppressing revolts personally, was in good mental shape and even declared full control of France himself unopposed by his uncles. But in 1392, on a military expedition through
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#1732782617624324-478: The King himself would have the authority to make such an all-important decision as terminating his own Royal House, and Charles, called "the mad", was indisputably not of mental capacity to enter into such an agreement, as most of his entire reign was overseen by regents for that very reason (the four universal legal tenets for any valid contract being consideration, agreement, legality, and capacity). Despite this, due to
351-526: The Kingdom of France, losing all privileges to land and titles. The treaty was undermined by the deaths of both Charles VI and Henry V within two months of each other in 1422. The infant Henry VI of England became King of both England and France, but the Dauphin Charles also claimed the throne of France upon the death of his father – though he ruled only a region of France centred on Bourges and
378-485: The appearance of Joan of Arc to command the Valois forces. They lifted the siege of Orléans and then fought their way to Reims , traditional site of French coronations, where the former Dauphin was crowned as Charles VII of France . In 1435, Charles signed the Treaty of Arras with the Burgundians, in which they recognized and endorsed his claims to the throne. The military victory of Charles VII over Henry VI rendered
405-458: The charges. In the meantime, the trial continued. Joan was unwilling to testify on several subjects. The court considered torturing her. The court proceeded to official admonition on the field of the abbey of Saint-Ouen . As Cauchon read her sentence of condemnation, she agreed to abjure. Shortly afterward she recanted and was burned at the stake on 30 May 1431. Cauchon could not hope to go back to Beauvais, which had fallen under French control. He
432-480: The delegation failed to achieve its goal, it raised Cauchon's prestige as a negotiator. Upon Cauchon's return, he found Paris in turmoil over the assassination of the Duke of Orléans under orders from John the Fearless. Many suspected that the duke had been having an affair with Queen Isabeau . University theologians sympathized with John and published a justification of the assassination as tyrannicide by arguing that
459-471: The dynasties were joined through Henry V the war could be ended and leave France in the hands of a vigorous and able king. There had been earlier rumours that the Queen had had an affair with her brother-in-law Louis, Duke of Orléans . These rumours were gladly taken up by Louis's main rival, John the Fearless, who had had the Duke of Orléans assassinated in 1407. The Burgundians promoted the rumour that Charles
486-408: The forests of Le Mans, he went insane and attacked his own men. He would suffer from mental illness for the rest of his life. Henry V, King of England , had invaded France in 1415 and delivered a crushing defeat to the French at Agincourt . In 1418, John the Fearless , Duke of Burgundy , whose political and economic interests favoured an agreement with the English, occupied Paris. One year later he
513-463: The opposition to Charles VII. Shortly after the coronation, the French army threatened Cauchon's diocese. He went to Rouen , seat of the English government in France. The English regent , the Duke of Bedford , was anxious to preserve the claim of his nephew and charge Henry VI of England , grandson of Charles VI and nephew of Charles VII, to the throne of France , as per the Treaty of Troyes . Cauchon escorted Henry from London to Rouen as part of
540-463: The riots of that year he was associated with the Burgundians and the Cabochiens (radical reformers) and was later banished from Paris on May 14, 1414. The next year, Cauchon became the official ambassador of the Duke of Burgundy. Bishop Cauchon supported the election of Pope Martin V . Shortly afterward, Cauchon became archdeacon of Chartres; canon of Rheims, Châlons, and Beauvais; and chaplain of
567-584: The shifting military and political situation, the Dauphin Charles' disinheritance received further legal sanction after he declared himself regent for Charles VI in rivalry to the regency declared by Henry V. The Dauphin was summoned to a lit-de justice (legal hearing) in 1420 on charges of lèse-majesté . When he failed to appear, a Parisian court in 1421 found Charles the Dauphin guilty of treason and sentenced him to disinheritance and banishment from
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#1732782617624594-436: Was a bastard. However, such a statement could not possibly be registered in a treaty without offending the honour of the King of France. Thus, the disinheritance of the dauphin, with respect to the French throne, was based on his crimes énormes (capital offences) as he was accused of having ordered the assassination of John the Fearless. The legal basis for the treaty was from the beginning on questionably solid ground, as only
621-492: Was buried in Lisieux Cathedral beneath the vault he had patronised. There is not any marking that indicates the exact location of his burial site, but his skeleton was re-discovered during a renovation of the pavement of the vault in 1931. When the renovation works were finished, no markings were added. According to George Bernard Shaw in his 1923 play Saint Joan , Cauchon's body was later dug up and thrown into
648-456: Was derisively referred to as the "King of Bourges" by his opponents. The terms of the Treaty of Troyes were later confirmed once again at the Treaty of Amiens (1423) , when Burgundy and Brittany confirmed the recognition of Henry VI as King of France and agreed to form a triple-defensive alliance against the Dauphin Charles. The course of the war shifted dramatically in 1429, however, following
675-655: Was interested in a vacancy at the archbishop's palace at Rouen. Facing heartfelt opposition, he gave up that project. In December, Cauchon accompanied the Cardinal of Winchester to crown the boy king Henry VI of England as King of France in Notre-Dame in Paris. Finally, he obtained an appointment as Bishop of Lisieux (29 January 1432 – 15 December 1442). When constable Arthur de Richemont returned to favour with Charles VII of France in 1436, Cauchon went as ambassador to
702-543: Was murdered by his Armagnac opponents during what he thought was a diplomatic meeting with the Dauphin Charles on the bridge at Montereau . His son Philip the Good formed an alliance with the English and negotiated the treaty with the English King. Isabeau of Bavaria , Charles VI's wife, whose participation in the negotiations was merely formal, agreed to the treaty disinheriting her son, hoping that if
729-421: Was to discredit her, and by implication to discredit the king she had crowned. Cauchon organized events carefully with a number of ecclesiastics, many of whom came from the pro-English University of Paris . The trial opened on 21 February 1431. Concerned for the regularity of the proceeding, Bishop Cauchon forwarded an bill of indictment to Paris in order to obtain the opinion of university clerics, who agreed with
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