Keeping Rapunzel: The Mysterious Guardianship of Joan of Flanders the Case for Feudal Constraint

This argues that England King Edward III’s imprisonment of Joan of Flanders, Duchess of Brittany and Countess de Montfort during the Hundred Years War was not for her so-called madness, but was political. Joan of Flanders, who had led a defense of the castellany of Hennebont that routed the French and saved Montfortist Brittany, abruptly vanished from public life in the Fall of 1343. While it has been presumed that she succumbed to mental illness, the nature of confinement, its secrecy, and its political implications indicate forcible confinement. Conflict broke out in Brittany after a success... Mehr ...