Justice for Jehanne: The Tale of a Medieval Survivor

A spellbinding narrative history that defies modern assumptions about women’s lives in the Middle Ages and informs contemporary debates about sexual violence and the limits of justiceIn the winter of 1472, the city of Dijon, France, became the stage for a remarkable legal drama.On the mayor’s orders, an investigator named Jaques Borestel went door-to-door questioning his neighbors about an alleged sexual assault-and about the victim’s history and place in the community.At the center of Jaques’s 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’s investigation as he uncovers one woman’s story of resilience and survival. Applying forensic analysis to witness testimony and Jaques’s 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 auth