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Pierre Cauchon

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The Resume

    (1371-December 1422)
    Born in Reims, France
    Bishop of Beauvais (1420-1432)
    Studied at the University of Paris
    Key pro-English partisan in the history of the Hundred Years' War
    Associated with the Burgundians and the Cabochiens (radical reformers); was later banished from Paris on May 14, 1414
    Presiding officiate and magistrate over the infamous Trial of Joan of Arc (Feb-Mar 1431)
    Oversaw her eventual execution by burning at the stake, on May 30, 1431
    Died abruptly, from a heart attack, at 71, in Rouen, on December 15, 1442
    Portrayed by Eugene Silvain in Carl Dreyer's 'The Passion of Joan of Arc' film (1928)

Why he might be annoying:

    He has been compared to Caiaphas.
    He was a calculating opportunist.
    He became prominent by kissing the Duke of Burgundy's ass.
    Accounts of Joan's life inevitably cast him as her archenemy.
    Jules Michelet called him 'among the most violent in the violent party of the Cabochiens.'
    He was nearly obsessed with getting Joan to recant her claims of hearing voices (presumably of Saints), which she almost daily refused to do.
    He dispatched spies to Joan's home village to dig up dirt on her, but they came up empty handed.
    He came up with the idea of making Joan publicly admonish her sins, under threat of public execution.
    He claimed that he was invested in the salvation of Joan's soul by getting her to recant, but when she did he sentenced her to life in prison with only bread and water as nourishment.
    He was so transfixed with the idea of having her killed that when she reverted to wearing men's clothes again, he bypassed local deputies and saw to it that she was burnt alive within hours.
    He conspired with several clerics to tamper with the trial records, after her death, to extract a posthumous admission, thus proving that she ‘really was a heretic.’
    His verdict was reversed following a retrial of Joan by the Inquisitor General, held in 1455.

Why he might not be annoying:

    He was portrayed by Boris Karloff, Maurice Evans, and Peter O'Toole.
    He defended the University of Paris in a legal dispute against the city of Toulouse.
    He vetoed the use of torture on Joan, reasoning that the risk of her dying and becoming a Martyr was too great.
    He had higher magistrates breathing down his neck to resolve the trial as soon as possible (it would lag on for months).
    If the trial records are any indication, he became exceedingly more frustrated with (and perhaps threatened by) Joan, whose very existence went against everything he believed in.
    His last official act was to finance construction of a vault at the cathedral Saint-Pierre de Lisieux.
    George Bernard Shawclaimed that his body was exhumed and thrown into a sewer, but research later revealed the body to have been one of the promoters of the trial, instead.

Credit: BoyWiththeGreenHair


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 18 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 5 Votes: 20.0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 7 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 4 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 28 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 7 Votes: 14.29% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 14 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 22 Votes: 50.0% Annoying