Jean de Malestroit was a pseudo-cardinal who served as Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Nantes from 17 July 1419 until 1443 AD when he resigned. [1]
Born in 1375 in Châteaugiron in the Duchy of Brittany, Jean de Malestroit was the sixth known son of Jean de Châteaugiron, lord of Malestroit and Largoët who died in 1374 and his second wife Jeanne Dol Dame de Combourg. He is also the half-brother Thibaud Malestroit (died 1408), who was bishop of Tréguier in 1378 and Quimper in 1383 AD. [2]
Jean Malestroit was Archdeacon of the Diocese of Nantes. He was elected bishop of Saint Brieuc in 1405 and then joined the Privy Council of John VI, Duke of Brittany and became Governor General of Brittany's finances in 1406. He was First President of the Chamber of Accounts for Brittany at the beginning of 1408, then Chancellor, Duke and Treasurer Receiver General of the Duchy of Brittany a few months later. He was transferred to the diocese of Nantes 17 July 1419.
As bishop of Nantes, he launched with the Duke Jean V, on the construction site of the current St. Peter and St. Paul Cathedral. The Duke's son John VI and the bishop laid the first stone 14 April 1434. [3] He also built Château-Gaillard (Vannes)
Subsequently, he chaired the ecclesiastical trial of Gilles de Rais in October 1440 in Nantes. [4]
The antipope Felix V created him a cardinal on 12 November 1440 [5] and he died on 13 September 1443. [6]
He was succeeded by his nephew William, who was bishop from 14 June 1443 till 1461. William was the son of Jean's brother William of Malestroit and his wife Margaret of Quintin. William had been dean of Saint-Malo, when he succeeded his uncle but was considered authoritarian and awkward. He resigned his post at the end of the year 1461 and became Archbishop of Thessalonica, due it is claimed to his refusal to make the oath of allegiance to the Duke. He died on 17 August 1491.
John V, sometimes numbered as VI, bynamed John the Wise, was Duke of Brittany and Count of Montfort from 1399 to his death. His rule coincided with the height of the Hundred Years' War between England and France. John's reversals in that conflict, as well as in other internal struggles in France, served to strengthen his duchy and to maintain its independence.
The House of Rohan is a Breton family of viscounts, later dukes and princes in the French nobility, coming from the locality of Rohan in Brittany. Their line descends from the viscounts of Porhoët and is said to trace back to the legendary Conan Meriadoc. Through the Porhoët family, the Rohans are related to the Dukes of Brittany, with whom the family intermingled again after its inception. During the Middle Ages, it was one of the most powerful families in the Duchy of Brittany. The Rohans developed ties with the French and English royal houses as well, and they played an important role in French and European history.
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Seigneurs and Dukes of Retz owned the district of Retz or Rais, is in South Brittany.
Gilles de Rais, Baron de Rais, was a knight and lord from Brittany, Anjou and Poitou, a leader in the French army during the Hundred Years' War, and a companion-in-arms of Joan of Arc. He is best known for his reputation and later conviction as a confessed serial killer of children.
Nantes Cathedral, or the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul of Nantes, is a Roman Catholic Gothic cathedral located in Nantes, Pays de la Loire, France. Construction began in 1434, on the site of a Romanesque cathedral, and took 457 years to finish in 1891. It has been listed since 1862 as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture.
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The Archdiocese of Rennes, Dol, and Saint-Malo is a Latin Church diocese of the Catholic Church in France. The diocese is coextensive with the department of Ille et Vilaine. The Archdiocese has 8 suffragans: the Diocese of Angers, the Diocese of Laval, the Diocese of Le Mans, the Diocese of Luçon, the Diocese of Nantes, the Diocese of Quimper and Léon, the Diocese of Saint-Brieuc and Tréguier, and the Diocese of Vannes.
The Diocese of Saint-Brieuc and Tréguier is a Latin Church diocese of the Catholic Church in France. The diocese comprises the department of Côtes d'Armor in the Region of Brittany. The diocese is currently suffragan to the Archdiocese of Rennes, Dol, and Saint-Malo. The current bishop is Denis Moutel, appointed in 2010.
The Diocese of Nantes is a Latin Church diocese of the Catholic Church in Nantes, France. The diocese consists of the department of Loire-Atlantique. It has existed since the 4th century. It is now suffragan of the Archdiocese of Rennes, Dol, and Saint-Malo, having previously been suffragan to the Archdiocese of Tours. Its see is Nantes Cathedral in the city of Nantes.
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Pierre Le Baud or Lebaud was a French clergyman and historian known for his writings on the history of Brittany.
The sieges of Vannes of 1342 were a series of four sieges of the town of Vannes that occurred throughout 1342. Two rival claimants to the Duchy of Brittany, John of Montfort and Charles of Blois, competed for Vannes throughout this civil war from 1341 to 1365. The successive sieges ruined Vannes and its surrounding countryside. Vannes was eventually sold off in a truce between England and France, signed in January 1343 in Malestroit. Saved by an appeal of Pope Clement VI, Vannes remained in the hands of its own rulers, but ultimately resided under English control from September 1343 till the end of the war in 1365.
François Prelati was an Italian cleric and alchemist who took part in the murders committed by Gilles de Rais in the 15th century. He claimed he could summon demons and involved Gilles in this practice.
The Lordship of Combourg, after 1575 the County of Combourg, was a barony centred on Combourg in the east of the Duchy of Brittany in France during the Middle Ages and the early modern period.
Olivier IV de Clisson (1300–1343), was a Breton Marche Lord and knight who became embroiled in the intrigue of Vannes and was subsequently executed by the King of France for perceived treason. He was the husband of Jeanne de Clisson who eventually became known as the Lioness of Brittany.