Brittany is a part of northern France, but in the 1300s, they thought of themselves as Bretons, not Frenchmen. Jeanne's father was a nobleman, and her mother was from a noble family as well. They wanted to ensure young Jeanne had a strong marriage. At age 12 (not at all unusual for the time) she married the 19-year-old Baron Geoffrey of Chateaubriant. They had two kids, a boy and a girl, who would inherit their father's estates one after the other. Goeffrey died when he was 33 years old, leaving Jeanne young and still marriageable.
Four years later, she married Olivier de Clisson IV, a knight who held an important castle and estates in Brittany. It was the second marriage for both of them, and it was fertile: Jeanne bore five more children to Olivier. All in all, Jeanne spent the first part of her life in peace and domestic tranquility, despite the winds of war that had begun to blow.
Brittany was ruled by a Duke who paid nominal homage to the King of France. In reality, French kings were often weak and local nobles had a lot of power, relatively speaking. But when the Duke died without a direct heir, there were two nobles who each had a claim to take the duchy - Charles of Blois, who the French preferred, and John Montfort, who the English preferred. Unfortunately, this led to the War of the Breton Succession, which was just a chapter in the so-called Hundred Years War. The situation was complicated and we can't get into it all here, but it proved to be fateful for Jeanne.
Olivier and Jeanne supported Charles of Blois, as did most of the nobles in Brittany. But Montfort acted fast, and with English backing, took the Breton city of Vannes in 1342. Olivier and another nobleman were in charge of the defenses of the town. They did a good job at first - it took Montfort and the English several tries to take it. In the end, Olivier was captured. He was ransomed back to the French for such a low amount that Charles of Blois became suspicious. He accused Olivier of not doing all he could to defend Vannes.
When a truce between the English and French cooled things down for a while, Charles invited Olivier and several other nobles who'd irked him to a tournament in Paris. Once there, Olivier was captured and beheaded. His body was hung in a gibbet in Paris and his head returned to Brittany for public display as a warning to anyone else who might piss off the mighty Charles of Blois. This shocked the nobility. There was no demonstration of guilt, no trial, and public display of the body was a slap in the face to the family honor, as such treatment was usually reserved for low-class criminals.
It was this act of brutality that turned Jeanne into a Badass Chick of History.
She took her two sons to see the head of their father, and swore revenge against the French king, Philip VI, and Charles of Blois. Returning home, she sold every scrap of real estate she'd inherited - she had a plan and needed every ounce of money she could squeeze out of her estates. She used some of this initial money to hire a mercenary force of fighters who were at least nominally loyal to Olivier's memory, and she personally led them in several assaults on French forces.
Jeanne was merciless. She took a castle in Brittany and massacred every single inhabitant without regard to age or gender. She left one person alive to tell the French king what she had done. The force then stormed off and destroyed to a man another French garrison nearby.
Charles and the King turned up the heat, and Jeanne, now landless but with significant funds and a band of loyal followers, decided to get out of the kitchen - for now. She escaped by boat and fled to England. Unfortunately one of her sons died on the way; she left the others in the care of John of Montfort, who she now supported as the rightful ruler of Brittany.
As soon as the ships were complete, Jeanne took her remaining band of soldiers, gathered up more from British ports, and sailed out into the English Channel. Within a week she'd taken a French merchant ship and slaughtered everyone on board except for one sailor. Him, she sent back to Paris with a warning for Charles and the French king. Ship after ship followed - together, her three warships were almost unstoppable. Her force quickly became known as The Black Fleet.
Before long, Jeanne had earned the nickname "The Lioness of Brittany." She didn't take prisoners, and looting enemy ships was just a way to pay her men. Revenge was her driving aspiration, and it kept her going for 13 long years on the sea. She's believed to have captured or scuttled almost 100 French ships, raided at least a dozen coastal villages, and put more than 3,000 French to the sword. And she didn't just order her men to kill everyone, either: no, Jeanne had all the survivors lined up on the deck of the captured ship, and she personally ran every one of them through with a broadsword. At some point in her career, she became fond of the battle axe as a weapon, and began using it to behead any French noble she found. She'd send the heads back to Paris (now ruled by King Jean II) with taunting, threatening letters.
She also assisted the English in the Hundred Years War. When King Edward III of England invaded France, the Black Fleet supplied his troops at the Battle of Crecy. This is when she met Sir Walter Bentley, and English knight who'd been instrumental in helping Edward III storm across France. In fact, he'd triumphed with English forces when he was outnumbered more than two to one at the Battle of Mauron. He was, you might say, a Lion fit for the Lioness of Brittany. He was rewarded with a castle and lands in Brittany. In 1356, Jeanne perhaps felt that she'd had enough revenge. After all, the English had taken control over much of Brittany, and after 13 years of piracy and slaughter, maybe Jeanne was running out of steam. Her old enemy Charles of Blois had been captured by the English (he was held as a prisoner for nine years, then ransomed). King Philip VI was long gone. She was fast approaching 60 years old. Jeanne decided to call it a day.
Together, she and Sir Walter settled in the castle of Hennebont, a port town on the coast of Brittany, overlooking the sea where Jeanne had been responsible for so much violence. Happily for her, she lived out the rest of her days in peace, seeing most of her children be granted estates or married well. Her son Olivier, who'd been fostered in England by Montfort, eventually inherited his father's estates and title. In fact, he'd go on to serve as the Constable of France under King Charles VI.
Jeanne lived for three more years in peace, writing that she was "content that justice has been served" (maybe a little too much justice, to be honest...). Jeanne died quietly of natural causes in 1359.
She left behind her a legend and legacy that was later novelized by romantic writers on both sides of the Channel. However, today her legend is less well-known. It should be noted that the Hundred Years War was a stage of action for many Badass Chicks of History, including Montfort's wife, who supposedly went into battle with a flaming sword, and the most Badass Chick of them all, Joan of Arc. Maybe Jeanne de Clisson, the Lioness of Brittany, has been a bit overshadowed by more famous or more recent fighting women. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that Jeanne surely ranks highly among the Badass Chicks of History.
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