Pierre Cauchon

Pierre Cauchon (1371 in Rheims – December 1442 in Rouen) was Bishop of Beauvais from 1420 to 1432. A strong partisan of English interests in France during the latter years of the Hundred Years' War, his role in arranging the execution of Joan of Arc led most subsequent observers to condemn his extension of secular politics into an ecclesiastical trial. The Catholic Church overturned his verdict in 1455.

Cauchon came from a middle-class family in Rheims. He entered the clergy as a teenager and went to Paris, where he studied at the University of Paris. Cauchon was a brilliant student in the liberal arts. He followed with studies in Canon law and theology and became a priest.

By 1404, Cauchon was curé of Égliselles and sought a post near Rheims. He defended the University of Paris in a quarrel against Toulouse. Cauchon sought advancement through noble patronage. He allied himself with Duke John the Fearless of Burgundy and later his successor Philip the Good.

In 1407, Cauchon was part of a mission from the crown of France to attempt to reconcile the Schism between the rival claimants to the papacy: Boniface IX and Gregory XII. Although the delegation failed to achieve its goal, it raised Pierre Cauchon's prestige as a negotiator.

Upon Cauchon's return, he found Paris in turmoil over the assassination of the Duke of Orléans under orders from John the Fearless. Many suspected that the unpopular duke had been having an affair with Queen Isabeau. University theologians sympathized with John the Fearless and even published a justification of the murder as tyrannicide under the theory that the Duke of Orléans had been planning to usurp the throne.

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