Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild from Erin Manky,

listener discretion advised.

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The summer of 1343 had been a mild one in Brittany, which is located in the northwest

of France near the Atlantic Ocean, and summers there were typically warm with heavy rain.

Back in the 14th century, Brittany was an independent feudal state, and its capital,

not, set 300 or so miles southwest of Paris.

It served as a natural crossroads between the rest of Brittany and the separate Kingdom

of France.

In early August 1343, a woman named Jean de Clesson and her two sons, Seven-Year-Old Olivier

V, and five-year-old Guillaume arrived at the main gates of Nantes.

If you're imagining the scene, the three of them would have stopped there for a moment,

there at the Stone Archway to the City, and gazed up to see a horrific sight.

The rotting, decapitated head of Jean's husband, the boy's father.

His head was impaled on a pike and gently swaying in the salt breeze, and because Olivier IV's

...