Date of Award
8-1970
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
History
First Advisor
Dr. John R. Sommerfeldt
Access Setting
Masters Thesis-Open Access
Abstract
The Justification of Jehan Petit was composed as an attempt to explain the murder in 1407 of Louis, duke of Orleans, by his cousin John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy. The murder was politically necessary for John to be able to dominate the French government while the king, Charles VI, was mad.
Petit attempted to prove that the duke of Orleans had been a tyrant, and that the murder was justifiable as tyrannicide. The validity of Petit’s theory demanded that he be able to prove Louis' tyranny. In so doing, he departed radically from the medieval concept of a tyrant and introduced a number of charges against the duke which, though largely groundless, did fit the murdered Louis into Petit’s new definition. An examination of the new definition of tyranny and of the charges reveals the invalidity of the work.
Recommended Citation
Parsons, John C., "The Justification of Jehan Petit: A Fifteenth-Century Attempt to Justify Tyrannicide" (1970). Masters Theses. 3005.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/masters_theses/3005