Raoul Roussel

Raoul Roussel, Treasurer to Rouen Cathedral in an illumination of count of debits.

Raoul Roussel (1389–1452) was a French churchman, who played a part in the trial of Joan of Arc in 1431,^[1] and was archbishop of Rouen from 1443 to 1452.^[2]

He was born at Saultchevreuil in the diocese of Coutances, and became a doctor of canon law in 1416.^[3] At the time of the trial he was Treasurer to Rouen Cathedral.^[4]

He was an advisor both to the English king, who employed him on numerous missions,^[5] and later to the Edmund Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset.^[6] When Rouen, in the hands of the English and Somerset, surrendered to Charles VII of France in 1449, Roussel had influence in the negotiations, and received the French king into the city.^[7]

Notes

1. Transcript
2. Evêques de Rouen du 3ème siècle à 2008
3. [Jeanne d'Arc]>>Partisan>English
4. Daniel Hobbins, The Trial of Joan of Arc (2005), p. 115.
5. English Records
6. Bernard Guenée, Between Church and State: The Lives of Four French Prelates in the Late Middle Ages (1991 translation), p. 307.
7. R. A. Griffiths, The Reign of King Henry VI (1981), p. 517.