During the Hundred Years' War, the citizens of the French port city of Calais endured a brutal eleven-month blockade by the English army led by King Edward III. Cut off from all food and supplies, the population suffered catastrophic starvation, eating horses, dogs, and rats to survive, while diseases ran rampant through the besieged streets. Rather than surrender immediately, they maintained their defense with staggering collective endurance until, entirely exhausted, six prominent burghers volunteered to walk out with nooses around their necks to sacrifice their lives for the town, a display of civic fortitude that ultimately moved the English Queen to beg for their lives.

The extreme endurance and moral courage of the citizens of Calais became a major subject in late-medieval chivalric chronicles and historical poems, serving as a defining narrative of national sacrifice. In later centuries, this event inspired numerous plays, epic poems, and Auguste Rodin's famous sculpture, serving as a universal literary symbol for the agony of the innocent under the pressures of imperial warfare and total siege tactics.