Eric Jager, The Last Duel

This delightful little book is a great way to get back in touch with what is fascinating about medieval history. In the 1380s, two Norman squires named Jean de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris had a falling out. They were neighbors, they served the same lord (the Count of Perche), and they had once been comrades in arms. But, after a dispute over a parcel of land and quarrels over their lord's favor, they became enemies. Their quarrel escalated until, in 1386, de Carrouges' wife Marguerite accused Le Gris of rape.

This dramatic charge, involving two prominent families with connections among the high aristocracy, riveted France. To some, the charge of rape seemed like an obvious fabrication, another move in the ongoing feud between the two men. But Marguerite stuck to her story under intense scrutiny, despite the shame it brought on her and her family, and she convinced many of her truthfulness. To make the case even more dramatic, when de Carrouges brought charges against Le Gris before the Parlement of Paris, he demanded trial by battle. Trial by battle, the ancient heritage of Frankish and Viking warriors, had fallen out of favor in the later Middle Ages. The church turned against it, and everywhere the fact-finding powers of the judicial inquest steadily replaced the various kinds of ordeals. By 1386 the Parlement hardly ever granted requests for such trials. But this time they did. Jager suggests that they did so to avoid taking sides in a dispute that had divided the aristocracy, with many leading men on both sides. The king was only a teenager and the government weak, making it all the more tempting to avoid rendering a verdict that might anger powerful people.

A date for the duel was set in November of 1386. But the king, on campaign in Flanders, sent word that he wished to preside over the duel in person, so it was delayed for six weeks. It was eventually  held a few days after Christmas. Despite the bitter cold, a crowd of thousands assembled, the elite of the kingdom surrounding the king in the royal box. Jager sets the stage well, describing the elaborate ceremony of the duel, the crowd, the awful finality of the event. For the loser would die one way or another, either in the battle or, if he yielded, by execution for swearing false oaths. Marguerite de Carrouges also faced death, since if her husband failed she would also be convicted of perjury.

As Jager tells the story it illustrates much about medieval culture: the obsessive struggle for land, office, and honor; the profession of arms; the elaborate judicial system; the public fascination with this duel to the death. Jager is a competent writer and skillfully maintains the reader's suspense, which is why I won't say who won the duel. He is also happy in his sources. The complete record of the trial survives, and the event was recorded by several chroniclers, including the famous Froissart. It is a fine book and if anybody ever gives me a chance to teach my Age of Chivalry class, I will use it.

To me, as a historian, the most telling part of the story was the aftermath. The winner was made one of the king's household knights and became famous and wealthy. This happened to other men of the fourteenth century who had the chance to live or die in epic terms, like the survivors of the Combat of the Thirty. After all, few medieval people really had that chance. Medieval wars, like all wars, were mostly decided by the clever deployment of superior resources, and soldiers spent more time foraging for food than fighting honorably. Most dispute were settled by the maneuvers of lawyers or the payment of cash. Politics was largely the sort of sordid squabbling over land and offices that started the feud between Le Gris and de Carrouges. So when a noble man really did lay his life on the line for his honor, or his lady, the world took notice, and he could live off his deeds for the rest of his life.