Confess Your Crimes in Sand and Blood

Eric Jager, The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial By Combat

One rainy afternoon in January 1386, a crime transpired in the undefended castle overlooking the sleepy French hamlet of Capomesnil. Exactly what happened, and why, jeopardized the French legal system. Jean de Carrouges, a knight with a reputation for stroppy behavior and no aptitude for court intrigue, claimed his rival invaded his mother’s nearly abandoned château and savaged his wife. The rival, Jacques le Gris, a talented courtier and squire, denied everything.

UCLA medievalist Eric Jager stumbled upon the Carrouges casewhile researching another project. It struck his imagination because Carrouges’ accusations against le Gris escalated into violence. Not Red Wedding-ish violence that pulls audiences into mass media, but France’s sluggish late-medieval justice system. Carrouges, a minor aristocrat himself, believed his feudal liege ignored the crime for reasons of court politics, and appealed for a rare option: a “judicial duel.”

Jager reconstructs the events preceding this exceptional outcome—which would, though nobody knew this then, be the last trial by combat authorized by the French monarch. He also provides a guided tour through a distant nation that, if any ever has, deserves the name “foreign.” Though Jager name-checks places you could visit today, like Paris, Bordeaux, and England, the standards and traditions circumscribing everyday life differ wildly from ours.

Jean de Carrouges was an accomplished warrior, descended from accomplished warriors, amid the interminable slog of the Hundred Years’ War; he was knighted for distinguished combat services. But he proved a lousy courtier, ill-suited for house politics and prestation. Carrouges ascended quickly through the court of Count Pierre of Alençon, then fell equally quickly. His easily bruised honor required frequent satisfaction, and he burned bridges faster than he built them.

Jacques le Gris lacked Carrouges’ pedigree, but proved more adept at court politics. He and Carrouges began as allies, but as le Gris out-earned Count Pierre’s favor, Carrouges felt himself slighted. The two squires (before Carrouges’ knighthood) intermittently fought and reconciled. But by early 1386, Carrouges discovered his newly-minted knighthood meant nothing at court, and the courtiers found themselves irreconcilable. LeGris swore revenge on Carrouges’ household, and targeted his wife.

Eric Jager, Ph.D.

Reading this book, it’s impossible to miss how Carrouges’ world differs from ours. The government received its power from inheritances, not merit, and lesser courtiers received advancement based on personal connections, not competence or hard work. (Okay, maybe not so different from ours.) Because King Charles VI supposedly received his crown directly from God, “justice” meant whatever dribbled from the king’s lips, which immediately became holy writ.

Carrouges’ world turns on two liabilities: war and distance. Kings fight other kings, not to achieve any advantage, but because it’s what they do. Lesser nobles gain whatever limited fraction of power they possess by furthering that goal. Meanwhile, before motor vehicles and mass transportation, distances were truly huge. Twenty miles is an arduous overland slog which, depending on weather, requires a commitment of days; even light war requires months.

Therefore, Carrouges’ decision to appeal his lawsuit to Paris is no small obligation. But rape, it seems, was no small accusation, either. Despite the recent trend in “grimdark” medieval fantasy pitching rape as banal in feudal society, Jager notes that it remained a capital offense, at least among the nobility. Violating a titled lady’s virtue jeopardized the assurity of legitimate offspring, which threatened the entire system of male agnatic primogeniture.

Feudal hierarchies, in Jager’s telling, appear remarkably brittle. The state remains stable only while lords and vassals accept their place in the hierarchy and serve the aristocratic state. Therefore, whatever happened in Capomesnil in 1386 threatened the entire social order, since someone transgressed their roles. This is the archetypal “he-said, she-said” case, as nobody but le Gris and Lady Carrouges (and le Gris’ man) saw what actually happened.

When logical arguments fail, two trained warriors resolve their differences with weapons. But again, in defiance of paperback fiction, this is hardly an outburst of premodern savagery. A judicial duel required ceremony and strictures that make today’s courtrooms seem loosey-goosey. When we discuss modern courtrooms as “level playing fields,” we copy the rules of the dueling ground, tightly controlled to ensure nobody but God granted either combatant an advantage.

History records who, exactly, won this duel (though Jager plays coy). What matters more, in Jager’s telling, is reconstructing the world in which this event occurred, a world where invested noblemen believed their battles bespoke God’s favor, and might literally made right. A world where justice is both necessary, and costly. A world violently different from, yet also surprisingly much like, our own world.