Eric Jager - The Last Duel: Now a major film starring Matt Damon, Adam Driver and Jodie Comer

F OR P EG

sine qua non

The elaborate rules of judicial combat
left nothing to chanceexcept,
of course, the outcome itself.

M ARTIN M ONESTIER ,
Duels: les combats singuliers

This duel was the last one ever decreed
by order of the Parlement of Paris.

J. A . B UCHON, EDITOR OF
J EAN F ROISSARTS Chronicles

No one really knew the truth of the matter.

J EAN L E C OQ , P ARISIAN LAWYER ,
LATE FOURTEENTH CENTURY

T he idea for this book first occurred to me ten years ago while reading a medieval account of the legendary quarrel between Jean de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris. Fascinated by the story, I began collecting everything I could find about the CarrougesLe Gris affair. Eventually I traveled to Normandy and Paris to explore manuscript archives and experience the places where the drama unfolded more than six hundred years ago. The resulting book is a true story based on original sources: chronicles, legal records, and other surviving documents. All persons, places, dates, and many other detailsincluding what people said and did, their often contradictory claims in court, sums of money paid or received, even the weatherare real and based on the sources. Where the sources disagree, I give the most likely account of events. Where the historical record is silent, I use my own invention to fill in some of the gaps, while always listening closely to the voices of the past.

O n a cold morning a few days after Christmas in 1386, thousands of people packed a large open space behind a monastery in Paris to watch two knights fight a duel to the death. The rectangular field of battle was enclosed by a high wooden wall, and the wall was surrounded by guards armed with spears. Charles VI, the eighteen-year-old king of France, sat with his court in colorful viewing stands along one side, while the huge throng of spectators crowded all around the field.

The two combatants, in full armor, swords and daggers at their belts, sat facing each other across the length of the field on thronelike chairs placed just outside the heavy gates at either end. Attendants held a stamping warhorse ready by each gate, as priests hurriedly cleared the field of the altar and crucifix on which the two enemies had just sworn their oaths.

At the marshals signal, the knights would mount their horses, seize their lances, and charge onto the field. The guards would then slam the gates shut, imprisoning the two men inside the heavy stockade. There they would fight without quarter, and without any chance of escape, until one killed the other, thus proving his charges and revealing Gods verdict on their quarrel.

The excited crowd was watching not only the two fierce warriors, and the youthful king amid his splendid court, but also the beautiful young woman sitting alone on a black-draped scaffold overlooking the field, dressed from head to toe in mourning, and also surrounded by guards.

Feeling the eyes of the crowd upon her and bracing herself for the coming ordeal, she stared ahead at the flat, smooth field where her fate would soon be written in blood.

If her champion won the judicial combat and killed his opponent, she would go free. But if he were slain, she would pay with her life for having sworn a false oath.

It was the feast day of the martyred saint Thomas Becket, the crowd was in a holiday mood, and she knew that many were eager to see not only a man slain in mortal combat but also a woman put to death.

As the bells of Paris tolled the hour, the kings marshal strode onto the field and held up a hand for silence. The trial by combat was about to begin.