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The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat in Medieval France

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A Fabulous and Rivetting Read
This is such a good book!
Brilliant!
A fascinating tale of crime, scandal and trial by combat
Informative and downright riveting

The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat in Medieval France
Eric Jager
Manufacturer: Broadway
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0767914171
Release Date: 2005-09-13

Book Description

In 1386, a few days after Christmas, a huge crowd gathers at a Parisian monastery to witness what will become the nation's final "trial by combat"—a court-ordered duel intended to let God determine which of the two men was telling the truth. The dramatic true story of the knight, the squire, and the lady unfolds during the devastating Hundred Years' War between France and England, as enemy troops pillage the land, madness haunts the French court, the Great Schism splits the Church, Muslim armies threaten Christendom, and rebellion, treachery, and plague turn the lives of all into toys of Fortune. Bringing to life a colorful, turbulent age and three unforgettable characters caught in a fatal triangle of crime, scandal, and revenge, The Last Duel is at once a moving human drama, a captivating detective story, and an engrossing work of historical intrigue.

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As the huge crowd seethed with pent-up excitement, the two deadly enemies studied each other intently, their breath hot behind their visors. Each sought the other's death as fire and water seek each other's annihilation. The walled field, at first a prison, now became a crucible where one man would be destroyed and the other purged in the name of justice. They would fight not only without quarter, but also without rules. And a horrible fate awaited the lady if her husband should lose…

The gripping, atmospheric true story of the “duel to end all duels” in medieval France: a trial by combat pitting a knight against a squire accused of violating the knight's beautiful young wife.

In 1386, a few days after Christmas, a huge crowd gathers at a Paris monastery to watch the two men fight a duel to the death meant to “prove” which man's cause is right in God's sight. The dramatic true story of the knight, the squire, and the lady unfolds during the devastating Hundred Years War between France and England, as enemy troops pillage the land, madness haunts the French court, the Great Schism splits the Church, Muslim armies threaten Christendom, and rebellion, treachery, and plague turn the lives of all into toys of Fortune.

At the heart of the tale is Jean de Carrouges, a Norman knight who returns from combat in Scotland to find his wife, Marguerite, accusing Jacques LeGris, her husband's old friend and fellow courtier, of brutally raping her. The knight takes his cause before the teenage King Charles VI, the highest judge in France. Amid LeGris's vociferous claims of innocence and doubts about the now pregnant Marguerite's charges (and about the paternity of her child), the deadlocked court decrees a “trial by combat” that leaves her fate, too, in the balance. For if her husband and champion loses the duel, she will be put to death as a false accuser.

Carrouges and LeGris, in full armor, eventually meet on a walled field in Paris before a massive crowd that includes the king and many nobles of the realm. A fierce fight on horseback and then on foot ensues during which both combatants suffer wounds—but only one fatal. The violent and tragic episode was notorious in its own time because of the nature of the alleged crime, the legal impasse it provoked, and the resulting trial by combat, an ancient but increasingly suspect institution that was thereafter abolished. Based on extensive research in Normandy and Paris, The Last Duel brings to life a colorful, turbulent age and three unforgettable characters caught in a fatal triangle of crime, scandal, and revenge. It is at once a moving human drama, a captivating detective story, and an engrossing work of historical intrigue.

Customer Reviews:

A Fabulous and Rivetting Read.......2007-02-03

The last paragraph of the book pretty well says it all:
"In its private and illegal later form, the 'duel' only dimly reflected the solemn grandeur of its medieval golden age, when angry nobles challenged each other and threw down the gauntlet, then sheathed themselves in armor, swore heavy religious oaths before priests, and spurred their warhorses onto a walled field to fight it out before thousands of witnesses with lance and sword and dagger, putting at risk their word and their honour, their fortunes and their lives, and even the salvation of their immortal souls. The world was not to see the like of such spectacles ever again."

An truly well-researched and dramatic story. Highly recommended.

This is such a good book!.......2006-08-29

I love this type of book. The author paints a vivid picture of the society the duellists live in - its customs and values and does a great job of linking these to their emotions and motivations. He describes the places where the action took place in detail, providing pictures and telling the reader where they were and what they are - or are not - now. Having created the world in which the duel took place, and the background, the account of the duel itself is riveting. All in all an excellent book.

Brilliant!.......2006-07-21

This book was simply wonderful! The research must have been tremendous! It was fun to reach back in time to get a glimpse of medieval laws and ethics. At times I couldn't put the book down! I can't wait to read it again!

A fascinating tale of crime, scandal and trial by combat.......2006-02-09

Eric Jager's `The Last Duel' is a fascinating insight to the conducting of a personal feud in fourteenth century France during the period where the medieval concept of chivalry was at its height. Dealing with the historical personages of Jean Le Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris it is a story that defines our modern conceptions of the age and mixes in a dash of romance and tragedy as two men end up at a tourney fighting to the death over a young, beautiful woman.
Jager opens by portraying the cuckolded husband, Carrouges, as a man for whom fortune is firmly treading on. From his fall from grace with Count Pierre of Alencon because of, firstly, his troublesome suite with Le Gris, his one time friend and godfather of his child, over the territory of Aunou-le-Faucon, then his subsequent loss of the captaincy of Belleme to his personally disastrous involvement in France's invasion of England, Carrouges is portrayed as a troublesome vassal to the rising star, Jacques Le Gris.
His marriage to Marguerite Thibouville, only daughter of the king-betraying, meant that Le Gris' wayward eye fell on his rival's wife and resulted in Le Gris raping Marguerite in January of 1386 whilst Carrouges was away, an act that results in a fictional narrated account of the act (a writing style change that is followed at the end with the fateful duel at St Martin des champs). Her decision to inform her husband set in motion a set of events that became a cause celebre throughout France. Jager takes us through the summons to Paris, the request to prove the charge through a duel to the death and the subsequent legal and ceremonial steps that lead us to the fencing in of the protagonists at the end of 1386 and their fight to the bloody end.
There is a lengthy post-mortem where we learn of Carrouges subsequent life and also that of Marguerite as the history blended with romantic myth about the whether Le Gris was truly responsible or not and if his death in Paris served justice at all.
I found this a fascinating insight into a infamous event in late fourteenth century France. The public record that has remained coupled with the growth of its legend serves well to highlight how trial by combat was highly ceremonial, legally intricate and not to be taken lightly. Jager presents the case and actions with a wealth of primary source knowledge and favours Carrouges, carefully setting the event in a historical and legal context. He builds the characters of both and attempts to explain how they got to the situation drawing on attested documentation and does not overly romanticise the situation. It is a glimpse into a true story of crime, scandal and trial by combat that is well worth the time to read.

Informative and downright riveting.......2005-06-15

In The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat in Medieval France author Eric Jager provides a fascinating account of a feud that erupted in the late 1370s between two friends and culminated some years later in the disputants' trial by combat. The bad blood between Jean de Carrouges and Jacque Le Gris began with jealousy, as Carrouges watched Le Gris become the favorite of the Count whom both men served as chamberlains. Le Gris was Carrouges's social inferior, and it rankled that he rather than Carrouges was the more successful at court. Further insults followed, and Carrouges became increasingly hostile to his old friend, whom he suspected of plotting against him.

The final straw, the crime that led the principals in this story to seek one another's death before thousands of spectators and King Charles VI himself, was Le Gris's alleged rape of Carrouges's wife. Marguerite de Carrouges maintained that Le Gris had attacked her while her husband was away from home. The events of that day--whatever happened to Marguerite in fact--led inexorably to a walled-in jousting field on which the two combatants stabbed and hacked and beat one another until one of them lay dead.

Jager does a simply excellent job in this book. He builds the story of Carrouges and Le Gris carefully, describing the causes for complaint between the two and the progress of their feud as well as its historical and social context. We learn in the process about the history of judicial combat and the surprising particulars of the battle itself. The event was not, as one might suppose, an occasion for revelry, with rowdy onlookers yelling insults or encouragement at the fighters. It was instead a solemn event, and impossibly harsh strictures were laid on the spectators to guarantee their good behavior: anyone who rose from his seat during the fight was to be penalized by the loss of a hand; coughing was punishable by death. Most of us would probably quail at the prospect of merely attending such an event, let alone participating in it.

But Jager's account is not only informative, it is downright riveting. Because the author has so carefully described the antecedents to the fight and the harsh consequences for the combatants--and for Marguerite herself--riding on the battle's outcome, readers will have their emotions and intellect invested in the story by the time they arrive at Jager's blow-by-blow account of the duel: I defy anyone to put the book down during its penultimate chapter.

Whether Le Gris was guilty or innocent is a question that has been debated for centuries, and convincing arguments can be made in support of either position. Jager makes his own opinion about the matter clear, but to his credit he does not obscure the ambiguity inherent in the case, leaving plenty of room for readers to debate for themselves this most fascinating piece of legal history.

Reviewed by Debra Hamel, author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece

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