Jean de Carrouges

Sir Jean de Carrouges IV (c. 1330s – 25 September 1396) was a French knight who governed estates in Normandy as a vassal of Count Pierre d'Alençon and who served under Admiral Jean de Vienne in several campaigns against the Kingdom of England. He became famous in medieval France for fighting in one of the last judicial duels permitted by the French king and the Parlement of Paris (the actual last duel occurred in 1547 opposing Guy Chabot de Jarnac against François de Vivonne). The combat was decreed in 1386 to contest charges of rape Carrouges had brought against his neighbour and erstwhile friend Jacques Le Gris on behalf of his wife Marguerite. Carrouges won the duel. It was attended by much of the highest French nobility of the time led by King Charles VI and his family, including a number of royal dukes. It was also attended by thousands of ordinary Parisians and in the ensuing decades was chronicled by such notable medieval historians as Jean Froissart, Jean Juvénal des Ursins, and Jean de Waurin.

Described in the chronicles as a rash and temperamental man, Carrouges was also a fierce and brave warrior whose death in battle came after a forty-year military career in which he served in Normandy, Scotland and Hungary with distinction and success. He was also heavily involved in court politics, initially at the seat of his overlord Count Pierre of Alençon at Argentan, but later in the politics of the royal household at Paris, to which he was attached as a chevalier d'honneur and royal bodyguard in the years following the judicial duel.

As a knight, Carrouges was part of minor nobility, meaning his status came with land holdings and property recognition from which he could extract funds to further his position within the knighthood. When Carrouges married Marguerite de Thibouville, he expected to receive land that had belonged to her family. Marguerite’s father, however, later was accused of treason; as a result, some of his lands had come under dispute or had to be regranted by the Count of Alençon. Parcels of this land became the property of Le Gris, and Carrouges appealed this outcome through all available legal channels before it came to duel.