de Carrouges knows that even the King is biased against him, and decides to ask for a trial by duel, in which God decides the outcome by letting the liar die. Some argued that shed falsely accused Le Gris, either mistaking him for someone else or acting on the orders of her vindictive husband. A 1306 royal decree based on ancient precedent allowed the duel as a last resort for nobles involved in capital casese.g., murder, treason, and rapebut by now judicial duels were extremely rare. I would have had to have taken this many horses, and I didnt have time to get back. It would have become about whether or not it could have been him, or it must have been somebody else. The theory of mistaken identity ultimately derives from two sources that began circulating more than a decade after the duel. Given the counts strong relationship with Le Gris and combative past with Carrouges, he was quick to dismiss the claim, even arguing that Marguerite must have dreamed it. Undeterred, Carrouges raised an appeal with the king. Which we talked about, but it just became so absurd., Affleck adds, It hinged on the weight on the armor and the fact that once you fell, you couldnt get up and you were like a trapped lobster. When would she choose to speak out in this way? Apart from the dubious, sketchy, and inconsistent reports in the two chronicles, no external evidence for this hazy legend has ever been offered in support of the oft-told tale of a last-minute confession by the true culprit. Her story is detailed and persuasive, and she ran such a great risk to speak up at a time when women were supposed to keep silent about such things. According to Jager, the court may have feared taking sides and arousing even more controversy, deciding instead to grant the knights request, authorize a duel and leave the whole perplexing matter in the hands of God., Five contemporary or near-contemporary chronicles offer accounts of what happened when Le Gris and Carrouges met on December 29, 1386. October 15, 2021 7:00 AM EDT. Marguerite de Carrouges accused Le Gris of rape in 1386. When youre doing scenes where you really want to fight back with Carrouges and tell him what it is you really think, you have to go, Hang on a minute, would she do this? Comer recalls. de Carrouges, whose wife and son died of an unknown illness, eventually marries Marguerite, a wealthy but reputationally damaged young woman. The film does show that at the same time as Marguerite was pregnant, so was the queen. There were three chroniclers who gave detailed accounts of the sword phase of the fight, and they have slightly different accounts of how Carrouges managed to get Le Gris on the ground, Jager says. ), Whether Carrouges and Le Gris actually ended their quarrel at this point is debatable. Marguerite de Carrouges : My father told me my life would be blessed with good fortune. It was really trying to understand those types of dynamics and her place within the home and in society.. By taking away the witness and some challenging details, like Le Gris stuffing his hat into Marguerites mouth, the filmmakers were able to more fully explore the notion that Le Gris believed his actions were just. Many skepticsincluding chroniclers, historians, partisans, and even historical novelistshave cast doubt on the official verdict. (Writing for History News Network, Jager explains that the ferocious logic of the duel implied that proof was already latent in the bodies of the two combatants, and that the duels divinely assured outcome would reveal which man had sworn falsely and which had told the truth.) Marguerite, as chief witness in the case, will be executed if her husband loses the duel, thereby proving both of their guilt. Ben Affleck co-wrote the script with Damon and. Marguerite de Carrouges : No. While some touched by scandal may resurrect their lives and reputations, others never will: what happened, or is said to have happened, may follow them even through the pages of history. The synopsis of the film lays out the basis for what would be the final (official) duel in French history, but as with most 'based on a true story' stories, there are always gaps between reality and fiction. Greeting Marguerite, he declared that she was the lady of all the land, that he loved her the most and would do anything for her. It is one thing to slander, another to accuse. They still spoke out, and they still fought against the grain.. According. But not for as long as you need me to. Tossing a sack of coins at the young woman, Le Gris taunted her, claiming that his friends would give him an airtight alibi. A Judicial Duel, byLieven van Lathem, 1464. Birthdate: estimated between 1321 and 1381. But when he returned a few days later and heard his wifes story, he angrily brought charges against Le Gris in the court of Count Pierre of Alenon, overlord to both men. Her father had sided against the king twice, and. We knew who this woman was generally by the way she spoke out in the time in which she was living in.. According to Jager, Le Gris took an immediate liking to Marguerite when Carrouges introduced her to the court in 1384. Marguerites story must have seemed at least plausible to the magistrates who ordered the duel, something the Parlement had not done for over thirty years in a rape case. A new film from Ridley Scott dramatizes the 1386 trial by combat of a medieval man accused of a horrific crime. Marguerite also testified that Adam Louvel was the first to arrive at the chteau, and that he began his visit by urging her to ask her husband to extend the term of an outstanding loan for one hundred gold francs. And thats one of the things we didnt focus as much on: They truly believed God would make happen whatever was the fair thing to happen, so it would be Gods will. Marguerite de Thibouville, only daughter of the highly controversial Robert de Thibouville, married Jean de Carrouges in 1380. Marguerite testified repeatedly under oath that on a certain day in January 1386Thursday the eighteenthshe was attacked by the two men, Le Gris and Louvel. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. What sets this version apart, besides its unusual length, is how quickly the judicial error on the battlefield is revealed by the sudden arrival of the truth. Rather than a belated discovery taking many yearsas in the chroniclesits just a matter of minutes from Le Gris death to the proof of his innocence. While this should have added weight to Marguerite's claim, it did not. Now, the story of the 1386 trial by combat is the subject of a blockbuster film of the same name. In accord with ancient tradition, she would be burned alive as a false accuser. Marguerite, who found herself pregnant soon after the attack, largely left this fact out of her account, either due to uncertainty over the childs paternityhe may have been conceived before Carrouges left for Parisor an awareness that making this claim would weaken her testimony in the eyes of the court. I will not be silent, she responds, teary-eyed but defiant. And if the Parlement of Paris could not establish even the basic facts, theres little chance of our discovering hidden motives all of these centuries later. When the lady learned this and realized that the error was her fault, she retreated to a convent after her husbands death, vowing perpetual chastity.. By the union of Marguerite and Carrouges, de Thibouville hoped to restore his family's status[1] while Carrouges was hoping for an heir from the young Marguerite, whom contemporaries described as "young, noble, wealthy, and also very beautiful". The squire then threw her onto a bed but could not hold her down without help from Louvel, who rushed back into the room on Le Gris orders to help his friend subdue and finally rape Marguerite. Jager chronicled how the former friends relationship devolvedand the woman and rape allegation at the center of the conflictin the 2004 nonfiction book The Last Duel. ( 20 th Century Studios ) At the time, the French were engaged in a bitter conflict with the English. In Le Coqs words, his client attacked his adversary very cruelly and did it on foot, although he would have had the advantage if he had done it on horseback. By drawing blood, writes Elema for the Historical European Martial Arts and Sports Community, Le Gris prevented the king from halting the duel, as once the scales had tipped in one fighters favor, no one could stop the fight without the appearance of partiality.. The entire royal court was gossiping about the rape, the trial, and the likelihood of a duel. Skoda adds, Its all too tempting to talk about the Middle Ages as this horrible, misogynist, patriarchal, oppressive society, as a way of even implicitly just saying, Look how far weve come. Whereas to complicate what things looked like in the 14th century complicates what were doing now.. Flawless Victory. Eric Jagers 2004 book, The Last Duel: A True Story of Trial by Combat in Medieval France, is a case of truth being stranger than fiction. Nearly everyone believed then and believes now that Marguerite was raped. Marguerite de Carrouges accused Jacques Le Gris of rape, [5] [6] leading to one of the last judicial duels permitted by the French king and the Parliament of Paris (the actual last duel occurred in 1547 [7] opposing Guy Chabot de Jarnac against Franois de Vivonne). Or did he trip? HIP/Art Resource, NY. That resonates. Le 29 dcembre 1 386 se droula un duel d'honneur entre deux seigneurs normands", "Who is Marguerite de Carrouges? At the bottom of the social ladder were warriors, priests and laborers, who had limited rights and political influence. Despite the threat of public humiliation and potentially deadly outcome of disclosing ones rape, women like Marguerite spoke out, perhaps as a way of working through their trauma or simply refusing to passively accept [what had] happened to them, says Skoda. In his youth, Jean served in the retinue of . Le Gris final moments appear to have been grisly even by the standards of the day: The monk of Saint-Denis, who served as Charles VIs official historian, reported that Carrouges killed his enemy with great difficulty because he was encased in armor. In accordance with tradition, authorities dragged Le Gris body to the gallows and hung him as a final insult to his sullied reputation. Really embracing the kind of freedom that gave her. If the mistaken-identity theory is wrong, that forces us back onto the sharp horns of a dilemma: Was Marguerite lying, or was she telling the truth? Meilan Solly Fatality. I'm married. Comer brought that sense of history into her performance as well, recognizing what was and wasnt acceptable for women of the time. We gave this great filmmaker the opportunity to dramatize the essence of it and make it compelling to an audience, rather than do literally what happened.. The movie ends with Marguerite playing with her son, seemingly at peace with her life. What it doesn't detail is that while Marguerite gave birth to a healthy boy, the queen's son was sickly and died not long after he was born. (At this point, the two men were in their late 50s, which places Damon at close to the right age for his role but Driver a good generation off the mark. The majority of medieval rape victims lacked the means to seek justice. If your husband hears of it, he may kill you. If her husband lost she would be found guilty of perjury. The J. PaulGettyMuseum, Los Angeles. Insight and analysis from renowned writers and thinkers. Marguerite remained silent of her ordeal for several days, until her husband's return on the 21 or 22 January. As might be expected, the deadly trial by combat before the huge crowd of spectators unfolds with genuine drama and suspense. And some, invoking the most popular theory, acknowledge the rape but say that Marguerite mistakenly accused the wrong man, an honest but tragic error that robbed Le Gris of his life, fortune, and good name. On a freezing December day in 1386, at an old priory in Paris that today is a museum of science and technologya temple of human reasonan eager crowd of thousands gathered to watch two knights fight a duel to the death with lance and sword and dagger. They leave, with the crowds cheering for de Carrouges. Later encyclopedia entries echoed this view, seemingly solidifying the question of Le Gris innocence. I thought I was going to suffocate, and soon I couldnt fight them anymore. Far from echoing these Enlightenment-era assessments of Marguerites misguided intentions, the film adaptation of The Last Duel presents the noblewoman as its protagonist, the truth teller [whose account is] so much more resonant, strong and evident than her male counterparts, as Affleck tells GMA News. Marguerites father, Robert de Thibouville, had once betrayed the king of France, and some may have wondered whether this traitors daughter was in fact telling the truth. Marguerite was born as Marguerite De Thibouville in Normandy in the year 1362. Get our L.A. She refuses his advances, after which he rapes her. The historical record tends to favor men, so not much is known about the real Marguerite beyond her familys legacy and her role leading up to the duel. A large and powerful man, Le Gris was well educated and very wealthy, though from an only recently ennobled family. He likewise claims that Marguerite had been deceived about her attackers identity, although the supposed truth comes out under rather different circumstances: Later it was discovered that [Le Gris] had not really done it, but that it had been done by another, who died of illness in his bed and, at the moment of death, confessed before others that he had done the deed.. Given the absence of any witnesses in her own favor, Marguerites accusations against Louvel were a gratuitous and risky addition to her testimony if her story of the attack and rape was indeed a deliberate lie. Speak without regard for the consequences, and it is too late for silence when disaster strikes. Carrouges immediately began a lawsuit to recover the land-based on an assumed prior claim to it. Its also significant that the Parlement of Paris found Marguerites story credible enough to vacate Count Pierres official exoneration of Le Gris and to authorize the rare judicial duel, whose official purpose, however doubtful the procedure may seem today, was to determine the truth in cases where witness testimony and other evidence was insufficient for reaching a verdict. Part Two will use the medieval sources to reconstruct what really happened in the combat, using . The combat was decreed on December 29, 1386 in Paris.[3]. Even the characters haircuts which have been the butt of some online jokes match up with what we know about the period, according to Jager. Born in 1388, two years after the fatal duel, Juvnal, a bishop, wrote at an even greater remove in time and may have been influenced by Pintoins account. Despite the ladys many oaths, and those of the squire, he confided to his journal, No one really knew the truth of the matter.. Le Gris raped me., Le Gris countered with a detailed alibi for not just the day in question but the entire week, calling numerous witnesses to establish his whereabouts in or near another town some twenty-five miles away. One identifies the supposed felon as a condemned man about to be executed, the other as a sick man on his deathbed. Marguerite replied that she had no wish to speak with Le Gris, and that Louvel should stop his overtures at once. The mistaken-identity theory was also embraced abroad, as by American historian Henry Charles Lea, who in his influential 1866 study of medieval law, Superstition and Force, stated as a matter of fact that Le Gris was subsequently proved innocent by the deathbed confession of the real offender. Lea even faulted Froissart for having omitted any mention of the confession. In short, yes. Carrouges died roughly a decade after the duel, falling in combat against the Ottoman Turks. Marguerite, who had accused Le Gris of raping her, watched from the sidelines; clad entirely in black, she was keenly aware that her husbands defeat would be viewed as proof of perjury, vindicating her attacker and ensuring her execution by burning at the stake for the crime of bearing false witness. She has to relive it over and over againand she gets it right.. The events leading to the duel were described at great length in Jean Froissart's Chronicles (a prose history of the Hundred Years' War written in the 14th century by Jean Froissart) though director Ridley Scott's screenplay was adapted from Eric Jager's The Last Duel book. Spoiler alert: The following story includes details from the historical account behind the new film The Last Duel and narrative twists specific to the film. Soon after, de Carrouges went on a campaign to Scotland and though it was a military failure, he distinguished himself with his courage. More, On the use and misuse of civility. When Marguerite told Le Gris that he must not speak to her in this way, he seized her by the hand, forced her to sit down beside him on a bench, and told her that he knew all about her husbands recent money troubles, offering to pay her well. He doesnt even recognize it. Over the next several months, famous lawyers were hired, witnesses were summoned, and testimony was gathered. Adam Driver was 38 when he played Jacques le Gris, who was 56 at the time of his death. Which, to us, was more interesting and, to us, ultimately made it more about an examination of an entire system that was assaulting this woman from the moment she was born.. The burden of proof lay almost entirely on victims, who had to prove theyd resisted the rapists advances while recounting their testimony in precise detail. According to testimony later provided by Carrouges and Marguerite, she heard a knock on the door and opened it to find Louvel. This biography of a French peer or noble is a stub. Enlightenment thinkers Diderot and Voltaire favored Le Gris cause, decrying his barbaric and unjust trial by combat as an example of the supposed ignorance and cruelty of the Middle Ages, writes Jager. After many preliminary ceremonies decreed by tradition (an arms inspection, a series of solemn oaths, the requisite dubbing of Le Gris as a knight to make the combatants equal in rank, etc. Jean de Carrouges stabbed him through the throat with a 6-inch blade, killing his arch-nemesis immediately. Legal historian Ariella Elema, whose PhD research centered on trial by combat in France and England, says judicial duels were most common in cases where the evidence was really unclear and it was difficult to solve the [matter] by any other means. Such clashes had become increasingly rare by the late 14th century, with lawyers largely using the prospect of duels to incentivize individuals to settle cases out of court. The pair of men tied Marguerite down and physically beat her. The third and final section, written by Holofcener, is told from Marguerites point of view. Cookie Settings, The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat, Historical European Martial Arts and Sports Community. Much as Le Gris is said to have silenced Marguerite with his hood, a legion of clerics, historians, and partisans managed to muffle and stifle her story with vague rumors and inconsistent reports that have shrouded the matter almost to the present day. These details are wholly at odds with Marguerites court testimony about her assailants daytime visit, whose timing (if not its specific allegations) was corroborated by her mother-in-laws departure that morning and her return a few hours later that same day. Managed by: Boaz Pijp. Are we seeing how others experience things?. The mortal combat, set for December 29, promised to be the seasons highlight in the capital, as thousands of Parisians flocked to see it, and the young king and his court took their places in colorful viewing stands set up alongside the field at the monastery of Saint-Martin-des-Champs. When Carrouges returned home three or four days after Marguerites rape, he found his wife sad and tearful, always unhappy in expression and demeanor, and not at all her usual self. She waited until the two were alone before revealing what had happened and urging her husband to seek vengeance against Le Gris. The two combatants sat their horses very prettily, writes Froissart, for both were skilled in arms. The two men seized her by the arms and legs, she testified, and dragged her up a nearby stairway, while she struggled and shouted for help. In real life, there was another complicating factor de Carrouges bought land and was forced to turn it over to Pierre, blaming Le Gris for it. A seasoned warrior with more fighting experience than Le Gris, Carrouges quickly rebounded from his injury, gaining the upper hand and pushing his opponent to the ground. Terms of Use El ltimo duelo, la ltima pelcula de Ridley Scott, habla de muchas cosas, pero sobre todo de la vida de tres personas cuyo destino qued en manos del azar. By unequivocally believing Marguerite, the screenwriters offer that same sense of empathy to all women who follow her. From an absolute philosophical point of view, nobody but Jacques Le Gris and Marguerite and those who were in the room know the truth, Jager says. Knights were one step above squires, but men of both ranks often served as vassals to higher-ranking overlords. Carrouges views himself as a chivalrous knight defending his wifes honor, while Le Gris casts himself as the Lancelot to Marguerites Guinevere, rescuing her from an unhappy marriage. The valuable estate of Aunou-le-Faucon, given to his rival Jacques Le Gris two years earlier, had been formerly owned by Carrouges' father-in-law, Robert de Thibouville, and had been bought by Count Pierre II of Alenon for 8,000 French livres in 1377. Of the judicial duels that actually took place, few ended in death. So the mistaken-identity theory has in its favor Marguerites relative unfamiliarity with Le Gris physical appearance at the time of the alleged rape in January 1386, over a year after Marguerite had first met and seen Le Gris at Crespins. The fate that awaited Marguerite if her husbands attempts failedbeing burned at the stake for bearing false witnessrepresented an extreme example of the potential repercussions faced by accusers. Marguerite de Carrouges (ne de Thibouville; 1362, Chteau de Fontaine-la-Soret (Eure) c. 1419) was a French noblewoman. Your Privacy Rights Diderots Encyclopdie and Voltaires Histoire du Parlement de Paris used the 1386 affair to denounce the supposed ignorance and cruelty of the Middle Ages. And for him to have to invoke that at the moment of his death and to protest his innocence [is interesting]. Is history repeating itself? There [wasnt] going to be a settlement without one of them losing their reputation., After hearing both parties testimony, the Parlement of Paris agreed to authorize a duelFrances first trial by combat for a rape case in more than 30 years. But if Marguerites story is true and Le Gris was guilty as charged, why did the squire increase his risk of being found out by bringing an accomplice in the first place? An intensely personal rivalry, exacerbated by a series of failed legal cases brought by Carrouges, emerged between the onetime friends. He challenged Jacques to a duel to the death in the king's court. If Carrouges won the duel, the couple would go free, their claims vindicated. (Spoilers ahead.). The first two chapters of the three-act film, penned by Damon and Affleck, draw heavily on Jagers research, recounting Marguerites rape and the events surrounding it from the perspectives of Carrouges and Le Gris, respectively. Smithsonian magazine participates in affiliate link advertising programs. That meant that Holofcener had to create Marguerites world and inner life from scratch. Eventually, you have the two men on the ground, fighting with hand weapons rather than lances..