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He saw the marriage as a chance to get the better of Le Gris as well, for Le Gris had been gifted by Pierre a parcel of land previously owned by Marguerite's father. And for him to have to invoke that at the moment of his death and to protest his innocence [is interesting]. 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. One ground for skepticism about these two reportsapart from their priestly sources, notoriously suspicious of womenis that each tells a substantially different story. Cookie Settings, The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat, Historical European Martial Arts and Sports Community. Born into a noble Norman family around the 1330s, Carrouges met Le Gris, a lower-born man who rose through the ranks by virtue of his own political savvy, while both were serving as vassals of Count Pierre. Women of that status, on these feudal estates, were in charge of a lot of things, especially when their husbands were away at war or on important business. With the understanding that your truth may not be somebody elses truth. Even Le Gris believed she was victimized - just not by him. When Marguerite adamantly refused his offer, saying she had no wish for his money, the violence escalated. Damon and Affleck took the dialogue directly from Jagers book. The latter explanation is the very one that Le Gris put forward in his own defense, and it has been echoed by at least one modern historian as recently as 1992. 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. Forced into an upstairs bedroom, she tried to escape by running through a door at the other end of the room but was blocked from doing so by Le Gris. And not just any death. These events have gotten a cinematic depiction in Ridleys Scotts new medieval epic, The Last Duel, written by Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Nicole Holofcener and now playing in theaters nationwide. As per the rules of the duel, whoever loses the battle would be proven guilty of his crimes. Or did he trip? The theory of mistaken identity ultimately derives from two sources that began circulating more than a decade after the duel. The moral was plain: Le Gris rose in the world and then suddenly fell, he dominated but finally was vanquished, he committed a crime in secret and was publicly exposed. They were very religious. The dominant belief that women had to enjoy sex in order to conceive further complicated matters, leaving those impregnated by their rapists on even shakier legal ground. You are risking my life, so you can fight your enemy and save your pride. Marguerite claimed that Nicole took with her nearly all of the household servants, including a maidservant whom Jean had specifically instructed never to leave Marguerites side, thus leaving Marguerite virtually alone.. And clearly it wasnt.. To prove her claim true, Matt Damon's Jean challenges Le Gris to trial by combat. Schools educate you, and religious services deliver sermons, and movies at their best can generate empathy and generate compassion, says Affleck. Readers in the US are encouraged to contactRAINN, or the National Sexual Assault Hotline on 800-656-4673. The film does show that at the same time as Marguerite was pregnant, so was the queen. Initially, Carrouges brought Marguerites case to Count Pierre. The story goes that on January 18, 1386, Marguerite's mother-in-law, Dame Nicole de Carrouges, left the family chateau on business with most of the household servants. In an entry on duels, the Grand dictionnaire universel (186677), overseen by respected editor Pierre Larousse, describes the 1386 affair as one of the most remarkable in history, claiming that the wide belief in its injustice helped to bring the custom of trial by combat to a speedy end. Diderots Encyclopdie and Voltaires Histoire du Parlement de Paris used the 1386 affair to denounce the supposed ignorance and cruelty of the Middle Ages. That was really sad. Like, I couldnt have gotten there. Le 29 dcembre 1 386 se droula un duel d'honneur entre deux seigneurs normands", "Who is Marguerite de Carrouges? Its strange that so many authorities seem to have been untroubled by the obvious factual errors in these reports, their mutual inconsistencies, or the lack of any corroborating evidence. Marguerite de Carrouges (ne de Thibouville; 1362, Chteau de Fontaine-la-Soret (Eure) c. 1419) was a French noblewoman. And then I was judged and shammed by my country. Marguerite was born as Marguerite De Thibouville in Normandy in the year 1362. Still, the theory cannot plausibly account for Louvels having named Le Gris while in conversation with Marguerite. While this should have added weight to Marguerite's claim, it did not. I think the film makes the right choice [in portraying her story]., Comer agrees. But we wanted to do it through the lens of this situation. Managed by: Boaz Pijp. Jager, for his part, tells Medievalists.net that he never would have embarked on writing this book if I had not believed Marguerite. Le Gris lawyer, Jean Le Coq, arguably summarized the case best, noting in his journal that no one really knew the truth of the matter.. Speak without regard for the consequences, and it is too late for silence when disaster strikes. And thats ultimately why this version of the movie is more interesting to us than a movie where you prove Well, based on the evidence, he did it, and either youre a monstrous villain or youre wrongfully accused.. She adds, If theres any gap between the act and making people aware [of it], that raises huge questions.. She has to relive it over and over againand she gets it right.. Nicole, in whose care Jean had left his wife, was also absent for part of the day in question, having been called away on legal business to the nearby abbey town of Saint-Pierre. It is one thing to slander, another to accuse. I thought I was going to suffocate, and soon I couldnt fight them anymore. The challenge did not lead directly to a duel, however, but marked the start of a formal investigation by the Parlement, which would authorize a duel only if unable to reach a verdict on the basis of the available evidence. Pierre favours de Carrouges' friend Le Gris, and the friendship between the men begins to deteriorate. Jean de Carrouges stabbed him through the throat with a 6-inch blade, killing his arch-nemesis immediately. When her husband, Sir Jean de Carrouges, heard of the crime, he . It states that Le Gris innocence was later recognized by all, for a man condemned to death by the law confessed to having committed the heinous crime. A large and powerful man, Le Gris was well educated and very wealthy, though from an only recently ennobled family. But that was from research as well. She married Jean de Carrouges in 1380. Carrouges, now in control, shouted one word at his enemy: Confess. Marguerite is the most important and most heroic person in the story, make what happens to her after the duel . Part Two will use the medieval sources to reconstruct what really happened in the combat, using . In the six centuries after the quarrel ended, however, the moral that was to be derived from it changed considerably. The penalty for bearing false witness is that you are to be burned alive, an official tells Marguerite in the movies trailer. The movie presents two versions of the rape in Le Gris' version her protests have an edge of teasing to them, and hark back to a previous scene in which he chased a woman around the table before having consensual sex (sort of, given the power dynamic at play and the complete lack of agency women have in their world). Marguerite de Carrouges, descended from an old and wealthy Norman family, had claimed that in January of that year she had been attacked and raped at her mother-in-law's chteau by a squire (the rank below knighthood) named Jacques Le Gris, aided by one of his closest companions, one Adam Louvel. 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. Affleck, Damon, Holofcener, Comer and Jager talked us through what is and isnt accurate in The Last Duel and why the filmmakers made the narrative changes they did. The actor continues, Its an anti-chivalry movie in some sense because the great illusion of chivalry is that it was about [protecting] the innocent female. In the end the city expelled the contagion, and the body politic was cleansed. In January 1386 while Jean de Carrouges was away traveling, Marguerite claimed she . The book, exhaustively compiled from existing documents and records, recounts how Carrouges' wife, Marguerite, accused Le Gris of rape, leading to the pair fighting to the death with. But if Marguerites husband and champion lost, thus proving her accusation to be false, she too would be put to death. De Carrouges sued Pierre for the land and lost, which only put him further on the outs with the count. We dont have transcripts or historical records that say that on a given day [Marguerite] was doing this or something of that nature, but thats completely consistent with what such women did, the author confirms. It was a patriarchal and deeply misogynist [time]. Saturday October 16 2021, 12.01am BST, The Times R idley Scott's spectacular new film begins with a Norman noblewoman, Marguerite de Carrouges, being robed in black, fettered to a scaffold in. Popular historical fiction abetted the theory of mistaken identity, exploiting its shock effect. 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. Your Privacy Rights Holofcener adhered to historical fact in terms of how Marguerite spoke, what she did and how she behaved, but the rest is a dramatization. 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. Unable to rise due to the weight of his body armor, Le Gris resisted Carrouges calls to confess, declaring, In the name of God, and on the peril and damnation of my soul, I am innocent of the crime. Enraged, Carrouges delivered the death blow, perhaps by stabbing Le Gris exposed neck or thighs. Gross! In Jagers book, the detailed description of the duel between Le Gris and Carrouges, held on Dec. 29, 1386, was drawn from several sources. The accused was Jacques Le Gris, who was said to have raped Jean de Carrouges's wife, Marguerite . 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. According to Jager, Le Gris took an immediate liking to Marguerite when Carrouges introduced her to the court in 1384. Of course, Jean de Carrouges was destined for the life of warfare - this was the common fate for many nobles and their sons in medieval France. In 1380 Carrouges married Marguerite de Thibouville (Jodie Comer), daughter of the controversial known traitor Robert de Thibouville who had sided against multiple French Kings in. Froissart says simply that Carrouges felled his opponent and, thrusting his sword into his body, killed him on the spot.. In his alibi, Le Gris himself cited the narrow window of time available for his alleged visit, strictly during daylight hours. Thibouville was a Norman lord who had twice sided against the French king in territorial conflicts, betrayals he was lucky to survive, albeit in reduced circumstances. 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. 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? Marguerite de Carrouges, descended from an old and wealthy Norman family, had claimed that in January of that year she had been attacked and raped at her mother-in-laws chteau by a squire (the rank below knighthood) named Jacques Le Gris, aided by one of his closest companions, one Adam Louvel. We would have looked like two tin cans. Marguerites claim that Louvel mentioned Le Gris by name is especially telling, for it is hard to fit this detail into a plausible scenario in which she is genuinely mistaken, as many have claimed she was, about the identity of her assailants, particularly Le Gris. In the book, Le Gris does say he was in love with her, Holofcener says. More. Lied, by Eugne Lomont, c. 1895. 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.. Thats the research we did and the legend of the story he thought he was in love with her and did not rape her. 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.. 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. Rape Crisis Scotlands helpline number is 08088 01 03 02. There is still a trial, though, and just as in reality, Marguerite is now pregnant. Meanwhile, Le Gris continued to rise in Pierre's esteem. By the time the criminal trial was underway in the summer of that year, Marguerite was noticeably pregnant. The nonfiction work catalogs the events leading up to Frances last government-sanctioned trial by combat, held between Jean de Carrouges and his former friend, Jacques Le Gris. Toward a history of creativity and beef. 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. The final chapter of the film, told from Marguerites perspective, refers to itself as the truth. But while that section of the story by necessity contains the most dramatization, Jager says he does support the filmmakers conclusion. She has everything to lose. ), Whether Carrouges and Le Gris actually ended their quarrel at this point is debatable. 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. And yet there can only be one truth. And one includes the ladys penitential retreat to a convent, while the other omits this finale. 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. 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. I was a good wife. At the time, it was believed a woman could not conceive if she didn't enjoy sex, and therefore her pregnancy was counted against her it couldn't be rape if she was pregnant, because she must have enjoyed it. 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). Yet the case does reveal the way in which scandal, as a cousin to the word slander (both derive from the Old French escandle), ultimately resides in the spoken or written word, whether in the gossip of neighbors or the hearsay of the chronicler. Carrouges died roughly a decade after the duel, falling in combat against the Ottoman Turks. I gave her the opportunity to go get a low-cut dress in the style of the queen, which she was later shamed for wearing. Although now losing blood, Carrouges mounted a daring counterattack and fought on so stoutly that he managed to throw his opponent to the ground. 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. Only in the final section of the film, when Marguerite is allowed to speak for herself, does the truth of the mens personalities emerge: Carrougesa jealous and contentious man, in Jagers wordsis mainly concerned with saving his own pride. By the early nineteenth century, the notion that it all had been a case of mistaken identity was firmly established, as typified in an 1824 retelling by Norman historian and politician Louis Du Bois, who explains the supposed miscarriage of justice by speculating that the actual rapist was a squire who doubtless bore some resemblance to the unfortunate Le Gris.. Image via 20th Century Studios. I will have justice!. Cases had to meet four requirements, including exhausting all other legal remedies and confirming that the crime had actually occurred. If youd rather experience the film first, please save this to read after watching. I fought him so desperately, she claimed, that he shouted to Louvel to come back and help him. It was the equivalent of a kind of forensics case., Damon adds, It was the case about one very evil man doing something everybody recognized was evil. But a public accusation of rape, at the time a capital offense and often a cause for scandalous rumors endangering the honor of those involved, could have grave consequences for both accuser and accused, especially among the nobility. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine But the count, infuriated by the accusation against his favorite, declared at a legal hearing that Marguerite must have dreamed it and summarily dismissed the charges, ordering that no further questions ever be raised about it..