Jean de Carrouges (1330-25 September 1396) was a French knight who was best known for his 1386 duel with Jacques Le Gris (who was accused of raping his wife Marguerite de Carrouges) in the last judicial duel permitted by the Parliament of Paris; he was later slain at the Battle of Nicopolis.
Biography[]
Jean de Carrouges was born in Saint-Marguerite-de-Carrouges, Normandy, France in 1330, a vassal of the Count of Perche. He was initially close friends with Jacques Le Gris, but, after Count Pierre II of Alencon treated Le Gris with favoritism and passed over Carrouges, Carrouges grew jealous of Le Gris. This jealousy turned into resentment in 1381 when Count Pierre, with Le Gris as his advisor, refused to grant Carrouges several lands he claimed to have inherited; Carrouges believed that Le Gris was behind the lawsuits. The two men briefly reconciled in 1384, and Carrouges joined the Scots in raiding Northern England during the Anglo-Scots Wars. While Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland defeated the Franco-Scottish army and inflicted heavy losses, Carrouges distinguished himself and was awarded a knighthood. Not long after, however, Le Gris and Carrouges once again became rivals after an unrecorded conversation between them resulted in Carrouges angrily heading to Paris. In January 1386, Le Gris was said to have gone to Jean's wife Marguerite de Carrouges' chateau and raped her, and Jean decided to defend her honor by challenging Le Gris to a duel before King Charles VI of France and the Parliament of Paris to settle the dispute. Le Gris maintained his innocence and pointed out that it would have been physically impossible for him to be in Paris and then back home in Normandy so soon due to a snowstorm, but, in the ensuing December 1386 duel, Carrouges and Le Gris proceeded to duel. Carrouges, while wounded in the thigh, was able to lunge at Le Gris and pin him down, and, when Le Gris maintained his innocence, Carrouges used his misericorde dagger to stab Le Gris dead. Carrouges and his wife went on to have two more children over the next three years, and Carrouges became a bodyguard to the King and dealt with the King's violent outbursts of insanity. In 1396, Carrouges participated in the crusade against the Turks, during which he and his commander Jean de Vienne were killed at the Battle of Nicopolis when their forces were trapped in a gully and decimated by Turkish cavalry.