Jean de Carrouges

I saw a trailer for a movie about this the other day, so I figured it would be a good time to run a chapter you can find in my book Badass: Ultimate Deathmatch.

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When most people think about Medieval Warfare, they picture gigantic armies of dudes in army wildly swinging swords and spears around like spastic maniacs, while horses trample helpless peasants, dudes with torches extoll the virtues of setting shiz on fire, crossbow bolts morph the atmosphere into a swarming mass of pointy destructiveness, dudes get their faces melted into goo by cauldrons of boiling oil, and rocks the size of cattle are catapulted overhead by towering trebuchets, taking minivan-sized chunks out of the sides of formidable castle walls.

Well, sure, all of this stuff is pretty damned awesome (unless of course you're one of those poor suckers with the pitchfork and a dopey hat and some asshole in full plate mail is jamming a burning torch in your eye and kicking your wife in the stomach), but some of the most hardcore, insanely-vicious battles to ever take place during this period weren't full-scale struggles between massive armies of pikemen, but much more personal affairs – no-holds-barred arena deathmatches where two men with serious beef, implacable hatred, and almost no respect for the due process of law air out their grievances with longswords, lances, and boots to the crotch while thousands of bloodthirsty fans cheer on from the stands like they're sitting fifty yard-line at the Super Bowl – Trial by Combat, the Medieval World Series of Vengeance. 

The last Trial by Combat ever officially authorized by the government of France took place in 1389 between Sir Jean de Carrouges and Jean Le Gris, two men so brutally convinced in the righteousness of their case that they were willing to battle it out on the field on combat and let the Almighty Himself who was just and honest and good, and who deserved to be shanked in the throat until dead.

Way back in the day, Carrouges and Le Gris used to be homeboys, both men serving under the lordship of Count Pierre of Alencon.  The guys used to get together for beers after work, go to Le Gris' estate for mutton sandwich barbecues on the weekend, and Sir Jean used to help his buddy update his eHarmony profile and help him try to decide if the maiden he was about to email was actually cute, or if she just looked good in her oil-painted portrait picture.

Things were going great between the two men for a while, but eventually they had something of a falling out.  Whereas Sir Jean Carrouges spent most of the mid-14th century fighting on the frontlines of the Hundred Years' War, mostly battling through Normandy but also participating in a balls-out expedition where he teamed up with the Scottish and spent several months raiding and plundering villages in the English county of  Cumberland (not to mention venturing out on at least one Crusade), Jacques Le Gris stayed home, attended networking power-luncheons, joined the company softball team, hit on everyone's wives at the annual Holiday Party, and otherwise preoccupied himself with seeing exactly how far he could shove his head up Count Pierre's ass. 

Since business wasn't that much different than it is today, and kissing ass gets you a hell of a lot farther than towering deeds of awesomeness, it shouldn't have been that much of a surprise in 1389 when Sir Jean de Carrouges came home from his most recent campaign and discovered that even though he'd spent the last thirty years wading through knee-high piles of dead Saracens and Englishmen for King, Country, and Glory, it was Jacques Le Gris who had been promoted to a lofty position of wealth and luxury as Count Pierre's new right-hand man.

What did surprise him was when he got home and his wife told him that while he was out fighting the English, Jacques Le Gris had come over to his house, tied up Lady Carrouges, and brutally had his way with her.

The ensuing trial was a joke.  According to French Law, the cast was to be brought before Count Pierre, and Pierre of course acquitted his favorite vassal pretty much immediately.  But Carrouges' rapidly-boiling-over death-rage wasn't about to be placated so easily.  The grizzled knight went over the Count's head, riding his horse straight into Paris and appealing his case to King Charles IV himself.  With no way to officially determine the truth (this was back before DNA testing, so it was just Jacques' word against Marguerite's) Jean demanded vengeance the badass old-school way – through Judicial Combat.  If Sir Jean won, then Le Gris would be proven as a no-good rapist bastard.  If Le Gris emerged victorious and slew Carrouges, not only would Le Gris be proven innocent of all crimes, but Marguerite would be dragged out in the street and publicly burned at the stake as a liar.  Since Charles IV was like eighteen at the time and was really in the mood to see some badass Medieval Times stuff go down, he did the whole "so let it be written, so let it be done" thing.

The battle was to take place in the heart of Paris, on a sand-covered 240 by 60 foot field on the grounds of the Saint-Martin-des-Champs monastery.  The dispute would be settled once and for all in front thousands of screaming fans, the King himself, most of the senior nobility, and the black-clad Lady Marguerite de Carrouges.  Sir Jean would battle his enemy with cold steel, fighting not only for his own life, but for bloody revenge and for the life of his beloved wife.

It started Ren Faire-style, with a thundering joust.  The overflowing crowd of Parisians clutched their ballpark popcorn and pommes frites bags nervously, roaring like bloodthirsty lions as Sir Jean de Carrouges thundered across the sand-swept battlefield on the back of his 1,400-pound armored warhorse, his awesome-looking helmet plume fluttering like a righteous feathered mullet in the cold December wind.  Through the narrow visor slit of his reinforced steel helm, this vengeance-hungry knight carefully aimed the tip of his heavy lance at the torso of his arch-nemesis, his mind firmly intent on driving the metal point of the brutal weapon straight through the heart of that bastard before him, impaling that jackass like a corn dog at a carnival.

The two armored knights slammed into each other with the same force as a car crash, only in this case instead of a nice fluffy air bag popping up to cushion  the tremendous blow, they were greeted by the steel tip of a medieval lance plowing into their shields with enough velocity to puncture solid steel.  Both men reeled in their saddles as stabbing pain shot through their bodies.  Carrouges grimaced.  It hurt like a bastard, no question, but it was going to take a hell of a lot more than a love tap to the sternum with a steel-tipped spike to settle the ultimate blood feud between these two honor-bound knights.  Both warriors knew this battle was only going to be settled Thunderdome-style – two men enter, one man leaves.

Carrouges inspected his lance for cracks as he circled back around for a second pass.  The din of the crowd was barely audible over the thundering of horse hooves, the clanking of plate armor, and the beating of Carrouges' own heart as the two men closed again, but his time, with only seconds before a second massive, earth-rending impact capable of liquefying internal organs, Le Gris suddenly raised the lance, aiming the tip of his deadly instrument of brain-stabbing misery directly at Carrouges' helmet visor.  Streaking towards his opponent at twenty-five miles an hour, Jean didn't even have time to get his shield up – all he could do was duck his head and hope for a glancing blow.

With a metallic clang Le Gris' lance caught the rounded part of Carrouges' helm and slid off, sending visible sparks flying – much to the delight of the assembled spectators, who threw up a satisfied cheer while these two maniacs tried to violently murder each other in a spectacle even more gripping than the Casey Anthony thing (seriously, imagine how badass it would have been if they'd just had her fight to the death with Nancy Grace).  Carrouges' vision blurred slightly, but it's not like it was the first time this battle-hardened knight had his brain had rattled around inside his skull a little. 

And so these armored warriors urged their tired steeds on for a third time, galloping the length of the field to gain enough speed and momentum to unseat their hated rival with one mighty lance strike.  Carrouges, his vision red with rage, lowered his weapon once more, ready to skewer his probably-a-rapist arch-enemy once and for all.

The impact of this collision was even more chest-implodingly violent than the first two.  Both knights' lances, burdened by the stresses associated with being involved in three 50 mile-per-hour head-on collisions in under five minutes, exploded into wooden shrapnel, leaving only their steel tips embedded in the knights' respective shields.  Both men remained firm in their saddles somehow, their implacable hatred outlasting the structural integrity of their weapons.

The knights ditched their shattered lances and beat-to-hell shields, drew gigantic steel battle axes from their saddles and started smashing the crap out of each other on horseback.  Using a combination of gourd-splitting one- and two-handed blows, this medieval version of American Gladiators involved both dudes hacked at each other like crazy for a while, each trying to either knock the other man from his horse or lop off some vital appendage that would damage their ability to fight back.  After deflecting several vicious swings, Le Gris made a feint to strike at Carrouges' head, and then slammed his battle axe down hard into the neck of Carrouges' horse with enough force to nearly decapitate the beast, finding a weak spot in the animal's steel barding and sending both the horse and Sir Jean crumpling to the ground.  This would have probably been considered a dirty trick in the more honorable duels of the time period, but 14th century Judicial Combat had even fewer rules of engagement than an MMA cage fighting bout –Chivalry had no place on this battlefield.

Jacques Le Gris circled around and spurred his warhorse towards his fallen foe, axe held high for a final killing blow that would forever exonerate him from those horrible baseless claims against his family's honor (roasting marshmallows for delicious after-battle s'mores while Marguerite burned at the stake would just be an added bonus).  He charged in, closing quickly on his dismounted opponent, but just as he ripped off an axe blow hardcore enough to split a uranium atom into a thermonuclear detonation, Jean de Carrouges dove out of the way of the attack – not only avoiding the kill-shot, but also planting his own axe into the underbelly of Le Gris' horse in the process.  The powerful beast crumpled, throwing Le Gris was violently from the saddle, pitching him face-first into the sand.

Slowly, the two exhausted duelists purposefully rose to their feet, staring each other down across the blood-soaked sand. 

Both men were in their fifties, but Jacques Le Gris was bigger, stronger, and in much better health than Jean de Carrouges, who had been worn down from decades of constant battle.  If his imposing size wasn't enough, Le Gris was also far wealthier than Sir Jean, so he could afford the best gear and the sturdiest armor France had to offer.  But this was a guy who had stayed home boning his friends' wives while Carrouges was decapitating enemy warriors, and even though the exhausted war hero was suffering from a fever he was more than ready to bust out a display of raw badassitude that would rival Michael Jordan's performance in Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals.

Both warriors drew their swords, stepped forward, and began battering each other right in front of the royal viewing box, parrying, slashing, and hacking, looking for weaknesses in their enemies' armor while the teenage King and the black-clad Marguerite looked on anxiously.

It wasn't long before Le Gris found it.  With a mighty blow, he knocked Carrouges' sword back, then buried the point of his sword into Carrouges' thigh, punching through the armor and driving the blade hard into Sir Jean's leg. 

But this wasn't the first time Jean de Carrouges had seen his own blood spilling out of him.  Rather than panicking, the sight of his own wound only succeeded in making him angry.  It was like Bruce Lee getting punched in the mouth, tasting his own blood, and then FLIPPING THE HELL OUT. 

Carrouges lifted his blade, shouted a battle cry, and resumed his attack with a newfound ferocity.  He battered Le Gris like Luke Skywalker hammering Vader at the end of Jedi with a flurry of blows, and then, when his enemy least expected it, Carrouges grabbed his jackass arch-enemy by the helmet and slammed that bastard head-first into the dirt.  Carrouges then kicked the sword from his flailing enemy's hand, rolled him over, straddled him, and then unsheathed his dagger.  Sir Jean tried first to stab his wife's rapist through the visor of the guy's helm, but when Le Gris evaded, Carrouges went for a more direct approach – he smashed the visor lock with the hilt of his dagger and flipped up the face-plate to expose Jacques Le Gris' sweating visage.  Carrouges, now in control, shouted one word at his enemy:  Confess.

Le Gris said nothing.  Jean de Carrouges stabbed him through the throat with a 6-inch blade, killing his arch-nemesis immediately.  Flawless Victory.  Fatality.

A hush fell over the crowd, as they came to the solemn realization that a man had just died before their eyes.  Sir Jean waited a second, then slowly, deliberately, pulled himself to his feet, blood still flowing from the wound in his leg.  The knight turned, faced the crowd, and with one move raised his sword and shouted in a loud, clear, triumphant voice, "Have I done my duty?"

The crowd went nuts.

Sir Jean de Carrouges received honors from the King, then ran to embrace his wife.  He would become a Knight of the King, receive land and wealth from the estate of Jacques Le Gris, and he and Marguerite would go on to have three sons over the course of their next ten years together.  Jacques Le Gris' body was stripped of its armor and hung in chains outside Paris alongside the traitors, bandits, and murderers.  The last judicial duel ordered by the Parlement of Paris was over.