Jean de Carrouges

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Sir Jean de Carrouges
Jean de Carrouges coat of arms De gueules fleurdelisé d'argent.
Born	c. 1330s Carrouges, Normandy
Died	25 September 1396 (aged ~66) Nicopolis, Ottoman Empire
Allegiance	Kingdom of France
Battles/wars	Hundred Years' War; campaigns in Normandy and Scotland, Crusade of Nicopolis
Spouse(s)	Jeanne de Tilly (m c. 1371; died 1378) Marguerite de Thibouville ​ ​ (m. 1380)​

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^[1] 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. During his life, he conducted a long trail of legal and financial dealings which infuriated his contemporaries and may have invited violence against himself and his family. The truth of the events which led him into public mortal combat in the Paris suburbs may never be known, but the legend is still debated and discussed 600 years later.