The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat in Medieval France

The duel was to be fought at Saint-Martin-des-Champes, a monastery in Paris with a special field for combat. Ironically, the monastery was named for a saint who, according to legend, was a Roman soldier (129). Next, Jager explains that the judicial duel had origins that could be traced back to Homer’s Iliad. The custom was brought to Normandy by the Vikings. According to legend, there was even a judicial duel before the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris between a man and a dog seeking to avenge its murdered master (137).

After the planned invasion of England was spoiled by bad weather, King Charles VI decided to watch the duel and had the date changed to allow him to return to Paris and do so. Waiting for the king in Paris was his queen, Isabeau of Bavaria. Coincidentally, Isabeau gave birth to a dauphin at about the same time Marguerite gave birth to her son Robert. While the dauphin would die in infancy, Robert would live into adulthood.

Here, Jager highlights how much the ritual of the judicial duel was intertwined with religion. Even the bizarre and likely baseless legend of a dog proving that its master was murdered by killing its master’s murderer in a duel only proved “the popular belief that a bloody combat between ‘equals’ could yield a just judgment” (137).