a legal code named the Kleines Kaiserrecht officially prohibited
judicial duels around 1300 and soon other countries began to
follow suit.
Back in Britain, by the end of the 1300s the practice of trial
by combat as a means of resolving land disputes was similarly
beginning to die out. “Trial by battle in England waned when its
economic usefulness waned: with the erosion of feudalism and
the corresponding emergence of a more robust market for land,”
explains Leeson. “In the late 12th century, various legal reforms
in England had the effect of freeing up its land market. Once the
land market is functioning, even if judges allocate disputed land
inefficiently, the land soon ends up in efficient hands through
market trades. Market trades tend to move land, like any other
asset, into the hands of the person who values it most highly.
Hence, as England’s land market became freer, trial by battle made
less and less economic sense. Why incur the expense of trials by
battle when we can just ask jurors to allocate disputed land rights
and let the land market take it from there? And so, trial by battle
gave way to trial by jury.”
Yet the practice had not completely died out. Easily one of
the most famous examples of trial by combat is considered one
of the last, and is now the subject of the film The Last Duel by
celebrated Hollywood director Ridley Scott. The duel took place
in France in 1386 saw Jean De Carrouges and Jacques Les Gris
meeting on the battlefield for a duel. The latter had been accused
by the wife of De Carrouges, Marguerite, of raping her and it was
decided that the Les Gris’ fate would be the subject of a duel to
the death. However, Marguerite’s life was also at stake because
if De Carrouges was not victorious then she would have been
executed for bearing false witness and burned at the stake.
The case would be France’s first trial by combat for an alleged
rape in 30 years.
A number of different eyewitness accounts paint varying
pictures of the duel, with even modern historians such as Eric
Jager and Ariella Elma debating as to whether the battle was long
and drawn out or relatively quick. One of these contemporary
accounts, written by Les Gris’ lawyer Jean Le Coq, states that:
“Although he was the defendant, he attacked his adversary
very cruelly and did it on foot, although he would have had
the advantage if he had done it on horseback.” Jean Froissart,
who chronicled the event four years after the fact, spoke of
the moment that De Carrouges claimed victory, stating: “He
comported himself so valiantly that he struck his adversary
to the ground. And so he thrust a sword in the body and killed
him on the field.”
Following his defeat, Les Gris’ corpse was dragged through
the streets to the gallows where, as a final insult, his body was
hung. Despite the title of the film, De Carrouges and Le Gris’ fight
wasn’t actually the ‘last duel’. However, it does have the honour
of being the last judicial duel sanctioned by the Parliament of
Paris, perhaps due to the distinctly unchivalrous and distasteful
nature of the proceedings. Following the duel, De Carrouges spent
the next ten years of his life as a wealthy and highly respectedDivine judicial oversight took many forms
TRIALS BY ORDEAL
Trial by fire
The use of fire to adjudicate
guilt or innocence has taken
many forms in different
areas of the world and
in different periods. In
medieval Britain a defendant
would be made to carry a
hot poker, with the verdict
decided by the burns on
their hands. Meanwhile the
Hindu story The Ramayana
sees Sita walk through fire
to prove her innocence when
she’s accused of adultery.ABOVE Fully-
armoured duellers
battle in this 15th
century miniature
ABOVE-RIGHT
Matt Damon (right)
as Jean De Carrouges
and Adam Driver as
Jacques Les gris in
the 2021 film The
Last Duel