Then Carrouges’s young wife claimed that Le Gris had raped her, hence the judicial combat – to the death. As young squires in the service of their lord they had been friends, but over the years, hostility had grown between them. The two protagonists, Jean de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris, came from very different backgrounds: Carrouges of an old, noble family, Le Gris from humble origins. The crime was rape, and the setting, late 14th-century France. The book is a detailed account of one such combat and the events which led up to it. A fascinating insight into the medieval mindset, a world in which people believed that the question of who had committed a crime could be settled by judicial combat to the death between the accuser and the accused.
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