CASES IN THE COMBAT COURTROOM

Hannah Skoda delves into the historical files for three judicial duels that didn’t go to plan

1 Make a meal of it

In 1386, two noblemen, Gérard de Mortagne and Gilles, Lord of Chin and Busignies, took to the lists for a trial by combat at Nancy in front of Jean I, the Duke of Lorraine. The cause of the duel is unknown, but it was fought in a deeply fractured political context. The combat did not proceed as expected. Their seconds and the duke’s men pulled the combatants apart, and the duke invited them to dinner, where his daughter, Isabelle, asked them: “For her honour and that of the other ladies there present… to submit their dispute… to the ruling of my lord the duke.”

2 A sorry affair

Historian and bishop Gregory of Tours recounted a trial by combat in AD 590 between the Burgundian royal chamberlain Chundo, and one of the king’s foresters. The former had been accused of illegally killing an animal. Chundo sent his nephew as his champion, but he was killed and Chundo tied to a stake and stoned to death. Before dying, the nephew had managed to fatally injure the forester, so at the end of the sorry affair, all three men involved were dead. The judgment of God was unclear.

3 Hand-to-hand combat

In 'ngland in 1455, accused thief Thomas Whitehorn tried to buy time by accusing others. In legal terms, he became an “approver”. One of the men he named, James Fisher, challenged him to combat. They were to fight with three-foot-long batons, topped with iron in the shape of a ram’s horn. These weapons broke in the duel and they fought it out with their hands. Fisher bit Whitehorn’s nose and jabbed his thumb in his eye until Whitehorn admitted defeat and was hanged. Fisher became a hermit. A sceptical chronicler described the outcome as “more by happenchance than by strength”.