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

 

As a true crime book, Eric Jager’s The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat is in a class by itself.  This book takes a single story involving three people, a crime, in a distant place long ago, and works the material like a modern non-fiction true crime story (with some literary liberties taken, I would think).

In world where everything was viewed as the will of God, a trial by combat, a judicial duel, makes a great deal of sense.  This was the last "official duel" – for the kings of France began to reign in the powers of their aristocrats and centralize their governments as evolving, modern national states.  This was the beginning of the end of the Middle Ages.

Jager paints the Norman French landscape of knights, squires, aristocrats, and kings in vivid colors.  This compelling book is well researched and written.