Jean Le Maingre
Encyclopedia
Marshal of France
The Marshal of France is a military distinction in contemporary France, not a military rank. It is granted to generals for exceptional achievements...
and a knight
Knight
A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....
renowned for his military skill.
He was the son of marshal Jean I Le Maingre, also called Boucicaut. He became a page at the court of Charles VI of France
Charles VI of France
Charles VI , called the Beloved and the Mad , was the King of France from 1380 to 1422, as a member of the House of Valois. His bouts with madness, which seem to have begun in 1392, led to quarrels among the French royal family, which were exploited by the neighbouring powers of England and Burgundy...
, and at the age of 12 he accompanied Louis II, Duke of Bourbon
Louis II, Duke of Bourbon
Louis de Bourbon, called the Good , son of Peter de Bourbon and Isabella de Valois, was the third Duke of Bourbon....
, in a campaign against Normandy
Normandy
Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...
. At age 16 he was knighted by Louis on the eve of the Battle of Roosebeke
Battle of Roosebeke
The Battle of Roosebeke took place on November 27, 1382 on the Goudberg between a Flemish army under Philip van Artevelde and a French army under Louis II of Flanders who had called upon the help of the French king Charles VI after he had suffered a defeat during the Battle of Beverhoutsveld...
(November 27, 1382). In 1383 he began the first of his journeys that would take up more than twenty years of his life.
In 1384 he undertook his first journey to Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
, in order to assist the Teutonic Order in their war against the pagan Lithuanians
Lithuanians
Lithuanians are the Baltic ethnic group native to Lithuania, where they number around 2,765,600 people. Another million or more make up the Lithuanian diaspora, largely found in countries such as the United States, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Russia, United Kingdom and Ireland. Their native language...
, who would convert to Roman Catholicism in 1386. After some campaigns against the Moors
Moors
The description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of the Maghreb region who are predominately of Berber and Arab descent. They came to conquer and rule the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 800 years. At that time they were Muslim, although earlier the people had followed...
in Spain, and against Toulouse
Toulouse
Toulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...
in France he again accompanied the duke of Bourbon, this time to Spain, which had become a secondary battlefield of the Hundred Years' War
Hundred Years' War
The Hundred Years' War was a series of separate wars waged from 1337 to 1453 by the House of Valois and the House of Plantagenet, also known as the House of Anjou, for the French throne, which had become vacant upon the extinction of the senior Capetian line of French kings...
. From there he travelled for two years through the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
, the Near East
Near East
The Near East is a geographical term that covers different countries for geographers, archeologists, and historians, on the one hand, and for political scientists, economists, and journalists, on the other...
, and the Holy Land
Holy Land
The Holy Land is a term which in Judaism refers to the Kingdom of Israel as defined in the Tanakh. For Jews, the Land's identifiction of being Holy is defined in Judaism by its differentiation from other lands by virtue of the practice of Judaism often possible only in the Land of Israel...
, in the company of his friend Renaud of Roye and later with Philip of Artois, Count of Eu
Philip of Artois, Count of Eu
Philip of Artois , son of John of Artois, Count of Eu and Isabeau of Melun, was Count of Eu from 1387 until his death, succeeding his brother Robert....
. There, he and his companions composed the Livre des Cent Ballades, a poetical defense of the chaste knight the central figure of chivalry
Chivalry
Chivalry is a term related to the medieval institution of knighthood which has an aristocratic military origin of individual training and service to others. Chivalry was also the term used to refer to a group of mounted men-at-arms as well as to martial valour...
, which Johan Huizinga
Johan Huizinga
Johan Huizinga , was a Dutch historian and one of the founders of modern cultural history.-Life:Born in Groningen as the son of Dirk Huizinga, a professor of physiology, and Jacoba Tonkens, who died two years after his birth, he started out as a student of Indo-Germanic languages, earning his...
found a startling contrast with the facts of his military career.
In 1390, while the Peace of Leulingen had temporarily interrupted the war with England
Hundred Years' War
The Hundred Years' War was a series of separate wars waged from 1337 to 1453 by the House of Valois and the House of Plantagenet, also known as the House of Anjou, for the French throne, which had become vacant upon the extinction of the senior Capetian line of French kings...
, Boucicaut took part in the tournament
Tournament (medieval)
A tournament, or tourney is the name popularly given to chivalrous competitions or mock fights of the Middle Ages and Renaissance . It is one of various types of hastiludes....
of Saint-Inglevert, where he defeated the most famous English soldiers in single combat. The next year he travelled to Prussia for a third time. Because of his great service in the war against the heathens in Livonia
Livonia
Livonia is a historic region along the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea. It was once the land of the Finnic Livonians inhabiting the principal ancient Livonian County Metsepole with its center at Turaida...
and Prussia, he was named Marshal of France
Marshal of France
The Marshal of France is a military distinction in contemporary France, not a military rank. It is granted to generals for exceptional achievements...
on December 25, 1391, by Charles VI at the cathedral of St. Martin in Tours
Tours
Tours is a city in central France, the capital of the Indre-et-Loire department.It is located on the lower reaches of the river Loire, between Orléans and the Atlantic coast. Touraine, the region around Tours, is known for its wines, the alleged perfection of its local spoken French, and for the...
.
In 1396 he was took part in the joint French-Hungarian
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
crusade against the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
, which suffered a heavy defeat on September 28 at the Battle of Nicopolis
Battle of Nicopolis
The Battle of Nicopolis took place on 25 September 1396 and resulted in the rout of an allied army of Hungarian, Wallachian, French, Burgundian, German and assorted troops at the hands of an Ottoman force, raising of the siege of the Danubian fortress of Nicopolis and leading to the end of the...
. He was taken hostage by the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I
Bayezid I
Bayezid I was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1389 to 1402. He was the son of Murad I and Valide Sultan Gülçiçek Hatun.-Biography:Bayezid was born in Edirne and spent his youth in Bursa, where he received a high-level education...
, but, unlike many of his companions, escaped execution and was eventually ransomed. In 1399, he founded the Emprise de l'Escu vert à la Dame Blanche
Emprise de l'Escu vert à la Dame Blanche
The Emprise de l'Escu vert à la Dame Blanche was a chivalric order founded by Jean Le Maingre and twelve knights in 1399, committing themselves for the duration of five years...
, a chivalric order inspired by the ideal of courtly love
Courtly love
Courtly love was a medieval European conception of nobly and chivalrously expressing love and admiration. Generally, courtly love was secret and between members of the nobility. It was also generally not practiced between husband and wife....
: "one might have supposed him cured of all chivalrous delusions after the catastrophe of Nicopolis", remarked Huizinga. In the same year, he was sent with six ships carrying 1,200 men to assist Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaeologus against the Ottomans.
In 1401, due to his military accomplishments and his knowledge of the east, he was appointed French governor of Genoa
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
, which had fallen to Charles VI in 1396. He successfully repelled an attack from King Janus of Cyprus
Janus of Cyprus
Janus of Cyprus was a King of Cyprus, King of Armenia and a Titular King of Jerusalem from 1398 to 1432.-Biography:He was born in Genoa where his father, King James I of Cyprus was a captive...
, who tried to take back the city of Famagusta
Famagusta
Famagusta is a city on the east coast of Cyprus and is capital of the Famagusta District. It is located east of Nicosia, and possesses the deepest harbour of the island.-Name:...
on Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
, which had been captured by Genoa. After some struggles in the Mediterranean the Genoese freed themselves from French rule by 1409.
Boucicaut returned to France and became involved in the rivalry between Burgundy
Duchy of Burgundy
The Duchy of Burgundy , was heir to an ancient and prestigious reputation and a large division of the lands of the Second Kingdom of Burgundy and in its own right was one of the geographically larger ducal territories in the emergence of Early Modern Europe from Medieval Europe.Even in that...
and Orléans
Orléans
-Prehistory and Roman:Cenabum was a Gallic stronghold, one of the principal towns of the Carnutes tribe where the Druids held their annual assembly. It was conquered and destroyed by Julius Caesar in 52 BC, then rebuilt under the Roman Empire...
. In the Battle of Agincourt
Battle of Agincourt
The Battle of Agincourt was a major English victory against a numerically superior French army in the Hundred Years' War. The battle occurred on Friday, 25 October 1415 , near modern-day Azincourt, in northern France...
in 1415 he commanded the French vanguard, but was captured by the English and died six years later in Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
. He was buried in the cathedral of Tours
Cathedral of Tours
Saint Gatien's Cathedral is the Roman Catholic cathedral church of the Tours diocese and the metropolitan cathedral of the Tours ecclesiastic province, in Indre-et-Loire, France....
, in his family's chapel, with the epitaph
Epitaph
An epitaph is a short text honoring a deceased person, strictly speaking that is inscribed on their tombstone or plaque, but also used figuratively. Some are specified by the dead person beforehand, others chosen by those responsible for the burial...
"Grand Constable of the Emperor and of the Empire of Constantinople."