Orleans vs. Burgundy: an Aborted Outrance Combat of Seven vs. Seven, 1406

March, 1406

Pages 66-68 in the PDF document.

In 1406 a Burgundian knight wore “the White Lady embroidered on his apparel, and a golden bracelet, to despite the knights of my lord the duke of Orleans”. He said he was willing to defend the device in the lists, seven against seven, to fight “to the very uttermost.” The six surviving members of the 1402 combat against the English accepted, and "challenged the devices" of their rivals. As Guillaume du Chastel had been killed in battle, Pero Nino agreed to be the seventh, to fight as they had “done once already”.

The challenge was a symptom of the increasingly bitter rivalry between the dukes of Orleans and Burgundy, which would lead to the murder of the duke of Orleans in 1407 and open civil war by 1411. The king of France had no desire for a combat that could only inflame “the discord which was already beginning; he had all the knights engaged in the affair brought before him, and took away their devices, and reconciled the dukes and knights” Later that day all the parties ate together. “This peace between the dukes was but feigned, as was manifest thereafter…”