Jean Le Maingre

Jean II Le Maingre (in Old French, Jehan le Meingre), called Boucicaut (August 28, 1366 — June 21, 1421) was marshal of France and a knight 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, and at the age of 12 he accompanied Louis II, Duke of Bourbon, in a campaign against Normandy. At age 16 he was knighted by Louis on the eve of the Battle of Roosebeke (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, in order to assist the Teutonic Order in their war against the pagan Lithuanians, who would convert to Roman Catholicism in 1386. After some campaigns against the Moors in Spain, and against Toulouse in France he again accompanied the duke of Bourbon, this time to Spain, which had become a secondary battlefield of the Hundred Years' War. From there he travelled for two years through the Balkans, the Near East, and the Holy Land, in the company of his friend Renaud of Roye and later with Philip of Artois, Count of Eu. There, he and his companions composed the Livre des Cent Ballades, a poetical defense of the chaste knight the central figure of chivalry, which Johan Huizinga found a startling contrast with the facts of his military career.

In 1390, while the Truce of Leulinghem had temporarily interrupted the war with England, Boucicaut and two other French knights set up the tournament of Saint-Inglevert, where he jousted, along with his two comrades, against redoubtable English knights, unhorsing three of his 18 opponents. The next year he travelled to Prussia for a third time. Because of his great service in the war against the heathens in Livonia and Prussia, he was named Marshal of France on December 25, 1391, by Charles VI at the cathedral of St. Martin in Tours.

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