Royal charter confirming the gift of Aunou-le-Faucon

The Royal charter confirming the gift of Aunou-le-Faucon was Charles V’s formal confirmation, issued on May 29, 1380, of Count Pierre of Alençon’s grant of the estate to Jacques Le Gris. It gave royal weight to Le Gris’s possession and frustrated Jean de Carrouges’s effort to claim the land, turning a contested inheritance into a lasting marker of favor, rivalry, and political authority.

Origins of the Grant and Dispute

Aunou-le-Faucon had recently come into Count Pierre’s possession when he gave it to Le Gris in 1378. The gift rewarded Le Gris’s loyal service and followed a substantial loan to the count: the charter would specify that amount as 2,920 gold francs. Because the grant followed so closely after the loan, the account also allows that Le Gris’s money may have helped Pierre finance the acquisition, though it does not establish that this was so.

The transfer became personal for Carrouges when he married Marguerite de Carrouges and considered the lands available through her dowry. He concluded that Aunou-le-Faucon might have been his to acquire and sued to recover it, although Le Gris had already held the estate for some time. The two men had once been close friends and fellow chamberlains at Count Pierre’s court. By then, however, Le Gris’s wealth and standing under their shared lord had grown, while Carrouges’s fortunes at court were declining. The land dispute brought that rivalry into the open.

Royal Confirmation and Public Proclamation

In the spring of 1380, Count Pierre petitioned Charles V to guarantee the grant and put the quarrel to rest. The king was gravely ill and faced an unsettled succession, prolonged war with England, heavy taxation, and popular resistance to new taxes. Yet he readily granted the request of his cousin and powerful lieutenant in Normandy. On May 29, at the royal château of Beauté-sur-Marne outside Paris, Charles presented Pierre with the charter confirming the gift to Le Gris.

The document described the estate as compensation for Le Gris’s many loyal services, including the loan of 2,920 gold francs. It called the gift irrevocable and recorded Pierre’s promise to guarantee, defend, and deliver the land against all others—a provision that answered Carrouges’s existing suit. Charles signed the charter, sealed it with green wax, and ordered its terms read aloud to the people of Aunou. The proclamation took place on June 10 in the parish church, before thirty-nine people, making the identity of the estate’s recognized lord explicit to the community.

Immediate Effect and Political Meaning

The royal confirmation settled Carrouges’s first attempt to regain Aunou-le-Faucon against him. The charter did more than record a private transfer: it placed the authority of the crown behind Count Pierre’s decision and made his protection of Le Gris visible. Le Gris, already a chamberlain and captain of Exmes, was rising in the count’s favor; the grant further distinguished him among the competing courtiers.

For Carrouges, the result compounded both material and political losses. He failed to recover the fief, alienated his former friend, and challenged the decision of his liege lord and principal source of patronage. The public confirmation also established that the land was not simply an unsettled prize: Pierre’s claim had received royal support. Carrouges’s challenge to that arrangement damaged his standing at court, while the confirmed grant sharpened the contrast between Le Gris’s ascent and his own exclusion from favor.

The Claim’s Later Afterlife

The charter did not end Carrouges’s pursuit of Aunou-le-Faucon. After Le Gris was killed in the judicial duel with Carrouges, much of Le Gris’s land reverted to Count Pierre, including the estate. Carrouges then tried again to obtain it, attempting to use part of the 6,000 livres awarded to him by the Parlement of Paris for the expenses and injuries of the legal case to purchase the land.

That renewed dispute lasted nearly two years. On January 14, 1389, the Parlement of Paris ruled that Aunou-le-Faucon rightfully belonged to Count Pierre, whose legal claim to the estate took precedence. Carrouges therefore failed a second time to secure the land, despite the change in circumstances after Le Gris’s death. In the longer history of the quarrel, the charter stands as the instrument that first made the count’s favor legally consequential—and as the beginning of a claim Carrouges continued to pursue long after its original recipient was gone.