Saint-Denis

Saint-Denis appears as the destination of the royal funeral procession for the infant dauphin in December 1386. As the royal sepulchre, it receives the prince’s body at a moment when mourning and public ceremony converge, just one day before the judicial duel between Jean de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris.

The Royal Sepulchre

On December 28, the Feast of the Holy Innocents, the dauphin died after a period of worsening illness. His richly clothed body was carried by torchlight in a procession of great lords to the royal sepulchre at Saint-Denis. The account identifies the site through this burial function; it gives no further description of its buildings or surroundings.

A Burial on the Eve of the Duel

The funeral took place the day before the long-awaited combat. The prince’s death brought grief to the court, the city, and the kingdom, and its coincidence with the feast commemorating Herod’s slaughter of infants led some to regard it as a bad omen. Yet the burial did not alter the court’s holiday celebrations: the following festivities proceeded, with the duel becoming their central spectacle.

Place in the Narrative

Saint-Denis marks the solemn passage of a royal death into ceremonial burial, while the nearby chronology turns abruptly toward a public judicial contest. The contrast links two events without making the sepulchre part of the duel itself: the prince is carried to the royal tomb, and the next day the court gathers to witness a combat whose outcome will determine the fate of another household.