Jean De Coras

The ideal historian is someone who wants to find the answer, but does not care what the answer is, curious but not committed. One might only look at the Declaration of Independence, or the Gettysburg Address to see how even a valuable historical document contains what some might call bias. Bias, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is defined as “an attitude that favors one way of feeling without considering other possibilities.” Subsequently, if Founding Fathers, and Abraham Lincoln wrote documents that fit the definition of being biased, what document is not. One such document, Memorable Decision of the High Court of Toulouse, is written impartially, and is styled with such particularity, that the reader is left wondering, what did

In 1552, De Coras became a member of the Toulouse parliament and participated in the famous trial of Martin Guerre. His document recorded the trial as a first hand witness, and participant of the case. The document Memorable Decision of the High Court of Toulouse was published October 7, 1571, in Romance of Real Life. De Coras’s document recounts the dissertation of Martin Guerre from his wife, Arnault du Tilh tricking his way into attaining Martin Guerre’s property, and wife Bertrande for four years before incidents would arise to cause doubt among the wife and family De Coras would go on to recount his observations of the uncle’s case against Tilh for being an imposter, and the verdict that would send Tilh to the

“And the court had strong reason to believe in this judgment that the prisoner was Martin Guerre, not only because of what was said, but in addition because this opinion favored the marriage, the children, the issue of it, and the cause of the accused. De Coras calls out the court favored the societal construct of marriage, and the wish to have everything settled, was willing to settle in favor of the imposter, even with the lack of evidence to support such a