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 One might only look at the Declaration of Independence, or the Gettysburg Address to see how even a valuable historical document contains what some might call bias.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

the historian feel about this event? While history has long been interpreted through biased opinions, however to truly study history, a historian must form an impartial view when it comes to primary sources, or in other words it must be translated through the eye of a skeptic.
Jean de Coras studied law, and would go on to later teach law at the University of Toulouse.

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

noose.
One can only read this document to understand its impartial account of the events that took place before, during, and after the trial of Martin Guerre. The meticulous notes can be attributed to De Coras’s experience and participating role in the case. Much of the vocabulary and tone of the document resonates the legal genre, “the procedure of the case” and “at last he was forced for the sake of justice to sue him for the recovery of property.” De Coras was a counselor and recorder of the trial, and does not present any purpose in presenting this document for anything more than as a historical and legal record of the case.
As it comes to impartiality in both history and law, it is not always easy to identify favoritism, however De Coras is able to identify it within the case.

“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

judgment.
De Coras found the witnesses to be biased. Witness statements have been used in court cases, and have recently come under fire for their reliability. De Coras mentions the witnesses presented in the case, and how their value could be questioned.
“In accordance with this opinion as the most just, it seems that the conjectures and arguments to the contrary are of little or no value. For, first as to the number of witnesses, the answer is clear as to what has been said above, that more trust should be given to witnesses testifying for the prisoner, although they are not very many, as much because they testified to more believable things, as because they also affirmed and witnessed in favor of the marriage, the children, and the accused.”
In De Coras’s opinion, when a case such as the Guerre’s case comes with no evidence, it is his conclusion that witness statements hold little value. They are part of the reason the case became so confusing that by the end, the case hinged on a single question.
De Coras was convinced of the unreasonable evidence against Tilth, and until the moment the “real” Martin Gurre stepped forth, would have sided with Tilth. “One sees his effort to comprehend the trial in the breaks and repetitions in the narrative and a certain confusion in the style. He clearly regrets the outcome of the trial and tries to explain why he was deceived.” Overall, De Coras tried to present the case as impartially as he could, in order to show how, when all the facts are laid out, the case came to the conclusion that it did. Du Coras saw the dangers of bias and patiality in law, and translated the case through the eye of an impartial writer.