JEAN II Le Meingre enjoyed a long and impressive career, during the course of which he was appointed marshal of France and then governor of Genoa. There are a handful of modern biographies that trace Boucicaut's story, of which the most valuable was published by the French scholar Denis Lalande in 1988. Lalande's book is strongest on the Livre des fais du bon messire Jehan le Maingre that he had edited in 1985, and which remains our only source for portions of the story. He made less effective use of the wider archival records in France and Italy than expert historians ranging from the great scholars of the past like Delaville Le Roulx and Valois to the latest research carried out over the last thirty years, culminating in the work of Lévy and Masson. So this chapter offers a revised account of the story of Boucicaut, adjusting key details and incorporating the fruits of additional historical research.

Jean I Le Meingre was a famous soldier, diplomat and royal councillor to King Jean II and King Charles V who was appointed marshal of France on 21 October 1356. His wife was Fleurie de Linières, daughter of Godemart I de Linières, one of the oldest noble families in Berry. Their son, Jean II Le Meingre, was born at Tours in 1366, and his younger brother Geoffroy followed in either 1367 or 1368, at around the same time that Jean I died on 6 or 7 March 1368. Fleurie then married Maurice Mauvinet with whom she had a son named Maurice and a daughter Philippa before dying on 25 March 1406.

Jean II Le Meingre inherited the sobriquet Boucicaut from his father who probably received the name while at the court of King Philippe VI. The precise meaning of Boucicaut remains unclear. It is often assumed to derive from the term ‘boce’ or ‘bosse’ and hence to refer to a fishing basket.7 This connection was implied by Jean Le Fèvre in Le songe du vergier (1378) when he cited a proverb that one can only fish in the sea in order to attack Jean I Le Meingre as an unscrupulous man who put the desire for profit ahead of honour and used flattery to secure favour at the royal court