douzepers

Noun

douzeper (plural douzepers)

1. (historical, in plural, rare) One of the legendary “twelve peers” or renowned warriors of Charlemagne, the Emperor of the Romans from 800 to 814.
   • Also kynge Charlemayne kynge of Fraunce / With his dyssypers Rowland and Olyuer / With all the resydue of his alyaunce / That in all armes so noble were / On goddys ennemyes brake many a spere / Causynge them to flee to theyr grete vylony / Hardynes was cause that they had vyctory[1504?], Stephyn Hawys [i.e., Stephen Hawes], chapter VII, in […] The Example of Vertu, [London]: [Wynkyn de Worde], →OCLC, archived from the original on 06 May 2021, signature cc.vi, verso
2. (broadly, historical, in plural, rare) One of the twelve nobles granted feudal territories or episcopal sees by the King of France in return for their fealty (namely the Archbishop-Duke of Rheims; the Bishop-Dukes of Laon and Langres; the Bishop-Counts of Beauvais, Chalons, and Noyon, the Dukes of Normandy, Burgundy, and Aquitaine; and the Counts of Toulouse, Flanders and Champagne).
   • And whan the realme of Frãce was fallen to him [Charles IV of France], he was crowned by the assent of the twelve dowspiers of Fraunce; and thã, bicause they wold nat that the realme of Frãce shulde be long without an heyre male, they aduysed by their counsell, that the kyng shulde be remaryed...1523, John Froissart, “Howe Phylypp of Ualois was Crowned Kyng of Fraunce”, in John Bourchier, Lord Berners [i.e., John Bourchier, 2nd Baron Berners], transl., Sir John Froissart’s Chronicles of...

   Synonyms:

   paladin

3. (broadly, in plural, rare) A person considered to be like or in the model of Charlemagne’s peers; someone considered a great hero or paladin.
   • Big looking like a doughty Doucepere, / At laſt he thus, Thou clod of vileſt clay, / I pardon yield, and that with rudenes beare; […]1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 31, page 551