Pierre Terrail, seigneur de Bayard

Pierre Terrail, seigneur de Bayard (c. 1476 – 30 April 1524) was a French knight and military leader at the transition between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, generally known as the Chevalier de Bayard. Throughout the centuries since his death, he has been known as "the knight without fear and beyond reproach" (le chevalier sans peur et sans reproche). He himself preferred the name given him by his contemporaries for his gaiety and kindness, "le bon chevalier" ("the good knight").

In his portrait by Jacques de Mailles, his squire and biographer, Bayard appears as man with a sharp and pale face, with brown hair, a long nose and two attentive and bright eyes. According to a DNA study of Bayard's skull, he had brown eyes, brownish hair and pale skin. Jacques writes that Bayard, small in stature as a child, grew considerably during adolescence; this is supported by modern studies of his skull which hypothesize that he had reached 1.8 meters (5 foot 11 inches), an above-average height for his time.

The French historian Aymar du Rivail described him as "courteous, cheerful; not proud, indeed modest".

For the investiture as a knight that he received in battle, Bayard always felt deeply linked to the chivalric code of honor. Absolute loyalty even towards enemies, charity and help were his rules of life, in fact he did his utmost for the recovery of prostitutes and personally assisted the sick of the plague. While his fellow countrymen indulged in violence and raids, Bayard always remained respectful towards the weak and the vanquished, doing his utmost for their defense, and burned with furious anger in the face of all cruelty and injustice. He even used to pay out of his own pocket for the goods he requisitioned for the need for provisions, while his fellow countrymen used to simply snatch them from the peasants with violence.

Since he usually led the vanguard in the advances and passed to the rearguard in the retreats, he ordered his men to extinguish the fires that his colleagues had set in the villages, and placed sentinels in defense of the churches and monasteries to prevent the looting and rape of women who had taken refuge there.

Such was the fame of the magnanimity of Bayard that the people of Italy, who fled into the woods and mountains when armed men arrived, instead came running to meet his troops, loudly acclaiming his name and offering him gifts.

This did not prevent him from becoming a fierce and feared fighter in battle. He knew no mercy either towards his enemies or towards himself, and in this way he did not enter into contradiction with the vivid religious faith that he had nourished since childhood. God had wanted him to be a knight and he limited himself to fulfilling God's will; he always placed himself in God's hands immediately before every battle.

The descendant of a noble family with a military tradition – three generations of Terrail ancestors had fallen in battle successively from 1356 to 1465 – Bayard was born at the Château Bayard, Dauphiné (near Pontcharra, Isère) in southern France. He served as a page to the young Duke Charles I of Savoy until March 1490, when the Duke died of an illness.