Gilles de Rais
Gilles de Rais, Baron de Rais (French: [ʒil də ʁɛ]; also spelled "Retz"; c. 1405 – 26 October 1440) was a French knight and lord from Brittany, Anjou and Poitou, a leader in the French army during the Hundred Years' War, and a companion-in-arms of Joan of Arc. He remains chiefly known for his conviction on charges of the rape and murder of several children.
An important lord as heir to several great noble lineages of western France, he rallied to the cause of King Charles VII of France and waged war against the English. In 1429, he formed an alliance with his cousin Georges de La Trémoille, the prominent Grand Chamberlain of France, and was appointed Marshal of France the same year, after the successful military campaigns alongside Joan of Arc. Little is known about his relationship with her, unlike the privileged association between the two comrades-in-arms portrayed by various works of fiction. He gradually withdrew from the war during the 1430s.
His family accused him of squandering his patrimony by selling off his lands to pay his lavish expenses, a profligacy that led to his being placed under interdict by Charles VII in July 1435. He assaulted a high-ranking cleric in the church of Saint-Étienne-de-Mer-Morte, before seizing the local castle in May 1440, thereby violating ecclesiastical immunity and undermining the majesty of his suzerain, John V, Duke of Brittany. Arrested on 15 September 1440, he was tried in October 1440 by an ecclesiastical court assisted by the Inquisition for heresy, sodomy and the murder of "one hundred and forty or more children." At the same time, he was tried and condemned by the secular judges of the ducal court of justice to be hanged and burned at the stake for his act of force at Saint-Étienne-de-Mer-Morte, as well as for crimes committed against "several small children." On 26 October 1440, he was sent to the scaffold with two of his servants.
A popular confusion between the mythical Bluebeard and the historical Baron de Rais has been documented since the early 19th century, regardless of the uncertain hypothesis that Gilles de Rais served as an inspiration for Charles Perrault's "Bluebeard" literary fairy tale (1697).
Furthermore, in the aftermath of the late 19th century reconceptualization of the phenomenon of serial sexual crime, the case of Gilles de Rais has often been interpreted within the criminological framework of the serial killer, although such a categorization is at times regarded as anachronistic. The vast majority of historians believe he was guilty, but some advise caution when reviewing historical trial proceedings. Medievalists Jacques Chiffoleau and Claude Gauvard note the need to study the inquisitorial procedure employed by questioning the defendants' confessions in the light of the judges' expectations and conceptions, while also examining the role of rumor in the development of Gilles de Rais's fama publica (renown), without disregarding detailed testimonies concerning the disappearance of children, or confessions describing murderous rituals unparalleled in the judicial archives of the time.
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- 2017-04-05T00:00:00.000000Z
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