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Gilles de Rais

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For the video game character named after Rais, see Gilles de Rais (Castlevania).
Gilles de Rais
Cause of deathHanged
Criminal penaltyDeath
Details
Victims80-200
Span of crimes
1435–1440
CountryFrance
Date apprehended
September 15, 1440

Gilles de Rais (also spelled Retz) (September 10, 1404 – October 26, 1440) was a French noble, soldier, and one-time brother-in-arms of Joan of Arc, but is perhaps best known as a prolific serial killer.

Early years

Gilles de Rais was born in Machecoul, near the border of Brittany. His father was Guy de Montmorency-Laval, who had inherited, via adoption, the fortunes of Jeanne de Rais and Marie de Craon. Gilles inherited the barony of Rais in the peerage-duchy of Rais (now spelled Retz). He was an intelligent child, learning fluent Latin. After the death of his father, circa 1415, his mother remarried and Gilles and his brother René were put under the tutelage of his grandfather, Jean de Craon.[1]

In 1420, he found himself at the court of the Dauphin, claimant to the crown of France. Jean de Craon sought to marry Rais off to the heiress Jeanne de Paynol, but this was unsuccessful. Jean de Craon then attempted to join his young charge with Beatrice de Rohan, niece of the Duke of Brittany, again with no success. Eventually he was able to substantially increase Rais' fortune by marrying him off to Catherine de Thouars of Brittany, heiress of La Vendée and Poitou, but only after first kidnapping her. Later stories connecting Rais with the mythical wife-murderer Bluebeard may have stemmed from the fact that two of several previous marriage schemes were thwarted by the death of the intended bride.

In the Breton War of Succession, Gilles de Rais took the side of the Montfort Dukes of Brittany against a rival house led by Olivier de Blois, Count of Penthievre. The Blois faction had taken the Montfort Duke John V prisoner. He was able to secure the Duke's release, and was rewarded with generous land grants which the Breton parliament converted to monetary gifts.

Military career

The coat of arms of Gilles de Rais.

From 1427 to 1435, Rais served as a commander in the Royal Army, and in 1429 fought along with Joan of Arc in some of the campaigns waged against the English and their Burgundian allies. Although a few authors have tended to exaggerate the position he held during the latter campaigns, surviving bursary records show that he only commanded a personal contingent of some 25 men-at-arms and 11 archers, and was one of many dozens of such commanders.[2] Nor did he serve as Joan of Arc's bodyguard, a position actually held by Jean d'Aulon. Rais' greatest honor during these campaigns came when he joined three other commanders in holding the quasi-ceremonial title of Maréchal, a subordinate position under the Royal Connétable. This honor was granted him at the coronation of Charles VII on July 17, 1429.

In 1435, Rais retired from military service to his estates, promoting theatrical performances and exhausting the large fortune he had inherited. It was during this period that, according to trial testimony given by Rais and his accomplices, he began to experiment with the occult under the direction of a man named Francesco Prelati, who promised Rais that he could help him regain his squandered fortune by sacrificing children to a demon called "Barron." However, this story may have been encouraged at his trial as a contemporary attempt to find a rational explanation for the crimes he committed.

Investigation and execution

On May 15, 1440, Rais kidnapped a clergyman named Jean le Ferron during a dispute at the Church of Saint-Étienne-de-Mer-Morte. This prompted an investigation by the Bishop of Nantes, during which the investigators uncovered evidence of Rais' crimes. On July 29, the Bishop released his findings, and subsequently obtained the prosecutorial cooperation of Rais' former protector, the Duke of Brittany. On August 24, Jean le Ferron was freed by ducal troops led by Arthur de Richemont. Rais and his accomplices were arrested on September 15, following a secular investigation which paralleled the findings from the investigation from the Bishop of Nantes. Rais' prosecution would likewise be conducted by both secular and ecclesiastical courts, on charges which included murder, sodomy, and heresy.

The extensive witness testimony convinced the judges that there were adequate grounds for establishing the guilt of the accused. After Rais admitted to the charges on October 21, the court canceled a plan to torture him into confessing. The transcript, which included testimony from the parents of many of the missing children as well as graphic descriptions of the murders provided by Rais' accomplices, was said to be so lurid that the judges ordered the worst portions to be stricken from the record.

The precise number of Rais' victims is not known, as most of the bodies were burned or buried. The number of murders is generally placed between 80 and 200; a few have conjectured numbers upwards of 600. The victims ranged in age from six to eighteen and included both sexes.

On October 23, 1440, the secular court condemned Rais' accomplices, Henriet and Poitou. On October 25, the ecclesiastical court handed down a sentence of excommunication against him, followed on the same day by the secular court's own condemnation of the accused. After tearfully expressing remorse for his crimes, Rais obtained rescindment of the Church's punishment and was allowed confession, but the secular penalty remained in place. Gilles de Rais, Henriet, and Poitou were hanged at Nantes on October 26, 1440.

Controversy

Some believe that Gilles de Rais was framed for murder and heresy by elements within the Church as part of an ecclesiastic plot to expropriate his lands. This theory is considered highly doubtful by most historians, since the Church itself stood little chance of acquiring the properties. Title to the lands was ultimately transferred to the Duke of Brittany, who in turn divided them among nobles including Arthur de Richemont. Moreover, the guilty verdict was based on the detailed eyewitness accounts of his confederates and the testimony of his victims' parents, which amounted to substantial proof of the final verdict.[3] Any plot to dispossess Rais of his lands would have had to involve a number of his confederates, and the unlikely complicity of many secular and Church officials. In fact, the Duke of Brittany, who had the most to gain from such a plot, was a protector of Rais for a long time; only after the results of two damning investigations did he consent to participate in Rais’ prosecution.

Anthropologist Margaret Murray and occultist Aleister Crowley are among those who have questioned the account of the ecclesiastic and secular authorities involved in the case. Murray, in her book The Witch-Cult of Western Europe (pp. 173-74), speculated that Rais was a witch and adherent of a fertility cult centered on the pagan goddess, Diana. According to Murray, "Gilles de Rais was tried and executed as a witch and, in the same way, much that is mysterious in this trial can also be explained by the Dianic Cult."[4]

Mainstream historians reject Murray's theory. As Hugh Trevor-Roper put it, "The fancies of the late Margaret Murray need not detain us. They were justly, if irritably, dismissed by a real scholar as ‘vapid balderdash’ (C.L. Ewen, Some Witchcraft Criticisms, (1938)."[5] Other historians who have taken issue with Murray's claims include Jeffrey Russell who said her theories were "riddled with fallacies",[6] Jacqueline Simpson,[7] Ronald Hutton,[8][9] G. L. Kitteredge,[10] Norman Cohn,[11] Keith Thomas,[12] and the writer Georges Bataille (e.g., The Trial of Gilles de Rais). They argue that her theory does not agree with what is known of Rais's crimes and trial. Professional historians generally do not regard either Rais or Joan of Arc as martyrs to an antiquated religion; recent scholars tend to view Joan as a devout Catholic convicted on political grounds by a pro-English court, and Rais as a pious Catholic who descended into crime and depravity.[13][14][15]

See also

References

  1. ^ Huysmans, Joris-Karl. Gilles de Rais (1899)
  2. ^ "Royal Financial Records Concerning Payments for Twenty-Seven Contingents in the Portions of Joan of Arc's Army Which Arrived at Orléans on 4 July 1429." Joan of Arc Primary Sources Series.
  3. ^ "Gilles de Rais: The Pious Monster." The Crime Library.
  4. ^ "Historical Association for Joan of Arc Studies."
  5. ^ Trevor-Roper, Hugh. The European Witch-craze of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, 1969.
  6. ^ Russell, Jeffrey. A History of Witchcraft: Sorcerers, Heretics, and Pagans, 1970.
  7. ^ Simpson, Jacqueline. "Margaret Murray: Who Believed Her and Why?." Folklore 105, 1994, pp. 89–96.
  8. ^ Hutton, Ronald. The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1991.
  9. ^ Hutton, Ronald. The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999
  10. ^ Kitteredge, G. L. Witchcraft in Old and New England. 1951. pp. 275, 421, 565.
  11. ^ Cohn, Norman. Europe's Inner Demons. London: Pimlico, 1973.
  12. ^ Thomas, Keith. Religion and the Decline of Magic, 1971 and 1997, pp. 514–517.
  13. ^ Barett, W.P. The Trial of Joan of Arc. 1932.
  14. ^ Pernoud, Regine and Marie Veronique Clin. Joan of Arc, Her Story. 1966
  15. ^ Meltzer, Françoise. For Fear of the Fire: Joan of Arc and the Limits of Subjectivity. 2001.
  16. ^ "2008 Album Announced". Kerrang!. Kerrang!. 2008. Retrieved 2008-07-21.

Bibliography

  • Bataille, Georges. The Trial of Gilles de Rais. Amok Books. ISBN 978-1-878923-02-8.
  • Benedetti, Jean. Gilles de Rais. Stein and Day. ISBN 978-0-8128-1450-7.
  • Bordonove, Georges. Gilles de Rais. Pygmalion. ISBN 978-2-85704-694-3.
  • Cebrián, Juan Antonio. El Mariscal de las Tinieblas. La Verdadera Historia de Barba Azul. Temas de Hoy. ISBN 978-84-8460-497-6 (Spanish).
  • Genet, Jean. The Thief's Journal. p.45. Grove Press. ISBN 0-8021-3014-3.
  • Huysmans, Joris K. La Bas (Down There). Dover. ISBN 978-0-486-22837-2.
  • Hyatte, Reginald. Laughter for the Devil: The Trials of Gilles De Rais, Companion-In-Arms of Joan of Arc (1440). Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. ISBN 978-0-8386-3190-4.
  • Lampo, Hubert. De duivel en de maagd. 207 p., Amsterdam, Meulenhoff, 1988 (11e druk), ISBN 9029004452. (1e druk: ’s-Gravenhage, Stols, 1955).
  • Lampo, Hubert. Le Diable et la Pucelle. 163 p., Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 2002, ISBN 2-85939-765-5. (traduction française de De duivel en de maagd).
  • Morgan, Val. The Legend of Gilles De Rais (1404-1440) in the Writings of Huysmans, Bataille, Plancon and Tournier (Studies in French Civilization, 29). Edwin Mellen Press. ISBN 978-0-7734-6619-7.
  • Nye, Robert. The Life and Death of My Lord, Gilles de Rais. Time Warner Books. ISBN 978-0-349-10250-4.
  • Wolf, Leonard. Bluebeard: The Life and Times of Gilles De Rais. Potter. ISBN 978-0-517-54061-9.
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