Gilles de Rais | |
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| Birth name | Gilles de Montmorency-Laval |
| Born | c. 1405 ? Champtocé-sur-Loire, Anjou |
| Died | 26 October 1440 Nantes, Brittany |
| Buried | Church Monastery of Notre-Dame des Carmes, Nantes |
| Allegiance | |
| Years of service | 1427 (or 1420 ?) – 1435 |
| Rank | Marshal of France |
| Battles / wars | |
| Signature |  |
| Criminal details | |
| Target | mainly young boys |
| Victims | Unknown (approx. 140 ?) |
| Period | 1432–1440 |
| Penalty | Death by hanging (corpse partially burned at the stake) |
Gilles de Rais (c. 1405 – 26 October 1440), Baron de Rais, was a 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 is best known for his reputation and later conviction as a confessed serial killer of children.
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, but little is known about the relationship between the two comrades in arms. After the death of his former guardian and maternal grandfather Jean de Craon in 1432, and Georges de La Trémoille's fall from grace in 1433, he gradually withdrew from the war. His family accused him of squandering his patrimony by selling off his lands to the highest bidder to offset his lavish expenses, a profligacy that led to his being placed under interdict by King Charles VII of France in July 1435.
In May 1440, he assaulted a high-ranking cleric in the church of Saint-Étienne-de-Mer-Morte before seizing the local castle, thereby violating ecclesiastical immunities and undermining the majesty of his suzerain, John V, Duke of Brittany. Arrested on 15 September 1440 at his castle in Machecoul, he was brought to the Duchy of Brittany, an independent principality where he was tried in October 1440 by the ecclesiastical court of Nantes for heresy, sodomy and the murder of "one hundred and forty or more children". At the same time, he was condemned to be hanged and burned at the stake by the secular court of Nantes 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 convicted of murder.
While the vast majority of historians have not sought to exonerate him, some are also wary of reading the records of his trials at face value, without claiming to reconstitute some kind of judicial truth. 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' fama (reputation). However, these historians do not disregard some detailed testimonies concerning the disappearance of children, or certain confessions describing murderous rituals unparalleled in the judicial archives of the time. Furthermore, Rais is sometimes believed to be an inspiration for Charles Perrault's "Bluebeard" literary fairy tale (1697), but this assumption is controversial as being too uncertain. Whatever the case, a popular confusion between the historical character and the mythical wife-murderer has been documented since the early 19th century.
- ^ Meurger 2003, pp. 48, 107, 117.