The Saint and The Sinner: Joan of Arc vs Gilles de Rais

Описание: In 1440, a worried mother in Nantes reported her missing son—last seen led into the residence of Baron Gilles de Rais, Marshal of France and one of the richest nobles in Europe. Her testimony opened the door to one of the darkest criminal cases of the late Middle Ages. By the year’s end, de Rais would confess to the abduction and murder of scores of children.
This episode traces the rise and fall of a man once hailed as a hero. Gilles de Rais fought beside Joan of Arc, shared in the liberation of Orléans, and stood among the commanders who helped return Charles VII to his throne during the final years of the Hundred Years’ War. But after Joan’s capture and execution, Gilles returned to his estates and began spending his vast fortune on lavish productions, alchemists, and increasingly dangerous obsessions.
As children began disappearing around his castles, parish records and local complaints mounted. When de Rais openly assaulted a cleric at the altar, the Church finally intervened. The investigation uncovered years of allegations, witness accounts, and physical evidence linking him to systematic abduction and violence. Tried by ecclesiastical and secular courts, he confessed under threat of excommunication and was executed in October 1440.
We explore the historical record, the contradictions in the surviving testimonies, the theories about his guilt or innocence, and how the brightest champion of Joan of Arc became the inspiration for the legend of Bluebeard—a tale of a nobleman with blood behind every locked door.

Episode Sources (No Order):
Primary records & contemporary compilations
Ecclesiastical & secular proceedings (Nantes, 1440) – translated excerpts (indictment; Henriet & Poitou confessions). Famous Trials (Douglas O. Linder) hosts faithful English translations from published French editions:“Indictment of Gilles de Rais.” “Confession of Henriet (valet of Gilles de Rais), Oct. 23, 1440.” “Confession of Poitou, Oct. 1440.” Joan of Arc documentary corpus (for Orléans, Reims, and related 1429–31 material):Joan of Arc: By Herself and Her Witnesses, ed./trans. Régine Pernoud—English ed. (uses trial & chronicle testimony). “Letter to the English” (22 Mar 1429), English translation from Quicherat, with notes; Joan of Arc Archive.“Royal Financial Records for Twenty Harkebusiers at Orléans, 1429” (payments record translated from Journal du siège d’Orléans); Joan of Arc Studies – Primary Sources Series. Hundred Years’ War treatiesTreaty of Troyes (1420) – translation and analysis (Anne Curry, University of Southampton). Scholarly syntheses & reference works
On Gilles de Reis (biography & trial analysis)Benedetti, Jean. The Real Bluebeard: The Life of Gilles de Rais (1971). English monograph; accessible via Internet Archive. Ross, Lia B. “Deviancy in the Late Middle Ages: The Crimes and Punishment of Gilles de Rais.” In Crime and Punishment in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age (De Gruyter, 2012), pp. 359–402. (For historiography & cultural afterlives) Brill chapter overview touching Gilles and late-medieval context. On Joan of Arc, Orléans campaign, and sourcesPernoud, Régine. Joan of Arc: By Herself and Her Witnesses (reliance on primary testimony; context for 1429 campaign and Reims).