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There seems to be some belief that his birth date can be pinned down to 10 September 1404. Is this supported by reputable sources? -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 02:26, 3 July 2011 (UTC) His date of birth is unknown, but his parents married on February 5th 1404 so an early September birth was unlikely. Morbid Morag ( talk) 16:26, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
Last noted over a year ago, the hyperlink 'Siege of Paris' in the 'Military' section leads to an article on the Franco-Prussian era siege, which occurred some 400 years later. Such a link may not even be necessary as the previous 'Hundred Years War' link provides sufficient context in absence of any separate article of the event being referenced. :) 71.203.203.17 ( talk) 02:36, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
This reference in the article, under "Military career," obviously cannot refer correctly to Duke John V, who died in 1399; note that Rais was reportedly born 1404. However, there was confusion in this lineage due to the Breton War of Succession; the French view was that they denied legitimacy of the earlier John IV of Montfort. So perhaps here the intended reference was not John V, but instead was his son, John VI the Wise? The French at the time would have referred to this John VI as Jean V le Sage, but not as John V, the generally acknowledged English designation for his father. 75.139.134.105 ( talk) 19:24, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
Would it be improper to mention Cradle of Filth's album "Godspeed on the Devil's Thunder" here? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.163.62.23 ( talk) 14:12, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
For that matter, why hasn't anybody mentioned Fate/Zero's "Caster"? He is Bluebeard, AKA Gilles de Rais after all. Granted, he's a supporting character in the light novel and anime adaptation of said light novel by Urobuchi Gen-san, with Emiya Kiritsugu as the alleged main character, but with such a large ensemble cast, -- in the anime adaptation at least -- even Kiritsugu appeared to be a supporting character. My point is, supporting character or not, I think Fate/Zero's "Caster" deserves a mention here. (Urobuchi, Gen. Fate/Zero. Tokyo: Type-Moon, 2006.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.150.146.71 ( talk) 11:25, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
Is it relevant that Jean-Yves Goëau-Brissonnière was and is a Freemason? To underline this so heavily hardly seems neutral, considering that the Catholic Church regards the rehabilitation trial as a Freemasonic conspiracy. He was not, in any case, the prime mover of the retrial; that would be Gilbert Prouteau. As he tells it, M. Goëau-Brissonnière was a good friend who offered his legal expertise and advocacy. Morbid Morag ( talk) 15:39, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
The text puts it at 80-200 with a high end estimate of 600. The textbox summary says 300-900. Nothing is sourced. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.113.168.148 ( talk) 23:57, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
Was he a homosexual? -- 41.151.21.66 ( talk) 18:53, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
This is actually not possible. There was no Latin vernacular in the 15th century, or for quite a while before that. Latin was then and is a dead language with no fluent speakers. Latin had segued into the Romance languages. It was a dead language. I don't have the sources referenced at hand (Benedetti and Wolf) or I'd just correct it myself. Someone's either misreading them (likely) or the sources are wrong - so I don't know whether he read Latin or whether the assertion itself is simply entirely wrong and part of some rather extensive hyperbole on his childhood genius.
While it's vaguely possible, I rather doubt he was illuminating manuscripts as a boy either. Monks did that, not children. A lot of this article seems rather dubious. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.132.30.240 ( talk) 15:02, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
It is not correct to say that "Gilles was retried in a Moot court, an unofficial process of rehabilitation in his home country of France". A moot is not a real court - it is more of a debate. It is known world wide, not specifically in France. And it is not a unofficial form of rehabilitation. This one in particular seems to have been a publicity stunt, rather than a serious trial. A "moot court" is a different, mediaeval, institution, which has nothing to do with the trial that occurred. Royalcourtier ( talk) 03:03, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
King of France seems to be fully on the side of revisionists; which combined with the joke nature of a trial done entirely on evidence form torture and hearsay I think calls for a much more balanced account of revision vs tradition than not even covering the trials internal contradictions.
Here is the King's take
https://gillesderaiswasinnocent.blogspot.com/2013/03/wrongly-unduly-and-without-cause.html
Contemporaries thought the trial was a joke, this should be reflected. Medieval courts managed to make Jews confess to identical crimes I think they should be taken with a salt mine when they produce a blood libel conviction with torture, threat of torture, hearsay and conjecture as the only evidence as happened in this case. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.45.110.136 ( talk) 18:38, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
Gilles de Rais' year of birth is usually given as 1404, based on various dates that we do know, including the year he came into his inheritance. Almost all biographies (Bossard, Heers etc) agree on 1404. Recent edits here insist on 1405, a date given only by Matei Cazacu. This would make Gilles 15 when he had his first experience of war and not yet 24 when he was made Marshal of France - not impossible, granted, but unlikely. Unless new evidence has come to light, which I do not think is the case, 1404 should be the default. 77.86.63.161 ( talk) 17:01, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
The description of his murders sound more like snuff porn than an encyclopedia article. I think it may be a little too enthusiastic. 216.36.165.219 ( talk) 20:49, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
There's a YouTube biography that might be useful to source. I see the controversy section has been protected, so I'll just drop this here.
Gilles de Rais: Serial-Killing Nobleman, Or Witch Hunt Victim? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyXTDabEYdg
He references the mock trial and a book written about it (the "Not Guilty" section starts a bit after the 15m mark). Fwiw, it seems pretty suspicious: accusations of witchcraft are almost always salacious. So... the fact that the Duke of Brittany, who was given the authority to prosecute, received all the titles to Rais' former lands after his conviction seems pretty shady. That and, ok, he was supposed to be trying to summon the devil but confessed after they threatened excommunication? Also, his "confession" says he burned the bodies in the fireplace. Nah... a fireplace doesn't get hot enough to burn a body, at least not completely. So they said he threw the "ashes" in the moat. Well, then, there should have been bones in the moat. No bones were ever found... the whole "trial" sounds pretty fishy. The only damning evidence is the testimony from parents that they gave kids to him for jobs. But almost all witchcraft "trials" include phony testimony from "witnesses."
So maybe what the "questions" section needs is some links to the history of witchcraft trials? In any event, I think some light edits (for example, that there was no physical evidence seems like a thing that should be mentioned) and a reference to the New York Times article and Margo K. Juby's book (The Martyrdom of Gilles de Rais, https://www.amazon.com/Martyrdom-Gilles-Rais-Margot-Juby/dp/1729561357). This website published an article (Sonya Vatomsky 2 June 2017) as well: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/gilles-de-rais-bluebeard — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nyingpo ( talk • contribs) 02:21, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
Ok, so I found this:
Parsons, Ben. "Sympathy for the devil: Gilles de Rais and his modern apologists." Fifteenth Century Studies 37 (2012): 113-137.
The purpose of Parsons's article is to argue that de Rais is not indicative or emblematic of the Middle Ages. But he discusses the controversy here (page 122):
Despite being challenged by a number of writers, such theories have found wide support.67 Rossell Hope Robbins and E. M. Butler have agreed that “it is difficult to place any credence in the evidence” against Gilles, while in 1992 an informal tribunal d’arbitrage, organized by the former ministre de la Justice Michel Crépeau and the novelist Gilbert Proteau, concluded that Gilles was “the victim of circumstantial evidence,” and that his name should be cleared.68 Although this body of scholarship effectively detaches Gilles from the charges against him, this reasoning only emphasizes the link between the crimes and medieval culture. For these commentators, Gilles’s “crimes” become a direct expression of the beliefs of the Middle Ages, being a collection of the widespread myths and attitudes particular to the era, a consolidation of “Catholic logic.”69 Fleuret is most explicit on this score, commenting that “stories from folklore made up the flimsy tissue of charges,” before positing that “the people of the befuddled Middle Ages” had “pliable imaginations.”70 Reinach gives a similar argument, describing the charges of child-murder as “the same . . . that orthodox Christians raised against schismatics, the Waldensians, the Fraticelli, witches, Jews.”71 While Gilles’s offenses are considered a fiction, they derive their fabric from specifically medieval convictions. Once again the Middle Ages as a whole are deemed responsible for the crimes imputed to the baron, as his transgressions are generated directly out of the common stock of the medieval imagination.
To my credit ;) most of the apologists are coming from the perspective of discounting witch trials. Here are the references from above:
68 Rossell Hope Robbins, The Encyclopaedia of Witchcraft and Demonology (London: Peter Neville, 1959), 404; Alan Riding, “Bluebeard Has His Day In Court: Not Guilty,” New York Times, 17 November 1992, 38. See E. M. Butler, Ritual Magic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1949), 100; Gilbert Prouteau, Gilles de Rais ou la geule du loup (Monaco: Éditions du Rocher, 1992); Jean-Pierre Bayard, Plaidoyer pour Gilles de Rais, maréchal de France, 1404–1440 (Etréchy: Éditions du Soleil natal, 1992). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nyingpo ( talk • contribs) 03:31, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
His coerced confession should be mentioned much sooner. The article reads as if we know this man was guilty as fact, while 5th paging how they found him guilty. We don't give the Salem witches the same treatment despite multiple witnesses and "guilty" pleas in the face of torture. 2600:6C5E:5D7F:F073:FD5D:1BF:C4AD:740B ( talk) 12:23, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
@ Xxanthippe, @ Favonian, @ Sunuraju, @ Wizardman, and to anyone reading this:
According to Earwig's Copyright Checker, which checks how similar a Wikipedia article is to a source to show if the article has violated copyright. According to Earwig, the Gilles de Rais article violated copyright when most of the article's contents was copied off of a forum called Historum in this page, which was created back in 27 December 2011. The comparison came off a shocking 94.3% similarity rate, implying a copyright violation, even though Historum is a forum.
Interestingly enough, the Wikipedia Gilles de Rais article existed way before the thread on Gilles de Rais on the History Forum was even created. Here is the article on 22 December 2011, 5 days before the thread on the forum was created, and all the wording in the Historum forum was also on that article at the time. As a result, we can assume that the wording in this article is actually older than the wording in the Historum forum, and that the users of that thread just simply copy and pasted what was on the Gilles de Rais article on Wikipedia to make their thread. Consequently, this copyright violation was simply an error by Earwig's checker.
Regards,
祝好, Sinoam( 聊天) 16:18, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
I think that the protagonist should be referred to by the same name throughout, not as Gilles, Rais or the Baron in different places. Choose one and stick to it. It will be less confusing. Xxanthippe ( talk) 06:23, 17 September 2023 (UTC).
Whoever updated this recently is a legend, this page has been really low on actual academic references for such a long time. It now looks much more similar to the French article too. Amazing work, and now more information is accessible for readers in English :) Marukidio1051 ( talk) 15:58, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Gilles de Rais article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives: 1 |
A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on September 15, 2011, September 15, 2012, September 15, 2013, and September 15, 2018. |
This
level-5 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to multiple WikiProjects. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
There seems to be some belief that his birth date can be pinned down to 10 September 1404. Is this supported by reputable sources? -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 02:26, 3 July 2011 (UTC) His date of birth is unknown, but his parents married on February 5th 1404 so an early September birth was unlikely. Morbid Morag ( talk) 16:26, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
Last noted over a year ago, the hyperlink 'Siege of Paris' in the 'Military' section leads to an article on the Franco-Prussian era siege, which occurred some 400 years later. Such a link may not even be necessary as the previous 'Hundred Years War' link provides sufficient context in absence of any separate article of the event being referenced. :) 71.203.203.17 ( talk) 02:36, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
This reference in the article, under "Military career," obviously cannot refer correctly to Duke John V, who died in 1399; note that Rais was reportedly born 1404. However, there was confusion in this lineage due to the Breton War of Succession; the French view was that they denied legitimacy of the earlier John IV of Montfort. So perhaps here the intended reference was not John V, but instead was his son, John VI the Wise? The French at the time would have referred to this John VI as Jean V le Sage, but not as John V, the generally acknowledged English designation for his father. 75.139.134.105 ( talk) 19:24, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
Would it be improper to mention Cradle of Filth's album "Godspeed on the Devil's Thunder" here? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.163.62.23 ( talk) 14:12, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
For that matter, why hasn't anybody mentioned Fate/Zero's "Caster"? He is Bluebeard, AKA Gilles de Rais after all. Granted, he's a supporting character in the light novel and anime adaptation of said light novel by Urobuchi Gen-san, with Emiya Kiritsugu as the alleged main character, but with such a large ensemble cast, -- in the anime adaptation at least -- even Kiritsugu appeared to be a supporting character. My point is, supporting character or not, I think Fate/Zero's "Caster" deserves a mention here. (Urobuchi, Gen. Fate/Zero. Tokyo: Type-Moon, 2006.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.150.146.71 ( talk) 11:25, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
Is it relevant that Jean-Yves Goëau-Brissonnière was and is a Freemason? To underline this so heavily hardly seems neutral, considering that the Catholic Church regards the rehabilitation trial as a Freemasonic conspiracy. He was not, in any case, the prime mover of the retrial; that would be Gilbert Prouteau. As he tells it, M. Goëau-Brissonnière was a good friend who offered his legal expertise and advocacy. Morbid Morag ( talk) 15:39, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
The text puts it at 80-200 with a high end estimate of 600. The textbox summary says 300-900. Nothing is sourced. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.113.168.148 ( talk) 23:57, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
Was he a homosexual? -- 41.151.21.66 ( talk) 18:53, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
This is actually not possible. There was no Latin vernacular in the 15th century, or for quite a while before that. Latin was then and is a dead language with no fluent speakers. Latin had segued into the Romance languages. It was a dead language. I don't have the sources referenced at hand (Benedetti and Wolf) or I'd just correct it myself. Someone's either misreading them (likely) or the sources are wrong - so I don't know whether he read Latin or whether the assertion itself is simply entirely wrong and part of some rather extensive hyperbole on his childhood genius.
While it's vaguely possible, I rather doubt he was illuminating manuscripts as a boy either. Monks did that, not children. A lot of this article seems rather dubious. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.132.30.240 ( talk) 15:02, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
It is not correct to say that "Gilles was retried in a Moot court, an unofficial process of rehabilitation in his home country of France". A moot is not a real court - it is more of a debate. It is known world wide, not specifically in France. And it is not a unofficial form of rehabilitation. This one in particular seems to have been a publicity stunt, rather than a serious trial. A "moot court" is a different, mediaeval, institution, which has nothing to do with the trial that occurred. Royalcourtier ( talk) 03:03, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
King of France seems to be fully on the side of revisionists; which combined with the joke nature of a trial done entirely on evidence form torture and hearsay I think calls for a much more balanced account of revision vs tradition than not even covering the trials internal contradictions.
Here is the King's take
https://gillesderaiswasinnocent.blogspot.com/2013/03/wrongly-unduly-and-without-cause.html
Contemporaries thought the trial was a joke, this should be reflected. Medieval courts managed to make Jews confess to identical crimes I think they should be taken with a salt mine when they produce a blood libel conviction with torture, threat of torture, hearsay and conjecture as the only evidence as happened in this case. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.45.110.136 ( talk) 18:38, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
Gilles de Rais' year of birth is usually given as 1404, based on various dates that we do know, including the year he came into his inheritance. Almost all biographies (Bossard, Heers etc) agree on 1404. Recent edits here insist on 1405, a date given only by Matei Cazacu. This would make Gilles 15 when he had his first experience of war and not yet 24 when he was made Marshal of France - not impossible, granted, but unlikely. Unless new evidence has come to light, which I do not think is the case, 1404 should be the default. 77.86.63.161 ( talk) 17:01, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
The description of his murders sound more like snuff porn than an encyclopedia article. I think it may be a little too enthusiastic. 216.36.165.219 ( talk) 20:49, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
There's a YouTube biography that might be useful to source. I see the controversy section has been protected, so I'll just drop this here.
Gilles de Rais: Serial-Killing Nobleman, Or Witch Hunt Victim? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyXTDabEYdg
He references the mock trial and a book written about it (the "Not Guilty" section starts a bit after the 15m mark). Fwiw, it seems pretty suspicious: accusations of witchcraft are almost always salacious. So... the fact that the Duke of Brittany, who was given the authority to prosecute, received all the titles to Rais' former lands after his conviction seems pretty shady. That and, ok, he was supposed to be trying to summon the devil but confessed after they threatened excommunication? Also, his "confession" says he burned the bodies in the fireplace. Nah... a fireplace doesn't get hot enough to burn a body, at least not completely. So they said he threw the "ashes" in the moat. Well, then, there should have been bones in the moat. No bones were ever found... the whole "trial" sounds pretty fishy. The only damning evidence is the testimony from parents that they gave kids to him for jobs. But almost all witchcraft "trials" include phony testimony from "witnesses."
So maybe what the "questions" section needs is some links to the history of witchcraft trials? In any event, I think some light edits (for example, that there was no physical evidence seems like a thing that should be mentioned) and a reference to the New York Times article and Margo K. Juby's book (The Martyrdom of Gilles de Rais, https://www.amazon.com/Martyrdom-Gilles-Rais-Margot-Juby/dp/1729561357). This website published an article (Sonya Vatomsky 2 June 2017) as well: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/gilles-de-rais-bluebeard — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nyingpo ( talk • contribs) 02:21, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
Ok, so I found this:
Parsons, Ben. "Sympathy for the devil: Gilles de Rais and his modern apologists." Fifteenth Century Studies 37 (2012): 113-137.
The purpose of Parsons's article is to argue that de Rais is not indicative or emblematic of the Middle Ages. But he discusses the controversy here (page 122):
Despite being challenged by a number of writers, such theories have found wide support.67 Rossell Hope Robbins and E. M. Butler have agreed that “it is difficult to place any credence in the evidence” against Gilles, while in 1992 an informal tribunal d’arbitrage, organized by the former ministre de la Justice Michel Crépeau and the novelist Gilbert Proteau, concluded that Gilles was “the victim of circumstantial evidence,” and that his name should be cleared.68 Although this body of scholarship effectively detaches Gilles from the charges against him, this reasoning only emphasizes the link between the crimes and medieval culture. For these commentators, Gilles’s “crimes” become a direct expression of the beliefs of the Middle Ages, being a collection of the widespread myths and attitudes particular to the era, a consolidation of “Catholic logic.”69 Fleuret is most explicit on this score, commenting that “stories from folklore made up the flimsy tissue of charges,” before positing that “the people of the befuddled Middle Ages” had “pliable imaginations.”70 Reinach gives a similar argument, describing the charges of child-murder as “the same . . . that orthodox Christians raised against schismatics, the Waldensians, the Fraticelli, witches, Jews.”71 While Gilles’s offenses are considered a fiction, they derive their fabric from specifically medieval convictions. Once again the Middle Ages as a whole are deemed responsible for the crimes imputed to the baron, as his transgressions are generated directly out of the common stock of the medieval imagination.
To my credit ;) most of the apologists are coming from the perspective of discounting witch trials. Here are the references from above:
68 Rossell Hope Robbins, The Encyclopaedia of Witchcraft and Demonology (London: Peter Neville, 1959), 404; Alan Riding, “Bluebeard Has His Day In Court: Not Guilty,” New York Times, 17 November 1992, 38. See E. M. Butler, Ritual Magic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1949), 100; Gilbert Prouteau, Gilles de Rais ou la geule du loup (Monaco: Éditions du Rocher, 1992); Jean-Pierre Bayard, Plaidoyer pour Gilles de Rais, maréchal de France, 1404–1440 (Etréchy: Éditions du Soleil natal, 1992). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nyingpo ( talk • contribs) 03:31, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
His coerced confession should be mentioned much sooner. The article reads as if we know this man was guilty as fact, while 5th paging how they found him guilty. We don't give the Salem witches the same treatment despite multiple witnesses and "guilty" pleas in the face of torture. 2600:6C5E:5D7F:F073:FD5D:1BF:C4AD:740B ( talk) 12:23, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
@ Xxanthippe, @ Favonian, @ Sunuraju, @ Wizardman, and to anyone reading this:
According to Earwig's Copyright Checker, which checks how similar a Wikipedia article is to a source to show if the article has violated copyright. According to Earwig, the Gilles de Rais article violated copyright when most of the article's contents was copied off of a forum called Historum in this page, which was created back in 27 December 2011. The comparison came off a shocking 94.3% similarity rate, implying a copyright violation, even though Historum is a forum.
Interestingly enough, the Wikipedia Gilles de Rais article existed way before the thread on Gilles de Rais on the History Forum was even created. Here is the article on 22 December 2011, 5 days before the thread on the forum was created, and all the wording in the Historum forum was also on that article at the time. As a result, we can assume that the wording in this article is actually older than the wording in the Historum forum, and that the users of that thread just simply copy and pasted what was on the Gilles de Rais article on Wikipedia to make their thread. Consequently, this copyright violation was simply an error by Earwig's checker.
Regards,
祝好, Sinoam( 聊天) 16:18, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
I think that the protagonist should be referred to by the same name throughout, not as Gilles, Rais or the Baron in different places. Choose one and stick to it. It will be less confusing. Xxanthippe ( talk) 06:23, 17 September 2023 (UTC).
Whoever updated this recently is a legend, this page has been really low on actual academic references for such a long time. It now looks much more similar to the French article too. Amazing work, and now more information is accessible for readers in English :) Marukidio1051 ( talk) 15:58, 5 November 2023 (UTC)