October 22, 2024 • 33 mins
Gilles de Rais was a powerful, wealthy French baron who fought alongside Joan of Arc. But a castle sale gone-wrong would lead to an investigation, revealing gruesome and salacious details of murder.
CW: murder, pedophilia
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim
and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised before we begin.
Just a very very exciting announcement. I am so thrilled
that next July July twenty twenty five, I will be
leading a pilgrimage to the Cotswalds in England to talk
(00:22):
about the novel The Remains of the Day by kazu
Ishi Guru, the Nobel Prize winner. First, if you haven't
read the novel, it is absolutely one of my favorite
books and I cannot think of a better way to
appreciate it. Then get a great group of people together
talk about the book.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
These pilgrimages are so much fun. We talk about a book,
there's writing, You go on walks every day, you get
to explore these amazing tiny towns, stay at beautiful locations.
This is actually the third program I've done with this company.
The company is called common Ground. So yeah, if this
interests you, If you think that next summer you'll want
(00:59):
to be in a English town talking about a brilliant book,
working on your own writing, and going on walks, you
should absolutely sign up. I know there's a few spots
left register common ground Pilgrimages Remains of the Day Danish Schwartz.
The website is actually reading and walking with dot com.
I'm gonna put it on my Instagram, so take a look.
(01:21):
If that excites you, I would just love to be
there with you. I've had such a good experience doing
these pilgrimages, leading these tours. They're just so much fun.
It's my favorite thing to do, to talk about literature,
to work on writing, to go on beautiful walks. I
can't think of a better way to spend a few
days in the summer. So if this interests you, there
(01:42):
are still spots available for the Remains of the Day
pilgrimage in the Cotswaltz. Before we begin today's episode one,
brief content note. This episode mentions references to the murder
of children if that is especially disturbing for you. Obviously
(02:03):
it's disturbing for everyone, but if that's an issue that
requires more sensitivity for you, this might be an episode
to skip. Mud and wet garbage squashed beneath people's feet
as everyone wandered slowly through the town of Nant in France.
(02:23):
It had rained all night, but luckily the rain had
stopped in time for the day's planned executions. It was
October twenty seventh, fourteen forty, and three convicted men had
been sentenced to death just the day before. No one,
not even the convicts themselves, wished to delay their inevitable fate,
(02:48):
and so the general public of nant all processed towards
the scaffolds. With all of the quote, ritual, pomp and
music that characterized the procession. It would have been hard
to miss the parade, and before long the number of
people in the group multiplied, and despite the heinous crimes
(03:11):
supposedly committed by these men, the townspeople walking to the
scaffold actually started praying for the leader of the criminals,
praying for Gille Deray and his salvation. Gille, a baron
in the region, listened intently to those prayers. He was
(03:33):
an intensely religious man, and his salvation was the most
important thing to him. He was only able to calmly
accept the news because he knew that he had been
absolved and salvation would be possible. After all, he had
done everything the courts had asked of him. He had
(03:53):
confessed to the crimes and made his confession as lurid
as he could. He even begged forgiveness from the victim's families.
In response, the Catholic Church had assured him that his
confession lifted the ban of excommunication that had been placed
on him. Execution would send him to Heaven, not hell,
(04:16):
they said, and even though his reputation on earth was
tarnished beyond repair, Jill knew that God knew the truth.
After walking for two hours, the swollen crowd reached the
site of execution. Jill was ushered to stand alongside his
(04:36):
two servants and alleged partners in crime, and he had
the noose placed around his neck. Looking out at the
crowd that had come to watch him hang, he would
have seen familiar faces. He would have seen people who
had staffed his homes, who had acted in his pageants
and plays, and fought under his banner, people he had
(05:00):
and who had gone on to call for his conviction
and his death. Jill closed his eyes as he felt
the rope around his neck titan. The calls of prayer
and the juxtaposing shouts of excitement for his death faded
away as Jill turned his mind only toward heaven and
(05:22):
his eternal reward. With a swift pull, the world went black,
and Jill Deray the Man died. In that same moment,
Jill Deray the legend was born. This man's story might
not sound familiar to you. It probably just sounds like
a generic tale of medieval execution. But if you've read
(05:47):
any particularly gruesome Internet listicles, maybe in honor of Halloween
and spooky season talking about history's scariest figures, you might
have encountered Gildaurey's's name. His story has been misrepresented knowingly
or unknowingly by historians across multiple centuries, and in this episode,
(06:11):
I want to try to talk about what might have
really happened This man, Gilday's has been labeled for centuries
as one of the most prolific and sadistic serial killers
in history. But it's time we take a closer look
and ask a simple question, was he even guilty? I'm
(06:37):
Dana Schwartz and this is Noble Blood. Over the past
five wow years here at Noble Blood, we've covered many
notorious historical figures, including one Elizabeth Bathory. Across the Internet,
you will find no shortage of sillacious descriptions of Elizabeth
(07:00):
Bathory as a ruthless serial killer who would bathe in
her young victim's blood in order to try to remain youthful.
But as covered in our episode The Blood Countess, the
bathing in blood was a complete fabrication, and it's even
possible that Elizabeth Bathory was entirely framed by political opponents
(07:24):
threatened by her power. Elizabeth's story and the way it
became infamous is not too dissimilar from the story of
the subject of this episode, Jill Deray. As I mentioned
in the introduction, he's touted across the web as a
brutal serial killer and pedophile who violated over one hundred
(07:46):
and forty children in medieval France. It's an astonishing and
gruesome claim, and it's easy to understand why it attracts
so much salacious attention. But in the in tyst of
diving a little deeper, let's go now to northwestern France
in the fourteen hundreds to examine who Jildray actually was
(08:09):
and what the circumstances were that led to his long
legacy of infamy. Gildreys was born in fourteen oh four
to parents who both descended from great feudal houses, so
Jill was set up well from birth, with connections to
powerful and wealthy lineages. In fact, the barony that he
(08:31):
possessed was reputed to be one of the six oldest
baronies in the Duchy of Brittany at the time. By
the time Jeel came of age through inheritance and marriage,
he controlled a wide swath of land across western France
and Brittany. In essence, Jil was somebody important in the
(08:52):
world of feudal lords. Jill was born right in the
middle of the Hundred Years' War, and given that his
job as a baron was literally to raise men and fight,
an important portion of his life, especially early on, was
dominated by that long lasting conflict. Even though we've covered
(09:13):
various aspects of the Hundred Years War here on Noble Blood,
I think we would all benefit from a brief, brief
summary of the very complicated conflict. In short, between thirteen
thirty seven and fourteen fifty three, England and France were
engaged in an enduring battle over who actually ruled France.
(09:37):
The war was a defining period for both the English
and the French, who each found people and battles to
rally behind and identify with. For the English, think of
the Battle of Agincorps and King Henry the Eighth. For
the French, one name probably stands above the rest, at
least in terms of the modern popular imagination. Joan of Arc.
(10:02):
Joan of Arc, a teenage peasant girl who said that
she was given divine guidance from archangels to help save
the French from English domination, helped lead the French army
to victory in the Siege of Orleans in fourteen twenty nine.
Now this is where our protagonist, Gill day factors in.
(10:25):
Jill fought at the Siege of Orleans and then took
part in the Loire Campaign with Joan of Arc after
her victory. It was Jill's participation in that campaign that
led to some of his newly elevated status at court,
including a new official role carrier of the Holy Water
(10:46):
in the Coronation of Charles the Seventh. Another component that
contributed to Jill's status as an important feudal lord was
surprise surprise, great wealth. Controlling so much land afforded Jill
a not insubstantial income, and through smart maneuvering and the
(11:08):
help of his grandfather, Jill was able to grow his
coffers The biggest move he made was a strategic marriage,
which allowed him to add substantially to his holdings with
the holdings that he inherited as well as those he
acquired through marriage. Jill was arguably one of the wealthiest
(11:29):
barons in France, and Jill was not afraid to spend
that fortune. He was known for living lavishly, having extravagant taste,
and spending wildly. He kept a large entourage wherever he went,
which included, because Jill was a particular fan of the
(11:49):
performing arts, a herald choir, and several portable organs. When
he would set up camp in one place or another,
he would often sponsor for the local community. The most
famous of these plays was The Siege of Orleans, which
he put on in the city of Orleans on the
(12:10):
sixth anniversary of the battle. More than five hundred actors
took part in the play, including Jil himself, which depicted
and celebrated the defeat of the English by Jill's comrade
in arms, Joan of Arc. In addition to paying all
of these actors, Jill supplied a never ending buffet of
(12:32):
food and wine to both the actors and play spectators.
While he clearly liked to glorify his own past military triumphs.
Jill's also just certainly liked to engage in opulent displays
of wealth, and it would turn out to be his
overspending and his debts that would one day get him
(12:56):
into trouble. By fourteen twenty nine, Gilldray was a Marshal
of France. He had achieved a great measure of status
and money and could retire to his various estates to
spend his days putting on plays or finding other ways
to spend his fortune. And if that's all he had done,
(13:19):
this episode would end here. But as you probably know,
we've only just begun. As I alluded to, Gill Durray
had a habit of overspending, and at a certain point
he started selling off properties to pay off his debts.
In fourteen forty he decided to sell the castle of
(13:41):
Saint Etienne de mer Mort in Brittany. The nobleman who
bought the castle entrusted the keys to his brother, a priest.
Seems like a normal real estate transaction so far, except
Jill decided that he actually wanted the castle back so
that he could sell it to his cousin so on
(14:02):
a Sunday in early May fourteen forty, Jel and a
retinue of sixty horsemen stormed into the parish church where
the key holding priests was leading mass, and he threatened
to kill the priest if he did not surrender the
castle to him. The vigilante group, led by Jill dragged
(14:26):
the priest to the castle gates and forced him to
open the gates for them. Once the priest opened the
gates and allowed them to take the castle, they chained
the priest up in the dungeon and beat him. Now
this assault was a pretty brazen act, but local authorities
(14:47):
might have overlooked it given Jils's status. However, he and
his gang had accosted a priest, and doing so violated
ecclesiastical immunity, which should have protect did the priest from
that exact sort of thing from happening. Therefore, the church
had grounds to bring Jill to court. Now, ecclesiastical courts,
(15:11):
as well as the local courts or parliament, operated on
the inquisitorial system at the time, where the judges were
active fact seekers as opposed to impartial referees. So when
the Church did indeed decide to charge Shield they began
an investigation into him. Bishop Jean de Mastrat set off
(15:35):
on that investigation, beginning in the parish of Notre Dame,
which was home to Jill's main residence. The bishop spoke
with a multitude of people in the region during the investigation,
and in doing so he discovered that there were a
number of missing children who were almost all rumored to
(15:58):
have been kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and killed by Jil. Parents
and acquaintances of these missing children supposedly spoke to the
bishop and confirmed these rumors had been swirling about for
some time now. While local townspeople were willing to accuse Jill,
(16:20):
they weren't necessarily willing to testify in court. The bishop
was able to overcome that issue once he found former
servants of Jil's who would testify in court that he
had indeed murdered hundreds of children. The servants claimed that
Jil forced them to help him murder and then dispose
(16:43):
of the bodies in a myriad of ways. Whether these
servants were compelled to testify against their former employer because
of a sense of justice for the murdered or because
of the threat of torture by the bishop we can't
know for sure. During his investigation, the bishop also found
(17:04):
a magician whom Jill had allegedly employed, and who would
testify that he had helped Jill participate in alchemy and
seances summoning a demon. While unrelated to the murders, using
alchemy definitely made Jill look all the more guilty. If
he was willing to transgress against God in one way,
(17:27):
he probably transgressed in others. With sufficient witnesses now at
the ready, the bishop brought charges against Jill for not
only the kidnapping and abuse of a priest, but also
quote witchcraft, sexual misconduct, and homicide. On September thirteenth, fourteen forty,
(17:50):
the trial of Jill Day began. Actually, the two trials
of Jil began. While the church had begun the investigation,
the civil courts had also elected to charge him with
murder and kidnapping, so once he was charged by both courts,
the trials proceeded simultaneously as if they were just one case.
(18:14):
From the moment the case began, Jill went on the offensive.
He attacked the judges, calling them simoniacs, an insult back then,
and questioning their right to try him. The courts did
not take kindly to those insults, and the church promptly
excommunicated Gile. Two days later, Gile returned to court and
(18:38):
made a complete one hundred and eighty degree turn. Now
he was entirely repentant and apologetic. He accepted the charges,
but because he had not yet confessed, the case proceeded.
The bulk of the trial was hearing testimony. All of
the testimony provided was from former servants of Jil that
(19:02):
the bishop had identified in his investigation. Over the next
several days in court, these former servants, some of whom
were charged as accomplices, detailed Jill's sins, attempted deals with
demons to avoid prosecution for financial woes, making servants procure
(19:23):
victims by kidnapping young children from poor families, and finding
sexual gratification from torturing and killing these children. I won't
go into further detail about the sexual details of the
crimes and murders because that seems gratuitous and unnecessary, but
(19:44):
that's what the testimony laid bare. While the court is
inconsistent with the numbers, historians agree that Jill was ultimately
accused of killing more than one hundred and forty children
in the span of only a couple of years. Finally,
it came time in the case for the court to
(20:05):
torture Jill in order to draw out his much desired confession.
But Jill stepped forward and proclaimed that he would give
his testimony the unvarnished truth willingly, and so he was
saved from the type of torture that he was accused
of enacting on hundreds of children. After providing his testimony
(20:30):
and confession in the privacy of the court, Jill staged
a rather over the top public confession in the vernacular
so that any and everyone could hear and understand it.
On October twenty second. Jill held nothing back, and he
told the world that what he had done would be
(20:51):
enough to convict ten thousand men. He agreed that everything
people had testified against him was true, and that he
derived pleasure from all of the sins he committed. He
finished by asking God and the parents of the murdered
children to forgive him. His unequivocal confession must have stunned
(21:14):
the audience. I doubt anyone expected someone to openly admit
to such depravity. As soon as Jill Darades confessed, his
trial concluded, and interestingly, his excommunication was rescinded. That's important,
so we'll be talking a little more about that later.
(21:35):
Jill and his two accomplices, the two who had actually
testified against him, were sentenced to be hanged and then
burned at the stake. As I explored in the opening
of this episode, the criminals were paraded through not to
their hanging on October twenty sixth, less than two weeks
(21:56):
after the trial had begun. With his death, Jill Deurey's
name went down in infamy. Historians proclaimed him to be
a violent rapist and sadistic murderer, the likes of who
could be compared to Jeffrey Dahmer, and his depravity is
that much more fascinating when juxtaposed with his more youthful
(22:19):
days spent fighting alongside France's literal patron, Saint Joan of
arc No wonder Jills invites such fascination and regularly appears
on lists of the worst serial killers in history. But
what if I told you Jildreyse was possibly innocent. Gildreyse's
(22:43):
legacy is still hotly debated, but some historians have argued
that he was framed by the Church and guilty of
no wrongdoings at all. In fact, after a French book
published in nineteen ninety two proclaimed Jills's innocence, a retrial
was called and the Court of Cassation, the highest court
(23:04):
of appeals in France, exonerated him. So officially, Jill has
been cleared of all charges, although scholars called into question
the accuracy and research that was used in that symbolic proceeding.
In addition to the lawyers at the retrial, scholars like
Thomas A. Fuja and Margot K. Juby have pointed out
(23:27):
a number of issues with the original case against Jill,
as well as challenges to the historical scholarship surrounding the
French noble that have been accepted as fact. The biggest
flaw in the original trial was that there was no
physical evidence against Jill. His main crime was killing hundreds
(23:49):
of children, but there were no bodies, skeletons, or bones
found that pointed toward Jill as a killer. All of
the evidence leveled against him was circumstantial, entirely testimony from
people that couldn't be corroborated, so no one even had
proof that the missing children were actually dead. Now it's
(24:14):
true that Jill himself did confess to his crimes and
was quite explicit about the extremely brutal acts he committed
and the pleasure he allegedly derived from them. So even
if there were no bodies found, we could believe that
Jil Deray was a murderer because he admitted it. However,
(24:36):
Thomas A. Fujay made the argument that we should be
at least a little skeptical of that confession. By all accounts,
Jill was an incredibly religious man. Remember how I mentioned
earlier that Jil spent his money with no sense of limit. Well.
As part of his expression of his faith, he bankrolled
(24:58):
a private chapel as well as that chapel's own Dean
Vicker choir, school of music, archdeacons, curates, treasurer chapter, and
a schoolmaster. Beyond paying for this expensive display of piety,
he regularly attended church and showed a devotion to the
cult of Holy Innocence. So fou Jay hypothesizes that after
(25:24):
Jil was excommunicated early in the trial, he began to negotiate.
He was confronted with the fact that he could very
well be found guilty and if he were killed. At
that point he would no longer go to heaven in
order to save his soul. In the two days after
his excommunication, Jil's agreed to confess if the church would
(25:48):
vacate his excommunication. The church followed through on that promise,
and after Jill was found guilty, they rescinded his excommunication
and Jill could once again be assured of his entrance
to heaven. Who Jay further argues that Jeals's confession to
the public was so gratuitous because he was trying to
(26:10):
make it seem unbelievable. He made such an incredible confession
that no one should believe it, therefore saving his reputation,
at least in theory. Unfortunately, we can't know if the
townspeople at the time would have interpreted his confession that way,
and if that was Jial's plan, it backfired spectacularly given
(26:35):
that we've accepted the truth of his confession for hundreds
of years. The final reason why some historians now believe
in Jials's possible innocence is that the historical record has
misrepresented his court case. Margot Kgb, biographer of Jill, found
multiple accusations, like the murder of the three children of
(26:58):
Jials's valet that don't exist in the original court transcript.
Historians have used examples like that for evidence, when in reality,
a lot of Gills's narrative has become something of a
historical game of telephone. So was he innocent? Were the
(27:19):
crimes at least possibly exaggerated? All of that raises the
question of why why would Gilday's be framed. There's no
conclusive answer, but people have hypothesized a couple of different reasons. First,
people love a salacious story, which means that it only
(27:40):
makes sense that over the centuries, the details of Gille
Duay's case would become bigger, more exaggerated, and more lurid.
Aside from that, recall that fewer than ten years before
Giles's trial, his comrade in arms, Jean of Arc, was
similarly found guilty and executed on charges of heresy. Some
(28:03):
scholars have wondered if his association with the future saint
might have contributed to his downfall. Others have dismissed that idea,
instead pointing to more selfish reasons. Giles Deray was a
wealthy man, and if he was found guilty of such
a terrible crime, his lands would not be passed to
(28:26):
his heirs, but would instead be forfeited, and who stood
to benefit from that guilt the very officials who charged him.
But none of that can be proven, at least not
with the historical records currently known to us. So unfortunately
we have to accept that we may never know the
exact machinations that took down one of the wealthiest lords
(28:50):
in medieval France. The historians who claim that Gilderray was
indeed guilty of those heenous crimes aren't purposefully obscuring the past.
If you looked strictly at what survived in the written record,
it is extremely easy to come to that conclusion. But
(29:11):
history is complicated, and who knows what evidence might have
been lost to the centuries as to the true fate
of Gialdreys's soul. God only knows. Keep listening after a
brief sponsor break to hear about the colorful literary figure
(29:35):
that Gialdreys might have inspired. Considering Gialdurey's's famous and salacious story,
(29:58):
it's not surprising that he might have inspired a famous
literary character, blue Beard. Blue Beard isn't the most popular
fairy tale story, so if you haven't heard of him,
Blue Beard is a character from a French folk tale
that follows this general storyline. Blue Beard is a wealthy
man who murdered his wives, and even when a wife
(30:21):
found out the sad fate of her six predecessors, she
was doomed to die just like they did. However, his
last wife is actually able to thwart blue Beard, and
after discovering the gruesome remains of his previous wives in
the dungeon, she's rescued by her family. They kill blue Beard,
(30:42):
she inherits the castle and lays to rest his murdered wives.
Although Jill d'erres never murdered his wife, the French baron
is largely attributed as the inspiration for the myth. The
tale of blue Beard itself has been referenced in or
inspired a multitude of literary, theatrical, and amusement park creations.
(31:08):
The King of Tragedy himself, Shakespeare, quoted the English version
of the tale titled Mister Fox in the play Much
Ado About Nothing. Benedict exclaims, like the old tale, my lord,
it is not so, nor twas not so, but indeed
God forbid it should be so. The old tale here
(31:30):
is mister Fox aka blue Beard, a rather small reference,
but I would be remiss not to call out Shakespeare's
connection to this episode's subject. Another famous English author used
Bluebeard as inspiration for a short story published in eighteen sixty.
Charles Dickens's Captain Murderer told of a relative of Bluebeard
(31:55):
who took Bluebeard's brutality to the next extreme. Cannibal blue
Beard has also received the Hollywood treatment, with the basic
elements of the story inspiring a number of films, from
Gaslight to ex Machina. My favorite Bluebeard reference, though, can
(32:16):
be found not in literature or film, but in Orlando, Florida.
At the exit of Disney World's Haunted Mansion Ride, visitors
can see Bluebeard's tombstone, which also includes the names of
his six wives he killed and the seventh one who
killed him. Interestingly, the date of death on Bluebeard's disney
(32:40):
World tombstone is fourteen forty, the same year that Gille
Dray was executed. Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio
and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankin. Noble Blood is
(33:01):
hosted by me Danish Forts, with additional writing and researching
by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zewick, Courtney Sender, Julia Milani, and
Armand Cassam. The show is edited and produced by Noemy
Griffin and rima Il Kaali, with supervising producer Josh Thain
(33:22):
and executive producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick.
Four more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim
and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised before we begin.
Just a very very exciting announcement. I am so thrilled
that next July July twenty twenty five, I will be
leading a pilgrimage to the Cotswalds in England to talk
(00:22):
about the novel The Remains of the Day by kazu
Ishi Guru, the Nobel Prize winner. First, if you haven't
read the novel, it is absolutely one of my favorite
books and I cannot think of a better way to
appreciate it. Then get a great group of people together
talk about the book.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
These pilgrimages are so much fun. We talk about a book,
there's writing, You go on walks every day, you get
to explore these amazing tiny towns, stay at beautiful locations.
This is actually the third program I've done with this company.
The company is called common Ground. So yeah, if this
interests you, If you think that next summer you'll want
(00:59):
to be in a English town talking about a brilliant book,
working on your own writing, and going on walks, you
should absolutely sign up. I know there's a few spots
left register common ground Pilgrimages Remains of the Day Danish Schwartz.
The website is actually reading and walking with dot com.
I'm gonna put it on my Instagram, so take a look.
(01:21):
If that excites you, I would just love to be
there with you. I've had such a good experience doing
these pilgrimages, leading these tours. They're just so much fun.
It's my favorite thing to do, to talk about literature,
to work on writing, to go on beautiful walks. I
can't think of a better way to spend a few
days in the summer. So if this interests you, there
(01:42):
are still spots available for the Remains of the Day
pilgrimage in the Cotswaltz. Before we begin today's episode one,
brief content note. This episode mentions references to the murder
of children if that is especially disturbing for you. Obviously
(02:03):
it's disturbing for everyone, but if that's an issue that
requires more sensitivity for you, this might be an episode
to skip. Mud and wet garbage squashed beneath people's feet
as everyone wandered slowly through the town of Nant in France.
(02:23):
It had rained all night, but luckily the rain had
stopped in time for the day's planned executions. It was
October twenty seventh, fourteen forty, and three convicted men had
been sentenced to death just the day before. No one,
not even the convicts themselves, wished to delay their inevitable fate,
(02:48):
and so the general public of nant all processed towards
the scaffolds. With all of the quote, ritual, pomp and
music that characterized the procession. It would have been hard
to miss the parade, and before long the number of
people in the group multiplied, and despite the heinous crimes
(03:11):
supposedly committed by these men, the townspeople walking to the
scaffold actually started praying for the leader of the criminals,
praying for Gille Deray and his salvation. Gille, a baron
in the region, listened intently to those prayers. He was
(03:33):
an intensely religious man, and his salvation was the most
important thing to him. He was only able to calmly
accept the news because he knew that he had been
absolved and salvation would be possible. After all, he had
done everything the courts had asked of him. He had
(03:53):
confessed to the crimes and made his confession as lurid
as he could. He even begged forgiveness from the victim's families.
In response, the Catholic Church had assured him that his
confession lifted the ban of excommunication that had been placed
on him. Execution would send him to Heaven, not hell,
(04:16):
they said, and even though his reputation on earth was
tarnished beyond repair, Jill knew that God knew the truth.
After walking for two hours, the swollen crowd reached the
site of execution. Jill was ushered to stand alongside his
(04:36):
two servants and alleged partners in crime, and he had
the noose placed around his neck. Looking out at the
crowd that had come to watch him hang, he would
have seen familiar faces. He would have seen people who
had staffed his homes, who had acted in his pageants
and plays, and fought under his banner, people he had
(05:00):
and who had gone on to call for his conviction
and his death. Jill closed his eyes as he felt
the rope around his neck titan. The calls of prayer
and the juxtaposing shouts of excitement for his death faded
away as Jill turned his mind only toward heaven and
(05:22):
his eternal reward. With a swift pull, the world went black,
and Jill Deray the Man died. In that same moment,
Jill Deray the legend was born. This man's story might
not sound familiar to you. It probably just sounds like
a generic tale of medieval execution. But if you've read
(05:47):
any particularly gruesome Internet listicles, maybe in honor of Halloween
and spooky season talking about history's scariest figures, you might
have encountered Gildaurey's's name. His story has been misrepresented knowingly
or unknowingly by historians across multiple centuries, and in this episode,
(06:11):
I want to try to talk about what might have
really happened This man, Gilday's has been labeled for centuries
as one of the most prolific and sadistic serial killers
in history. But it's time we take a closer look
and ask a simple question, was he even guilty? I'm
(06:37):
Dana Schwartz and this is Noble Blood. Over the past
five wow years here at Noble Blood, we've covered many
notorious historical figures, including one Elizabeth Bathory. Across the Internet,
you will find no shortage of sillacious descriptions of Elizabeth
(07:00):
Bathory as a ruthless serial killer who would bathe in
her young victim's blood in order to try to remain youthful.
But as covered in our episode The Blood Countess, the
bathing in blood was a complete fabrication, and it's even
possible that Elizabeth Bathory was entirely framed by political opponents
(07:24):
threatened by her power. Elizabeth's story and the way it
became infamous is not too dissimilar from the story of
the subject of this episode, Jill Deray. As I mentioned
in the introduction, he's touted across the web as a
brutal serial killer and pedophile who violated over one hundred
(07:46):
and forty children in medieval France. It's an astonishing and
gruesome claim, and it's easy to understand why it attracts
so much salacious attention. But in the in tyst of
diving a little deeper, let's go now to northwestern France
in the fourteen hundreds to examine who Jildray actually was
(08:09):
and what the circumstances were that led to his long
legacy of infamy. Gildreys was born in fourteen oh four
to parents who both descended from great feudal houses, so
Jill was set up well from birth, with connections to
powerful and wealthy lineages. In fact, the barony that he
(08:31):
possessed was reputed to be one of the six oldest
baronies in the Duchy of Brittany at the time. By
the time Jeel came of age through inheritance and marriage,
he controlled a wide swath of land across western France
and Brittany. In essence, Jil was somebody important in the
(08:52):
world of feudal lords. Jill was born right in the
middle of the Hundred Years' War, and given that his
job as a baron was literally to raise men and fight,
an important portion of his life, especially early on, was
dominated by that long lasting conflict. Even though we've covered
(09:13):
various aspects of the Hundred Years War here on Noble Blood,
I think we would all benefit from a brief, brief
summary of the very complicated conflict. In short, between thirteen
thirty seven and fourteen fifty three, England and France were
engaged in an enduring battle over who actually ruled France.
(09:37):
The war was a defining period for both the English
and the French, who each found people and battles to
rally behind and identify with. For the English, think of
the Battle of Agincorps and King Henry the Eighth. For
the French, one name probably stands above the rest, at
least in terms of the modern popular imagination. Joan of Arc.
(10:02):
Joan of Arc, a teenage peasant girl who said that
she was given divine guidance from archangels to help save
the French from English domination, helped lead the French army
to victory in the Siege of Orleans in fourteen twenty nine.
Now this is where our protagonist, Gill day factors in.
(10:25):
Jill fought at the Siege of Orleans and then took
part in the Loire Campaign with Joan of Arc after
her victory. It was Jill's participation in that campaign that
led to some of his newly elevated status at court,
including a new official role carrier of the Holy Water
(10:46):
in the Coronation of Charles the Seventh. Another component that
contributed to Jill's status as an important feudal lord was
surprise surprise, great wealth. Controlling so much land afforded Jill
a not insubstantial income, and through smart maneuvering and the
(11:08):
help of his grandfather, Jill was able to grow his
coffers The biggest move he made was a strategic marriage,
which allowed him to add substantially to his holdings with
the holdings that he inherited as well as those he
acquired through marriage. Jill was arguably one of the wealthiest
(11:29):
barons in France, and Jill was not afraid to spend
that fortune. He was known for living lavishly, having extravagant taste,
and spending wildly. He kept a large entourage wherever he went,
which included, because Jill was a particular fan of the
(11:49):
performing arts, a herald choir, and several portable organs. When
he would set up camp in one place or another,
he would often sponsor for the local community. The most
famous of these plays was The Siege of Orleans, which
he put on in the city of Orleans on the
(12:10):
sixth anniversary of the battle. More than five hundred actors
took part in the play, including Jil himself, which depicted
and celebrated the defeat of the English by Jill's comrade
in arms, Joan of Arc. In addition to paying all
of these actors, Jill supplied a never ending buffet of
(12:32):
food and wine to both the actors and play spectators.
While he clearly liked to glorify his own past military triumphs.
Jill's also just certainly liked to engage in opulent displays
of wealth, and it would turn out to be his
overspending and his debts that would one day get him
(12:56):
into trouble. By fourteen twenty nine, Gilldray was a Marshal
of France. He had achieved a great measure of status
and money and could retire to his various estates to
spend his days putting on plays or finding other ways
to spend his fortune. And if that's all he had done,
(13:19):
this episode would end here. But as you probably know,
we've only just begun. As I alluded to, Gill Durray
had a habit of overspending, and at a certain point
he started selling off properties to pay off his debts.
In fourteen forty he decided to sell the castle of
(13:41):
Saint Etienne de mer Mort in Brittany. The nobleman who
bought the castle entrusted the keys to his brother, a priest.
Seems like a normal real estate transaction so far, except
Jill decided that he actually wanted the castle back so
that he could sell it to his cousin so on
(14:02):
a Sunday in early May fourteen forty, Jel and a
retinue of sixty horsemen stormed into the parish church where
the key holding priests was leading mass, and he threatened
to kill the priest if he did not surrender the
castle to him. The vigilante group, led by Jill dragged
(14:26):
the priest to the castle gates and forced him to
open the gates for them. Once the priest opened the
gates and allowed them to take the castle, they chained
the priest up in the dungeon and beat him. Now
this assault was a pretty brazen act, but local authorities
(14:47):
might have overlooked it given Jils's status. However, he and
his gang had accosted a priest, and doing so violated
ecclesiastical immunity, which should have protect did the priest from
that exact sort of thing from happening. Therefore, the church
had grounds to bring Jill to court. Now, ecclesiastical courts,
(15:11):
as well as the local courts or parliament, operated on
the inquisitorial system at the time, where the judges were
active fact seekers as opposed to impartial referees. So when
the Church did indeed decide to charge Shield they began
an investigation into him. Bishop Jean de Mastrat set off
(15:35):
on that investigation, beginning in the parish of Notre Dame,
which was home to Jill's main residence. The bishop spoke
with a multitude of people in the region during the investigation,
and in doing so he discovered that there were a
number of missing children who were almost all rumored to
(15:58):
have been kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and killed by Jil. Parents
and acquaintances of these missing children supposedly spoke to the
bishop and confirmed these rumors had been swirling about for
some time now. While local townspeople were willing to accuse Jill,
(16:20):
they weren't necessarily willing to testify in court. The bishop
was able to overcome that issue once he found former
servants of Jil's who would testify in court that he
had indeed murdered hundreds of children. The servants claimed that
Jil forced them to help him murder and then dispose
(16:43):
of the bodies in a myriad of ways. Whether these
servants were compelled to testify against their former employer because
of a sense of justice for the murdered or because
of the threat of torture by the bishop we can't
know for sure. During his investigation, the bishop also found
(17:04):
a magician whom Jill had allegedly employed, and who would
testify that he had helped Jill participate in alchemy and
seances summoning a demon. While unrelated to the murders, using
alchemy definitely made Jill look all the more guilty. If
he was willing to transgress against God in one way,
(17:27):
he probably transgressed in others. With sufficient witnesses now at
the ready, the bishop brought charges against Jill for not
only the kidnapping and abuse of a priest, but also
quote witchcraft, sexual misconduct, and homicide. On September thirteenth, fourteen forty,
(17:50):
the trial of Jill Day began. Actually, the two trials
of Jil began. While the church had begun the investigation,
the civil courts had also elected to charge him with
murder and kidnapping, so once he was charged by both courts,
the trials proceeded simultaneously as if they were just one case.
(18:14):
From the moment the case began, Jill went on the offensive.
He attacked the judges, calling them simoniacs, an insult back then,
and questioning their right to try him. The courts did
not take kindly to those insults, and the church promptly
excommunicated Gile. Two days later, Gile returned to court and
(18:38):
made a complete one hundred and eighty degree turn. Now
he was entirely repentant and apologetic. He accepted the charges,
but because he had not yet confessed, the case proceeded.
The bulk of the trial was hearing testimony. All of
the testimony provided was from former servants of Jil that
(19:02):
the bishop had identified in his investigation. Over the next
several days in court, these former servants, some of whom
were charged as accomplices, detailed Jill's sins, attempted deals with
demons to avoid prosecution for financial woes, making servants procure
(19:23):
victims by kidnapping young children from poor families, and finding
sexual gratification from torturing and killing these children. I won't
go into further detail about the sexual details of the
crimes and murders because that seems gratuitous and unnecessary, but
(19:44):
that's what the testimony laid bare. While the court is
inconsistent with the numbers, historians agree that Jill was ultimately
accused of killing more than one hundred and forty children
in the span of only a couple of years. Finally,
it came time in the case for the court to
(20:05):
torture Jill in order to draw out his much desired confession.
But Jill stepped forward and proclaimed that he would give
his testimony the unvarnished truth willingly, and so he was
saved from the type of torture that he was accused
of enacting on hundreds of children. After providing his testimony
(20:30):
and confession in the privacy of the court, Jill staged
a rather over the top public confession in the vernacular
so that any and everyone could hear and understand it.
On October twenty second. Jill held nothing back, and he
told the world that what he had done would be
(20:51):
enough to convict ten thousand men. He agreed that everything
people had testified against him was true, and that he
derived pleasure from all of the sins he committed. He
finished by asking God and the parents of the murdered
children to forgive him. His unequivocal confession must have stunned
(21:14):
the audience. I doubt anyone expected someone to openly admit
to such depravity. As soon as Jill Darades confessed, his
trial concluded, and interestingly, his excommunication was rescinded. That's important,
so we'll be talking a little more about that later.
(21:35):
Jill and his two accomplices, the two who had actually
testified against him, were sentenced to be hanged and then
burned at the stake. As I explored in the opening
of this episode, the criminals were paraded through not to
their hanging on October twenty sixth, less than two weeks
(21:56):
after the trial had begun. With his death, Jill Deurey's
name went down in infamy. Historians proclaimed him to be
a violent rapist and sadistic murderer, the likes of who
could be compared to Jeffrey Dahmer, and his depravity is
that much more fascinating when juxtaposed with his more youthful
(22:19):
days spent fighting alongside France's literal patron, Saint Joan of
arc No wonder Jills invites such fascination and regularly appears
on lists of the worst serial killers in history. But
what if I told you Jildreyse was possibly innocent. Gildreyse's
(22:43):
legacy is still hotly debated, but some historians have argued
that he was framed by the Church and guilty of
no wrongdoings at all. In fact, after a French book
published in nineteen ninety two proclaimed Jills's innocence, a retrial
was called and the Court of Cassation, the highest court
(23:04):
of appeals in France, exonerated him. So officially, Jill has
been cleared of all charges, although scholars called into question
the accuracy and research that was used in that symbolic proceeding.
In addition to the lawyers at the retrial, scholars like
Thomas A. Fuja and Margot K. Juby have pointed out
(23:27):
a number of issues with the original case against Jill,
as well as challenges to the historical scholarship surrounding the
French noble that have been accepted as fact. The biggest
flaw in the original trial was that there was no
physical evidence against Jill. His main crime was killing hundreds
(23:49):
of children, but there were no bodies, skeletons, or bones
found that pointed toward Jill as a killer. All of
the evidence leveled against him was circumstantial, entirely testimony from
people that couldn't be corroborated, so no one even had
proof that the missing children were actually dead. Now it's
(24:14):
true that Jill himself did confess to his crimes and
was quite explicit about the extremely brutal acts he committed
and the pleasure he allegedly derived from them. So even
if there were no bodies found, we could believe that
Jil Deray was a murderer because he admitted it. However,
(24:36):
Thomas A. Fujay made the argument that we should be
at least a little skeptical of that confession. By all accounts,
Jill was an incredibly religious man. Remember how I mentioned
earlier that Jil spent his money with no sense of limit. Well.
As part of his expression of his faith, he bankrolled
(24:58):
a private chapel as well as that chapel's own Dean
Vicker choir, school of music, archdeacons, curates, treasurer chapter, and
a schoolmaster. Beyond paying for this expensive display of piety,
he regularly attended church and showed a devotion to the
cult of Holy Innocence. So fou Jay hypothesizes that after
(25:24):
Jil was excommunicated early in the trial, he began to negotiate.
He was confronted with the fact that he could very
well be found guilty and if he were killed. At
that point he would no longer go to heaven in
order to save his soul. In the two days after
his excommunication, Jil's agreed to confess if the church would
(25:48):
vacate his excommunication. The church followed through on that promise,
and after Jill was found guilty, they rescinded his excommunication
and Jill could once again be assured of his entrance
to heaven. Who Jay further argues that Jeals's confession to
the public was so gratuitous because he was trying to
(26:10):
make it seem unbelievable. He made such an incredible confession
that no one should believe it, therefore saving his reputation,
at least in theory. Unfortunately, we can't know if the
townspeople at the time would have interpreted his confession that way,
and if that was Jial's plan, it backfired spectacularly given
(26:35):
that we've accepted the truth of his confession for hundreds
of years. The final reason why some historians now believe
in Jials's possible innocence is that the historical record has
misrepresented his court case. Margot Kgb, biographer of Jill, found
multiple accusations, like the murder of the three children of
(26:58):
Jials's valet that don't exist in the original court transcript.
Historians have used examples like that for evidence, when in reality,
a lot of Gills's narrative has become something of a
historical game of telephone. So was he innocent? Were the
(27:19):
crimes at least possibly exaggerated? All of that raises the
question of why why would Gilday's be framed. There's no
conclusive answer, but people have hypothesized a couple of different reasons. First,
people love a salacious story, which means that it only
(27:40):
makes sense that over the centuries, the details of Gille
Duay's case would become bigger, more exaggerated, and more lurid.
Aside from that, recall that fewer than ten years before
Giles's trial, his comrade in arms, Jean of Arc, was
similarly found guilty and executed on charges of heresy. Some
(28:03):
scholars have wondered if his association with the future saint
might have contributed to his downfall. Others have dismissed that idea,
instead pointing to more selfish reasons. Giles Deray was a
wealthy man, and if he was found guilty of such
a terrible crime, his lands would not be passed to
(28:26):
his heirs, but would instead be forfeited, and who stood
to benefit from that guilt the very officials who charged him.
But none of that can be proven, at least not
with the historical records currently known to us. So unfortunately
we have to accept that we may never know the
exact machinations that took down one of the wealthiest lords
(28:50):
in medieval France. The historians who claim that Gilderray was
indeed guilty of those heenous crimes aren't purposefully obscuring the past.
If you looked strictly at what survived in the written record,
it is extremely easy to come to that conclusion. But
(29:11):
history is complicated, and who knows what evidence might have
been lost to the centuries as to the true fate
of Gialdreys's soul. God only knows. Keep listening after a
brief sponsor break to hear about the colorful literary figure
(29:35):
that Gialdreys might have inspired. Considering Gialdurey's's famous and salacious story,
(29:58):
it's not surprising that he might have inspired a famous
literary character, blue Beard. Blue Beard isn't the most popular
fairy tale story, so if you haven't heard of him,
Blue Beard is a character from a French folk tale
that follows this general storyline. Blue Beard is a wealthy
man who murdered his wives, and even when a wife
(30:21):
found out the sad fate of her six predecessors, she
was doomed to die just like they did. However, his
last wife is actually able to thwart blue Beard, and
after discovering the gruesome remains of his previous wives in
the dungeon, she's rescued by her family. They kill blue Beard,
(30:42):
she inherits the castle and lays to rest his murdered wives.
Although Jill d'erres never murdered his wife, the French baron
is largely attributed as the inspiration for the myth. The
tale of blue Beard itself has been referenced in or
inspired a multitude of literary, theatrical, and amusement park creations.
(31:08):
The King of Tragedy himself, Shakespeare, quoted the English version
of the tale titled Mister Fox in the play Much
Ado About Nothing. Benedict exclaims, like the old tale, my lord,
it is not so, nor twas not so, but indeed
God forbid it should be so. The old tale here
(31:30):
is mister Fox aka blue Beard, a rather small reference,
but I would be remiss not to call out Shakespeare's
connection to this episode's subject. Another famous English author used
Bluebeard as inspiration for a short story published in eighteen sixty.
Charles Dickens's Captain Murderer told of a relative of Bluebeard
(31:55):
who took Bluebeard's brutality to the next extreme. Cannibal blue
Beard has also received the Hollywood treatment, with the basic
elements of the story inspiring a number of films, from
Gaslight to ex Machina. My favorite Bluebeard reference, though, can
(32:16):
be found not in literature or film, but in Orlando, Florida.
At the exit of Disney World's Haunted Mansion Ride, visitors
can see Bluebeard's tombstone, which also includes the names of
his six wives he killed and the seventh one who
killed him. Interestingly, the date of death on Bluebeard's disney
(32:40):
World tombstone is fourteen forty, the same year that Gille
Dray was executed. Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio
and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankin. Noble Blood is
(33:01):
hosted by me Danish Forts, with additional writing and researching
by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zewick, Courtney Sender, Julia Milani, and
Armand Cassam. The show is edited and produced by Noemy
Griffin and rima Il Kaali, with supervising producer Josh Thain
(33:22):
and executive producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick.
Four more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Dana Schwartz
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