PTSD in Medieval Times?

Soldiers suffering from PTSD in war have been documented all the way to ancient times.

Sandhya Hegade
3 min readJun 29, 2022
Joan of Arc waving her military banner at the Siege of Orleans (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

TThe story of Achilles as told by Homer in the Iliad appears to show signs of regret for many of his actions — including the near destruction of Hector’s body — and guilt is in itself always the first major step towards developing post-traumatic stress disorder… and this does not discriminate between those who inherit their trauma from the battlefields or a school shooting.

Unfortunately, medieval trauma is nowhere near as well-documented for historians when compared to more recent conflicts, but one particular case that is worthy of note is the fate of Gilles de Rais.

This man had been a fighter who had fought beside the legendary Joan of Arc in many battles, and though he survived into retirement, most criminologists, psychologists, and historians who have studied his behavior have concluded that his sudden self-destruction that would claim the lives of anywhere between several dozen to several hundred children was seeded from his war years.

Once he had retired, Gilles de Rais is said to have become a playwright, which included a 20,000-line story about the Siege of D’Orleans… whose production cost near drove him into financial bankruptcy.

Suffice to say, he began reliving his years through these plays, which often included children, who were regarded as more economically affordable actors than their experienced adult counterparts.

Depiction of a medieval play (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

With the exception of these plays, Gilles became increasingly reclusive, which was made all the easier by using up what little money he had left for his own personal amusement.

At some unknown date, Gilles was alleged to have turned away from God and joined a Satanic cult, where he was instructed to begin sacrifice children as a “cure” for his conditions.

By the time his crimes were discovered, as many as six-hundred children had reportedly gone missing — all of them boys between six to eighteen, with the majority of them having met the now-accused serial killer through his plays.

Due to his past military service, as well as the mitigating factors of his mental state, the court that convicted Gilles had offered him the insanity plea, which would have resulted in him spending the rest of his life imprisoned in a monastery or some other suitable institution.

Gilles de Rais (Red Clothes) approaching his execution site (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Gilles de Rais refused to accept that he was insane, so he was convicted as an ordinary offender and sentenced to death by hanging.

The execution of the thirty-five-year-old condemned man was carried out on October 26, 1440, and his body was then cremated, so that the physical remains would not be abused by would-be vigilantes.

Some of those who have reviewed his case over the centuries have argued that Gilles de Rais was an innocent man, whose accusations stemmed due to disassociating himself from the Roman Catholic Church — prompting some authorities to use him as a high-profile example of what can happen when an individual becomes led astray — though these beliefs are not unanimous.

According to some accounts, Gilles — the only documented serial killer in medieval Europe, with the arguable exception of Elizabeth Bathory — had witnessed the burning of Joan of Arc nine years earlier.

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Sandhya Hegade

Weaving Echoes of Herstories | In the labyrinth of time, I unearth the forgotten whispers of women whose footprints shaped destinies.