During the dark Middle Ages, witch trials were common. But in this line of victims there were also men who could not be declared "witches", but were sent into the fire as, for example, werewolves. Gilles Garnier, who lived in France in the second half of the 16th century, was one of them …
In most cases, crimes committed in the medieval period were classified as "actions of" dark forces ". The judges did not bother looking for material explanations - for example, mental abnormalities, hunger or a desire to improve their financial situation, and without further hesitation they wrote off everything on the intrigues of the unclean. And if so, then the investigation was limited to admitting the accused of his guilt and retelling the events of the deed. No one thought that a person could incriminate himself, especially under the influence of torture (and they were used quite often).
This was the fate of a French peasant known as the "hermit of Saint Bonneau", a small village located near the town of Dol (Burgundy).
At the edge of the forest
The medieval community rigidly regulated the rules of conduct for its members. Any deviation - social, sexual or physiological - under the appropriate circumstances could lead to tragic consequences.
Therefore, there is nothing surprising in what happened to Gilles Garnier, a young Frenchman who in the early 1570s settled with his wife at the edge of a dense forest. From his first appearance and the choice of the place of settlement, the stranger alerted the inhabitants of a nearby village. According to the peasants, the desire to live away from people was suspicious - therefore, this man had something to hide.
Today we cannot say for sure why Gilles and his wife avoided people: most likely, some of them (apparently, Gilles) had some kind of physiological flaws. He may have suffered from what is known today as hypertrichosis. This is understood as increased hair growth on hairy parts of the body or in the area of smooth skin (except for the red border of the lips, palms and soles). For the time being, Garnier somehow hid this flaw, but living in a big city (documents indicate that he lived in Lyon before moving to Saint-Bonneau), it is difficult to hide it. And it seemed to Gilles that in the wild land, where people are pure in heart, simple-minded and benevolent, no one would care about him.
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But he did not take into account the fact that the places around were deaf, wooded and quiet, so wild animals feel quite at ease there.
Around the same time, a huge ferocious wolf appeared in those parts. He hunted herds of local shepherds, spreading fear and anxiety throughout the area. And it would be good (although, of course, what is good here?), For the wolf to limit itself to sheep or cows. But the wild beast also attacked small children. It is difficult to say whether this was a coincidence, or whether the children actually fell victim to the wolves, but these cases for Gilles Garnier had the most tragic consequences.
In the village, witnesses were immediately found who claimed that the poor children were the victims of a werewolf. Rumors spread around the area. Fear of some supernatural creature living in the forests (and fear was a common state of man at that time) led to panic. Of course, the villagers quickly found themselves an object of suspicion: it was a hermit who lived in the forest. But the local authorities did not have sufficient evidence at first. As concerns grew, the local parliament (the highest judicial body and regional government) decided to take some action. He published a proclamation calling on all men, armed with pikes, arquebus, sticks and halberds, to gather and drive the wolf.
Clouds began to gather over Gilles Garnier. But he, apparently, did not attach much importance to this: he did not know that the hunt for him had begun.
Werewolf under arrest
The village daredevils, encouraged by the appeal of the authorities, rushed into the forest. It is difficult to say how long they tracked down their prey, although it is known that these events took place from August to November 1572. Be that as it may, the hunters soon caught the beast at the scene of the atrocity: the dire wolf tried in the meadow of La Poupe, between Otune and Chastenois, to drag a little girl into the forest. Brave hunters pulled the victim literally from the wolf's mouth. She was badly bitten, but intact. And then one of the hunters suggested that the wolf's face is very similar to the face of a hermit living at the edge of the forest. With this assumption, the hunters returned to the village. The representatives of the authorities listened to this wild story and thought: shouldn't we arrest this type?
A guard was sent for Garnier, and soon the hermit appeared before the all-seeing eyes of the authorities. From the standpoint of today, such a turn of events seems incredible. Firstly, how a man, even even an adult and possessing huge dimensions, can keep even a tiny girl in his teeth is completely incomprehensible. Secondly, most likely, the girl resisted, and even a cursory examination of the suspect's clothes or his body would dispel all doubts about Garnier's guilt.
But this was not done. And the hermit himself, apparently, was at odds with his head. He was confused about testimony and explanations, but when he was "interrogated" (which meant torture), he confessed that he was in fact a werewolf.
Sincere confession
The trial in his case took place at the very beginning of 1573, Henri Camus was the public prosecutor. Garnier pleaded guilty and testified about the time he spent in the skin of a wolf.
Central to his confession was the murder of two little boys, 10 and 12 years old, one of whom he killed near Dole, and the other (in August 1570) in a pear orchard near the village of Perrouz in the Kromani parish. When he began to eat the body of the latter, he was frightened off by the approach of day laborers.
In October of that year, he allegedly killed a little girl playing in the woods about a mile from Dole. Garnier said he found her meat "especially tasty." Back in human form, he took the body part with him to cook for dinner. Here is an excerpt from the protocol drawn up during the trial: “… and having killed and killed her with his hands, which seemed to be paws, and teeth; and dragging her with his hands and terrible teeth to the above-mentioned Serre forest, there he peeled off her skin and ate the meat from the thighs and hands, and, not satisfied with this, he took the meat to his wife Apolline in the deserts of Saint-Bonneau near Amanges, which was his place of residence and his wife. In addition, the aforementioned defendant, a week after the Feast of All Saints, also in the guise of a wolf, grabbed another girl in the same places, near the Rüpt meadow, in the Otum region,located between the aforementioned Otum and Chastenois, shortly before noon on the indicated day, and strangled her, and inflicted five wounds on her with his own hands, and intended to eat her, if three people had not come to help, as he himself confessed and confessed many times …"
It is difficult to say who in this case is more abnormal: the one who admitted all this, or the one who listened and wrote down. It may well be that the feeble-minded, demented Garnier simply imagined himself a wolf, and his crime consisted of cannibalism, not werewolf. It is possible that Garnier and his wife succumbed to unnatural desires, trying to survive in the thicket of the forest, and resorted to eating their own kind. But all these social and psychological subtleties were not taken into account by Dolya officials, who were required only to conduct a trial and execution.
They chose execution - on January 18, 1573, Gilles Garnier, accused of killing four children, was burned at the stake. After that, the local authorities issued an order encouraging and allowing anyone to catch and kill the werewolf, who was shifted responsibility for everything that happened.
Egor KIRILLOV