The case record
What was reported?
The Green Lady of Brissac is traditionally identified with Charlotte de Valois. The legend attaches a medieval death to the château, but identification of a reported figure with a named historical woman requires evidence beyond a shared setting.
Popular accounts describe a woman in green appearing within the castle. They often add dramatic personal details to explain her supposed return. The reviewed material does not establish those details from contemporary records, so this entry does not present a moral judgement about Charlotte as history.
1477 is Charlotte de Valois’s reported death year, not the first attestation of an apparition. Later rebuilding and ownership history must not be collapsed into the medieval story.
- Reported date
- 1477 historical death; later Green Lady legend
- Witnesses
- Residents, staff, visitors or later storytellers; distinctions described in the case narrative. · No independently established total; repeated retellings are not additional witnesses.
- Investigation
- Source authors, heritage custodians and investigators identified in the references.
Evidence in the record
The château’s own account documents its architectural and ownership history, including acquisition by the Cossé family in 1502. A French biographical overview supplies Charlotte’s chronology. The dedicated Green Lady article was accessible only through indexed material, leaving the precise chain of testimony insufficiently checked.
Competing explanations
Official and research context
No official finding establishing a supernatural cause was identified in the reviewed sources.
Conventional explanations
Rebuilding, inherited stories and the visual association between a portrait or costume and an ambiguous figure can shape a legend. These possibilities cannot determine what any witness saw. The current evidence supports the existence of a popular tradition, while its first attestation and medieval premises need stronger documentation.
Arguments that remain contested
The cited material records history and reported experiences; it does not establish that any unexplained detail had a supernatural cause.
Locations & timeline
Coordinates are representative. Area and route labels do not imply exact paths or object positions.
- Primary reference location
Château de Brissac
Representative map point for Château de Brissac; this is not an independently measured apparition location.
Representative setting for the reports or tradition · Approximate area radius: 0.5 km
47.353°, -0.449° · area · Approximate representative locality
Record notes
Folklore development offers the leading conventional context; individual reported experiences are not all independently resolved.
Dedicated haunting source was blocked and historical source chains remain incomplete. No feature placement; retain as attributed folklore with explicit limits.
Original dataset status: likely-conventional