Wraiths Revenants and Ritual in Medieval

The Past and Present Society
Wraiths, Revenants and Ritual in Medieval Culture

Author(s): Nancy Caciola
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Past & Present, No. 152 (Aug., 1996), pp. 3-45
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society
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WRAITHS,REVENANTSAND RITUALIN
MEDIEVAL
CULTURE*
INTRODUCTION
Whena humanbeingdies . . . the bodythatgavecomfortto manypeople

whileit was alive,provokeshorrorin the samepeopleaftPrdeath.Hence
the saying:
Humanfleshis viler thana sheep'sskin.
Whena sheepdies, its remains(ruina) are still worth
something,
The skin is stretchedand writtenon, both sides.
Whena humanbeing dies, both fleshand bonesdie.l
As this fourteenth-centurypreacherplaced nib to parchment,he

was moved to reflect upon the durability of the words he put
down, as contrastedwith the destructionof his body to come.
His melancholythoughts were realized, for although the manuscript still exists, the author'sname, along with the details of his
bodily existence, are lost. This particularwriter's musing on the
eternity of death is deceptive, however, for the finality of his
tone contrasts sharply with the fluid conceptions of death and
afterlife that are expressed in other medieval texts. Indeed, the
last line in particular "when a human being dies, both flesh
and bones die" actuallycontradictsa significantbody of evidence about medieval attitudes towards life, death and afterlife.
This article is about that body of evidence.
In the following pages I explore the ongoing processes of
construction, dissolution and reconstruction of the life/death
boundaryin Europeanculture roughly between the twelfth and
the fifteenth centuries. I shall argue that definitionsof death and
of life may be grouped into two broad models that competed
with one another,even as they overlappedwithin variouscultural
milieux: a spiritual model of life and afterlife, characteristicof
* I shouldlike to acknowledgethe kind encouragement
of Diane OwenHughes,
LesterLittle,RichardS. CohenandMichaelMacDonald.
1Fasciculusmorum:A Fourteenth-CenturyPreacher'sHandbook,i.l3, ed. Siegfried
Wenzel(UniversityPark,1989),p. 98.
PASTAND PRESENT
NUMBER 152
the theological and learned medical traditions, and a material

model prevalentamong lay sectors of society that were less concernedwith the theologicalissues of spirit and soul. In so arguing,
I hope to throw light upon the diversity of cultural traditions
within the Middle Ages.
Despite the large bibliography on the history of attitudes
towards death that has developed since the 1970s, especially in
France,2few studiesdiscussthe multiplicityof relevanttraditions,
at least for the Middle Ages. This neglect is in part caused by
the problematicnature of the evidence. The obvious places to
look for data wills, monumentalsepulchres,the provision of
masses, the artesmoriendi describe the fears and practicesof
the wealthy, the literate and the religiously committed. Sources
for the reconstructionof alternativetraditionsabout death and
afterlifeare more difficultto exploit, for the textualgenres closest
to the oral or "popular"milieu exempla collections,penitentials, inquisitorialproceedings,hagiographies have been preserved mainly through the activities of ecclesiasticalcollectors
and redactors.3And though the ecclesiasticalsphere preserves
much valuabledata for the historian,it is also "the creatorof a
universality a posteriori".4
That is to say, even as ecclesiastics
preserved notice of variant traditions, they also reinterpreted
them to conform to their own cultural standardsand beliefs,
leaving the impression of universality where diversity existed.
2 For a bibliographical
sampling,I referthe readerto the reviewessayby Stephen
Wilson,"Deathandthe SocialHistorians:
SomeRecentBooksin FrenchandEnglish",
Social History, v (1980), pp. 435-51;JaneTaylor(ed.), Dies illa: Death in the Middle
Ages (Liverpool,1984);Annales E. S. C., xxxi (1976), passim; HermanBraet and
WernerVerbeke(eds.), Death in the Middle Ages (Louvain,1983);andthe remaining
notesthroughoutthis article.
3For discussionof exempla, see Jean-ClaudeSchmitt, The Holy Greyhound:
Guinefort, Healer of Children since the Thirteenth Century, trans. Martin Thom
(Cambridge,1983);Jean-ClaudeSchmitt,Religione,folklore, e societa nell'Occidente
medievale,trans.LuciaCarle(Rome,1988);MarieAnnePolode BeaulieuandJacques
Berlioz,"Exempla:A Discussionand CaseStudy",in JoelRosenthal(ed.), Medieval
Womenand the Sourcesof MedievalHistory (Athens,Ga, 1990),pp. 37-65.Onpenitentials,see AronGurevich,"PopularCulturein the Mirrorof the Penitentials",in his
Medieval Popular Culture:Problemsof Belief and Perception,trans.JanosM. Bakand
Paul A. Hollingsworth(Cambridge,1988), pp. 78-103. For hagiography,the best
sourceis AndreVauchez,La saintete en Occident au dernierssiecles du Moyen Age
(Rome, 1981).For inquisitorialproceedings,see CarloGinzburg,Clues, Myths, and
the Historical Method, trans.JohnandAnneTedeschi(Baltimore,1989),pp. 156-64.
Of generalinterestis AndreVauchez(ed.), Faire croire:modalitesde la diJ?fusion
et de
la receptiondes messagesreligieuxdu XIIe au Xve siecle (Paris,1981).
4 HuguesNeveux, "Leslendemains
de la mortdansles croyancesoccidentales(vers
1250-vers1300)",Annales E.S.C., xxxiv (1979),p. 249.
WRAITHS,REVENANTSAND RITUAL
The task of the historian is to undo this process, to recover

multiplicity when hints of it exist by unravelling the different
strandsof culturalinterpretationthat are woven into the evidence.
As JonathanZ. Smith has noted, the historian'srole is "to complicate, not to clarify".5
Indeed, the process of reconstructingnon-canonicalbeliefs is
fraught with complicationsrather than clarity. Not least among
these complicationsis the fact that "popularculture" does not,
as such, exist.6 As a set of discursive terms, the dichotomy of
popularand elite has been created and maintainedby historians
as a means to differentiatethe canonicalideals of the literatefew
from the less well-documented mentalities of the populus. Yet
popularculture is invariablydefinedby what it is not literate,
urban, clerical rather than by what it iS.7 One result of this
imprecision has been a tendency to overemphasizethe position
of normative, high culture in relation to popular beliefs and
practices. This has occurred in two distinct ways: either the
popular is seen as an inferior version of an elite norm; or else
popularculture is envisagedas largely cut off from high culture,
resulting in a "two-tiered model".8 In either case, the culture
split is often constructedalong the lines of intellectualdogma or
belief versus daily ritual and praxis. This is in turn a loose
replicationof indigenousmedievalcategoriesof orthodoxyversus
superstztzo.
5JonathanZ. Smith,Map is not Territory:Studiesin the History of Religion(Chicago,

1993),p. 290.
Schmitt," 'Religionpopulaire'et culturefolklorique",Annales
6 See Jean-Claude
E.S.C., xxxi (1976),pp. 941-53;FrancisRapp,"Reflexionssur la religionpopulaire
au Moyen Age", in BernardPlongeron(ed.), La religionpopulaire dans l'Occident
chretien(Paris,1976), pp. 51-98; GaborKlaniczay,The Uses of SupernaturalPozoer:
The Transformationof Popular Religion in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed.
KarenMargolis,trans.SusanSingerman(Princeton,1990),pp. 1-9; MaryR. O'Neil,
"From 'Popular'to 'Local'Religion:Issues in EarlyModernEuropeanReligious
History", Religious Studies Rev., xii (1986), pp. 222-8; John Van Engen, "The
Problem",Amer. Hist. Rev., xci (1986),
ChristianMiddleAgesas anHistoriographical
pp. 519-52; for a responseto Van Engen, see Schmitt,Religione,folklore, e societa
nell'Occidentemedievale, pp. 1-27. An informativediscussionof the issues from a
andChinese
slightlydifferentperspectivemaybe foundin CatherineBell, 'CReligion
Culture:Towardan Assessmentof 'PopularReligion'", History of Religions, xxix
(1989),pp 35 57.
perspectiveon how binarydiscursivecategoriescan impede,
7 For a comparative
ratherthanexpedite,analysisof religiousculturein the past, see RichardS. Cohen,
"DiscontentedCategories:Hinayanaand Mahayanain IndianBuddhistHistory",il
Amer. Acad. Religion, lxiii (1995),pp. 1-25.
in Latin Christianity
8 Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and F?wnction
(Chicago,1981).
PASTAND PRESENT
NUMBER 152
Although it is useful to maintain contrastive distinctions

between "popular"and "elite" culture, we should not make the
mistake of confoundingdiscursivecategorieswith an actual historicaldualism. When discussingculturalvariancein the Middle
Ages, it is importantto recognizethat these differentperspectives
are largely relational: "popular" and "elite" come into play
through analysisof social dynamics, rather than as pre-existent
data. These categories must be seen as expressing ideological
tensions between models of cultural interpretation,rather than
as static strata or levels of culture in opposition. However, to
define popular and elite only relationallyis also an enterprise
fraughtwith hazard.As ChristopherHerberthas noted, following
E. B. Tylor, culture is difficult to define as other than a set of
abstractrelationshipsamong the elements of a "complex whole"
embracingreligion, social mores, art, politics and so forth. Yet
these relationshipsare not actually observable:they are simply
theorized as a basis of culturalcoherence.9This realizationadds
yet another caveat to the historian'stask. On the one hand, we
must avoid essentializingour analytic tools by imputing a false
sense of historicalconcretenessto them. On the other, we must
recognize "medievalculture"as a conceptualabstractionand the
idea of "popular and elite medieval cultures" as a secondgenerationabstraction.
Fortunately, abstractionsare not inappropriateto academic
discourse,even when they are problematicand difficultto define.
"Culture" has been and continues to be a useful conceptual
category in the humanitiesand social sciences; so too can terms
such as "popular"and "elite" continueas tools in the discussion
of past societies, for they representa pragmaticstrategyof interpretation. However, I shall deliberately allow these terms to
remainundefined:they are simplydiscursivemarkersfor discriminatingamongdifferentviewpoints,ratherthanhistoricalactualities that can be preciselydelimitedthroughempiricaldata.Indeed,
the very idea of formulatingspecifichistoricaldefinitionsof popular and elite culture is a paradox, for the production of an
abstractionby definitioninvolves a slippagefrom the observable
to the non-observable.
9 ChristopherHerbert, Culture and Anomie: Ethnographic Imagination in the
Nineteenth Century(Chicago,1991),pp. 4, 10.
II
DEFININGDEATH
The social significanceof death is constructedwith great variety

and complexity within different cultural contexts.l? Medieval
conceptionsof death were fluid:as I shall demonstrate,one could
die a "good" or a "bad" death; one could undergo a temporary
or a more permanentdeath; and one could die a partialdeaththat is, a death of the personalitywithout a death of the body,
or vice versa. Patrick Geary has defined the dead in the Middle
Ages as an "age class'':ll this neatly encapsulatesthe social reciprocity between the living and the dead, and the continuedinfluence that the latter exerted over the former throughoutmedieval
society. Intimacy between the living and the dead was possible
because death was not envisagedas a full extinguishingof either
body or spirit. In doctrinalterms, the body awaitedresurrection
even as it decayed,l2 while the soul entered one realm of a
tripartiteafterlife.l3In some local, popular traditionstoo, both
spirit and body were believed to live on
though in rather
different ways than those elaboratedby the theologians of the
time.
I turn first to the learned tradition, for it possessed a wellarticulatedset of medical definitionsand theologicaldoctrinesof
death and the afterlife. Centralto medieval medical theories of
life was the notion of spiritus as the principle of human vitality,
a doctrinethat has significantimplicationsfor social and religious
history as well.l4 Derived from Galenicmodels and enhancedby
10Cf.RobertHertz,Death and the Right Hand, trans.RodneyandClaudiaNeedham
(Glencoe,Ill., 1960);RobertHertz, "Contribution
a une etudesur la representation
collectivede la mort", in his Sociologiereligieuseet folklore, 2nd edn (Paris, 1970),
pp. 1-83;JonathanParryandMauriceBloch(eds.), Death and the Regenerationof Life
(Cambridge,1982);JackGoodyandCesarePoppi, "FlowersandBones:Approaches
to the Deadin Anglo-American
andItalianCemeteries",Comp.Studiesin Society and
Hist., xxxvi (1994),pp. 146-75.
11PatrickJ. Geary,Living with the lDeadin the Middle Ages (Ithaca,1994),p. 36.
12 Caroline
WalkerBynum,The Resurrectionof the Body (New York, 1994).
13 JacquesLe Goff, The Birth of Purgatory, trans.ArthurGoldhammer
(Chicago,
1981);AlanE. Bernstein,The Formationof Hell: Death and Retributionin the Ancient
and Early ChristianWorlds(Ithaca,1993);AronGurevich,HistoricalAnthropologyof
the Middle Ages, ed. Jana Howlett (Chicago, 1992), pp. 50-89; Aron Gurevich,
"PopularandScholarlyMedievalCulturalTraditions:Notesin the Marginof Jacques
Le Goff'sBook", YlMedievalHist., ix (1983),pp. 71-90. For Englishtranslations
of
primarysourcedocumentson purgatory,see Visionsof Heaven and Hell beforeDante,
trans.EileenGardiner(New York,1989).
14 The main worksthat I will rely on in the followingdiscussion
are: Nancy G.
Siraisi,TaddeoAlderotti and his Pupils: Two Generationsof Italian Medical Learning
icont.
on p. 8)
PAST AND PRESENT
NUMBER 152
Arab influences, spiritus was often subdivided into three classes

or physiologicalsystems: spiritus animalis, spiritus naturalis and
spiritus
vitalis.15
The animalspirit was held to reside in the brain,
and was responsible for psychic phenomena and the nervous
system; the naturalspirit had its basis in the liver and regulated
involuntary systems.l6 Both these kinds of spirit derived from
the vital spirit, which was manufacturedin the left ventricle of
the heart from inhaled air and thence diffused throughout the
body via the arteries.17 In the process, spiritus
regulatedthe vital
signs: heartbeat, pulse, respirationand maintenanceof proper
body temperature.l8Spirituscould also be seen in the form of
tears, which were held to be an eSusion of spirit caused by an
excess of emotion constrictingthe heart; its effects could be felt
in fevers and chills, since it was responsiblefor the generationof
body heat.l9 Not surprisingly, spiritus was considered instrumental in the processes of vision, in provocation to laughter,
falling in love and penile erection.20Thus, rather than being an
abstractor numinousentity, the spiritus was considereda material
(albeit highly refined)substancewithin the body, one that interacted with the body's internalorgans and moved along its pathways. Indeed, spiritus was thought to regulate all the most
importantphysiologicalsystems in the human organism:medically defined, spiritus constitutedthe principleof life itself.
By contrast, in theologicalparlancethe soul was traditionally
held to be the principleof life. Yet the greatscholastictheologians,
(n.
14 cont.)
(Princeton,1981);Nancy G. Siraisi,Medievaland EarlyRenaissance

Medicine:An
Introduction
to Knowledge
and Practice(Chicago,1990);Marie-Christine
Pouchelle,
TheBodyandSurgeryin theMiddleAges,trans.RosemaryMorris(New Brunswick,
1990);DanielleJacquartandClaudeThomasset,SexualityandMedicinein theMiddle
Ages,trans.MatthewAdamson(Princeton,1988);JamesBono, "MedicalSpiritsand
the MedievalLanguageof Life", Traditio,x1 (1984), pp. 91-130; M. D. Chenu,
"Spiritus:vocabulairede l'ame au XIIe siecle", Revuedes sciencesphilosophiques
et
theologiques,
xli (1957), pp. 209-32;G. Verbeke,L'evolution
de la doctrinedupneuma
du stoicismea S. Augustin(New York, 1987); Ruth Harvey, The Imsard Wits:
Psychological
Theoryin theMiddleAgesandin theRenaissance
(London,1975).
15Jacquartand Thomasset,SexualityandMedicinein theMiddleAges,pp. 48-50;
Bono, "MedicalSpiritsandthe MedievalLanguageof Life", pp. 92-4.
l6Jacquartand Thomasset,Sexualityand Medicinein the MiddleAges,pp. 48-9;
Siraisi,TaddeoAlderottiand his Pupils,p. 166; Pouchelle,Bodyand Surgeryin the
MiddleAges,p. 117.
17 Siraisi,Taddeo
AlderottiandhisPupils,p. 166.
18 Siraisi,
MedievalandEarlyRenaissance
Medicine,p. 107.
19Siraisi,TaddeoAlderottiandhisPupils,p. 228.
20 Ibid.,pp. 218, 228;Jacquart
andThomasset,SexualityandMedicinein theMiddle
Ages,pp. 84, 83.
from Hugh of Saint-Victor to Albertus Magnus and Thomas

Aquinas,desired to harmonizethe naturaland the divine orders.
As a result, throughoutthe twelfth and thirteenthcenturiestheologians increasinglybroadenedthe definition of spiritus So as to
ally it with the soul, thus uniting the realms of theology and
medicine.2l For example, it was speculated that at the general
resurrection the heart would be the first part of the body to
resurrect, presumablybecause this seat of the vital spiritus was
necessary above all for the return of the soul and of life.22
Ultimately, although spiritus was formally understoodto be the
operative intermediarybetween the materialityof the body and
the immaterialityof the soul, and thus to share in the properties
of each, it came to be regardedas a "special"categoryunto itself.
What in medical terms was conceived as a barely materialsubstance was renderedeven more insubstantialwithin the religious
sphere. As James Bono has noted:
As a spirit-matterdichotomybecamea dominantcategoryfor analyzing
relationshipsamongthings. . . spiritus was no longerjusta rarefiedform
of matter, like air or blood; it becamea kind of substanceessentially
differentfrom the ordinarymatterout of which the body is formed. . .
Latinauthors. . . wishedto createa languageembracingboththe phenomenon of life and the experienceof salvationwithin a unifiedconceptual
framework.
In short, the spiritualmodel of life, deathand afterlifeincreasingly

emphasized the incorporealityof the vital principle by contrast
with the material nature of the body and the tangible world.
Spirituseven came to be associatedwith celestial spirits and the
divine image. Thus the salvific history of the individual was
linked both to the celestialmacrocosmand to the physicalmicrocosm.24This incorporationof spiritus within the soteriological
system that PierreChaunuhas dubbed "the religionof the soul"25
has broad implicationsfor the religious history of the period. As
21 See Bono, "Medical Spirits and the Medieval Languageof Life"; Chenu,
de l'ameau XIIesiecle".
"Vocabulaire
A. R. Brown,"Deathandthe HumanBodyin the LaterMiddleAges:
22 Elizabeth
The Legislationof BonifaceVIIIon the Divisionof the Corpse",Viator, xii (1981),
p. 240.
of Life", pp. 98-9.
23 Bono, "MedicalSpiritsand the MedievalLanguage
"DiscerningSpirits:SanctityandPossession
24 For moreon this, see NancyCaciola,
in the LaterMiddleAges"(Univ. of MichiganPh.D. thesis, 1994).
25 PierreChaunu,La mort a Paris, XVIe, XVIIe et XVIIIe sie'cles(Paris,1978).See
siecles)",Annales E.S.C.,
also PierreChaunu,"Mourira Paris(XVIe-XVIIe-XVIIIe
xxxi (1976),pp. 29-50.
10
AND PRESENT
PAST
152
NUMBER
model was not the

Ishalldemonstrate,however, this spiritual Middle Ages.
the
in
afterlife
definitionof life, death and
only
III
THE POSSESSED CORPSE
handsfrom theirsideswhen they walk

Peoplewho move theirarmsandmoving
theirarmsaboutin sucha waX,
by
aboutdo muchharm. . . [for]
to the ground.6
deffunctorum)
they knockmanysoulsof the dead(animas
beset much of the

Thisquotation exemplifiesthe problems that
On the one hand,
death.
for medievalattitudestowards
evidence
to the centrality
points
that
exists a set of talesand fragments
there
certainmediof
ofthe deadwithin the syncretistthought-systems noted above,
have
I
as
hand,
evalcommunities. On the other
through ecclesiastical
nearlyall this evidence is transmitted
the meaningsof
reinterpreted
writerswho both transcribedand
certainties. In the
thesetales to fit with their own theological
it is the Latin
fourth-hand:
actually
presentcase the remark is
who
of the vernaculartestimony of a village woman, of
translation
the wording
wasreporting the speech of a friend. Although
community
this
which
in
way
the
thestatementmay not represent
to a
testifies
nevertheless
it
deceased,
actuallyspoke about the
the
and
the living
mentaloutlook on the coinciding worlds of
crowded
quite
dead.The seen world is interspersedwith another, ease.
with
collide
may
two
the
and
levelof unseen reality,
unseen aspects of
Similarly,recoveringboth the seen and the
seen and
medieval religious mentalities involves negotiating both for
grain"
the
unseenlevels of the texts: reading "against
unsaid. A primary
left
is
what
for
and
markedly,
whatis said too
the interpretameansof reading against the grain is to separate
facts" of
"cultural
tions of ecclesiasticalauthors from the basic
descripminimal
most
the story. By "culturalfacts" I mean the
"facts")
(hence
occurred
tion of what actionsare reportedto have
the
circulated
that
and were held as true by the communities quotationabove
the
in
report (hence "cultural"). For example,
of the soul (as
there is a contradictionbetween the immaterialityfact that these
the
and
writers)
the word anima was used by Latin
over by those
"souls of the dead" may be physically knocked
de Pamiers (1318-1325), ed.
eveAque
Le registred'inquisitionde 3tacquesFournier,
would like to thank Miriam
I
544-5.
pp.
i,
1965),
J. Duvernoy, 3 vols. (Toulouse,
juncture.
crucial
a
at
Shadis for helping me obtain this text swiftly
26
ll
among the living insensitive enough to walk about with their

arms swinging. The use of the word anima by the notary even
if cognate to the lost vernacularof the witness-represents an
interpretation,a translationof one semanticsystem into another.27
The "culturalfact", by contrast,is that this communitybelieved
that the dead had a tangibleform that could be hit, and that they
could in consequencefall down. This idea hints at an alternative
conceptionof the basisof vitality than the spiritualmodel discussed earlier, one that views the principle of (after)lifenot only as
material,but as embodied. It is to this model that I now turn.
Considerthe following anecdote:
In the town of NivellesI saw a virginworthyof God . . . She rosein the
earlymorningto go to church,observingthe stipulatedhours[forprayer].
It happenedone time that the deadbody of a certaindeceasedman was
broughtto the church in the evening without her knowing about it.
Gettingup in the middle of the night, the virgin went to churchand
foundthe deadman, but she was hardlyafraid,or just a little, so she sat
down and beganher prayers.When the Devil saw this he lookedupon
her with malice(invidet), and enteringthe deadbody he movedit at first
in the coffin.The virginthereforecrossedherselfandbravelyshoutedto
the Devil, "Lie down! Lie down, you wretch, for you have no power
againstme!"Suddenlythe Devil roseup withthe corpseandsaid,"Truly,
now I will have power againstyou, and I will revenge myself for the
frequentinjuriesI havesufferedat your hands!"Whenshe saw this, she
was thoroughlyterrifiedin her heart, so with both handsshe seized a
staff toppedwith a cross, and bringingit down on the headof the dead
man she knockedhim to the ground.Throughsuch faithfuldaringshe
put the demonto flight.28
This tale, with its complex intertwiningof local popular and of

clerical beliefs, was first written down in the mid-thirteenth
century by the Dominican Thomas of Cantimprein his manual
for preachers, Bonum universalede apibus. Thomas probably
adapted the tale from gossip he had heard in Nivelles, an area
within his sphere of mobility, in order to teach certain points of
dogma about unclean spirits and, more importantly, about the
death of the human body. Alongside these teachings,however, a
delicate reading of the story may reveal much about local ideas
that conflicted, even as they coexisted, with ecclesiasticalteachings. To explore these other ideas, we must extricate Thomas's
27 For a thoughtful collection of essays on this theme within modern anthropological
discourse, see James Clifford and George Marcus (eds.), Writing Culture: The Poetics
and Politics of Ethnography(Berkeley, 1986).
28 Thomas of Cantimpre, Bonumuniversalede apibus,ii.57.8: Thoma Cantimpratani,
S. Th. Doctoris,OrdinisS. Dominici,et EpiscopiSuffraganeiCameracensis,Miraculorum,
et exemplorummemorabilium
sui temporis,libri duo (Douai, 1597), p. 452.
12
PASTAND PRESENT
NUMBER 152
interpretationof the incident from the cultural facts that he is

reporting.
Two questions of boundary transgressionare at issue here:
between the living and the dead, and between flesh and spirit.
First, Thomas, consistentwith ecclesiasticaldoctrine,is emphasizing the fact that the corpse itself does not come to life: it is
mere dross moved by the demon. The body is uncoordinated,
stiff and unnatural.Neither the flesh nor the spirit of the dead
man is an active principle, as Thomas repeatedlyemphasizesin
such redundantphrasesas "the dead body of a certain deceased
man". Thus the body is usable by any spirit, not just the original
human spirit of the deceased. In fact, bodies are often referred
to as a sort of clothing in hagiographers'descriptionsof spiritual
dislocation:entering and exiting the body is like "putting on a
tunic" or "shedding a garment".29Even Augustine had likened
the body to a piece of clothing or jewellery, one "worn" in a
particularly intimate manner.30This conception is linked, of
course, both to the medical concept of the spirit as the principle
of life or vitality, and to the theory of the generalresurrectionat
the end of time, when the bodies of the dead will rise and be
reunited with their original human spirits: the garment, once
abandoned,will be put on again. The resurrectionis the inverse
of this possessedcorpse:a gloriousreturnof the humanspirit, as
opposed to an unclean spirit slipping inside the body and using
it. Iconographic evidence also suggests a basic parallelism in
medieval conceptionsof how a human spirit and a demon might
use the body: the exit of the humanspirit at death was portrayed
in precisely the same way as the exit of an unclean spirit in
exorcism scenes. Either spirit may leap out through the mouth,
the gatewayto the body's spiritualsystem in medievalphysiological terms. The body, as some sort of envelope or tool, could be
put on by any spirit and used as a meansto interactmore directly
with the tangible world.
Thomas's language emphasizes the demon's manipulationof
the body as an object: "[The Devil] moved [the body] at first in
the coffin . . . suddenlythe Devil rose up with the corpse". There
is a clear subject/objectdistinctionbetween the unclean spirit as
mover, and the body as inert matter. Nor was Thomas alone in
29 See, for example, Vita Venerabilis
Idae Virginis,ii.5.26, ed. DanielPapebroch,
in Acta Sanctorum,
Aprilis,ii (Antwerp,1675),p. 178.
30 Brown,"Deathand the HumanBodyin the LaterMiddleAges", p. 223.
13
this particularemphasis: other ecclesiasticalauthors also interpreted the movementof a corpse after death in preciselythe same
way. For example, a tale from the anonymous Life of Ida of
Louvain, another thirteenth-centuryvirgin from the northern
Low Countries,emphasizesthe way in which a dead body's limbs
may be manceuvredby an unclean spirit:
One time at night she beheldas if a bier was placedbeforeher . . . and
on it . . . the corpseof a certaindeceasedman. Leapinginto it, the skinchanginginventorof all evil stood the body on its feet, and thus moving
forwardinsideit andtogetherwith it (sic in ipsosimulcumipsoprogrediens),
he approachedthe maidservantof God.3'
The passageexplicitly describeshow the demon enters the body,

props it up on its feet and then makes it take a few steps. One
can easily picture it gracelesslyshamblingforward.Like Thomas
of Cantimpre,the author of this story also emphasizesa strong
subject/objectdistinctionbetween unclean spirit and dead body.
In so doing, both authors emphasize the point that the only
animate force is the possessing spirit, the demon; the man, by
contrast,is only a thing, a mere cadaver.In essence, this "official"
view of reanimatedcorpses denies any transgressionbetween the
living and the dead, and instead makes the centralaction a transgression between flesh and the demonic spirit. Corpses cannot
come back to life, but they may temporarilybe inhabitedby an
unclean spirit that takes the place of the departedhuman spirit.
Only at the resurrectionmay the dead truly be said to live again.
This opposition between different ways of reanimating the
body was even invoked in an ecclesiasticalritual for consecrating
cemeteries, which prayed God to protect the body's safety from
demonic misuse or reanimationuntil the true and final resurrection; a blessingwhich evokes the extraordinaryimage of medieval
demons seeking out cemeteries in order to rob graves of their
occupants:"Grant,distributorof kindnesses,a seat of repose for
the bodies of your menservantsand womenservantsenteringinto
this cemetery,a place fortifiedagainstall incursionsof evil spirits,
so that at the resurrectionof their bodies and spirits ... they
may be worthy to receive the eternal blessing".32
Vita Idae, i.2.8 (ed. Papebroch,p. 160).
"Famulorumfamularumque
tuarumcorporibusin hoc cimiteriumintrantibus
quietis sedem ab omni incursionemmalorumspirituumdefensisbenigniislargitor
tribueut postanimarumcorporumque
resurrectionem
. . . beatitudinem
sempiternam
perciperemereantur":BibliotecaApostolicaVaticana,BorgheseMS. 35, "Ordoad
benedicendumcoemeterium",fo. 74r-v.
31
32
14
PAST AND PRESENT
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Other macabretales emphasizedthe total death of the body in

slightly diSerent ways. For example, the mid-thirteenth-century
DominicanJean de Mailly tells an exemplumof a demon animating the corpse of a beautiful young woman in order to tempt a
pious man.33On the one hand, the tale is a meditation on the
transitorynature of secular delights, but the fact that the girl's
body turns putrid as soon as the demon leaves it also emphasizes
the death of the body, as opposed to the illusory life given it by
the uncleanspirit. More explicit on the theme of demonicpossession versus the living dead is another tale from Thomas of
Cantimpre.This exemplumtells of the animatecorpseof a knight
who appearsto his former servant, asks him to remove from his
wound the point of the lance that killed him (as verificationof
his own materiality),and then lectureshim on the evils of tournaments.34Thomas follows up his lesson against institutionalized
violence, however, with an explanationof how the movement of
a corpse might come about, utilizing the theologicalmetaphorof
the body as garment:
Sincethe structure(organismo) of a deadbody remainsbehind,just as a
man can [use] a structuredbody (corpus organisatum)
like a garment,so
the Devil can sneakinto it andcanmouldthe mouthto voicesandwords
again,and recallthe tendonsto the movementof its members.35
Again,it is not the body which moves and gives life, but the spirit.
This interpretationof revenantsas possessed by demons is in
accordwith the broaderintellectualbackgroundof these ecclesiasticalauthors. Their culturalconstructionof animatecorpses as
demonicallypossessedwas supportedboth by the learnedmedicotheologicaltradition, with its model of the spiritualbasis of life
and the inertia of corporealmatter, as well as by more general
anxieties of the ecclesiastical milieu about the predations of
demons. Even within a didacticwork such as Thomas'sDe apibus,
however, the very terms of the argumentreveal the beliefs that
the preacherwas attempting to eradicate.For example, we see
in Thomas's relentless insistence on the absolute non-vitality of
the corpse that attackedthe virgin ("the dead body of a certain
deceased man"), an argumentagainst the opposite proposition:
33 Jeande Mailly,Abregedesgesteset miraclesdes saints, cxix.16, trans.A. Dondaine
(Paris,1947),pp. 338-9.
34Thomasof Cantimpre,
De apibus,ii.49.6:Thoma Cantimpratani. . . Miraculorum,
pp. 367-8.
35 Ibid., ii.49.7: Thoma Cantimpratani. . . Miraculorum,pp. 368-9.
15
that the dead do have a continuing vitality of their own. If we

separatethe ecclesiasticalinterpretationsof these events as caused
by demons from the basic "culturalfacts" that they report, we
are left with a diSerent set of ideas: dead men sometimes roam
from their graves and attack the living. As I shall demonstrate,
such terrifying events
minus the possessing demon-were
well within the realm of plausibilityfor certainmedievalcultural
*
ml leux.
IV
THE LIVINGCORPSE
Belief in corpses coming back to life is well attested for parts of

medieval Europe, most notably Iceland, but also England, the
Low Countries, northern France and parts of Germany. The
Icelandicsaga literaturepresents the most extensive portrayalof
this set of beliefs. The importanceof revenantswithin Icelandic
culture is attested by the existence of a specific word for the
undead in Old Icelandic:draugr.36Most famous, perhaps, is the
revenantGlamof Grettissaga.37In life, Glamwas a widely disliked
shepherd who was killed violently
possibly by another
(unnamed)draugr.After Glam'sbody was bllried, it nevertheless
wanderedfrom its grave at night, stampingon the rooftops and
storehouses and terrifying the local inhabitants. Eventually,
Glam'scorpse killed two living men. The draugrwas only put to
rest after a terrific battle with Grettir (the saga's protagonist),
who beheadedthe revenantand reburiedit with its head between
its legs.38The same sagacontainsanothersuch confrontation,this
time between Grettirand the draugrKar, for the sakeof a treasure
the corpse watches over. Kar, too, is subdued by beheading.39
More peaceableis the revenantof Thorgunnain Eyrbygg:ya
saga,
who cooked dinner for those bearingher corpse away for burial.
However, Thorgunna's death also brought on what might be
calledan epidemicof aggressiverevenantsback at the farmwhere
36 For a discussion
of the word,see Gurevich,HistoricalAnthropology
of theMiddle
Ages,ed. Howlett,pp. 116-21.
37 TheSaga of Grettirthe Strong,chs. 32-5, trans.GeorgeAinslieHight (London,
1914),pp. 86-100;for the original,see GrettissagaAsmundarsonar,
ed. GuAniJonsson
(IslenzkFornrit,vii, Reykjavik,1936),pp. 107-23.
38For the frequencyof this means of disposalof revenants,see Paul Barber,
Vampires,
Burial,andDeath(New Haven, 1988),p. 25.
39 Grettissaga,ch. 18 (trans.Hight, pp. 42-6; ed. Jonsson,pp. 56-61).
16
PASTAND PRESENT
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she had lived. The first to die mysteriouslywas the farm's shepherd. His draugr
in turn killed anotherman namedThorir WoodLeg and the two of them were seen together at night. Then six
more men perishedin the vicinity, followed by six who drowned
at sea and came back to the farm, dripping seawater. The two
bands of revenantshad a fight, the sailorsagainstThorir WoodLeg's troop; next, a local witch died and was seen walkingabout
with her dead husband. Finally, the whole lot was banished
through a formal legal procedure against them for trespassing,
along with an exorcism of the house.40Earlierin Eyrbygg.ia
saga
the case of the draugrThorolf is recounted: after dying from
sheer rage he, too, killed so many men that the valley he haunted
was abandonedby the living-though the area was well populated with revenants, who wandered about with Thorolf.4l
Laxdaelasagatells of the extreme violence of the revenantKillerHrapp thus: "Difficult as he had been to deal with during his
life, he was now very much worse after death, for his corpse
would not rest in its grave; people say he murderedmost of his
servants".42Hrapp's body was finally dug up and reburied far
from the district.These talesrepresentonly a few of the numerous
referencesto draugar
in Old Icelandicliterature.
Yet although the Icelandic phenomenonof living corpses has
been widely studiedand discussed,43its counterparton the northern Europeanmainland,and in England and Scotland,has been
40 Eyrbyggya
saga, chs. 51-5, trans. Hermann Palsson and Paul Edwards
(Harmondsworth,
1989),pp. 131-41;for the original,see Eyrbyggya
saga,ed. Einar
O1. Sveinssonand MatthlasDordarson(Islenzk Fornrit, iv, Reykjavik, 1935),
pp. 139-52.
41Ibid., chs. 33-4 (trans. Palsson and Edwards,pp. 92-5; ed. Sveinssonand
Dordarson,
pp. 91-5).
42Laxdaelasaga, ch. 17, trans. Magnus Magnussonand Hermann Palsson
(Harmondsworth,1969), p. 78; for the original,see Laxdoelasaga, ed. EinarO1.
Sveinsson(IslenzkFornrit,v, Reykjavik,1934),pp. 39-40.
43For an introductionto this voluminousbody of literature,see, in general,
Gurevich,HistoricalAnthropology
of theMiddleAges;ClaudeLecouteux,
et
revenants
au MoyenAge(Paris,1986);HildaR. EllisDavidson,"The RestlessDead:
An IcelandicGhostStory",in HildaR. Ellis Davidsonand W. M. S. Russell(eds.),
TheFolkloreof Ghosts(Cambridge,1981), pp. 155-75, 256-9; ReidarChristiansen,
"The Dead and the Living", Studia Norvegica, ii (1946), pp. 3-96; Juha
Pentikainen,"The Dead withoutStatus",in ReimundKvidelandand HenningK.
Sehmsdorf(eds.), NordicFolklore:RecentStudies(Bloomington,1989),pp. 128-34;
KathrynHume, "From Saga to Romance:The Use of Monstersin Old Norse
Literature",Studiesin Philology,lxxvii (1980),pp. 1-25.
FantoAmes
17
largely neglected.44While this oversight may be due to the fact

that the undead are less pervasive in the continentaland insular
contexts than in the Icelandic, there is nevertheless a body of
evidence about these revenants that is strikingly similar to tales
of the Icelandicdraugar.
Numerous "horror" stories of the undead may be found in
chronicles and exempla collections from northern Europe from
the late twelfth century on. The tales I examinedin the previous
section about demonically animated revenants are not isolated
instances,but part of a longer continuumof storiesaboutreanimated corpses, many of which are told with a high degree of local
detail and verisimilitude.In most cases, the dead are presented
not as possessed, but as coming back to life on their own.
The thirteenth-centuryscholastic and bishop of Paris Guillaume d'Auvergne, for example, captured the essence of this
belief in refreshinglyminimalistfashion. He referred to tales he
had heard, "many times, about certain dead men who kill other
men from amongthe living".45Even while he ridiculesthe notion
that the dead can come backto life, he testifiesto how widespread
the belief was: certaindead men can move and act, and they are
malevolent, even murderous,towards the living. The possessed
corpses discussed in the previous section would fit nicely within
Guillaume'sdefinitionof this phenomenon,but he might equally
well have had in mind incidentslike that in the thirteenth-century
Historiae memorabiles,a text from Colmar by the Dominican
Rudolf von Schlettstadt.In a tale entitled "On Henry, who was
seriouslywounded by dead men", we are told of a man travelling
44 Most studiesof deathin the MiddleAges do not deal specifically
with the idea
of revenants.See Jean-ClaudeSchmitt,Les revenants:les vivants et les morts dans la
societe medievale (Paris, 1994); Lecouteux,FantoAmes
et revenants au Moyen Age;
Neveux, "Lendemainsde la mort dans les croyancesoccidentales";Karl Frolich,
"Germanisches
Totenrechtund Totenbrauchtum
im SpiegelneuererForschung",
HessischeBlatter fur Volkskunde,xliii (1952), pp. 41-63; NikolausKyll, Tod, Grab,
Begrabnisplatz, Totenfeier(Bonn, 1972);RonaldFinucane,Appearancesof the Dead:
A CulturalHistory of Ghosts(New York, 1984).All these worksdiscussrevenantsin
part(the Frenchwordrevenantalsoappliesto ghosts).Barber,Vampires,Burial, and
Death, gives a cross-culturalview. For a critique,see Otto GerhardOexle, "Die
Gegenwartder Toten", in Braet and Verbeke(eds.), Death in the Middle Ages,
pp. 19-77. Oexle disbelievesin the notion of the lebendeLeichnam as a medieval
phenomenon(pp. 58-65), but he presentsan interestingpointof view none the less.
Oexle'scritiqueis basedlargelyuponthe workof GunterWiegelmann,"Der 'lebende
Leichnam'im VoLksbrauch",
Zeitschriftfur Volkskunde,lxii (1966),pp. 161-83.
45 Guillaume
d'Auvergne,De universo,ii.3.24: GuilielmiAlverni episcopiParisiensis
... opera omnia, 2 vols. (Paris, 1674, repr. Frankfurt-on-Main,
1963), i, p. 1069,
col. b.
PAST AND PRESENT
18
NUMBER152
neara river who is suddenlyattackedby three

dead men mounted
on horseback, whom he recognizes and
later names. One is a
recentlymurderedknight. After beatinghim
savagely,the revenants leave Henry for dead, but he
survives.46These bloodcurdling dead men certainly tried their best to
kill Henry, yet
despite their malicious nature, they are not
associated
with
c emonlc possesslonm any way.
Similarly, the thirteenth-century Cistercian
Caesarius of
Heisterbachprovides an illuminatingglimpse into the
dominant
themes of local revenant belief in his Dialogus
miraculorum.
Like
Thomas and the anonymous hagiographerof Ida
of Louvain,
Caesariusinterpreteda few such incidentsas demonic
reanimation
of the body: two tales speak of dead bodies
"living with an evil
spirit in place of the soul".47 In the second
of this
departureof the demon promptsthe long-deadbody pair the
to
theatrically,into dust.48Caesarius,however, is more crumble,
commonly
rathersanguine about the undead: they appear
in the world of
theliving with no explanationother than their
own volition. And,
asGuillaumed'Auvergnenoted, they were
often believed to have
evilintentions.
Considerthe following narratives.A servantis
master'schildren while they answer a call of supervisingher
nature at dusk.
Suddenlyshe notices a "monster" in the form of a
woman with
apallid face and tatteredclothing emerge
from a cemetery, stare
ather over the fence, then enter the
household next door. The
apparition
soon re-entersits grave, but the entire familyof
neighboursdies soon after.49In Caesarius'snext tale,
the emergence
froma sepulchreof anotherdead "monster"in
human form is a
portentof impending death for the living as
well: two canons
whowitnessed the event die shortly after.50
More detail is given
in
a laterexemplumthat discussesthe
corporeal,but invulnerable,
revenant
of a knight named Henry:
.
He was extremelywicked,and judgedrapes,

adultery,incest, lying and
Rudolf von Schlettstadt,Historiae memorabiles:
Zur Dominikanerliteraturund
Kulturgeschichte
des 13. 3'ahrhunderts,
ch. 47, ed. Erich
46
Kleinschmidt(Cologne,1974),
Caesarius
of Heisterbach,Dialogusmiraculorum,xii.3-4, ed.
JosefStrange,2 vols.
(Cologne,
1851),ii, p. 317.
48 Ibid., xii.4 (ed. Strange,
ii, pp. 317-18).
49 Ibid., xi.63 (ed. Strange,
ii, pp. 313-14).The previoustaleidentifiesthis
apparition
as "Mors",Deathpersonified:ibid., xi.62 (ed.
Strange,ii, p. 313).
50Ibid., xi.64 (ed. Strange,
ii, p. 314).
pp.110-11.
47
19
similarthingsto be virtues.After he had died . . . he appearedto many

people wearingthe sheepskinthat he used to wear when he was alive,
and he especiallyfrequentedthe home of his daughter. . . He was often
felled (caedebatur)
with a sword,but could not be wounded:he emitted
a soundas if a soft bed were beinghit.5l
The terrifiedgirl eventuallyrid her home of the revenantthrough

an aspersionof holy water. Similarly,anotherdead man, this time
a usurer, pounded on the door of his son, who wisely refused
him entry: the corpse then hung on the door some snakes and
toads universallyconsideredvenomousin medievalthought
as proof of his evil intention.52In these examples, there is no
indication of demonic intervention:the dead simply come back
to life on their own and interact with the tangible world. Like
the Icelandic draugar,they have three dimensions and material
capabilities. Most importantly, they are presented as illintentionedfrom their own desires or instinct not as animated
by the Devil for the downfall of the human race.
Indeed, many tales of the undeadexplicitly reject the demonic
interpretation.The demonic-possessionschool of thought about
revenants, as best representedby Thomas of Cantimpreand the
hagiographerof Ida of Louvain, was distinctly a minority viewpoint. Texts such as chroniclesand histories,which lack the same
didactic agenda as exempla collectionsor hagiographies,universally reject or ignore the possibility of demonic animation in
regardto revenants.For these more historicalauthors,the transgression involved in a corpse coming back to life is one between
life and death, rather than between flesh and unclean spirit. For
example, severalentries in WalterMap's twelfth-centuryEnglish
chronicle De nugiscurialium
tell of the predationsof living, not
possessed, corpses. The chronicler's tone gives these tales in
particularan air of immediacy:for Walterand his contemporaries,
these were strange, but real events. One incident concerns a
revenant ravaging its former neighbourhood. A local knight,
William Laudun, complainsto the bishop about it:
"Lord,I take refugewith you seekingadvice.A certainevil Welshman
quiterecentlydied irreligiouslyin my village,and immediatelyafterfour
nightshe took to walkingbackto the villageeachnight,andwill not stop
callingout by name each of his neighbours.As soon as they are called
they take ill, and within three days they die, so that alreadyvery few
are left."
51Ibid., xii.15 (ed. Strange, ii, p. 327).
52 Ibid., xii. 18 (ed. Strange, ii, p. 328).
20
PAST AND PRESENT
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Interestinglyenough, the bishop suggests that the body may

in
fact be demonicallyreanimated,and advises William
to open the
tomb and sprinklethe corpsewith plenty of holy water.
this strategyis a dismalfailure:the revenantcontinues However,
its nightly
visits, demonstratingthat an indwelling demon is not
the source
of the problem. The corpse moves under its own
power. Only
when the knight William himself chases the corpse
back to its
grave, and cleaves open its head "to the neck", does it
cease its
troublemaking.In conclusion, Map himself explicitly sets aside
the demonic viewpoint, and instead opines that the
cause of the
phenomenonis unknowable:"We know about the true
stancesof this event, but we do not know the cause".53circumAnother
of Map's tales describes the vagabond corpse of a
man, "who
they say died irreligiously",54that wanders for over
a
before being cornered at the town limits by a crowd month
of local
townspeople.Only after the corpse receives a proper burial
thatis, when a cross is placed to mark the grave
does it cease
itswandering.
Belief in the living dead, ratherthan the possesseddead,
is also
attestedin medieval Brittany. An anonymous Breton
revenant
storyraises the possibility of demonic animation, but
then dismissesthe idea. The subject of this tale is a gentler
revenant, a
bakerwho comes back ostensibly to help his widow
knead the
bread,though she is frightenedratherthan gratifiedby
its assistance.After several nightly visits, some young men
chase the
cadaverthrough the town, and it throws stones at them
to ward
offpursuit. They explicitly ask the corpse whether
it is a dead
manor the illusion of an evil spirit. However, the
revenant
managesto slip away without answering. The next
day, the
communitydisinters the body and decides that it was
indeed a
livingcorpse when they find its legs covered with the
fresh mud
thatit had run through the night before. At first the
locals heap
heavystones on the grave, but the cadaver'snightly
wanderings
onlycease after the communitylater dismembersit.55
Still more revenant tales may be found in
William of
Newburgh's
chronicle Historia rerumAnglicarum.In discussing
thecase of a wanderingcorpse in Buckinghamin
1196, William
WalterMap, De nugiscurialium:Courtiers'Trifles,ii.27, ed.
M. R. James,rev.
C.
N. L. BrookeandR. A. B. Mynors(Oxford,1983),pp.
202-4.
54 Ibid.,ii.28 (ed. James,rev.
BrookeandMynors,p. 204).
55 Schmitt,Revenants,
p. 173.
53
21
notes that "such things often happenedin England",56and then

gives three additionalexamples of terrifyinglydisruptiverevenants.57The Buckinghamcase concernsthe corpse of a sinful man
that is aggressivetowardsits remainingfamily. It crawlsinto bed
with its widow, nearly crushingher with its weight, then attacks
other family members when they try to intervene. Although the
locals suggest to the bishop that the corpse must be disinterred
and burnt to ashes, he convinces them that a letter of absolution
for the man's sins, if laid in the tomb, will be just as effective
and it is. The second case, in Berwick, concerns the cadaverof
a wealthy man that wandersabroadat night, terrifyingthe people
and causing the dogs to howl loudly at its malign presence. This
time, the expedient of burning the revenant is undertaken by
some local youths, who dig up the offending corpse, dismember
it and cremateits remains.The third case is that of a too-secular
chaplainin the vicinity of Melrose Abbey: this man, known in
life as the hundeprestbecause of his love of hunting, returnedto
give his attentionsto his former mistress.Terrified,she recruited
some young men to watch by the cemetery for her. Upon the
corpse's return to its hideout, one of them "killed" the revenant
by hitting it with an axe. When the grave was later opened, the
gaping wound was clearly visible, and appearedas fresh as if the
corpse were alive. Despite this incapacitatingwound, however,
the locals burned the cadaverfor good measure. William's final
case is perhapsthe most frightening:a wicked and choleric man
died suddenly in a fall from his rooftop, after he spied his wife
in bed with another man. He, too, wanderedat night, attacking
all he met and leaving them on the point of death, while a pack
of dogs followed after him, howling and whining. The locals, in
fear of the revenant's malice as much of a possible pestilence
from the corruptionof the air causedby the rottingcorpse, began
to leave the district in droves. Finally, two brothers dug up the
cadaverand burned it to ashes.
Williamof Newburgh seems to have studied revenantsat some
length: he explains how he searchedin vain for parallelincidents
in earlier literatureand emphasizesthe newness of the phenomenon. Yet he, too, like the authorsof many of the other texts we
56 William of Newburgh, Historia rerumAnglicarum,v.22, in Chroniclesof the Reigns
of Stephen,Henry II, and RichardI, ed. Richard Howlett, 4 vols. (Rolls Ser., London,
1884-9), ii, p. 475.
57 Ibid., v.23-4 (ed. Howlett, pp. 476-82).
22
PAST AND PRESENT
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have examined, professes perplexity as to the mechanism by

which the re-animationof a corpse might come about, and hesitates to ascribeit to demonic intervention:
Certainlythe factthatcadaversof the dead,havinggot out of theirgraves,
shouldbe borneaboutby I know not what spirit to terrorizeor injure
the living . . . would not easilybe acceptedas true if there were not so
many examplesat hand from our own time, and if the testimonywere
not so abundant. . . If I wantedto writeabouteveryincidentof this sort
. . . it wouldbe too complicatedand onerous.S8
Despite the frequency William ascribes to these events, he

remainspuzzled by them. The explanationthat demons possess
dead bodies and move them does not entirely satisfy him, as his
use of the open phrase, "borneabout by I know not what spirit",
indicates. Ultimately William, like WalterMap and Caesariusof
Heisterbach,fails to assign a cause to the corpses' wanderings.
A Yorkshirecollection of twelve revenantstories, dating from
about 1400, shows marked similarities to William's histories.
Althoughin this text the Latin word used to refer to these beings
is "spirit" (spiritus), all the tales involve tangible bodies. In one
anecdote, for example, a woman "catches" a spirit and unaccountably decides to carry it home on her back. An observer
notes that "the woman's hands were sinking deeply into the
spirit'sflesh, as if the flesh of the spirit were putridand not solid,
but illusory''.S9This is an interesting contradiction:on the one
hand, the being is a "spirit" and "illusory";on the other, it can
be caught and carried home, and it has flesh (for which two
different words are used: carneand caro).A case with parallels
to William of Newburgh's hundeprest
has the rector of Kerby
leaving his grave at night and molesting his former concubine,
until his corpse is disinterredand thrown, along with its coffin,
into a local body of water.60One tale builds to a dramatic
conclusion:
Concerningthe spirit of Robert, the son of Robertde Boltebo of Killebourne
zvhowas caughtin the cemetery.The youngerRobertdied andwas buried
in the cemetery,but he usedto go out fromhis graveat nightandterrify

and disturbthe townspeople,and the dogs of the town used to follow
him and howl mightily.Finally,some young men . . . decidedto catch
Ibid.,v.24 (ed. Howlett,p. 477).

M. R. James, "Twelve Medieval Ghost-Stories",Eng. Hist. Rev., XXXVii
(1922),p. 418.
60 Ibid.Onthe disposal
of potentialrevenantsin water,see Barber,Vampires,Burial,
and Death, pp. 147-53;Schmitt,Revenants,alsodiscusseswateras a boundarybetween
the livingand the dead,throughout.
58
59
23
him somehowif they could,and they met at the cemetery.But when he

appeared,they all fled except two, one of whom was named Robert
Foxton. He seized him as he was going out from the cemeteryand put
him on the church-stile,while the othershoutedbravely,"Holdhim fast
until I can get there!"But the other one answered,"Go quicklyto the
parishpriest so that he can be conjured!"... The parishpriest came
quicklyand conjuredhim in the name of the Holy Trinity . . . Having
been conjuredin this way, he answeredfrom the depthsof his entrails;
not with his tonguebut as if froman emptyjar,andhe confessedvarious
trespasses.6l
There are several parallelshere to earlier tales, especially those

of William of Newburgh. Like William's first story, absolution
of sins puts the revenant to rest; like some of William's other
tales, the howling of the local dogs is a sign of the thing's malign
nature. An interestingand unusualdetail, however, is the discussion of the corpse's voice: althoughclearlyendowed with a body
that can be grasped and held, the revenant speaks, eerily, from
its depths. Again, it is worth noting here that no outside agency,
spiritual or otherwise, is posited as the cause of the corpse's
wanderings:the dead man is sentient and comes back to life of
his own fierce volition.
An anecdotefrom the thirteenth-centuryScottish Chroniconde
Lanercost,which has been attributedto an Augustinianmonk,62
also leaves aside the possibility of demonic animation of the
corpse. Again, the protagonistis a man of the church who did
not live up to his calling:
At that time a certainman wearingthe habit of holy religion,who had
lived perversely,died in the worst way, being bound by sentenceof
. . . For a long time afterhis body had been buriedit
excommunication
vexedmanypeoplein the samemonasterywith a sensoryillusion(sensibili
illusione)in the shadeof night. The child of darknesstransferredhimself
to the houseof . . . a knightin orderto test the faithof the simple,and
it terrified[the family]by contendingagainstthem in broaddaylight. . .
Havingassumeda body (whethernaturalor aerialis uncertain,but it was
hideous,gross and tangible)he used to come at noondayin the habitof
a blackmonkand settle on the highestpartsof the homesor storehouses
. . . He so savagelythrewto the groundandbatteredthosewho attempted
to fighthim as nearlyto shatterall theirjoints. . . One eveningwhilethe
headof the familywassettledaroundthe hearthalongwithhis household
this deadlything ( funestus) came into their midst, throwingthem into
confusionwith missilesand blows.63
p. 418.
61 James,"TwelveMedievalGhost-Stories",
62JamesWilson,"Authorshipof the Chronicleof Lanercost",Scot. Hist. Rev., x
(1912-13),pp. 138-55.
1839), pp. 163-4 (a.
63 Chroniconde Lanercost,ed. JosephStevenson(Edinburgh,
1295).I shouldlike to thankHansBroedelfor bringingthisreferenceto my attention.
24
PAST AND PRESENT
NUMBER 152
The revenantsucceedsin killing the family'sheir on this occasion,

underliningits brutalandvengefulnature.Althoughthe unknown
chroniclerdoes not inform the reader whether the creaturewas
ever disposed of, it is plainly a corporeal revenant, with its
"hideous, gross and tangible" body.64 Moreover, the guiding
force of the "malignantcreature" is its own internal will. The
authorspecifiesthat the corpse was permittedto wanderby God,
but there is no questionof demonic possessionor reanimationby
anythingother than the creature'sown residuallife-force.
Horror at the potential life of the corpse is also supportedby
a varietyof non-textualevidence throughoutnorthernEurope
indeed, one can still see in cemeteriesand churchespaintingsof
revenantsquite similarto those describedin literarytexts. I am
referring here to the dance of death motif, the late medieval
iconographyin which grinning, half-decomposedcorpses frenetically lead away a variedprocessionof humans;and to the related
theme of the three living / three dead.65The latter theme made
its way into French literature in the thirteenth century, and
spread into iconography during the fourteenth.66 The tale
describesa pleasure-partyof three young noblemenwho suddenly
find themselves in a cemetery. There they are confronted by a
group of three decayingcorpses:these revenantdead are upright
and animate, with their emaciatedlimbs showing through their
64The referenceto its bodypossiblybeing"aerial"is a theologicalspeculationthat
was probablyinspiredby familiaritywith Augustiniantheoriesaboutthe bodiesof
supernaturalcreatures:this is the word Augustineused to describethe bodies of
angels and demons. See Augustine,De divinatione daemonum,ed. J.-P. Migne,
Patrologialatina (hereafterP.L.), 221 vols. (Paris,1844-64),xl, cols. 581-92;trans.
Ruth WentworthBrown,"The Divinationof Demons",in Augustine,Treatiseson
Marriage and Other Subjects,ed. RoyJ. Deferrari(Fathersof the Church,xxvii, New
York,1955),pp. 421-40.
65 On the danceof deathmotif, see PhilippeAries, The Hour of our Death, trans.
Helen Weaver(New York, 1977), ch. 3; Emile Male, ReligiousArt in France: The
Late Middle Ages. A Study of Medieval Iconographyand its Sources,ed. HarryBober,
trans.MarthielMathews(Princeton,1986);HelmutRosenfeld,Der mittelalterliche
Totentanz: Entstehung
Entzvickl1mg- Bedeutung, 2nd edn (Cologne, 1968);
WolfgangStammler,Die Totentanzedes Mittelalters (Munich,1922);JamesClark,
The Dance of Death in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance(Glasgow,1950);Karl
Kunstle,Die Legendeder Drei Lebendenund der Drei Toten und der Totentanznebst
einemExkursuberdie3takobslegende
(Freiburgim Breisgau,1908);LeonardKurtz,The
Dance of Death and the MacabreSpirit in EuropeanLiterature(Geneva,1975);Florence
Whyte, The Dance of Death in Spain and Catalonia (Baltimore,1931); The Danse
Macabreof Women:Ms. fr. 995 of the BibliothequeNationale, ed. AnnTukeyHarrison
(Kent,Ohio, 1994);JeanBatany,"Un imageen negatifdu fonctionnalisme
social:les
dansesmacabre",in Taylor(ed.), Dies illa, pp.15-28.
66Male,ReligiousArt in France, ed. Bober,p. 324.
25
tattered shrouds. The famous lines, "What you are, we once

were; what we are, you will become", derive from this tale,
which was popular in vernacularand in Latin literature,as well
as in iconographicdepictions. The speech of the dead indicatesa
continuitybetween the living and the dead communities.By the
fifteenth century, the story had been appropriatedby clerical
patrons and writers, who disseminatedthe tale as a meditative
exemplum on the brevity of this life.67
Although the dansemacabrehas sometimesbeen interpretedas
deriving from the three living / three dead theme,68Emile Male
sees its origins in literature reaching back earlier, in germinal
form, to the twelfth-century work of the poet Helinand.69
Whateverits precise origins, by the beginning of the fourteenth
century the dansemacabreexisted in the form of a moralityplay,
to be publicly performedwith actors playing dead men in their
winding-sheetsand taking the hands of the living from all walks
of life.70 Although there is debate about the earliest pictorial
depictionsof the dance of death,7lthe earliest fresco that can be
positively dated was painted in the cemetery of the Innocents
in Paris in 1424.72Eventually, the theme spread throughout
northern Europe, with important representations in Brittany
(Kermaria-en-Isquit),Germanyand England.
It is importantto note that, contraryto the widespreadbelief
that the dansemacabreand the three living / three dead motifs
depict skeletons, in fact the medieval iconography only rarely
involved bony figures.73Invariablythe figures of the dead were
shown as emaciated corpses, midway through the process of
decay. Typically, the artists portrayed skin stretched taut over
bony limbs, but burst open over the entrails-an area of the
body subject to early decomposition.74Some artists also showed
Ibid.,p. 328.
See Kunstle,Legendeder Drei Lebenden
undder Drei Totenundder Totentanz;
Kurtz,Danceof DeathandtheMacabreSpiritin European
Literature.
69 Male,Religious
Art in France,ed. Bober,p. 329; the poeticoriginsof the theme
are alsodiscussedby Batany,"Imageen negatifdu fonctionnalisme
social".
70 Male,Religious
Art in France,ed. Bober,pp. 329-30.
71 For variouschronologies
and geographicalemphases,cf., for example,Clark,
Danceof Deathin theMiddleAgesandin theRenaissance;
Rosenfeld,Mittelalterliche
Totentanz;
Male,Religious
Art in France,ed. Bober.
72 Male,Religious
Art in France,ed. Bober,p. 331.
73 Ibid., p. 334; Barber, Vampires,
Burial, and Death, p. 90; Schmitt,Revenants,
p. 165.The predominance
of the half-decomposed
corpseor transiin macabreiconographyis alsonotedby Aries,Hourof ourDeath,p. 113.
74 Barber,Vampires,
Burial,andDeath,p. 90.
67
68
26
PASTAND PRESENT
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worms at work in the cadaversto demonstratethe

putridity of
the remainingflesh. This is a vital detail, for the
dance of death
and the three living / three dead motifs are iconographic
counterpoints to revenant stories, intimately related to the same
set of
mental attitudes. These dead men are not insubstantial
illusions,
but corporealrevenants. And just as tales of the
undead were
reinterpretedby some churchmenin termsof demonicanimation,
the iconography,too, was appropriatedby the
church in order
to convey a message of secular transience and
memento
mori.
Regardlessof how these various representationswere used
and
interpretedwithin ecclesiasticalthought,however, the
geographic
coincidenceof the macabreiconographyand tales about
corpses
coming back to life is striking. I shall return to these
themes
below.
V
FLESH AND BONES
Tales of revenants, though scattered chronologically

from the
mid-twelfthcentury to the end of the fifteenth,
geographically
acrossthe north of Europe, and textually throughout
disparate
authorsand genres, nevertheless display a basic unity of
form.
Guillaume
d'Auvergne'sdescriptionof the belief remainsa useful
one:he claims to have heard tales, "many times,
about certain
deadmen who kill other men from among the
living".75This
briefcommentmay serve as the basis for teasingout
some fundamentalsimilaritiesbetween revenanttales.
First, Guillaumenotes that he had heardof such events
"many
times".He was not alone in his observation. Although
some
authorsclassifiedsuch events as prodigiaor mirabilia
words
thatsuggest the extraordinary others discuss the
ofthe dead in a matter-of-fact, naturalisticway: wanderings
"the younger
Robert
died and was buried in the cemetery, but he used to
go
outfrom his grave at night";76"a certainman, who
they say died
irreligiously,
used to wanderabout publicly for a month or more
. . .in his shroud".77Althoughsuch appearances
were invariably
terrifying
to the populace, the writers' laconic tone suggests
that
revenants
were not unique or unknown. Furthermore, several
Guillaume d'Auvergne, De universo,ii3.24(Operaomnia, i,
p. 1069, col. b).
76James,"Twelve Medieval Ghost-Stories", p. 418.
77 Map, De nugis curialium,ii.28
(ed. James, rev. Brooke and Mynors, p. 204).
75
27
texts testified to the frequency of such events. As William of

Newburgh wrote, "[these stories] would not easily be accepted
as true if there were not so many examples at hand from our
own time, and if the testimony were not so abundant".78As it
is, evidence for the medievalbelief in corporealrevenantsis fairly
well attested. From these passages one senses that many more
such incidentswere discussedand deemed credibleby local communities than were actuallyrecorded.
A corollaryto this point, however, is the fact that not all the
dead were believed to wander. Only "certaindead men" (again
to borrowGuillaumed'Auvergne'sformulation)left their graves.
How and why was a corpse believed to become a revenant?
There seem to be two related answers to this question: the
manner of the individual's life and the manner of his or her
death. Indeed, these two factors can scarcely be separated.
Caesariusof Heisterbach,for example, enumeratedfour different
kinds of death: that of those who live well and die well; that of
those who live well and die badly; that of those who live badly
but die well; and that of those who both live and die badly.79
Indeed, though not always explicitly articulated,the distinction
between a "good" and a "bad" deathwas widespreadthroughout
medieval society (as it is cross-culturally80)and was thought to
provide a vital clue to the ultimate fate of the deceased. The
"good" death has been characterizedby Philippe Aries as the
"tame" death:81it is ritualized,foreseeable,even welcomed. This
concept reached its fullest expression in the late medieval ritual
artesmoriendi,manualsfor "dying well".82By contrast,the "bad"
death, as Caesariusexplains, is sudden or violent; those who die
badly are torn too soon from this world and are unpreparedfor
the next.83These ideas are found not only in Caesarius'sDialogus,
however. The significanceof the individual'smannerof life and
death is a theme in nearlyall medievalrevenanttales: the undead
are most often presentedas having lived an evil life leading to a
bad end.
Williamof Newburgh,Historia rerumAnglicarum,v.25 (ed. Howlett,p. 477).
Caesariusof Heisterbach,Dialogus miraculorum,xi. 1 (ed. Strange,ii, p. 266).
80 See Blochand Parry(eds.), Death and the Regenerationof Life.
81 Aries,Hour of our Death, pp. 5-92.
82 RogerChartier,
"Lesartsde mourir,1450-1600",Annales E.S.C., xxxi (1976),
pp. 29-50. Still valuableis the classicworkof AlbertoTenenti,II sensodella mortee
l'amoredella vita nel Rinascimento(Francia e Italia) (Turin, 1957).
83 Caesarius
of Heisterbach,Dialogus miraculorum,xi. 1 (ed. Strange,ii, p. 267).
78
79
28
PAST AND PRESENT
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To begin with the mannerof life, from Caesariuswe have the

cases of a usurer and of a violent and dissolute man prone to
every kind of criminal behaviour. Map's dead Welshman is
"evil". William of Newburgh discusses a wealthy man and a
choleric and jealous husband; and both William of Newburgh
and the anonymousYorkshirecollectionof revenanttales include
restless dead men who find repose through absolution of their
sins. Likewise, the Icelandicevidence emphasizesthe unpleasant
nature, in life, of those who become draugar,such as the surly
and irreligiousGlamor the violentKiller-Hrapp.Especiallyprone
to revenancy in England and Scotlandwere secularizedmen of
the church: William of Newburgh's hundeprestis a prime
example, to which may be added the Chroniconde Lanercost's
"man wearing the habit of holy religion, who had lived perversely";84and the rector of Kerby mentioned in the Yorkshire
collection. Such men of religionabdicatedtheir sacredduties and
became embroiledin pursuitsthat were properlythe preserveof
the laity: sex and violence.
Equally importantas these details of a sinful life, however, is
the precisemannerof the individual'sdeath. Many storiesspecify
the bad death of those who laterbecome the undead:WalterMap
explicitly notes in each of his cases that those involved died
"irreligiously". Similarly, both Thomas of Cantimpreand the
Dominican Rudolf von Schlettstadt'sHistoriaememorabiles
give
examplesof killed or murderedmen as revenants;one of William
of Newburgh'srevenantsfell to his death while watchinghis wife
in bed with another man; and the revenant in the Chroniconde
Lanercosthad not only lived wickedly, but died under sentence
of excommunication.85
Deaths like these occurredbefore "one's
house was in order", so to speak. Similarly,those revenantswho
we are told were put to rest through the absolutionof their sins
must not only have led impropermorallives, but also presumably
died without proper confession. Related to the mannerof death
is the question of proper burial: it will be recalled that one of
WalterMap's revenantswas put to rest after a cross was placed
to mark its grave. In Iceland, being lost at sea appearsto have
been consideredan especiallyunfortunatedeath, as was death at
the handsof a draugr:both forms of dying commonlyresultedin
84
85
Chroniconde Lanercost,ed. Stevenson, p. 163 (a. 1295).

Ibid.
29
revenancy, as did death through loss of self-control (such as

Thorolf's death from sheer rage in Eyrbyggia
saga).
The underlyinglogic of belief in revenantsis that of a remaining
life-force in the bodies of those who projectedstrong ill will, or
who died too suddenly, leaving "energy still unexpended", in
Lester Little's felicitous phrase.86The bad death of a malicious
person gave cause for fear that his cantankerousvitality might
live on within the corpse itself: hence Guillaumed'Auvergne's
observation that revenants "kill other men from among the
living". This, as I have emphasized, was a common aspect of
tales of the undead. Nearly all are represented as dangerous,
terrorizingvillages and bringingothers to an untimely demise. A
death before the end of one's naturallifetime leads to aggression
against the places and people of one's life. These revenantsbeat
and smother the living, at times succeeding in killing them; or
else they call on the living to come and join them in the world
of the dead. They are particularlyapt to attackthose with whom
they had had some sort of connection:familymembers,mistresses
and residentsof the town where they lived. The unruly packs of
dogs that follow them about, howling, testify to their malign
nature.
Given this logic, it is not surprisingthat preventive measures
against potential revenants may be discerned in some medieval
practices relating to the disposal of the dead
indeed, the
evidence for such practices antedates many of the tales related
above. The early eleventh-century penitential of Burchard of
Worms, known as the Correctorand incorporatedinto the same
author'sDecretum,discussesmany contemporary"superstitions",
including the course of action to be followed in the case of an
untimely (that is, bad) death.87One entry concerns the disposal
of the body of an unbaptizedinfant, which was to be buried in
a remote place and pierced through with a stake, or else "the
little infant would rise up and injure many".88The following
section prescribes penance for those who bury in like manner
stillborninfantsand women who die in childbirth.89In such cases
of bad or prematuredeath, the body is disposed of in a location
86 LesterK. Little,BenedictineMaledictions:LiturgicalCursingin Romanesque
France
(Ithaca,1994),p. 151.
87 On Burchard,
see in particularKyll, Tod, Grab,Begrabnisplatz,Totenfeier,passim.
88 Burchard
of Worms,Decretum,xix.5, ed. J.-P. Migne,P.L., cxl, col. 974.
89 Ibid., cols. 974-5.
30
PASTAND PRESENT
NUMBER 152
outsidethe normalactivitiesof the living;and the staketransfixing

it to the earthpreventsit from wandering.Latersourcesmention
alternativemeansof deprivingthe dangerousdead of local mobility: suicides, for example, were commonly disposed of in rivers
in the Middle Ages.90Denied burial in the common cemetery of
the community, the bodies of these unfortunateswere instead
banished to parts unknown, so that their corpses might not
become revenants.9l Moreover, water was itself an important
barrierwithin medievalthought about the dead: rivers are often
presentedas liminal spaces between the realms of the living and
the dead in otherworldvisions.92In one revenant tale, at least,
the attackof the dead took place next to a river: the story of the
knight Henry in the Historiaememorabiles.
Similarly, in the
Yorkshirecollection, the corpse of one revenantwas disposed of
in water, while another revenant who walked with a living man
at night refused to continue when they came to a river.93Fear of
revenants and their disposal in watery places may also help to
explain the bog burialsuncovered by archaeologistsin northern
Europe:these bodies were discoveredpinned into peat bogs with
thornsand stakes.94The treatmentof such remainsmay be juxtaposed with the observationof the first-centuryRoman historian
Tacitus that according to the justice system of the Germanic
tribes, "the coward, the shirker and the unnaturallyvicious are
drowned in miry swamps under a cover of wattled hurdles":95a
90Jean-ClaudeSchmitt, "Le suicide au Moyen Age", Annales E. S. C., xxxi
(1976),pp. 3-28.
91The relatedissue of wateras a barrierbetweenthe living and the deadcannot
be discussedat lengthhere.See Schmitt,Revenants,p. 210;Barber,Vampires,Burial,
and Death, pp. 147-53. Perhapsrelatedto this belief is the section in Burchard's
Correctorthat describesthe practiceof pouringwaterunderthe departingbier of a
dead man:perhapsthe water, even after its evaporation,formsa symbolicbarrier
preventingthe corpse'sreturn?Burchardof Worms,Decretum, xix.5 (ed. Migne,
cols. 964-5).
92 See varioustexts in Visionsof Heaven and Hell beforeDante, trans.Gardiner.
On
riversas placesof power generally,see Peter Dinzelbacher,"I1ponte come luogo
sacronellarealtae nell'immaginario",
in SofiaBoeschGajanoand LucettaScaraffia
(eds.), Luoghisacri e spazi della santita (Turin, 1990),pp. 51-60.
93 James,"TwelveMedievalGhost-Stories",
p. 413.
94 For a detailedarchaeological
discussion,see P. V. Glob, The Bog People: IronAge Man Preserved,trans.RupertBruce-Mitford
(New York,1969).I wouldlike to
thankLesterLittlefor bringingthisworkto my attention.SeealsoBarber,Mampires,
Burial, and Death, pp. 141, 145.
95 Tacitus,Germania, ch. 12, ed. M. Winterbottom
and R. M. Ogilvie(Oxford,
1975),p. 43; trans.HaroldMattingly(Baltimore,1954),p. 110.Again,I amindebted
to LesterLittlefor this reference.
31
specialmeansof executionand bodily disposalfor those convicted

of living an evil life. The prime importanceof physically constraining the undead is provided in the following case from
Caesariusof Heisterbach,in which a corpse's transformationinto
a revenantis interruptedin processu:
Concerning
the knightEverhardwhosat up on his bier.At that time in the
sameprovincediedanotherknightnamedEverhard,andhe wasa criminal
. . . In the middleof the mght his corpsesat up on the bier and struck
terrorinto all who werepresent. . . Aftertyingup the body, they buried
it beforemass.96
By hindering the body with bonds, the physical activities of a

potential revenant (once again, a wicked man) are minimized.97
The corpse is then buried as soon as possible
even before
morning mass.
These practices point once more to the corporealityof the
revenants: these are not wraith-like apparitions, but fleshly
corpses. Indeed, by contrast with the epigraph to this article
("when a human being dies, both flesh and bones die"), a close
reading of the sources suggests that the source of these corpses'
vitality inheres specifically within the conjunctionof flesh and
bone. The fresherthe cadaver,the more dangerousit is. William
of Newburgh, for example, places great emphasis upon the
intactnessof the cadaversthat become revenants.In his tales, the
bodies in question are all recently deceased, and they gush forth
copious amounts of blood when wounded.98Moreover, the preferred remedy for revenantsthat William presents is cremation,
a form of complete destructionof the flesh. (Presumablyit would
be difficult to re-kill a dead man by any means other than total
96
97
Caesariusof Heisterbach,Dialogus miraculorum,xii. 1 (ed. Strange,ii, p. 324).

On the tying-upof potentialrevenantsin variouscultures,see Barber,Vampires,
Burial, and Death, passim.

98 This is not usuallyattributed
to blood-sucking,althoughWilliamof Newburgh
refersto his lastcorpseas "sanguisuga":
HistoriarerumAnglicarum,v.24 (ed. Howlett,
p. 482). Propervampiresare rarein medievalsources,thoughEtiennede Bourbon
makesmentionof a (living) blood-suckingwere-woman:E. de Bourbon,Anecdotes
historiques,legendes,et apologues,iv.7.364, ed. A. Lecoy de la Marche(Paris,1877),
p. 320. NancyPartnerdiscussesthe casesin Williamof Newburgh,adoptingthe term
"vampire":N. Partner,Serious Entertainments(Chicago,1977),pp. 134-40.In this
regard,it is puzzlingthat elsewhereshe deniesany blood-suckingin William'stales,
despitethe fact that the last case is clearlythat of a blood-sucker:ibid., p. 137. For
the laterhistoricaldevelopmentof vampires,see Barber,Vampires,Burial, and Death;
StephanHock, Die Vampyrsagenund iAre Verwertungin der deutschen Literatur
(Berlin,1900).
32
PAST AND PRESENT
NUMBER 152
bodily destruction.)In all William'scases, burningis the immediate solution suggested by the frightenedtownspeople.99
Similarly, Thomas of Cantimprein De apibusexplicitly links
the possibility of reanimationto the incorruptionof the corpse
(though again with his characteristicdemonic interpretation):
"[The animationof a dead body by a demon] is not possible for
long, for the body is fluid by nature, and cannot preserve the
necessaryvigour without an enliveningspirit. The body corrupts
swiftly when its humourslows down''.l??Here Thomas suggests
that the body is dangerouslypotent, and apt to become reanimated, until the flesh is fully corrupted and destroyed. It must
have "the necessaryvigour", which is eliminatedby putrefaction.
Yet alongsidehis demonicinterpretationmay be discerneda basic
connection between flesh and vitality. If we separateThomas's
interpretationof revenants as demonically possessed from the
"culturalfacts" he is reporting, we are left with the belief that
cadaversare only in danger of becoming revenantsbefore they
"corrupt" and are reduced to bones.
Again, Guillaumed'Auvergne also stressed the importanceof
remainingflesheven as he refutedbelief in revenants.His description of the revenant belief continues: "the bodies of those dead
men, at the time when they seem to be doing this thing, either
are lying intact in their graves, or at the very least their bones
and the rest of their bodies, zvhichdecay has not yet beenable to
consume,are there''.l?l Like Thomas, William implies that once
the decompositionof a body was complete, it would no longer
have been considered a potential revenant. The question of a
reanimatedskeleton is never raised: there must be flesh upon
the bone.
The importanceof the remainingflesh in iconographicrepresentationsof the living dead now takes on greaterresonance:the
revenantsin the dansemacabreand three living / three dead motifs
are within the fleshy "danger-zone" during which the undead
may wander. If the flesh itself is vital, then the representationof
these revenants as in the process of decay takes on an added
Williamof Newburgh,Historia rerumAnglicarum,v.24 (ed. Howlett,p. 482).
lOO
Thomasof Cantimpre,
De apibus,ii.49.7:ThomaeCantimpratani. . . Miraculorum,
p. 369.Note thatthispassageis a continuation
of the quotationattachedto n. 35 above.
101Guillaumed'Auvergne,De 1lniverso,ii.3.24 (Opera omnia, i, p. 1069, col. b;
my emphasis).
99
33
There is a liminalperiodin whichthe deathof

significance.l02
the personalityis absolute,but the deathof the fleshis not yet
complete.Psychicdeathandphysicaldeathdo not coincide.It is
onlywhenthebodyhaspassedthroughits "wet"enfleshedstage,
andbecome"dry"bones(to borrowcategoriesfromanthropological studiesof deathl03)that it is fully defunct.Dichotomies
betweenfleshandspirit,as well as betweenlivinganddead,are
brokendown.
Aside from burialpracticesspecificallyaimedat preventing
disrevenants,othernorthernEuropeantraditionssurrounding
by a desireto avoid
posalof the deadbodyarealsocharacterized
the fleshof the corpseas muchas possible.This hintsat a more
generaldistastefor the newlydead.Fromthe twelfthcenturyit
wascommonin northernEuropefor a deadbodyto be sewninto
a shroud,then nailedinto a woodencoffinmaskedwith cloth.
Theidentityof thedeceasedwasrevealed(if at all)onlyby means
of a woodenor wax efflgyplacedon the lid of the coffin:the
104 Thispractice
fleshitselfhadto remainboxedup andconcealed.
thefleshas muchaspossible,
hasthe doubleeffectof constraining
andof replacingthe "empty"physicalidentityof the corpsewith
Once
the moreacceptableneutralityof an artisticrepresentation.
the body was interred,it might well have a handfulof the
soil of the cemeteryof the Innocentsin
so-called"flesh-eating"
Parisaddedto the grave. This earthwas highlyprizedfor its
allegedcapacityto reducea bodyto barebonesin nine days.l05
Amongthehighestlevelsof thenobilitya different,butequally
interesting,set of new funeralpracticesalsomadetheirappearancearoundthis time,as ElizabethA. R. Brownhasshownin a
boilingor dismemarticle.106Thehabitof immediately
fascinating
of the dansemacabrebearsan additionalresemblanceto
102 One representation
certainrevenanttales: those that involve shape-shifting.The Yorkshirecollection
includesseveraltalesthatdescribethe bodilyformof the revenantas takingon animal
shapes,suchas thatof a dog or a bird.Similarly,the Icelandicevidenceoftenpresents
thatof a seal.This bearscomparison
revenantsas takingon animalform,particularly
with the iconographyof the danceof deathas shownin the churchof Kermaria-enIsquit,in Brittany.In this particularexample,some of the dancingdeadfiguresare
shownwith the headsof animals.
valences,see Bloch and
103 On "dry" and "wet" bodiesand their cross-cultural
of Life.The relatedissueof secondaryburial
Parry(eds.), DeathandtheRegeneration
collectivede la mort".
is discussedin Hertz, "Representation
l04Aries,
Hour
Ibid.,p.
58. of ourDeath,pp. 127, 168-70.
105
106For a discussionof thesepractices,see Brown,"Deathandthe HumanBodyin
of her earlieressay'sconclusions
the LaterMiddleAges",passim. For a modification
(cont.
on p. 34)
PASTAND PRESENT
34
NUMBER152
beringa bodyto extractthe bonesmayalsohavebeenintended

to hurrythe body throughits dangerousfleshystageas quickly
aspossible.Thecustomis bestknownin caseswhereanindividual
haddiedoverseasandtheremainshadto berepatriated
forburial.
However,it is widelyattestedin England,France,Germanyand
the Low Countrieseven in caseswherethe personhad died in
bed. Philipthe Fair referredto the habitof dismembering
the
body for pluralburialas "the practicesof his ancestors''.l07
Likewise,Boncompagno
referredto boilinganddismemberment
as the 'sGermancustom"for disposalof the body, while Saba
Malaspinaspoke of strippingthe bones of flesh as "ancestral
customin France".108 The traditionbearscross-cultural
comparison with practicesof secondaryburial,in whichbodiesare disposed of in two distinctstages that are often relatedto the
decompositionof the flesh.l09WithinEuropeanculture,such
practiceshavebeeninterpreted
as a meansof multiplyingprayers
forthedeadby multiplyingtheplacesof burial.However,boiling
anddismembering
mightalsobe seenas an attemptto hastenthe
dissolutionof the body;as a meansto deprivethe corpseof its
individuality
andso submergeit withinthe ancestralgroup;and
alsoasa wayof scattering
thelimbsso asto preventthepossibility
of revenants.In fact, dismemberment
was the methodadopted
in the caseof the undeadBretoncorpsediscussedearlier.ll?The
totaldestruction
of thefleshwasthekeyto combating
thepotency
of the deadbody.Whetherby naturaldecayor humanintervention,thefleshmustbe dissolvedforthecorpseto be trulydefunct.
Fragmentsof folklorecan also help elaboratethe notionof
vitalityas inherentin the materialcomponentsof the body.
Emphasison the fleshthatremainsuponthe bonesas the source
of life invitescomparisonwith the mythicmotif of the animal
thatis re-enfleshedafterhavingbeeneaten.lllHere,too, themes
( n. 106
cont.)
based on the same evidence, see Elizabeth A. R. Brown, "Authority, the Family, and
the Dead in Late Medieval France", FrenchHist. Studies,xvi (1989-90), pp. 803-32.
107 Brown, "Death and the Human Body in the Later Middle Ages", p. 254.
Cited ibid.,pp. 227 (Germany), 232 (France).
109Cf. Hertz, "Representation collective de la mort"; Bloch and Parry (eds.), Death
andtheRegeneration
of Life.
0 Schmitt, Revenants,
p. 174.
111For more on this topic, see Maurizio Bertolotti, "Le ossa e la pelle dei buoi: un
mito popolare tra agiografia e stregoneria", Quaderni
storici,xli (1979), pp. 470-99;
Klaniczay, Usesof Supernatural
Pozoer,ed. Margolis, pp. 129-50; Carlo Ginzburg,
Ecstasies:Deciphering
the Witches'Sabbath,ed. Gregory Elliott, trans. Raymond
Rosenthal (New York, 1991).
REVENANTSAND RITUAL
WRAITHS,
35
The
the deadcomingbackto life arelinkedto fleshandbone.
of
sinister
a
exists throughoutEuropein both a saintlyand
tale
of St Germanus
hagiography
It is toldin a ninth-century
version.
he haseatenit
after
Auxerre,wherethe saintresurrectsa calf
of
over
foldingthebonesintotheskinandpraying it.ll2A variant
by
De
ofthis type may also be found in Thomasof Cantimpre's
pregnant
ailing
an
cure
to
order
wherean ox is killedin
apibus,
andthe abbotof a monasterysecretlyresurrectsit.ll3In
woman,
Edda,datingfromthefirsthalfof thethirteenth
Sturluson's
Snorri
a similartale is told of Thor.ll4Aftereatingtwo goats
century,
placedin
fordinner,Thor asksthat the bonesbe collectedand
marrow
the
for
theskins. One leg-boneis damaged,however, hammer,the
his
with
hadbeeneaten.WhenThorhits the skins
take on flesh and come back to life-but one limps.
animals
the sametoposis presentin someItalianwitchcraft
Interestingly,
fromthefourteenthto theearlysixteenthcenturies.ll5
confessions
thattheyoccasionThesewitnessesexplainto theirinterrogators
oxen slain
allyattendfeasts,afterwhichthe bonesof one of thethe
"lady"
when
fordinnerareplacedin its skinandrevivified a magictwig.
with
them
whopresidesoverthe festivitiestouches
by a little
Ifa bone were lost or broken,it couldbe replaced
one
Finally,
well.
as
just
serve
pieceof wood, which would
animal.
an
than
rather
person
a
versionof the tale involves
of some
Burchardof Worms'sCorrectorcensuresthe belief and
then
womenthatthey cankill humanbeings,eat theirflesh backto
person
placestrawor woodunderthe skinandbringthe
as they
life.ll6The commonsubstratumof these tales, diverse
located
as
life
of
are in time and place, points to a definition
substitutive
their
(or
bone
and
withinthe conjunctionof flesh
material
equivalents):the skeletalstructure,overlaidwith the
body.ll7
animate
flesh,togetherforman
See Bertolotti, "Ossa e
The earliest hagiography does not mention the incident.
Jacobus de Voragine,
in
Germanus
of
retold
is
anecdote
The
la pelle dei buoi", p. 478.
1993), ii, p. 29.
(Princeton,
vols.
2
Ryan,
Granger
The GoldenLegend,trans. William
ii.25.5: Thom Cantimpratani. . . Miraculorum,
113 Thomas of Cantimpre, De apibus,
pp. 212-13.
ch. 44, in his Edda, ed. Anthony Faulkes (Oxford,
114 SnorriSturluson, Gylfaginning,
pp. 37-8. The relevant passage
1982), p. 37; trans. Anthony Faulkes (London, 1987),
e la pelle dei buoi", p. 480.
is quoted, in Italian translation, in Bertolotti, "Ossa
confession, see Bertolotti, "Ossa e la pelle
115 For more on this kind of witchcraft
Ecstasies, ed. Elliott; Klaniczay, Uses of
Ginzburg,
487-92;
470-2,
pp.
dei buoi",
129-50.
pp.
Margolis,
ed.
SupernaturalPozoer,
xix.5 (ed. Migne, col. 973).
116 Burchard of Worms, Decretum,
magical uses. Gerald of Wales
ll7Dry animal bones alone also had important
of rams in order to
mentions the Welsh practice of boiling the right shoulder-blades
112
(cont.
on p. 36)
36
PASTAND PRESENT
NUMBER152
Similarly,a tensionbetweentwo differentdefinitionsof life

materialandspiritual is alsomanifestin themedievaldevotion
to relics.Despitetheprotestsof theologians
thatrelicsthemselves
werenot animateor sentient beingmerematterleft behindin
the world while the soul of the saint dwelt in heaven the
widespread
imputationof a powerfulvirtusto saints'relicsparallels revenantbeliefsin severalimportantways.ll8In bothcases,
the localcommunity'sevaluationof individuals'mannerof life
anddeathis centralto the definitionof theirbodiesas powerful
after death.ll9Saints,like revenants,were likely to die before
theirtime, throughpersecutionor simpleausterity,thusleaving
"energystillunexpended"
in theirphysicalremains.
120Moreover,
the emphasisupon the relics'incorruptionagainsuggeststhat
continuingvitalitywas connectedto the congruenceof fleshand
bone.Indeed,a processof discerningbetweenthe goodandthe
bad deadis suggestedby the eighth-centuryIndiculus
superstitionumet paganiarum,
whichnotesthat someerroneously"pretendto themselvesthatthe deadof anykindaresaints".121 Relics
maythusbe seenas a specialcategoryof the undead.
These fragmentsof beliefand customcoherearounda belief
thatthe bodypossessedvitalityas longas it remainedintact.This
materialdefinitionof life contrastssharplywith the medicotheologicaltradition,whichprivilegesthe numinouselementof
the spirit-soulas the mainelementin the definitionof life. In the
local traditionsof northernEurope,the life-forceis literally
embodied,heldwithinthe fleshandbone;whilein ecclesiastical
(n.
117
cont.)
clean them of flesh; afterwards, they were used to cast lots and prophesy the future:
Geraldof Wales, ItinerariumKambriae,i. 11, ed. James F. Dimock (Rolls Ser., London,
1868), p. 87.
118 See Brown, Cult of the Saints; Vauchez, Saintete en Occident;Patrick J. Geary,
Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages (Princeton, 1990); Geary,
Living zuiththe Dead in the Middle Ages; Joan Petersen, "Dead or Alive? The Holy
Man as Healer in East and West in the Later Sixth Century", 1 Medieval Hist., ix
(1983), pp 91-8.
1l9For a discussion of the centrality of local community participationin the formation of a reputation for sanctity after death, see Nancy Caciola, "Through a Glass,
Darkly: Recent Work on Sanctity and Society", Comp. Studies in Society and Hist.,
xxxviii (1996), forthcoming.
120 Miri Rubin, "Choosing Death? Experiences of Martyrdom in Late Medieval
Europe", in Diana Wood (ed.), Martyrs and Martyrologies(Studies in Church Hist.,
xxx, Oxford, 1993), pp. 153-83.
121 "Indiculus superstitionum et paganiarum", no. 25, in Capitularia regum
Francorum,ed. Alfred Boretius and Victor Krause (Monumenta GermaniaeHistorica,
Legum sectio ii, 2 vols., Hanover, 1883-97), i, p. 223.
REVENANTSAND RITUAL
WRAITHS,
37
the life-force may be either embodiedor not

doctrine
on whetherit is in the fleshly"garment"or awaiting
depending
Thesedifferingviewpointsled to differing
finalresurrection.
the
of reportsof wanderingcorpses,as either the
interpretations
deador as possessedby demons.Yet corporealrevenants
living
notalwaysseenasmalignor demonic:as I shalldemonstrate,
were
who died peacefullycould also returnfrom the grave,
those
zoutanyaggresslvemtent.
Wlt
*
VI
RITUALSOF THE DEAD
the restlessdeadweremostoftenenvisionedin predatAlthough

to make
orytermsduringthe MiddleAges thatis, as desiringpresent
tales
some
realm
own
thelivingcrossover into their
Talesof
themas havingan activesociallife amongthemselves.
feastspresidedoverby DianaorHerodias,orof Harlequin's
spirit
are fairly
armyand its ritualizedprocessionsand tournaments, and its
horde"
"wild
This
historians.l22
wellknownto modern
counterpartof the "goodthings"were said to appear
feminine
frequencyaroundthe Emberdays,thefourweeks
withparticular
of
oftransitionbetweenthe seasons.However,suchapparitions
the
than
thedead were apparentlyconceivedas less corporeal
the
wraiths
these
see
to
order
in
since
above,
discussed
revenants
them
livinghadto leavebehindtheirown bodiesandencounter
spirits.Suchmeetingscouldonly
onequalterms,as disembodied
the Friuli,
beconductedby specialistssuchas the benandanteinunprepared
an
123Were
orarmarieslike ArnaudGelisin Pamiers.
they couldbe just as
dead,
disembodied
the
meet
to
individual
elsewhere,
dangerousas corporealrevenants.As I have arguedto
a lesser
and
Italy,
in some areasof Europe(particularlyin
considwere
dead
the
extentin otherareas)shadesandspiritsof
in the Sixteenth
Cults
CarloGinzburg,TheNight Battles: WitchcraftandAgrarian(New York, 1986);
Anne Tedeschi
and Seventeenth Centuries, trans. John and
pp. 115-46;Richard
Ginzburg,Ecstasies,ed. Elliott,pp. 89-121;Schmitt,Revenants,
Mass.,1952),pp. 23-4, 78-81;
(Cambridge,
Ages
Middle
the
in
Men
Wild
Bernheimer,
(Stuttgart,1942),pp. 86-96;
W. E. Peuckert,DeutscherVolksglaubedes Spatmittelalters
Studien zur Geschichte
Rhein:
Euphrat
Traditionswanderungen
WaldemarLiungman,
on the horde,
documents
of
collection
a
For
1937-8).
2 pts (Helsinki,
der Volksbrauche,
und wilder
Heer
wutenden
vom
Sagen
Die
see KarlMeisen,
arrangedchronologically,
gager (Munster, 1938).
trans.
LeRoyLadurie,Montaillou: The PromisedLand of Error,
123 See Emmanuel
342-56.
pp.
1978),
York,
BarbaraBray(New
122
38
PASTAND PRESENT
NUMBER152
ered likely suspects in the spiritualpossession of the living: the

disembodieddead seeking a new body.l24
Corporealrevenantshad ritualsof their own as well, the most
importantof which was the dance. This harmlessactivity differs
markedly from the malevolent tales of the undead discussed
above, suggesting that these revenantshave come to terms with
their new status. Furthermore,since sourceson the dancesof the
dead do not give informationon the mannerof life (or of death)
of the dancers, one might speculate that these revenants lived
and died less spectacularlythan their more aggressive counterparts.Ratherthanpreyingon the living, the dancingdeadtransfer
their energies to their new community. Walter Map mentions
such incidents twice in his De nugiscurialium.In the first, a man
buries his wife only to see her dancingshortly after:
a certainknightburiedhis truly deadwife, then snatchedher backfrom
a circle-dance.Afterwardshe had childrenand grandchildren
with her,
and the familysurvivesto this day. Those who tracetheir originto her
have become a large groupgand everyonecalls them <'childrenof the
deadwoman"(filii mortue). 25
Map's tone suggests an utter lack of surpriseat someone finding

the dead dancingin this way. The fact that the woman dies, and
that her husband then snatches her back from a dance, is presented as entirely logical, in no need of further explanation.
Similarly, Map's second tale also concerns an intermarriage
between the living and the dead. Here we are told of a nobleman
who "snatched the most beautiful of a group of nocturnally
dancing women'',l26wed her and had a son. The end of the
anecdoteexplicitly notes that she had been abductedfrom among
the dead, who were quite annoyedat the man's temerity. Female
revenants, though rare among the individual, hostile variety of
the undead, seem to have been common as dancers.Perhapsthis
is related to women's relatively tenuous connections with violence: women did not lead the kinds of lives, nor die the kinds
of death, associatedwith the evil undead.
Thomas of Cantimprementions a dance of "demons" dressed
as monks sighted near Cologne in 1258. Yet these figures could
equally well have been interpretedas a group of the dead. As I
See Caciola, "Discerning Spirits".
Map, De nugis curialium,ii. 13 (ed. James, rev. Brooke and Mynors, p. 160).
126 Ibid., iv. 10 (ed. James, rev. Brooke and Mynors, pp. 348-50).
124
125
39
have demonstratedabove, the demonization of revenants is a

characteristictrait of Thomas of Cantimpre'sDe apEbus:
In the presentyear 1258nearthe city of Cologne. . . a huge circle-dance
of demonsin the habitsof white monkswas seen in the open partof the
fields.Withtheirvoicesliftedon high, they weredancingin time (tripudians) and joyouslyleaping(exultans).The people of the villagegathered
therealongwith the priest,but whenthey wantedto approachthe dance,
the demonsedged, dancing,towardsa river the same distancethat the
men ag7proached,
until the whole malignantcrowddisappearedinto the
river.
The demonic explanation seems to be Thomas's preferred

explanation,but this tale was in all likelihoodbased upon a local
belief in a sighting of revenants. Since Thomas did not give
credence to the undead, he interpretedthe boisterousdancersas
demonic. For those who believed in the dead's return, however,
there would be no reason to interpret these human figures in
human dress as anything other than revenants:once again, the
culturalfacts of the tale differ from the collector'sinterpretation.
There is nothing demonic in these dancers' aspect, and the fact
that they escape the approachof the living by entering a river is
suggestive. As I have noted above, rivers were often seen as
boundariesbetween the realms of the living and the dead.
A similardance, this time conductedin a cemetery, is attested
in a story in Rudolf von Schlettstadt'sHistoriaememorabiles,
"On
the rector of the church of Basel, who reported that he saw the
dead". This man held several benefices,and was in the course of
visiting each of his churches:
Finally, he arrivedat a churchwhose vicar had a house borderingthe
cemetery. . . He slept well and, after havinghad sweet dreamsup until
the hourof eleven, he awokeand got up to ease his bladder.Afterwards
he returnedto bed, with the windowthatlookedout on to the cemetery
still open, in orderthat he mightsee the calmnessof the sky and winds.
Then suddenlyhe saw many men in the cemetery,runningto and fro
withlittle torchesandlamps,whileotherswereperforminga circle-dance
and singingthis song togetherin a deep voice:
If I were still in the shorthome,
As I am in the long home,
Then I would, beforemy end,
127 Thomas of Cantimpre,De apibus,ii.57.42:
Thoma Cantimpratani. . . Miraculorum,
p. 475. This chapter is also found separately in British Library, Harley MS. 2316, fo.
lOV:H. L. D. Ward and J. A. Herbert (eds.), Catalogueof Romancesin the Department
of Manuscriptsin the British Museum, 3 vols. (London, 1883-1910), iii, p. 575 (no.
24); Frederic C. Tubach, Index exemplorum:A Handbookof Medieval Religious Tales
(Helsinki, 1969), p. 113 (no. 1413).
40
PASTAND PRESENT
NUMBER 152
Turn towardsmanygood things,

And send themon my own behalf.l28
The verse is included in the text in Middle High Germanand is

even set to musicalnotation. The use of a vernacularlanguagein
this context is a tantalizingclue to the story's oral foundation.
Where did the Dominican collector of these tales hear the song
in its original tongue and jot down the tune? These questions
must remain unanswered. What is clear, however, is that the
verse derivesfrom some local communitywhere it was performed
as a song of the dead. The references to the "short home"
(kurtzAaim)
and the "long home" (langkhaim)identify the singers
with the dead, and also indicate how parallelthe worlds of the
living and the dead were thought to be: each has its properrealm
or home, with distinct names and customs.
To these literaryreferencesto the dances of the dead must be
added the iconographicmotif of the dansemacabre,in which the
bodies of the dead, some carrying musical instrumentsand all
lifting their feet in measuredtime, also perform a circle-dance.
Yet in these representationsthe dead are interspersedwith the
living, a fact that suggests some interestingconnections.For not
only did the dead dance in churchyards,but so, too, did the
living, both in cemeteriesand at vigils, wakesor commemorations
for the dead:l29perhapsthe little verse just quoted derives from
such a context. Indeed, such practiceshave long genealogies.As
earlyas the eighth century,the Indiculussuperstitionum
et paganiarumheaded its list of condemnedpracticeswith "sacrilegeat the
tombs of the dead''.l30In the ninth century, Hincmarof Reims
discussedthe traditionalone-year anniversaryrites for the dead,
which included feasting and convivia in which the dead were
representedamong the living by maskedrevellers.131In the early
eleventh century, Burchardof Worms instructed confessors to
128 Rudolfvon Schlettstadt,
Historiae memorabiles,ch. 20, ed. Kleinschmidt,
p. 72.
The Germantext of the verse readsas follows:"wer ich da zw kurtzhaim/ als ich
bin zw langkhaim/ so wolt ich vor meinemende/ gutzvil beywenden/ undfur mich
sendenn".I am indebtedto CraigM. Koslofskyfor help with translatingtheselines.
129 For a generaltreatment,
see LouisGougaud,"Ladansedansles eglises",Revue
d'histoireecclesiastique,xv (1914),pp. 5-22, 229-43.
l30''Indiculussuperstitionumet paganiarum",no. 1 (ed. Boretiusand Krause,
p. 223).
131 Hincmar
of Reims,"Quomodoin conviviisdefunctorumaliarumvecollectarum
gererese debeant",Capitulariapresbyterisdata anno 852, ch. 14, ed. J.-P. Migne,
P.L., cxxv, col. 776. Formoreon masksandthe dead,see Schmitt,Religione,folklore,
e societa nell'Occidentemedievale,pp. 206-38.
41
enquireof their penitents,"Haveyou attendedthe vigils over

the corpsesof the dead, in which the bodiesof Christiansare
guardedby a paganritual,and have you sung diabolicalsongs
menThomasof Cantimpre
in dances?''l32
thereandparticipated
tions identicalpracticesin the thirteenthcentury,censuringthe
customary"games"(ludi) playedat vigilsover the biersof the
dead.133
By farthe mostdetailedmedievaldescriptionof the traditional
heldin cemeteriesderivesfromthe twelfth-century
circle-dances
workof Geraldof Wales,whoseItinerariumKambriaereadsmuch
expedition.Geralddescribes
like the diaryof an anthropological
the ecstaticdanceshe witnessedin the localcemeteryas follows:
Here you may see men or girls, eitherin the church,in the cemetery,or
in the circle-dancethatwindsthroughthe cemeterywith songs,suddenly
fall to the ground.At firstthey are led into an ecstasyandarein a trance
then immediately,as if rapt into a frenzy, they leap up. Then
(guietos);
they mime, with handsand feet, in front of everyone,whateveractions
they are accustomedto engagein improperlyon feast-days.You might
see this one put his handto the plough;anotheras if goadingoxen. Each
of them, as if to ease their work, emits traditionalcries in a barbarous
tone. You might see this one imitatea cobbler,that one, a tanner;or a
girl, as if she were carryinga distaff,now pullingout the threadat length
with her handsand arms,and then, whenit is out, windingit backon to
the spindle.One, as she waLks,seemsto workfibreon the loom;another
sits as if all is readyand tossesa shuttlefrom side to side, from handto
hand,and with flourishesand rhythmshe seemsto weave.l34
of these mimedgesturesas
Apartfrom Gerald'sinterpretation
illicitactivitiescarriedouton feast-days,thisaccount
representing
for its
stayscloseto the level of culturalfact, andis remarkable
His descriptionof miming,
detailand sympatheticpresentation.
or theatricalelements,as centralto the celebrationalso may be
comparedto Burchardof Worms'scensureof dances,held on
feast-daysin frontof the church(in thecemetery?),thatinvolved
Etienne
135 A centuryafterGerald,the Dominican
cross-dressing.
de Bourbonwas unableto containhis repugnanceat dancesin
cemeteries,which utterly scandalizedhim. The dancesoften
appearin his collectionof exempla,along with appropriately
scathingremarksand exhortationsto abandonthe custom.One
tale tells of a churchstruckby lightningaftera groupof local
Burchardof Worms,Decretum,xix.5 (ed. Migne,col. 964).
Cantimpratani. . . Miraculonum,
De apibus,ii.49.23:Th
lwhomas
of Cantimpre,
pp. 376-7.
Cambrensis,ItinerariumKambriae,i.2 (ed. Dimock,pp. 32-3).
134 Giraldus
Decretum,x. 39 (ed. Migne,col. 839).
135 Burchard,
132
133
42
PAST AND PRESENT
NUMBER152
young people "performedcircle-dancesthe whole night long in

the cemetery''.l36Although clearly not all the dances mentioned
in this work are directly concernedwith the dead-cemeteries,
as centrally located open spaces, would have been a natural
ground for any kind of dance
it is likely that at least some
served as a ritual means of interactingwith the dead.l37Indeed,
certaincircle-dances most notablya "bridge-dance"or "archdance", in which the circle of dancers threads itself under the
claspedhands of one link were closely associatedwith funeral
events or fertility cycles for precisely this reason:by dancing in
this way, one symbolicallycrossed the border between life and
death, guaranteeingfecundity for the living and harmony with
the dead.l38As the Middle Ages wore on, church councils continuallyinveighedagainstsuch activities:in 1208, Eudes de Sully,
archbishopof Paris, forbade dances, especially in three places:
churches, processions and cemeteries. In 1212 or 1213, the
Council of Paris adopted this prohibition, singling out circledances of women in churchyardsfor specific condemnation.The
Council of Rouen in 1231 forbade any dances to be held in a
cemetery,as did the Councilof Wurzburgin 1298and the Statutes
of Treguier in the late thirteenthor early fourteenth century.l39
The Rouen prohibitionreappearsin 1405.14?In 1435, the Council
of Basel referred to the "Feast of Fools, or of Innocents, or of
Children",and to the dances that were shamelesslyheld on this
occasion "even in the cemetery''.l4l
Thus there exist threebodies of evidencewith thematicsimilarities: reports of dances of the dead; the dances of the living in
cemeteriesor in other contexts that involve death; and the danse
macabremotif, which includes both living and dead. Certain
connections, though tenuous, may be made between them. The
l36Etiennede Bourbon,Anecdoteshistoriques,legendes,et apologues,iii.6.195 (ed.
Lecoyde la Marche,p. 169).
137 Ibid., iii.6.194-5,iv.7.275,iv.12.462(ed. Lecoyde la Marche,
pp. 168-9,229-30,
398-9).Forsimilarexempla,seealsoLa Tabulaexemplorumsecundumordinemalphabeti,
ch. 35, ed. J. Th. Welter(Paris, 1926), p. 11; Fasciculusmorum,v.8 (ed. Wenzel,
p. 444). For a closereadingof one of theseepisodes,see Schmitt,Religione,folklore e
societa nell'Occidentemedievale,pp. 98-123. On the dancesas ritualinteractionwith
the dead,see CurtSachs,WorldHistory of the Dance, trans.BessieSchonberg(New
York, 1937),pp. 251-3, 257-8.
138 Sachs,WorldHistory of the Dance, pp. 162-3.
139 For all the foregoing,see Gougaud,"Dansedansles eglises",pp. 12-13.
140 Aries,Hour of our Death, p. 69.
141 Charlesdu Plessisd'Argentre,Collectiojudiciorum,3 vols. (Paris, 1728-36),i,
pp. 231, 243-7.
REVENANTSAND RITUAL
WRAITHS,
43
motifmayrepresentin pictorialformthe perceived

iconographic
of seen and unseenworlds.When the living held
coexistence
in cemeteries,mightthey havebelievedthemselvesto be
dances
with the deadamongthem,as shownin the frescoes
dancing
acircle-danceof the livingupona circle-danceof the dead?
Thereis someevidenceto this effect.For example,according
led
toFlorenceWhyte, dancesin the cemeteryat Montserrat
church.
the
in
fresco
death
of
to the paintingof a dance
directly
patronizedthe dansemacabre
at the Abbeyof Montserrat
Monks
mori
as its sombrememento
saw
themebecauseof what they
different
mean
may
mortality
of
But mindfulness
associations.l42
withindifferentsemanticsystems.The danceof the living
things
withthe dead,whichto the monkswas a symbolof the brevity
of thecontinuity
ofthislife, mayhavebeento othersa celebration
The ritual
community.
circular
one
as
ofthe livingandthe dead
seen
when
ways
different
in
dancerelatesto the iconography
emphasizes
Male
Emile
Similarly,
fromdifferentperspectives.
early
theperformativeoriginsof the dansemacabretheme:an
"script"
for example,containsa
manuscript,
fourteenth-century
the living would dancethe
which
in
forsuch a performance,
thereis also evidenceof actual
danceof death.l43Furthermore,
of the
stagingsof the motif.In 1393,a representation
theatrical
of
Franciscans
dansewas performedin Caudebec;in 1449, the
of
Gerald
John.
had it performedin the churchof St
BesanSon
be
also
could
Wales'sdescriptionof the Welshcemeterydance
as suchan event:perhapsthe activitiesmimedby the
interpreted
dancersamongthe gravesrepresentedthe differentprofessions
death
anddailyactivitiesin whichone mightbe engagedwhen
pictorially
comes,just as the later dansemacabreiconography macabre
representsthe same theme. Even though the danse
acquireda historyanda meaningof its own withinecclesiastical
traditions,it appearsto have been based upon performative
from traditionaldances
dramas,that were in turnappropriated
with ritualovertones.
Thus traditionalbeliefs, ritualand iconographyoverlapand
activities
traceuponone anothera culturalmapof the common
have
well
may
dances
cemetery
Some
of both living and dead.
their
within
revenants
fixing
of
purpose
servedthe apotropaic
ownsocialsphere,theirown"longhome",lesttheyprowlamong
142
143
Whyte, Danceof Deathin Spainand Catalonia,p. 45.

Art in France,ed. Bober, pp. 329-30.
Male, Religious
44
PASTAND PRESENT
NUMBER152
the living:dancingrevenantsdo not appearto havebeenviolent.

By rituallytransgressing
the borderof life anddeath,suchpractices mighthave been perceivedas a way of strengthening
the
borderitself. This wouldmakethe dancesof the livinga form
of sympatheticmagic,by which the dead were encouragedto
remainwithintheirown realm.144At the sametime, they celebratedthe communallinkagesbetweenlivinganddead.
VII
CONCLUSION
We historians,too, areconstantlyseekingout the deadandthen

attemptingto "fix" themin theirown place:thoughmy aimin
this articlehas been to pin down ideas and mentalattitudes
towardsthe dead,ratherthandeadbodies.I haveexploredthree
linkedissuesin the socialhistoryof ideas,whileemphasizing
the
multiplicityof possibleresponsesthey evoked.
First, how did differentmedievaltraditionsor communities
definelife and death?This articleproposesa loosegroupingof
definitionsinto two models:the spiritual,characteristic
of the
elite learnedtraditionsof the MiddleAges; and the material,
associatedwith the popularculturalsphereof northernEurope.
Thus the doctrineof the spiritus as the principleof life was
contrastedwith the ideaof a physicalvirtus residingin the flesh
andbone.Yet despitesuchdifferencesin the conceptionof life's
and death'sphysicalprocesses,neverthelessthere was a broad
culturalconsensusaboutotheraspectsof deathas an experience.
In particular,therewas widespreadconcernaboutthe "good"
and the "bad"death:agreementon the importanceof meeting
deathwell preparedwas commonin nearlyall sectorsof medievalsociety.
Secondly,whatkindsof afterlifewere possible,and how was
the continuingvitality of the body interpreted?Again, in
addressingthesequestionsI haveemphasizedboththe unityand
the diversityof medievalculture.All the sourcesagreeupona
conceptof afterlife:deathis not the end of life. However,the
spiritualand the materialmodelsof life and of deathare each
associatedwith a particularview of afterlife.In the spiritual
l44HelmutRosenfeldinterpretsthe dance of death iconographyas servingthe
apotropaicpurpose of wardingoff plague: Rosenfeld,Mittelalterliche
Totentanz,
pp. 298-9.
45
model,theafterlifeis a numinous,wraithlikeexistenceandmovements of a body after deathmay take place only throughthe

intervention
of a spirit thatis, by a demonpossessinga corpse.
In the materialmodel, of course,the conceptionof vitalityas
inherentin fleshand bonesmakesa special,corporealform of
afterlifepossibleuntil the completedecayof the corpse.Here
afterlifeoccursas a revenant,ratherthanas a wraith.
Thirdlyand finally,how did communitiesachievea balance
between the overlappingrealmsof the living and the dead?
Althoughinterestin the continuingsocialimportance
of the dead
wasa featureof medievalcultureas a whole,ritualtechnologies
for dealingwith the deaddifferedaccordingto tradition.While
ecclesiasticaldoctrinepromotedthe provisionof massesand
prayersfor thosein purgatoryas the bestmeansof assuagingthe
tormentsof one's ancestors,local communitiesin northern
Europeapparently
interactedwiththeirdeadthroughritualdancing. I haveofferedan interpretation
of theseenigmaticdancesas
bringingtogetherthe livinganddeadmembersof the community
intoone circularchain;at the veryleast,the graveyarddancesof
the living replicatedsocialactivitiesthat were reportedof the
dead.Yet thesedancesmayalsohaveservedas the basisfor the
iconographyof the dansemacabrethat was promotedby the
institutional
church:onceagain,the borderbetweenpopularand
elite culturewas subjectto a processof dynamicexchangethat
accountsformuchof thecreativityof medievalcultureasa whole.
Universityof California,San Diego
Nancy Caciola

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The Past and Present Society

Wraiths, Revenants and Ritual in Medieval Culture

Whena humanbeingdies . . . the bodythatgavecomfortto manypeople

As this fourteenth-centurypreacherplaced nib to parchment,he

the theological and learned medical traditions, and a material

The task of the historian is to undo this process, to recover

5JonathanZ. Smith,Map is not Territory:Studiesin the History of Religion(Chicago,

Although it is useful to maintain contrastive distinctions

The social significanceof death is constructedwith great variety

PAST AND PRESENT

Arab influences, spiritus was often subdivided into three classes

(Princeton,1981);Nancy G. Siraisi,Medievaland EarlyRenaissance

from Hugh of Saint-Victor to Albertus Magnus and Thomas

In short, the spiritualmodel of life, deathand afterlifeincreasingly

model was not the

handsfrom theirsideswhen they walk

beset much of the

among the living insensitive enough to walk about with their

This tale, with its complex intertwiningof local popular and of

interpretationof the incident from the cultural facts that he is

The passageexplicitly describeshow the demon enters the body,

PAST AND PRESENT

Other macabretales emphasizedthe total death of the body in

that the dead do have a continuing vitality of their own. If we

Belief in corpses coming back to life is well attested for parts of

largely neglected.44While this oversight may be due to the fact

PAST AND PRESENT

neara river who is suddenlyattackedby three

He was extremelywicked,and judgedrapes,

similarthingsto be virtues.After he had died . . . he appearedto many

The terrifiedgirl eventuallyrid her home of the revenantthrough

PAST AND PRESENT

Interestinglyenough, the bishop suggests that the body may

notes that "such things often happenedin England",56and then

PAST AND PRESENT

have examined, professes perplexity as to the mechanism by

Despite the frequency William ascribes to these events, he

in the cemetery,but he usedto go out fromhis graveat nightandterrify

Ibid.,v.24 (ed. Howlett,p. 477).

him somehowif they could,and they met at the cemetery.But when he

There are several parallelshere to earlier tales, especially those

PAST AND PRESENT

The revenantsucceedsin killing the family'sheir on this occasion,

tattered shrouds. The famous lines, "What you are, we once

worms at work in the cadaversto demonstratethe

Tales of revenants, though scattered chronologically

texts testified to the frequency of such events. As William of

PAST AND PRESENT

To begin with the mannerof life, from Caesariuswe have the

Chroniconde Lanercost,ed. Stevenson, p. 163 (a. 1295).

revenancy, as did death through loss of self-control (such as

outsidethe normalactivitiesof the living;and the staketransfixing

specialmeansof executionand bodily disposalfor those convicted

By hindering the body with bonds, the physical activities of a

Caesariusof Heisterbach,Dialogus miraculorum,xii. 1 (ed. Strange,ii, p. 324).

Burial, and Death, passim.

PAST AND PRESENT

There is a liminalperiodin whichthe deathof

beringa bodyto extractthe bonesmayalsohavebeenintended

Similarly,a tensionbetweentwo differentdefinitionsof life

the life-force may be either embodiedor not

the restlessdeadweremostoftenenvisionedin predatAlthough

ered likely suspects in the spiritualpossession of the living: the

Map's tone suggests an utter lack of surpriseat someone finding