Repentant soul or walking corpse? Debatable apparitions in Medieval England [1]

Folklore, Dec, 2003 by Jacqueline Simpson

In the Berwick case, there is no mention that any clergy were consulted, but William's report does incidentally show how social and educational differences affected reactions to the spectre's activities. In view of the widespread panic, he writes, "the higher and middle classes of the people held a necessary investigation into what was requisite to be done," though disagreeing on what exactly the danger was. "The more simple among them" feared the ghost would beat them up, but "the wiser shrewdly concluded" that the threat was a medical one: the air would become infected with plague by "the constant whirling through it of the pestiferous corpse," as had often happened in similar cases. Some people claimed the ghost itself had told them there would be no peace as long as it remained unburnt. So the committee of investigators got hold of "ten young men renowned for boldness" and ordered them to dig up the corpse, dismember it, and burn it.

At Melrose, conversely, the drama was played out entirely within a monastic community, yet a physical solution was adopted, apparently without hesitation or debate. Only one person was being haunted, "a certain illustrious lady" whose late chaplain, a worldly minded monk with an unseemly fondness for hunting, had taken to hovering "with loud groans and horrible murmurs" around her bedchamber, although his body lay in the cemetery of Melrose Abbey. This lady begged one of the friars there to get his community to pray for her; feeling that she deserved their best efforts, because of her frequent donations to the Abbey, he did more than just pray--he and another friar, together with "two powerful young men," spent the night keeping watch at the chaplain's grave, a vigil which ended in a fight and the wounding of the dead man, whose body was exhumed and burnt next day. Since a real-life friar would probably not play a lone hand in the manner of Brother Cadfael, we can deduce that this drastic action was approved by the Abbey authorities.

Finally, at "Anantis" divergent attitudes are once again apparent. While the parish priest is dining with the "wise and religious" clerics whom he is consulting, and before any decision has been reached, two men whose father had died of the ghost-induced plague take action themselves by digging up the suspect corpse and burning it. It seems they expect some people might object, since they say to one another: "There is no one to hinder us; for in the priest's house a feast is in progress, and the whole town is as silent as if deserted." But once the corpse has been dug out and set alight, they abandon their secrecy; the clergy are told what is going on and come running to see it, so as to be able to "testify to the circumstances." It is one of these clerics who later tells William about the affair.

The Devil's Work?

William naturally imposes a religious interpretation on these events. Although at one point he says he does not know by what agency the dead can issue from their graves, elsewhere he ascribes it to "the contrivance of Satan" and "the handiwork of Satan," and speaks of the Devil rousing up the corpse, "his own chosen vessel." This demonic explanation was also that adopted by William of Malmesbury (as mentioned earlier); it is found again in Continental texts in the thirteenth century, though only as a minority view (Caciola 1996, 10-15 and 18-19).