Was the vampire of the eighteenth century a unique type of undead-corpse?

Abstract

In his Treatise on Vampires and Revenants (1746), Calmet argued that although Western Europe may have witnessed troublesome revenants in the past, the vampires of Eastern Europe were a unique type of undead-corpse. In this paper, I examine the characteristic features of the various types of undead-corpse that supposedly existed in Europe from the medieval period to the Enlightenment, so too the revenants of nineteenth-century New England. I argue that, unlike other types of undead-corpse, the distinguishing feature of eighteenth-century vampires was their apparent thirst for blood.

Introduction

The Slavic notion of blood-sucking corpses arose in south-eastern Europe sometime in the early medieval period (Perkowski 1989, 18), and by the eighteenth century belief in their existence was so extensive that in Poland, for example, not to believe in vampires was tantamount to heresy (Calmet 2001, 333). Popular fascination with revenants was further fuelled by reports of vampire outbreaks erupting across Eastern Europe in the early decades of the eighteenth century. In their wake, the Austro-Hungarian authorities, under whose jurisdiction the occurrences took place, enacted legislation to quell the situation, conducted official investigations into the matter and documented their findings. The Visum et Repertum (1732), for example, is the official report into the activities of a reputed vampire, Arnod Paole, and his undead progeny, that supposedly haunted a Serbian village and killed many of the inhabitants. Furthermore, the Church hierarchy and educated elite embarked upon an ambitious programme to reeducate and "enlighten" the masses of eastern Europe and to discourage popular belief in the existence of revenants (Klaniczay 1987, 166-74).

Subsequently, the vampire outbreaks inspired many learned dissertations on the topic, the most influential and well known being that of Augustin Calmet, a respected Benedictine scholar and antiquarian from Lorraine, France (Bennett 2001, xiii-xiv). In 1746, Calmet published his best-selling compendium on vampires and revenants, Dissertations sur les apparitions des anges, des demons et des esprits: Et sur les revenants et vampires de Hongrie, de Boheme, de Moravie et de Silesie. A revised edition appeared in 1751, which was subsequently re-edited and translated by Rev. Henry Christmas in 1850 and renamed The Phantom World. [1] According to Calmet, however, blood-sucking corpses were unknown in Western Europe until the late seventeenth century, some sixty years prior to the publication of his treatise. And, although there may have been troublesome undead-corpses in

Western Europe during the past, the Slavic vampires of the eighteenth century were unique:

   In this age, a new scene presents itself to our eyes and has done
   for about sixty years In Hungary, Moravia, Silesia and Poland;
   men, it is said, who have been dead for several months, come back
   to earth, talk, walk, infest villages, ill use both men and
   beasts, suck the blood of their near relations, destroy their
   health and finally cause their death; so that people can only save
   themselves from their dangerous visits and their hauntings, by
   exhuming them, impaling them, cutting off their heads, tearing
   out their hearts, or burning them. These are called by the name of
   oupires or vampires, that is to say, leeches ... In the twelfth
   century also, in England and Denmark, some resuscitations similar
   to those of Hungary were seen. But in no history do we read
   anything similar, so common, or so decided, as what is related to
   us of the vampires of Poland, Hungary and Moravia
   (Calmet 2001, 207-8).

In order to test the validity of Calmet's notion that eighteenth-century vampires were a unique type of revenant, I shall compare and contrast some representative types of undead-corpse that supposedly existed in Europe from the medieval period to the Enlightenment, as well as the revenants of nineteenth-century New England, especially in regard to their bodily appearance. Indeed, I will argue that apart from their reported lack of putrefaction (Figure 1), the distinguishing feature of eighteenth-century vampires was their apparent thirst for blood.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

The Undead-corpse in England

According to William of Newburgh's twelfth-century chronicle, Historia Return Anglicarum, popular belief in undead-corpses apparently thrived in early medieval England. [2] A troublesome corpse that haunted the environs of Anantis Castle, for example, accosted his former neighbours and brought about a deadly contagion:

   ... he wandered through the courts and around the houses while all
   men made fast their doors, and did not dare to go abroad on any
   errand whatever from the beginning of the night until the sunrise,
   for fear of meeting and being beaten black and blue by this vagrant
   monster. But those precautions were of no avail; for the
   atmosphere, poisoned by the vagaries of this foul carcass, filled
   every house with disease and death by its pestiferous breath ...
   (William of Newburgh Book 5, chapter 24).