Medieval Ghost Stories

by Andrew Joynes

  The Gift of Snakes and Toads

  Book XII, Chap. XVIII

  When he died, a certain knight left all the property he had amassed through usury to his son. One night he knocked boldly on his son’s door and when a servant came to ask why he knocked, he replied: ‘Let me in; I am the lord of this land,’ and he gave his name. The servant peeped out and, although he recognised him, refused to let him in, saying: ‘My master is dead.’ The dead man went on knocking, but the door stayed closed, and at last he said: ‘Take these fish, which are my food, to my son. Look here, I am hanging them on the door-handle.’ When the household went outside next morning, they found a quantity of toads and snakes tied together in a bundle. This, we should know, is the nourishment offered in Hell, cooked in flaming sulphur …

  The Devilish Tormentor

  Book XII, Chap. XIX

  Not so long ago, an extremely wealthy official at the court of the Bavarian dukes died. One night the castle in which his wife was sleeping was shaken as if there had been a severe earthquake. Suddenly the door of the chamber in which she lay opened and in came her husband, driven along by a gigantic black man who pushed him by the shoulders. Seeing and recognising him, she called him over to her and sat him down beside the bed. She was not at all afraid and, because it was cold, she threw a part of the bed-cover around his shoulders. When she enquired after his condition, he replied sadly: ‘I have been given over to eternal punishment.’ At this reply, she became exceedingly alarmed and said: ‘But did you not always give alms and did you not always keep your door open to pilgrims?’ He replied: ‘Such deeds were undertaken out of vanity and pride, not out of charity, and so they cannot give me eternal life.’

  When she went on to ask him about other matters, he replied: ‘I have been allowed to appear to you, but not to stay on here. Outside my devilish tormentor waits for me. Even if all the leaves on all the trees were to become tongues, they could not tell you enough about my torment.’ After this he was called forth and driven away and, just as before, the whole castle was shaken as he left. For a long time afterward, his cries of sorrow could be heard. This vision came to be well known in Bavaria, as we have been told by Gerard our monk …

  The Shoes of the Hunted Woman

  Book XII, Chap. XX

  I have been told by a pious man about the mistress of a priest who, when she was on the brink of death, demanded forcefully that the finest-quality pair of new shoes should be made for her. As she expired, she said: ‘Bury me in them. This is of the utmost importance to me.’ This was done, and the next night, in the light of the full moon well before dawn, a knight and his squire were riding along the highway when they heard a woman screaming. As they wondered what this might be, the figure of a woman came running towards them, crying for help. At once the knight dismounted and, brandishing his sword in a circle around him, took the woman under his protection. The woman, whom he recognised, was dressed only in a shift and the new shoes. Suddenly, from the distance there came a sound of a hunting horn, and the barking of a pack of hounds. When she heard this, the woman trembled greatly and, when he saw what was the matter, the knight handed his horse’s bridle to his servant, wrapped three locks of her hair round his left arm, and held his sword upright in his right hand. When the infernal huntsman drew near, the woman cried to the knight: ‘Let me go, let me go. Look: he is coming.’ And although the knight tried bravely to hold her back, the poor creature resisted him, hitting at him with her fists and eventually she escaped by tearing her hair loose.

  Then the Devil chased her and caught up with her and threw her across his horse with her head and arms hanging down on one side and her legs on the other. The hellish horseman rode back past the knight as he carried his prey off into the darkness. In the morning, the knight returned to the manor, told the household all that he had seen and showed the handful of woman’s hair which remained in his grasp. When they would not believe his story, they dug open her grave and found that the woman had lost her hair. This happened in the archbishopric of Mainz …

  Whispers in the Choir

  Book XII, Chap. XXXVI

  Three years or so ago, a little girl who was aged nine years died in Mount St Saviour, a house belonging to our order, at about the time of Advent. Shortly afterwards, the sisters were assembled in the choir when she entered in bright daylight and, bowing low before the altar, went to the place where she used to stand when she was alive. Another girl of almost the same age, seeing the dead girl take her place beside her, was struck with such dread that it was noticed by the lady abbess (who told me this story). When this girl was asked by the abbess why she was so frightened, she replied: ‘I have just seen Sister Gertrude come into the choir. At vespers, when mention was made of Our Lady, she prostrated herself.’ The abbess feared that she was being deceived by the Devil and said to the girl: ‘If Sister Gertrude should come back, bid her “Benedicite” and if she replies “Dominus”, ask her where she comes from and what she is looking for.’

  Next day she came again, and, being greeted and giving the answer ‘Dominus’, she was asked why she had come. She replied: ‘I have come here to make redress, for I used to whisper with you in the choir. I have been ordered to seek atonement for this in the same place where I used to sin in this way. Unless you take care, you will suffer the same punishment when you die.’ When she had made atonement in this way on four separate occasions, she said: ‘Now my atonement is complete; from now on you will see me no more.’ And so it came about that, as her living companion watched, she went towards the cemetery, passing through the wall by supernatural power. Such was that little girl’s Purgatory …

  The Brimstone Potion

  Book XII, Chap. XLI

  A knight called Rudinger, from the diocese of Cologne, was so taken up with wine-bibbing that he used to go to consecrations at manors throughout the diocese just so that he could quaff a good vintage. When he fell ill and was on the brink of death, his daughter asked him to come back and see her within thirty days. He replied: ‘I will do this if I can.’ After his death, he did indeed make an appearance to his daughter and said: ‘I have returned as you asked.’ In his hand he was carrying a little pottery mug like the one he used to drink from in taverns. His daughter asked: ‘Father, what is in that mug?’ and he replied: ‘My tipple, which is brewed from sulphur and brimstone. I am always sipping from it but I can never drain it completely.’ Then, as he disappeared, the girl understood (as much from his previous life as from his punishment) that there was little hope of his being saved. For in this life wine is sweet to sip, but eventually it carries the poison of a viper …

  Source: Re-told from the Latin Dialogus Miraculorum Caesarii Heisterbacensis Monachi, ed. J. Strange, Cologne 1851, pp. 313–14 and 326–50.

  The Book of the Preacher of Ely

  During the late Middle Ages, ghost stories were often recorded in manuals containing material that could be adapted for use by itinerant preachers. This story comes from a fifteenth-century manuscript which is likely to have been the commonplace book of a preacher who had connections with Ely and its cathedral, but whose travels took him much further afield (the inclusion of material relating to Lancashire may well have been a means of adding convincing local colour during a preaching journey to the north of England). Some of the details of the story – the journey by night along a lonely road, the looming shadow of a spirit suffering the tortures of Purgatory, the readiness of the living to finance the redemption of the dead – resemble those Yorkshire tales about the restless dead recorded by the Monk of Byland (see Part Three), but in its simple and touching conclusion this account falls firmly into the Miracula tradition of medieval ghost stories.

  The Hair that Turned to Gold

  From Master Richard de Puttes comes a story dealing with the celebration of the Mass, in the year of the Lord 1373. A man from Haydock in the county of Lancashire kept a mistress with whom he had two sons; when she died, he married another woman. One day he went to a nearby blacksmith
’s forge, which specialised in the preparation and sharpening of ploughshares, in order to obtain a coulter. The blacksmith lived at the estate of Hulme, two miles from Haydock.

  As he came back that night, the man had just reached the cross beside the road which is called Newton Cross when he was subject to the most terrifying experience. In his fear, he gazed around in the darkness and saw what seemed to be a dark shadow. He begged it not to hurt him, and asked who it was. From within the shadow came a voice: ‘Have no fear. I am the woman who was once your lover and I have been allowed to approach you and ask for help.’ When the man asked how things were with her, she replied: ‘Not well. But you can help me if you are willing.’

  ‘Certainly,’ said the man, ‘I will do all that I can if you tell me how.’ She replied that she could be released from the punishment that she was undergoing if worthy priests celebrated masses on her behalf. The man promised that he would arrange for masses to be said for her even if it cost him his last penny. Whereupon she said: ‘Do not be afraid. Reach out your hand to my head and take what you find there.’ He placed his hand on her head and plucked a small handful of very dark hair.

  Now during her lifetime the woman had a beautiful head of golden hair. Then the spirit said: ‘If you arrange for as many masses to be said for me as the hairs you hold in your hand, then I will be released from my pain.’ When he agreed to this, she told him to come back at a particular time and he would learn what had happened to her. Then she disappeared.

  The man fastened the hair with a pin in a crevice of his door. Having straightaway sold a large part of his estate to raise money, he searched around for a priest and arranged for the celebration of a large number of masses. When this had been done, he went back to look at the handful of hair and found that, for every mass he had had celebrated, one of the hairs had turned to gold. So he had still more masses celebrated, until the whole handful had become gold. Later he went back to the cross at the specified time and, after waiting for a moment, he saw a resplendent light moving swiftly towards him. When it reached him, a voice came from within the light, thanking him and saying: ‘Blessings upon you among all men for freeing me from my terrible pain. Now I can go on my way rejoicing.’ And after speaking with him a little more, she swiftly departed …

  Source: Re-told from a Latin text transcribed in the English Historical Review XXXVIII (1923), pp. 85–6.

  Part Two

  Ghosts and the Court

  Introduction

  The twelfth century was a period of considerable cultural and intellectual activity throughout Northern Europe: so much so that the term ‘the Twelfth Century Renaissance’ has been used to describe the period.1 To some extent, this upsurge in cultural activity, and the accompanying growth of philosophy, literature, sculpture and architecture, can be linked with the expansion of what might be called ‘the European experience’ beyond the confines of Europe itself. Three crusades to the Eastern Mediterranean were undertaken during the twelfth century, and the resulting contact with Islamic civilisation (and indeed with the values of Hellenic philosophy which Muslim scholars had themselves encountered and incorporated into their own intellectual framework centuries before) undoubtedly provided a stimulus to medieval European thought and speculation.2

  The cultural growth of the period can also be linked with the emergence of powerful, centralising monarchies which, in addition to vying with each other for territorial gain and sway throughout Northern Europe, competed in the sphere of cultural patronage. Perhaps the best example of this was the rivalry between Henry II, the Angevin king of England whose domains extended at one time from the Scottish borders to the Pyrenees, and Louis VII, the Capetian king of France; this tended to manifest itself as a kind of rivalry of splendour between their courts. In the Angevin domain the monarch and his high-ranking officials were the patrons of the so-called ‘court clerics’, writers who, although they may have taken clerical orders, were less concerned than their monastic counterparts to draw moralistic conclusions from their stories. Indeed, it could be argued that the court clerics had a role as essayists, gossips and anecdotalists who wrote to divert, and thus to provide matter for relatively light-hearted philosophical and theological debate in court circles. Although it would perhaps be anachronistic to speak of ghost stories and accounts of supernatural events as ‘entertainment’ at this period, it is certainly the case that the principal aim of the court clerics was to amuse and amaze, rather than to edify in the manner of the monastic authors whose accounts of Miracula make up the first section of this book.

  As a consequence, there was a growing demand in the later twelfth century for ghost stories which were in effect tales of marvels, Mirabilia, which probably had a diversionary function in that they tended to fuel philosophical debate and argument. The definition of Mirabilia which Gervase of Tilbury gives in the preface to the third part of his Otia Imperialia (‘what constitutes the marvel is our inability to fathom the cause of a particular phenomenon’3) suggests that he may have seen their purpose as providing a stimulus to the kind of theological and philosophical speculation – attempts indeed ‘to fathom the cause’ – which the more cultivated patrons at the courts of Europe may have indulged in during their leisure hours. Gervase himself had extensive experience of such sophisticated courts during his travels, and must have been aware that the intellectual climate of these courts favoured speculative debate, providing a ready audience for the kind of marvel-laden anecdotes about sprites, phantoms and ghostly nocturnal visitors with which he set out to divert his imperial patron and attendant courtiers. Similarly, as I have suggested in my introduction to the extracts from William of Malmesbury’s chronicle, there appears to be a common theme running through his ghost stories and accounts of the supernatural events, in that he regards soothsaying, augury and necromancy – activities which were, arguably, the extension of speculative theological and philosophical debate – as worthy of punishment. The very fact that William felt it necessary to condemn such frivolous practices may suggest that speculative debate itself was relatively commonplace.

  This growing cultural thirst for tales of wonder could be satisfied in part by tapping the aquifers of vernacular belief about the supernatural. As I have suggested in the introduction to the first section of this book, legends and folk-tales remained beneath the surface of the church’s concern to ‘control’ accounts of apparitions and channel any narrative dealing with supernatural events into moralistic form. At the end of the twelfth century, Gervase of Tilbury used the folklore of the Rhône riverbanks as a source for his tales of the supernatural, just as Walter Map and Giraldus Cambrensis used the legends of the Welsh borders and of Ireland to divert the Angevin courtiers, who were becoming increasing familiar with Celtic culture because of Henry II’s campaigns in the western territories of the British Isles. But even at the beginning of the century, a chronicler such as Orderic Vitalis, who could be said to have been writing within the Miracula tradition, and who was as full of censure for the luxurious life-style of the local aristocracy and ecclesiastical hierarchy as any monastic reformer, was prepared to include a form of the ancient Wild Hunt folk-tale in his narrative. Reading Orderic’s description of Hellequin’s Hunt, the spectral rabble of the dead which the priest Walchelin eventually recognises as a ghostly phenomenon about which he had heard local folktales being told (‘Without a doubt this is the retinue of Herlequin. I have heard from those who claimed that they had seen them’), one is struck by the extent of ‘extraneous’ detail in the account. Arguably, this is detail which in its colour and its quantity is surplus to Orderic’s concern for monastic censure. It is a debatable point whether some of the details with which Orderic embellishes his narrative (the grove of medlar trees where Walchelin hides, the spectral horse’s breath in the form of an oak tree, the barrel-shaped dwarves and the Ethiopian bearers) were included to further his aim of assembling a convincing account of punishment in the after-life, or whether by adding such details he was, like all kee
n tellers of tales, taking delight in the process of story-telling itself. Whatever the reason, the details in Orderic’s description of Hellequin’s Hunt verge upon the ‘marvellous’: that is, they resemble the later Mirabilia of the court writers in terms of their narrative character, even if Orderic’s disposition as a monastic chronicler was to convey censure in the Miracula tradition.

  With any period of history, and particularly with the Middle Ages, it is important to remember that there is rarely a linear progression by which one can trace the development of any specific cultural theme. Some of the tales of supernatural events and occurrences which have been grouped together in this section of the book may resemble in part the ghost stories of a later period in that they draw upon folk-lore, local legend and the fantastic. It is certainly not the case however that Mirabilia replaced Miracula as the ‘pre-ferred’ form of medieval ghost story. Gervase of Tilbury’s stories of riverbank phantoms (stories which, by and large, lack the tone of doctrinal moralising which characterises monastic accounts of apparitions) were written at the same time as Caesarius of Heisterbach was assembling his doctrinally neat little tales of apparitions in the Dialogue on Miracles. Indeed, these two genres of medieval ghost story probably overlapped and complemented each other, for at a time when the realm of the supernatural was still regarded as wholly a province for divine disposition (with even the demons active only by the tacit permission of God) the amazement-bordering-on-fear instilled in an audience by a court writer’s anecdote about sprites or phantoms or nocturnal spirits could only prepare the ground for a reaffirmation in due course of the church’s teaching about the afterlife. In the medieval period, edification was the eventual, and only possible, outcome of amazement.