by Bob Curran
German Tales
It was not only in England that such things occurred. In his Chronicron, written roughly between 1009 and 1018, Theitmar, the Saxon bishop of Marseburg, Germany, and one of the most venerable writers of the Holy Roman Empire, recounts the tale of a priest in Walseben, Germany, who, just before the town’s eventual destruction by the Slavic armies, entered a local church to find it occupied by dead people who had risen from their tombs. The cadavers greeted him with extreme hostility; a woman whom he knew and who had recently died stepped forward and spitefully told him that he would die of a plague within the year. This prophecy came to pass just as the dead woman had said.
Theitmar recounts a further story in a similar vein that he attributes to Bishop Baudry of the German See of Utrecht. This concerns another priest in the town of Deventer in the Salland region of the Dutch province of Overijssel—the cleric being in charge of a church that had been almost completely rebuilt after its destruction by the Slavs. With the church about to be reconsecrated, the local priest had been charged to oversee the ritual. Arriving there early in the morning, he was amazed to see a congregation of dead people, recently risen from their graves, celebrating Mass, and was even able to hear them singing recognizable psalms. Terrified, he fled the scene and reported the incident to Bishop Baudry, who instructed him to spend the night in the church to ensure that the dead did not desecrate the area. He was also to report back to the bishop what transpired. He did so, but in the middle of the night the very bed on which he was sleeping was thrown out of the building by dead hands. He reported back to the bishop, who told him that he must now go back there, armed with holy relics, and on no account was he to leave the building for which he was in charge.
Although now extremely terrified, the priest did as he was instructed and lay awake in the church until the dead congregation arrived, extremely angry to find him there. They lit a great fire in the aisle of the building, holding him over it and eventually killing him. His charred body was then dumped outside the church as a warning to others. On hearing this, Bishop Baudry ordered a penitential fast to be held for three days to seek succor for the priest’s soul. Thietmar concludes that just as the day belongs to the living, so the night belongs to the dead, who are implacably hostile toward their living counterparts. The risen dead who have not died in a state of grace are corporeal, which means they are able to do harm to the living. This would form the basis of religious opinion for a long time to come.
Forms of the Dead
As the medieval Church consolidated its thinking and dogma, it began to address the problem of the returning dead. Indeed, it could not ignore the question, and a belief in the return from the dead seems to have been well established in the common psyche. Early medieval thought tended to view the phenomenon in two ways. The first was that the souls of the departed might return in a form that the Church referred to as spiritus. This form, it was adjudged, constituted the actual souls of the deceased, and as such, was insubstantial to the touch and completely subject to God’s direct control. These were the stuff of angels and saints, and unusually manifested themselves in singular religious visions and dreams, appearing only to advise, to give succor, and to warn. Sometimes, these spirits became earthbound for one reason or another, and they could manifest themselves as an insubstantial “ghost.” They were not to be feared, for the prayers of the faithful or the ordinance of a priest or bishop would help them to move on to the spirit world, where they would do no harm to God’s creatures. Indeed, one of the great theologians of the 12th century, Hugh of St. Victor (1096–1141, Prior of the Abbey of St. Victor in Paris) went so far as to consider that these spiritus were no more than pure reason—the thoughts and reflections of the godly. Because thoughts and perceptions had no substance, the Prior went on, it was logical that they could do no physical harm or damage property in the material world.
The second form that the returning dead took, however, was far more dangerous. This was the corpus, the fleshy husks that the spiritus had once inhabited, but that were now abandoned. Similar to a deserted house, the empty corpse might prove a dwelling for an unwelcome tenant. An evil spirit that is denied its eternal reward might be forced to return to its former body and reanimate it so that its wickedness might continue; or some unwholesome force might inhabit the discarded husk and animate it in order to fulfill its own dubious purposes or to satisfy its unsavoury lusts. This was considered to be the basis for the cadavers who were said to wander about the countryside after dark creating mischief and causing harm, which justified the Church’s strict approbation of them.
Spiritus Corpus
And yet, these definitions were not always so clear-cut, for there were some who argued that certain apparitions (those who returned from the dead) fell somewhere between the two. Sometimes a ghost might have all the attributes of a spiritus, but still be able to attack and injure those whom it encountered like a corpus. Some agreed with Alcher of Clairviaux when, in the 12th century, he followed the Hebrew mystic Isaac of Stella in defining a ghost as “all that is not a body and which, however, is something is said rightly to be spirit.” The spirit, he went on to argue, is not the body, and yet is in league with the body. Similar to demons, ghosts could continually produce material effects on all that they touched including living beings. Returning corpses, whether they are corpus or spiritus, might have the ability to injure individuals and inflict damage in the living world if they so desired.
Later clerical writers through the early medieval period and into the 14th and 15th centuries carried on the tradition of the corporeal returning dead. Indeed, tales concerning the walking dead began to appear in what came to be known as “court writing” (accounts and stories written by courtiers and churchmen in the courts of the European monarchs), which flourished, especially in England, around this time. Collections of tales—not necessarily ghost stories, but sometimes containing supernatural elements—by writers such as Walter Map, Gervaise of Tilbury, and William of Malmesbury recorded accounts of goblins, werewolves, and the wandering dead in various parts of England, all set in their historical contexts. These were counted as “wonder tales” or “marvels,” and were extremely popular at the English court. In his only surviving work, De Nugis Curialium (A Courtier’s Trifles—a collection of stories and anecdotes), Walter Map was careful to draw a clear distinction between the stories of the walking dead that he drew from the countryside and those religious-based stories of earlier times, such as those related by the Monk of Byland. “Not a miracle but a marvel,” he wrote. He spoke of fairies (the survivors of an elder race) and unexplained phenomena, such as greenskinned children from a land far beneath the earth. The wandering revenants in his stories however, spread only destruction and disease throughout the countryside, and were symbols of great evil in their own right. This marked a change from the tales of earlier churchmen who had frequently used such tales in order to encourage religious observances. Cadavers now rose from the grave intent on some evil purpose, and their sole function was to cause panic and damage in the communities of the living. William of Newburgh (1136–1198) adopted a somewhat similar theme, no doubt taking up some of Map’s former stories and adapting or expanding upon them in his Historia Rerum Anglicarum (History of English Affairs), as did Gervaise of Tilbury (1157–1234).
As might be expected, the literature produced by these learned men not only served to establish the idea of the walking revenant in the common mind, but also showed a greater level of sophistication than the earlier, more fragmentary tales. These were not simply stories of visions or brief appearances—although some of them are—but served to demonstrate creatures who took on slightly more characteristics (often dangerous ones) than had been previously suggested. Cadavers, revenants, and mobile corpses were now being viewed as agents of the Devil, motivated by some unwholesome force of demon. These were, perhaps, the earliest examples of what we could come to recognize as ghost stories. They would also later lend a greater weight to similar ele
ments that were imported from other cultures: the vampire and the zombie for example.
Medieval Beliefs
Throughout the early modern period of the 16th and 17th centuries medieval beliefs regarding the returning dead still persisted. Although there were insubstantial and ethereal ghosts that sometimes terrified the living, there were also tales of walking corpses and corporeal revenants that often visited their descendants from time to time. In fact, some of this belief actually fell in with certain Church teachings. Faced with a widespread belief in the returning dead, Church authorities had to come up with some form of dogma to include the ideal. The sprits of the righteous, the clergy said, might return at appointed times, and solely at God’s discretion, to their former homes where they might enjoy some of the comforts that they enjoyed when still alive. They might, for example, smoke a pipe of tobacco, eat a meal, or drink a mug of ale; to do this, they needed to have a physical presence about them. They might even complete work that they had left unfinished, or perhaps enjoy the softness of a bed after lying in the cold clay for so long. The clerics also said that the bodies of the truly pure in heart would be incorruptible, so they would appear as they had when they were alive. The times when they might return to the world were clearly designated—usually certain religious feast days and holy days—the most notable of these being the festival of Halloween, which itself was celebrated as a day of the dead. This notion has remained in our minds up to the present day, and Halloween is still considered to be a dark time when the dead may rise and return to places they formerly knew.
If God could resurrect the righteous dead, it seemed logical to Church thinkers that the Devil could also raise those who were not so godly. Evil people, it was believed, would not rest quietly in their graves, but might become the tools of the enemy of Mankind for his own sinister purposes. Thus, they rose from their tombs, similar to the Viking draugr and wandered about, spreading disease and causing panic and alarm wherever they went. Not only this but, as the agents of Satan’s purpose they physically destroyed property and attacked individuals, particularly targeting religious people for their attentions. The faith of the righteous had to be strong enough to deter them, and as the early modern period advanced, these ideas became stronger, firmly establishing the notion of the walking dead in the common consciousness.
Medical History
Yet another strand of the belief came from actual medical history—the condition of catalepsy, which might have been more prevalent in earlier societies than we suspect. The condition is characterized by inflexibility of the muscles, rigidity of posture, a low or negligible reaction to pain, and light or shallow breathing. It is believed that it could be brought on by a number of factors, such as trauma or some other medical condition. For all intents and purposes, the sufferer may appear to be dead. However, the condition is not permanent, and the sufferer eventually returns to full sensibility and can resume normal life once more. In past times and to those who were unaware of the condition, this must have appeared as if a dead individual was restored to life. Some of these cataleptics, of course, came back to consciousness within their coffins and perished anyway, but some were restored before burial, causing wonder and terror among their peers. Instances of these conditions were even recorded in parts of England, as late as the 19th century, and one in particular is commemorated in the church where it happened.
Constance Whitney and Other Tales
A unique memorial to a widow named Constance Whitney can be found in the chancel of St. Giles Cripplegate in London. Although Mrs. Whitney died in the late 1800s, an ornamental memorial scroll on the side of her tomb depicts the lady rising from her coffin in the manner of a living corpse. This carving depicts an intriguing, but rather frightening, legend connected with the grave.
Being a woman of some considerable substance, Constance Whitney died and was laid to rest in the tomb clad in all her finery and jewelry. On one of her fingers was a rather fine-looking ring with a large gemstone as its centerpiece. As she was being laid out in her coffin for her various friends to mourn, the greedy church sexton fixed his eye on this ring and resolved to have it for himself as soon as was practicable. He waited until the last of the mourners had departed and the church was clear, approached the coffin that had not been finally sealed, and began to remove the lid. Constance Whitney lay in all her grandeur, and with the valuable ring sparkling on her finger. The sexton attempted to remove it but the lady’s knuckles were so swollen (from her arthritis) that it wouldn’t budge. Taking out a blade, he started to make a small incision on the finger in order to help the ring move more easily. A small pearl of blood welled up under the band, whereupon Constance Whitney gave a loud sigh and sat up as if she were just waking out of a deep sleep. She had not been dead, but in a cataleptic trance, from which the pain of the sexton’s knife had released her. The robbing sexton fled screaming from the church to be arrested by a nearby watchman. Constance Whitney returned to almost full health and lived on for several more years. The uncanny incident, however, was commemorated in her rather bizarre funerary memorial that was erected when she did eventually die.
Constance Whitney
A number of similar tales (some undoubtedly influenced by the original story of Constance Whitney) circulated around the country during this time and often further afield. An extremely similar story is told near Ballycastle, North Antrim, in Northern Ireland, in which a grand lady was buried in the ancient churchyard at Ramoan, just outside the town. Two local ne’er-do-wells exhumed the body, and in an attempt to prize a ring from her finger, the rogues unwillingly revived the lady who sat up in her coffin and asked where she was and what they were doing; by this time the two had fled. Several other such tales are to be found both in parts of Ireland, Wales, and Scotland.
Constance Whitney was not the only person who supposedly “came back” from the dead in Victorian times, as there are accounts of similar instances all across London at the time. A boy named Ernest Wicks (or Wykes), for example, was found lying in Regent’s Park, late in 1895, and was assumed to be dead. His body was moved to the Marylebone mortuary, where it was examined by the mortuary keeper prior to the arrival of the official physician. In the course of the examination, the keeper noticed that the chest of the “corpse” was rising and falling almost imperceptibly. He started to rub Ernest’s hands and arms, and the boy returned to full consciousness. Upon the arrival of the doctor, he was transferred to the Middlesex hospital where he was pronounced as “recovering from a fit.” Following an inquiry in 1902, it emerged that this was not an isolated incident in the child’s life, for he had suffered the same experience several times before, and death certificates had been issued by a number of reputable doctors. It seemed that even skilled medical practitioners could be duped by cataleptic fits.
It is quite possible that instances of catalepsy, although not recorded, were just as frequent in earlier periods. If it was possible for trained physicians to mistake the condition for death in the 1800s, then perhaps medical men in the 17th and 18th centuries could make the same mistake. And when, after such a misdiagnosis, the “corpses” may have returned to full health, the idea of the returning corporeal dead was further strengthened in popular belief and imagination. There was also another element that was linked into the mindset: the Resurrectionists.
Resurrectionists
As medicine began to make significant advances in places such as London, Edinburgh, and Dublin (reckoned to be among the foremost medical establishments in the world), the need for doctors and surgeons grew, and many “young men of quality” began to look to the medical profession as a suitable career, and came forward to be trained. The numbers of trainees—particularly in surgical fields—led to a problem. In order to gain knowledge of their profession, trainee surgeons were required to operate on fresh, dead bodies, and these were often in short supply. Hospitals might have been able to procure the bodies of hanged criminals direct from the gallows—indeed under a law dating back to King Henr
y VIII, English authorities were actually required to deliver a number of executed felons for medical experiments during the course of the year—but quite often these were not wholly suitable. These were men and women who had met their end in a short and violent way, and offered little scope for the examination of, say, the effects of disease on the human frame.
The best way to study such things was to obtain recently buried corpses from graveyards, but of course this was illegal, as it involved the desecration of the dead. Where could hospitals and surgeons obtain their corpses? The answer was that they could buy them from bodysnatchers—individuals with scant regard for the law who would dig up freshly buried corpses at the risk of capture and arrest, and sell them at a substantial profit. In London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, these operative became known as “Resurrectionists” or “sack-’em-ups.” (They carried the bodies in hemp sacks.) Some of them operated individually, others in organized gangs, and some of them made a fairly substantial living out of their dubious and wholly illegal trade. The large surgeries—particularly in London and Edinburgh—paid good money for fresh corpses, and individual surgeons were prepared to “turn a blind eye” as to the source of the cadavers. Even when some of these bodysnatchers turned their hands to a bit of murder in order to obtain freshly dead bodies, the surgeons and hospitals didn’t seem to mind. The poor (who died in the London streets from various ailments) usually provided a ready source of interest for surgeons, but so did the rich, because they exhibited more gracious diseases such as gout, which was of considerable interest to certain surgeons. No body apparently was safe from the Resurrectionists’ attention.
