Medieval Ghost Stories
00:00 Hey friends, if you love this podcast and want to decide what history we cover, then you need to become a Dan Snow's History Hit subscriber. Pitch your topic and if I like it, we'll make it into a subscriber-exclusive episode. So far we've covered the English Reformation, the Hudson Bay Company, the Trail of Tears, all of which have been decided by dedicated subscribers. So take the reins of your favorite podcast by heading over to history hit.com slash subscribe or sign up in your podcast player. Ghost stories. They've haunted our conversations since the dawn of time. Ancient stone records from Mesopotamia. Etchings of how to deal with demons and the ghosts of the dead. The Vikings, the Romans, all partial to a good ghost story. And of course, you would be surprised to know the medieval era was riddled with them. But medieval ghost stories, well, they're not for parties and scaring kids. They had a very serious message. Live in accordance with the proper way of doing things with the Bible. If you don't, you'll find yourself visited by a restless spirit,
01:04 or indeed, become a restless spirit yourself. So to wade through the phantasmagory of our forebears, I am being joined by the iconic YouTube sensation, Dr. Eleanor Janager. As we uncover what the restless dead tell us about the anxieties of living. Enjoy. Dr. Elna Yarniger, good to see you. So good to see you. So spooky, yeah.
01:34 Oh, who. How persistent our ghosts? Is our ghosts a thing where humans meet and tell stories? Yeah, I mean, I think that fundamentally the thing about ghosts is it's just people telling stories. And indeed, the oldest thing that has ever been written that we still have by anyone is ghost story. Really? And it comes to us from the epoch of Gilgamesh. It's called Gilgamesh, Inky Doe, and the underworld.
01:58 And basically, Gilgamesh's best friend, Iggy Doe goes down to the underworld. He sees all the dead people. he comes back and tells stories about them. Fascinating. So the minute humans could write about anything, they're like, I got to tell you about ghosts, right? And ghosts, let's just clear up the easy stuff. It's what happens to people when they die,
02:15 they become ghosts? Everyone becomes ghosts or not? Not necessarily. So as a general rule of thumb, what most ghost stories are going to center on is the idea that ghosts are sort of people with unfinished business. Something's gone wrong. They're here to clear something up.
02:31 What that is can be all sorts of things. Real common one is like, you didn't bury me right. Real common one is, I want to make sure that my inheritance is going the right way. I was a bad guy, please pray for me. You know, there are certain things that will come up over and over again. But as a general rule of thumb, they're real unhappy with the way people are doing things. So interesting there, persistence across cultures, different times and places. So you, I mean, you've gone, you have gone ancient Sumaria to present day in every site you can find and there's ghosts.
03:02 Yeah, it's just one of the ways that we sort of organize the way we think about, I guess, human interrelationships and what we owe to other people. And this is what I'm really interested in when we talk about ghosts and ghosts as a history because people bring them up all the time. So they show us what society's value, right? You know, the older something is, the further back in time it is, the harder it is to get to us, right? And so when we have a ghost story survive, it's very clear to it. us that the people here really value it and that it is doing some kind of load-bearing social description, right? So one of my very, very favorite ghost stories is actually a Roman one. And it was written in about the second century of the common era by Pliny the Younger. And
03:49 it is about a stoic philosopher called Athenodorus. And this is a ghost story that I will tell you and I bet you can figure out what the moral is. Okay. So Athenodorus gets to Athens, and he needs to rent a house. And he notices that there's a very beautiful mansion that is on rent for very cheap. And everyone says, he says, well, why is this on for such a cheap price? And they say, oh, it's haunted. You don't want to rent it because it's got this really terrible ghost in there. And Athenodorus says, no, I'm going to go. I'm going in there, right? Come on, of course I am. So here he is. Big Stoic philosopher. He's up night. Oh, he's writing. He's writing and he's writing
04:25 his philosophy. And out of the mists behind him comes scary ghost. Scary ghost rattling a chain. and Athenodorus says, hey, you need to calm down until I'm done writing. You go wait over there because I'm writing stoic philosophy. And the ghost is like, oh, okay. So Athenodorus finishes what he's saying? And he's like, all right, ghosty, come on, what do you need? Ghost leads him to a part of the house and kind of gestures to it. And Athenodorus goes, got it.
04:52 Next day, they go dig up that part of the house. They find a skeleton that's all wrapped in chains. They then take the skeleton out of there and they go bury it in the proper place. Bada bada boom, you don't have a haunted house anymore. And Athenodorus feels very smug because he's got this really cheap rent. So what do you think that story is telling us? A proper dealing with proper burial. Yeah.
05:10 You've got to, you've got to bury someone with dignity. You can't leave that as unfinished business. Can't wrap someone in chains, throw them in a shallow grave. Like in a house? Yeah. Like we're all going to get sick, babe. Like you can't, like we're in a densely populated city. We can't just have corpses buried willy-nilly, right?
05:27 And if you as a man Were doing your manly duty of being like a nice and stoic You wouldn't even get scared of ghost Well that's why I like about that story Because there's a whole that trope you get in Hollywood movies The modern movies where you're not scared of the ghost That people like just hold on a second ghost Then the ghost gets annoyed to they're not scary
05:46 Oh yeah That's like a real that's a real thing That's from Pliny That's from Pliny Huh But you're right The other lesson is Ghosts are there for a reason
05:54 They're not there to kill you And suck your blood and be in like Just you just got to just tell it to just back down and you'll deal with its concerns. Well, 100%, right? And what we do see, though, is that over time, the concerns, the concerns, the concerns, they're going, they're going to change. Yeah. And one of the big ones that is always going to be, there is going to be this proper burial for, you know, the reasons we've just said, you have to bury bodies correctly because people are going to get sick, right? You can't just have like a body in somebody's house. You
06:24 can't have a body out in a field. You don't want bodies like in the lake. We're drinking that water, right? So it stands to reason. You're going to want ghost stories that reinforce proper body disposal, right? But one of the things that we do tend to see over time is that ghosts, when they come back for other reasons, like other unfinished business, it tends to reflect whatever it is society values at the time. Because, again, like, right? When sources survive to us, it's because rich and powerful people value.
06:54 this thing. And the stuff that rich and powerful people often value... This stuff. Exactly. My brother took my money and then killed me and then I need to... Exactly. Exactly. So we will see ghosts all the time who are specifically coming back for the purposes of making sure that wills are resolved correctly. Debtes are paid. A hundred percent. And then what we see a lot of time, especially in the medieval period, because one of the big groups of people that we hear from all the time are the clergy is ghosts are doing religion things, right? So one of the big things that ends up coming in in the medieval period, and especially in the high medieval period, is the concept of purgatory. Okay. And so purgatory is not just neither here nor there. It's not,
07:39 you're not in heaven, you're not in hell. You're in hell, but you're in hell with a timer. Right. So you're in hell. You're working it off. Exactly. It's the own out period. Yeah. It's like you're, listen, you were kind of bad, so you're just going to have to get tortured lightly for a while, but then eventually they'll say, oh, yeah, that's enough for your bad things. So one of the big reasons ghosts come back in the Middle Ages is to say, hey, this is really too much, and there are a couple things that you could do that will earn me out of purgatory, right? And those are often good things.
08:12 So, for example, a big trope that we see in the medieval period is something called a harlequin haunt, and it's kind of like the ghosts get together and have a parade. It's nice. They come out of hell and you get to see them walk down the road and they are experiencing ironic tortures. So it's like the ladies who are too sexy are writing side saddle on these saddles that have lots of iron spikes on them
08:37 and they're lifted into the air and then they fall on them over and over again. Get it? And then you will see, for example, people like knights who are saying, I need you to help me, I loaned some money to this miller And the miller paid me back a bunch of money more than I ever loaned him
08:56 But he didn't end up still paying off the principal of his loan So I took his mill away from him And now I made more money with the mill than he ever owed me as well And then I died and now it's gone on to my family And I am crushed by the weight of this This is this is as a result it feels to me like I'm being crushed by hot wood And unless someone goes and does something, you need to give the mill back to the miller because I'm suffering in hell for what I did and it just isn't fair.
09:26 And like, that's a perfectly nice thing to say like, yeah, baby, don't impoverish your small folk. Like, leave the miller alone. You know, that kind of a thing. That's a very nice, like, easy moral story. But fundamentally what it does allow you to do if you were a living person is feel like you can still do something for your dead loved ones. So you're like, all right, well, I'm not around them now. I could never say I'm sorry for whatever or I'll never get to see them again, but I could have Massa Ced for their soul and hopefully it's going to hasten the process of purgatory up so that they can
09:56 go hang out with God. And in other periods, it's revenge. You've got to, I commend none is wandering around just going, you can somebody please kill the people that did this to me. I'm still pissed about this. 100%. We see this all the time, especially in ancient ghost stories where there will be these ghosts who want revenge.
10:13 It's a really fun ghost story that the ghosts of the mayor of. battle, haunt the marathon battlefield. And you can hear them at night. You'll hear them if you go out there accidentally and you didn't know that they were there and they're fighting this battle again. And if you go out there on purpose because you want to see them, they'll kill you. Oh, yeah. And they'll tell you to pieces.
10:33 And the moral of the story is apparently that they should have built a better monument to the Persians. To the Persians. Which is interesting because they're like, well, actually, they did fight valiantly. And it's this interesting story about like, well, what do we owe our enemies? Like, what do we owe these things? I've poked around that battlefield many times. You hear the guess?
10:52 And I did not see any ghosts. You never know. You never know, right? And I mean, so, like, revenge is one of the really fun ones. And it's, like, one of the most common tropes now. So when we have common ghost tropes now, the most bog standard ghost at this point in time is a murder victim who is kind of like attempting to let you know they've been murdered. Yeah, and that's quite Shakespearean as well. Yeah, absolutely.
11:16 Yeah. So, you know, there's like revenge, notification, please bury me correctly. But they're doing all these important things that essentially keep society ticking over. What they are is moral messages. Right. I went to a ghost museum in Georgetown in Malaysia the other year. So they had these vignettes of local ghosts and you could dress up like the ghosts and have your picture ticket. It was very fun. And next to every one of them, they would tell you what the ghost was. And then at the end of it, they would say moral lesson. Oh, interesting. And I was like, oh my God, they're just saying it. They said the quiet bit out of life. Yeah, and I was like, no, I'm writing a book about this. Stop at Coast Museum in Georgetown. So it's, in fact, that's where you got your idea. Yeah, exactly.
11:55 And it was, and I'll send him a book when it's done. But it is really interesting to see this play out over and over again, is that these are one of the ways that we patrol society, right? Like fairy tales, so like stories for kids. Yeah. Okay, that's interesting. Sometimes adults also need to be reminded to not take the Miller's mill, you know. Yeah.
12:13 And I'm thinking with our modern ghost, Modern ghost culture, I guess that's true as well. It's people that regret things, come back, have advice for still living. Okay, interesting. You know, like, sometimes it'll just be like, you know, your grandma's like, I loved you, Tommy or whatever. That's nice. Stop being a venture capitalist.
12:32 Exactly. Pull it together. You're making Graham, Graham sad, you know, that kind of a thing. I wish more ghosts would do that, actually. And what's the golden age of, for you as a story? And what's the golden age of the way you can get your teeth into stories that have been transmitted? So we have actually so many interesting ghost stories that it's really difficult writing a book about it. But okay, so one of my very, very favorite sources of ghost stories is something that we now call the Byland Abbey ghost stories.
12:56 Never heard of it. Okay, so these are really fun. They're from around the 15th century, so around early 1400. And we found them at Byland. You know, yeah, big repository of stuff in New Yorkshire. But it's not the fanciest. It's like a pretty nice. That's a nice abbey.
13:12 But it's not the fancy. one in the entire world. This is kind of like a bog standard group of monks. Fine. And in a very bog standard set of works, you've got like some Cicero in there. There is always Cicero. It's like Cicero and Aristotle. But then right at the back, this monk is like, I saw some real stuff. It's ghost time. And he tells us these 12 different ghost stories that are local ghost stories in Latin. They're later found by the master of the ghost story, M.R. James, who was a very talented medievalist himself. And he ends up riding all of these out for us. And they are so cool because they tell us all these different interesting things. The most famous and longest one is a very long thing about a guy called
13:54 Snowball the Taylor who runs into a ghost while he's coming home at night. And the ghost was very bad indeed and he was naughty and he needs a certain number of masses said for him and Snowball sorts that out. But you see all sorts of things in it where there will be ghosts, for example, there's a ghost of a woman who she gets in a fight with her husband and she signs over the deed of her land to her brother. And now she's kind of haunting the laneways around her town because she is in trouble for this. And so someone meets her. She says what's going on. He goes to her brother and says, look, you got to sort this out. Your sister's haunting the laneways. And he says, I don't care. She haunts till doomsday. I think that is the right answer, to be honest. Well, listen,
14:34 I'll tell you who did care was that guy's son. He was like, absolutely not. I'm put an ante in the grave. And like, he ends up like doing the right thing. But then sometimes you have these completely nonsensical ones. And the nonsensical ones are actually my favorite. Because like there's one where there's just like a chick who like finds a ghost gives it a piggyback into a room full of guys and goes, found a ghost. You like that? You're like this? And it's like, where's the moral here? And they're just and they're like, everyone remembers when Eliza gave that ghost to piggyback. And I'm like, we do. And those ones are actually my favorite because I do think that most of them are serving moral lessons. But my favorite are ghost stories that don't mean anything. That was mushroom
15:14 Susan. Exactly. Right. I think we can, I think we can tell that. It's like, it's so good. And you're like, okay. Fair enough. And it's just like, it's great. It's wonderful, you know. You listen to Dan Snow's history at this walk-up. And I guess actually the thing that got me into these ghost stories was actually a ghost story. And listen, you don't get to be surprised by when I tell you this source. But the emperor Charles IV wrote an autobiography. Okay. And he's writing this autobiography
15:51 when he's kind of like pitching to be Holy Roman Emperor and when he's kind of like saying, hey, everybody, it's fine that it's going to be me, your local check or whatever. And it's pretty standard stuff. It is like propaganda, propaganda.
16:06 I went to this battle. I did this. He's got a couple miracles in there. It's kind of interesting. And then in the middle of it, he's like, look, I got back to Prague and Prague Castle at the time needs to be rebuilt. It's a bit of a shambles. So that's probably the propaganda bit, right?
16:19 He's like, someone's got to rebuild this castle. And you taxpayers can help me do that, right? But he's staying in one of the houses on Old Town Square, and he and his chamberlain are getting ready for bed, and they can hear someone walking around the room. And he hastens to add the fires built up. They've got a bunch of candles. They can kind of see everything, and they can hear these footsteps, and they're like, what the hell is that? And they kind of get up and they look around, they can't see anyone. And they put a few more logs on the fire and they go back to bed. And then there's a bench kind of in between the beds that has their wine cups on it and you know, you know how it is. You wake up in the middle of the night and you need some wine, right?
16:57 And so the Chamberlain goes over there and he's like filling up his cup and another, and he goes back to bed and another cup from the bench picks itself up and throws itself across the room. Charles and the Chamberlain freak out. They're scared as hell. They're like saying our fathers. they're doing all their Christian prayers. The next day, all the servants come in and they're like, look, do you see where that cup is? Like something came and through it.
17:19 And that's the ghost story. It doesn't mean anything. Okay. And what I think is interesting about it is here's one of the most important guys to ever live. One of the most powerful men to ever walk the earth. And he's sitting here writing out a bunch of stories for you where he's like the things that you... Yeah, this is a public facing. Yeah, that's interesting.
17:36 This is something you need to know about me, right? You need to know that I got really scared one time. And that's so interesting because it can show us that these are really personal stories to some people, even though there's no moral message, there's no nothing. Clearly, we have these examples of stories where it's just like sometimes people think they just see something. But it's very difficult for those to survive to us historically because of how powerful people want stories that are going to reiterate power. And so you can't have random ghost because random ghost doesn't fit, right? It makes him feel more, I guess, although this is not a democratic era, but almost like, hey, weird things happen to me, like to you. I'm like you guys. I'm a normal guy. Yeah. Like I too got spooked out one time. Yeah, I got spooked out and there was wine flying around the room. So let's, if we move on to the early modern period. If I can drag you out if I may. Oh, no, listen. I love it. Because I'm always confused by the ghost hop from Catholicism to Protestant. Even though the Protestants, I've always thought. thought, sort of set out there still in opposition to these kind of strange, superstitious
18:43 views that Catholics have. And the world is actually very straightforward. If it's not, you know, we read the Bible, we commune with God. All this other stuff is kind of absurd. Well, you are right on one count. One of the big things that happens in the era of the Reformation is Protestants are, they're saying, we need to get rid of these papist superstitions. And they're like, ghosts are something that is made up. From the mists of time. Yeah, there's, okay, is there a ghost story in the Bible? Yes, but you're interpreting it wrong. And all the other ghosts were just monks faking it so that you would give money to the church and like, listen.
19:20 It's a compelling argument. Yeah. It's fairly compelling. However, they aren't saying, oh, yeah, all of it is made up and there isn't anything spooky. They're like, spooky stuff is real and it's actually demons. Oh, it's demons. It's demon. And so it's like, I'm like, this is somehow worse, right?
19:34 You know, especially here in what will become, you know, the United Kingdom as a result of James, the sixth and first, right? He is your number one, demons are real guy. Jay Pop Demon Hunter. Oh, sorry. Oh, my God. Jay Pop. Jay Bob. Well, he was Charles's Pop.
19:53 Jay, J. Rex. Yeah, there you go. So he writes the demonology in 1597, and it's all about how demons are real. And absolutely, like, we need to watch out for that. also witches are real. And so... Because ghosts are actually reasonably benign, I guess. But demons, no.
20:10 But demons are not benign. No, no, exactly. I would argue this is worse. This is much worse. Because it's like, like, what's the ghost going to do? Throw the wine cup. Yeah. Be like, hey, could you...
20:19 Remind you about unpaid debts and things. Like, oh, you say some masses for me, right? And it's really interesting because you watch, for example, a big traditional place people will think is haunted is, of course, the graveyard, right? And that's probably a reminder of, like, you know, don't go in there. There's a bunch of decomposing bodies, right? Like, it's not great. And they're like, oh, yeah, well, what you're actually seeing there isn't ghosts.
20:40 It's the devil himself. And because he loves corpses. And so he's just hanging. And I'm like, that's worse, right? And there's this amazing book that is written called Sadukismus Triumphatus. And it is about how witches and apparitions are absolutely real. and they're like, listen, here's the Protestant way that we explain this. You're not wrong.
21:06 You did see that thing. It's just that it cannot be a ghost because ghosts aren't real. And if you think a ghost is real, you're a Catholic. So it doesn't get less superstitious. It's just the superstition is different and more violent. So sort of more intense, less amorphous, more rigid and violent and unpleasant. Yeah. But then everyone kind of gets bored of it.
21:31 It's kind of interesting. It's like, because that's like, it's not very fun. Is it that's not fun? And I mean, we will see ghosts that are continuing to crop up, particularly in the Enlightenment period. A big thing that people kind of are doing is they're going around collecting ghost stories and arguing for the possibility of ghosts in a scientific way. Okay, so maybe these things have a basis in science. Yeah. And they're like, look, we're going to get to discover oxygen. Why not discover ghosts? We could discover ghosts and we're going to get, and we begin to ghost hunt and people are looking around. They're trying to find the ghost. So it's not even like with the advent of science that we discard the eye. idea of ghosts more generally, what we attempt to do is explain what they are and how powerful they are. I guess when we were discovering science, we had to work out where the borders of science were. And then we probably still are, right? So you go, before you discard ghosts, you have to just quickly check if they're not one of these phenomena because we keep finding things. And they're like, well, maybe this is just something about time, maybe there's particles. It's really interesting the way that people will grapple with the concept of the ghost because it's still very clearly for them kind of a load-bearing way that they
22:37 think about the world and the way that they think about morality or, you know, indeed just, I suppose, the links that people have with each other, right? So part of to them what it means to be human. There is like this very specific thing that is kind of tied up with humanism as a movement, right? Like as a movement for like the conception of humanities generally is like this interest in ghosts because, well, we all kind of owe each other particular things. So, for example, when John Locke is writing educational treaties about how we should be, like, raising proper young men so that they learn things. He's like, listen, be careful with the ghost thing. You don't want the babysitters telling the ghost stories. You don't want it to be like the old wives tales,
23:20 because those are bad. And then they're going to think that ghosts are just necessarily stupid. But actually, maybe there's some truth to it. And we need them to like turn scientific minds to it once they get older, right? The culmination of this is going to be your friends in mind, Victorians. You listen to Dan Snow's history. Don't go anywhere. It's more to come. This is actually the culmination of these ideas about scientificness,
23:51 whilst you're still kind of holding on to the conception of the ghost as a useful way to organize society because Victorians are like, we are going to get to the bottom of this. We are going to figure this out. But Dickens is still using them for moral tales. 100%. But they're also then trying to work out one. Should we just check if these things? These ones are.
24:09 Listen. Because it would be really helpful if they were because it would be nice if some guys kind of showed up and said, hey, rich people, maybe don't be total jerks. Right? It would be great if a Christmas carol was real, right? Love that for us. So it's like the Victorians also are going through a lot. I think in terms of like industrialization,
24:29 they're really kind of feeling cut off in a lot of ways from what they kind of think of is this bucolic pastoralism. Yeah, they're being replaced by machines. Yeah, we don't like... Must suck. So the thing to them that, like, well, what makes people people is that we have this possibility of like having ghosts, we have this soul, we have that we have this thing. So they really want to hold on to it.
24:47 And then even when you get into the 20th century, it doesn't really go away after the Great War. After, like, the influenza pandemic, people have lost so many people that they really are clinging on to these hopes that maybe they can communicate with their loved ones, which is really sad and there are a lot of charlatans. Well, there's a lot of people encouraging that. Yeah. Do you know, one of my favorite things about Harry Houdini is that he did this huge line of going
25:11 around it and unmasking charlatan. Oh, yeah, he did. That was his like side hustle. Yeah. Yeah, he was all like, in his spare time, he was like, you're faking this, leave these people alone. And I'm like, get on it. Yeah. I love that.
25:21 I love that. But it's like what we see within this period is a kind of like going back to medievalisms over and over again. M.R. James, who I've already shouted out at this point in time, he wrote a series of his own ghost stories, which were my absolute favorite. And they're kind of all from the 1920s, but they will have, like, lots of little appealing bits of medievalisms. My favorite, M.R. James' ghost story is Kenon Albrecht's scrapbook. And he, like, goes to a remote cathedral in France, and he gets, like this big thing of old medieval manuscripts. And, like, it turns out a bishop and sold a soul to it, like a thing. And now there's a ghostly gob and, like, following him around. Great stuff. Creepy ass. Great job, M.R. James. I mean, it's like, it's wonderful from a literary point of view when people write these things and you can really see this mashup. And I mean, still, you know, what is it when we say, oh, that place is haunted? Probably the number one thing we think of is like a castle, right? So that's what's in there is ghosts, right?
26:20 Yeah, I'm astonished by how often conversation turns to ghosts in a non-ironic way when I'm with friends and we're eating, drinking, around the campfire, whatever it is. It is, ghost stories are, so if we are as, if we, you know, five, six, seven generations after, after the, you know, these, these advanced in science that you've described in the Enlightenment period, if we're still as captivated by ghost stories, then what, of course our ancestors been doing the same thing. 100%. You know, everybody has been doing this. And what they were doing, I think, is exactly the same as us. They're grappling with what to do with this, right? They're grappling with how we are going. to integrate ghosts into our worldview. And by that, what they're really doing is they're grappling with what it means to be a person and what it means to be alive. What do we owe each other?
27:13 How are we going to conduct ourselves within a society? And ghosts are just, they're sort of patrolling the edges of that. Yeah. Right? And they're also kind of giving people hope, like for something after death, for the idea that the love we have for people doesn't go anywhere when they die. Well, that is a desperate wish that we all have. I know, I know.
27:34 And it makes so much sense. Thank you, Dr. Elianaga for coming on. Hey, you've got a book about this. What's it called? I've got a book. It's going to be out next year, so get ready to force me to do it again, but it's called The Unquiet Dead. The Unquiet Dead.
27:49 So it's going to be very fun. Nice. Well, thank you, everyone for coming along for this ghostly content. Make sure you like and subscribe and everything. otherwise I will haunt you for years after I am gone, which I will do soon, unless you do like and subscribe and everything. See you next time. Have you been enjoying my podcast and now want even more history?
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