Andrew Joynes, editor, Medieval Ghost Stories
(2001 The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK. Paperback reprint 2003)

This collection covers 8th to 14th century reports of ghostly manifestations culled from monastic chronicles, sermons, sagas, poetry and medieval romances. The stories come from all over medieval Europe and also from Iceland.

This is a book after my own heart. Editor Andrew Joynes does more than just reprint spooky old stories, he attempts to put them into their cultural and historical context and seeks to explain how changes in ghost lore reflected changes in society.

The emergence of the 'ghost story' as a distinct genre, Joynes reminds us, is a recent literary development. "Medieval accounts of supernatural events were different in both style and function from those of modern times." Moreover, he found that the style and function of ghost stories underwent several transformations in the period he covers in this book. Therefore, content is divided into four sections which roughly mirror historical developments in medieval ghost lore.

Section I: Monastic Ghost Stories. These are accounts written by monks and churchmen from the 6th to 13th centuries. During this period, the Church's stance on ghosts evolved from one of total skepticism to eager acceptance. The early church dismissed the belief in ghosts as a pagan superstition that all good Christians should reject. This changed for a number of reasons:

1. The influence of German invasions. The Germans were great believers in ghosts.

2. The millennial hysteria that reached its peak in the year 1000. There was a widespread belief that the world was coming to an end due to the irruption of the spirit world into the material world. Therefore the boundaries between the natural and the supernatural worlds were weakened and hauntings could happen.

3. The Church found that ghost stories could be used to further its interests. After all, who could better testify to the reality of the afterlife and the certainty of judgement than a poor damned soul? Stories of wicked wealthy men who plundered Church property in life and whose tormented ghosts were forced to come back to testify in favor of the Church became an important element in medieval sermons.

Part II: Mirabilia and Ghosts in Court Writing. The sophisticated court life of the twelfth century produced a growing appetite for tales of the strange and marvelous. Nobles had the leisure time and the education to become patrons of poets and writers. The intellectual climate of these courts favored speculative philosophical and theological debate and nurtured a ready audience for tales of wonder. In this period, tales of parallel universes and accounts of interviews with spirits began to surface.

Part III: Revenants, Prodigies and the Restless Dead. The ghosts of medieval Europe weren't the wispy wraiths of Victorian ghost stories. Instead, they were animated decaying corpses similar to zombies. But while zombies had no will of their own, the revenant ghosts of Scandinavian and Northern European legend were willful and malevolent. Joynes gives accounts of malevolent spirits including Grendal from the 8th century poem Beowulf and his Scandinavian cousin Glam from the 14th century Grettis Saga.

Part IV: Ghosts in Vernacular Literature. The rise of Romance Literature caused ghost elements to blend with the doctrine of Courtly Love. In earlier ghost stories, the dead returned because in life they had denied the power of the Church. Now they came back because they denied the power of love.

In dealing with vernacular literature, Joynes omits the one genre that I was the most curious about. The ghosts that haunt Francis James Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads are notably absent from this book. This is a pity, since ballad ghosts seem to behave differently than the ghosts Joynes profiles in Medieval Ghost Stories.

Ballad ghosts are revenant corporeal ghosts, but unlike the ghosts Joynes describes, their intent is not malicious. They come back to settle unfinished business; to warn a loved one against excessive mourning ("The Wife of Ushers Well," Child #79; "The Unquiet Grave," Child #78), the sin of pride ("Proud Lady Margaret," Child #47), or to let a loved one know that they have died ("Sweet William's Ghost," Child #77). Since ballad singing is an oral tradition with very deep roots in medieval society, this omission is most lamentable.

Joynes' book highlights the enormous creativity medieval people showed in explaining and getting rid of their haunts. Medieval methods of laying a ghost include providing proper burial, masses and other Church rituals, prosecuting the ghosts in a Court of Law (Iceland), digging up the corpse and mutilating it taking care to rip the heart out of the body and then cremate it (North of England).

Medieval Ghost Stories provides fascinating and often bizarre glimpses into the medieval mind.

[Liz Milner]