Medieval Winter Ghosts

Come closer, warm yourself by the fire, and don't look too closely at the shadows playing at the edges of the room. Dr. Eleanor Janega explores eerie medieval ghost tales with Dr. Michael Carter, of knights with blood-stained souls and transforming ravens, fleeing monks and night walkers. Together they explore how winter hauntings reflected beliefs about ghosts, purgatory, and prayers for the dead, and why such stories, later revived by M. R. James, still captivate us today. MORE The Haunting Medieval World of M. R. James Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-haunting-medieval-world-of-m-r-james/id1564113746?i=1000678615636 Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/6pLUWweO1IJ2a4FhTJhUvv Supernatural Medieval Ireland Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/supernatural-medieval-ireland/id1564113746?i=1000691906380 Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/05WoMMJK9VMM7LiKp3QQ0w Gone Medieval is presented by Dr Eleanor Janega. Audio editor is Max Carrey, the producer is Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff. All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds. Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast. Sign up to History Hit to watch Eleanor's new documentary on Medieval Midwinter Ghosts, plus hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Matt Lewis?

  From long-lost Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places, to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr Eleanor Janiger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on History Hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand-new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.

• 0:43Speaker 01

  I'm Connor Tomlinson from Love on the Spectrum. History is my thing, and I've been waiting my whole life for a show like this one. And I'm Carter Roy, and this is What the Fact? Three facts a week, each with a whole story behind it. The history class you actually wished you had in school. New episodes every Wednesday. Follow What the Fact wherever you listen or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pod.

• 1:14Eleanor Janega?

  Hello, I'm Dr Eleanor Janiger, and welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gob-smacking details, and the latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings to the Normans, from kings to popes to the Crusades. We delve into the rebellions, plots, and murders that tell us who we really were and how we got here.

• 1:54Eleanor Janega?

  At this time of year, when it already feels like nighttime by the mid-afternoon and mist and frost begins to creep across the land, the veil between the living and the dead seems to become quite thin.

• 2:11Eleanor Janega?

  This belief, held for millennia, gave rise to one of the most enduring winter traditions: the telling of ghost stories.

• 2:21Eleanor Janega?

  "A sad tale's best for winter," Shakespeare wrote in The Winter's Tale. "I have one of sprites and goblins." And in The Jew of Malta, Christopher Marlowe recalled: "Those old women's words who in my wealth would tell me winter's tales, and speak of spirits and ghosts that glide by night."

• 2:43Eleanor Janega?

  These literary references suggest the tradition of winter ghost stories was already well-established by the 16th century. But it goes back much further than that.

• 2:57Eleanor Janega?

  So when we gather to terrify each other with scary stories at Christmas, or huddle around the TV to watch ghost stories, we're actually participating in a tradition that stretches back over millennia.

• 3:12Eleanor Janega?

  The means of delivery may have changed, from monks' Latin manuscripts to modern horror films.

• 3:19Eleanor Janega?

  But the appeal remains the same. And that's what I'm going to be exploring today.

• 3:26Eleanor Janega?

  But first, here's Matt with an abridged version of one of my favorite medieval spooky tales: the story of Snowball the tailor.

• 3:40Matt Lewis?

  As night fell over the Yorkshire hills, a poor and simple tailor named Snowball rode home alone. The road was silent but for the clop of his horse's hooves. Bandits frequented these parts, but the thing that was following Snowball was older, and much, much worse. Suddenly, a raven screamed out of the blackness, its cry like the tearing of a soul. The horse reared. Snowball fought for control. The bird crashed to the ground, dead. Or so it seemed. When Snowball reached to touch it, fire burst from its body, casting his face in a hellish glow.

• 4:25Matt Lewis?

  Snowball fell back, crossing himself in terror. The creature rose again, shrieking like the damned, and vanished into the dark.

• 4:36Matt Lewis?

  But it was not long gone. With a sound like teary metal, the raven struck Snowball from his saddle. His blade passed straight through it as if through smoke. Desperate, he raised a hilt in the shape of a cross. The phantom fled, but Snowball knew it would return. Moments later, the night erupted with the snarl of a beast. Out of the gloom charged a monstrous black dog, eyes burning like coals. Snowball invoked the name of Christ and the beast convulsed, its form dissolving into a blazing spectre. "I am a soul cast out," it moaned.

• 5:20Matt Lewis?

  "Damned by the church, bound in torment. You alone can free me or share my fate." It demanded absolution. One hundred and eighty masses said in its name and secrecy. Refuse, and Snowball's flesh would begin to rot while he still lived. Sick with fear, Snowball obeyed. He promised a huge amount from his salary to the priest of York as a bribe for a written pardon, arranged masses in every monastery, and buried the absolution by the ghost's grave under cover of night. When the spirit came again, it first took the form of a goat,

• 6:04Matt Lewis?

  then rose into the shape of a terrified skeletal man wreathed in fire. "You have freed me," it said. "Three demons tried to keep me, but now, on Monday next, I shall enter everlasting joy with thirty souls beside me." But the spectre warned Snowball once more. "Stay where you are and be rich. Move and be poor. You have enemies near."

• 6:37Matt Lewis?

  Then it vanished, leaving only the smell of ash.

• 6:43Matt Lewis?

  Snowball returned home, broken, fevered, and half mad. Yet he had done the impossible, freed the damned, defied the devils, and proven that even a humble tailor could release a tormented soul from the gates of hell.

• 7:07Eleanor Janega?

  Dr. Michael Carter, the Senior Properties Historian at English Heritage, has dedicated years to uncovering the rich tapestry of medieval supernatural tales that emerged from England's monasteries, revealing a tradition far more complex and fascinating than many realize. I've recently made a terrifyingly good film with Michael, which you can see now when you subscribe to historyhit.com. Michael, welcome to Gone Medieval.

• 7:35Speaker 03

  Real pleasure to be back with you.

• 7:38Eleanor Janega?

  It has been a little while since I met you in the shadow of a priory to talk about one of my favorite topics of all time, which is of course ghosts. But more specifically for our purposes today, I'm really interested in talking about the fact that ghosts in the medieval mind are often something that is linked to the winter or Christmas more specifically. These are the sort of stories that one tells at this time of year, and I think that we don't share that same idea now. Now we think of it more as an October phenomenon. What do you think about that?

• 8:18Speaker 03

  That's really interesting. I always think of Shakespeare in a winter's tale, about a sad story being appropriate for winter. And there's something about gathering by the fire and scaring one another out of their wits, I think. And also, we do think of October tide and things like that, but 1st of November in the church calendar effectively was the start of winter. You went from the summer portion of the brevity over to the winter portion of the brevity, and thinking about all saints and all souls, the very onset of winter. And there is something about the dark, isn't there? We don't have to use too much imagination to

• 9:01Speaker 03

  think why winter is associated with that. And then Christmas tide as well, of getting people together, of hunkering down and entertainment. And to quote Emma James, "They are a pleasing terror."

• 9:18Speaker 03

  But they also have specific didactic purposes. And they also illuminate the religious mindset of the Middle Ages. And we have to consider how Christmas is one of the most important feasts in the Christian calendar. You know, it's the Nativity of Christ and the period running up to it, Advent. We front load our Christmas celebrations now into Advent, don't we? You know, but you're not just preparing yourself for the coming of Christ incarnate

• 9:58Speaker 03

  at the Nativity, but you are also preparing yourself for the second coming. When the graves will open, when people will rise to be judged. And boy, these stories tell you that when that happens, you need to be at the side of Christ where he is pointing to you benevolently, rather being ushered off by demons to eternal torment.

• 10:26Eleanor Janega?

  And that's the sort of thing that medieval people are incredibly aware of. I mean, maybe not comfortable with, because how does one ever get comfortable with that idea? But it's something that they live. You know, churches have frescoes of people jumping out of their graves at the end of the world. Everyone understands the apocalyptic nature of the season, and that's really what they're reflecting on. You know, we're at a real remove from that now, because now we're just like, oh, it's mince pies and your office will have a Christmas party, kind of an idea. But they are relating to the season as something entirely different. So from my point of view, I think it's kind of no wonder that they also begin to think

• 11:08Eleanor Janega?

  about death, because the entire season running up to Christmas is about that very thing.

• 11:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, and also, it's like, again, we think of heh heh, December or jolly. Advent is a time of austerity, spiritual preparation, and that is shown by the colour of vestments that are worn in the Roman Catholic Church to this day. You wear violet, purplish vestments, and high Anglicans will do the same. In the Saram, right, in the Middle Ages, here in England, it'd be blue, but it is marking out as being a somber season. And it is about your spiritual preparation. And why has Christ come? Why has the word been made flesh? Why has Christ been born in Bethlehem? It is to save humanity from

• 11:54Speaker 03

  their sins, to offer them a chance of salvation. And how are you going to achieve that salvation? It is through Christ. And, boy, is it gonna be difficult as well. We are all going to err, and we are all gonna need help. And the vast majority of us are gonna end up in purgatory, where we are gonna undergo torment, and we are gonna need the help of the living to then get up to heaven to shorten our time there. And, boy, the ghost stories show the efficacy of what are called the suffrages, that's the giving of arms,

• 12:35Speaker 03

  the saying of prayers, and most of all, the singing of requiem masses for the salvation of souls. And so many ghosts, that is what they want.

• 12:45Eleanor Janega?

  I mean, and I would say that that is kind of the ghost story of the Middle Ages. Somebody is in purgatory, they are suffering the torments of hell, and they are asking the living for intercession in order to make this stop, right? I suppose that there's also an alternative twist on that, which is warning the living about how they are in purgatory. It's like, oh, you need to straighten up and fly, right? You should consider that I did the wrong thing, so you need to make sure that you don't end up in the same way that I do. But it's really two sides of the same coin, isn't it? You know, in order to be a ghost, you're sort of like come out of hell. In order to bother the living about it.

• 13:31Speaker 03

  Well, coming out of purgatory, we do have ghosts coming from hell as well, and some of the very scary. I think for a lot of medieval ghost stories, I have to be honest, you would have to be of a very, very nervous disposition to her, to be a bit spooked by them. It's like, oh, you know, such and such is wandering down a country lane and this piece of flapping canvas burning bale of hail. You get a sense, oh, my word, this is shocking. And then the person knows what they need to do, they need to conjure it. I command you in the, in the name of Christ, by his precious blood to reveal yourself. Give me your name and tell me what you want. And this, of course, the apparition duly does and said, oh, I did this.

• 14:12Speaker 03

  And I need to have 90 masses said for me and the person at their own expense will trundle off and arrange for that to be done. The ghost will come back and say, thank you very much. I'm no longer in purgatory. But sometimes a little bit of a warning attached as well that, um, you know what? You have been sinning a bit, haven't you? And you better not end up like me. So make amends and be a good Christian, observe the sacraments and say your prayers and pay for the masses for the salvation of souls. And you are not going to be like me. There are some very touching medieval stories about this. And, and actually some which you think, hey, what was going on there?

• 14:57Speaker 03

  There are a number of stories that were written in the 12th century by, written down by a guy called Peter of Cornwall. And some of them concern the Cistercian monastery on the outskirts, what's now the outskirts of London, at Stratford Langhorne. And one of the stories basically involves a local priest or a localist priest in Lesnes in what's now southeast London. And somebody else, and they've made a pact that the person who dies first will come back and say where they are and what they need to do. And boy, there's an implication that they might have been indulging in a little bit of man on man action. And for that, one of them has gone to hell.

• 15:38Speaker 03

  And what the other one has to do to save his soul is to become what must be a Cistercian monk. And he doesn't start off with like what he has been told, but he realizes the stakes are so high. Then we have another collection of ghost stories, one I know very well and I know the monastery so well and I have wandered around the fields and lanes in which so many of these stories are set, and they come from Byland Abbey in Yorkshire. Now, that was the Susterian monastery, it was one of the three shining lights of religion in the north in the 12th century, along with fountains and revo, according to a local monastic chronicler.

• 16:20Speaker 03

  And in around about 1400, one of its monks found some blank leaves of vellum in a 12th century manuscript in the monastery's library. Don't think of the library in the name of the rose, by the way, we are talking about a little room in the cloister, and next to it a cupboard. It's a very beautiful manuscript, though, I have to say, some very, very interesting marginal drawings and beautiful hand. The ghost stories, however, are written in this crappy script that even M R James, brilliant paleographer, found difficult, and the Latin he describes as being refreshing, which I think he means bad.

• 16:59Speaker 03

  But most of them are set in the fields and lanes near the monastery, and they in, those of them are set in northern England, and they give really interesting insights into the range of supernatural beliefs in a medieval monastery. The interaction between high and low religion, the efficacy of prayer for the salvation of souls, and that sometimes, you know what, prayer isn't even gonna cut it, we are gonna have to take much more drastic remedies. And like, well, since childhood, since my late teenage years, every Christmas I've enjoyed

• 17:40Speaker 03

  M R James's ghost stories at Christmas and the 1970s and later BBC adaptations of them. But I also, for my pleasing Christmas terror, will turn to these stories as well. They've been widely translated and published, they're quite easy to find on the internet. And anybody who wants to get an insight into medieval ghost stories and, oh, have that chill down their spine on a winter's evening, have a read of them, they are some fantastic ones. The second story. I think I'd like to talk about a little bit. Most of all, because it involves a character who rejoices in the wonderful surname of Snowball. We love Snowball.

• 18:22Speaker 03

  Let me assure you, that is a surname. And I think it's first recorded in the 13th century, possibly a little bit earlier. And it's actually first recorded in Yorkshire. And it basically means not what we think a ball, a snowball. It means basically having a bald patch, I think. It's a dark-headed person with either a light patch of hair or somebody like me who's like, you know, um, you know, my, my monastic tonsia has naturally developed. So I wonder if it was something like that. So Snowball, we're not given his first name. And near to Byland Abbey, there is the village of Ampleforth,

• 19:03Speaker 03

  which of course now is famous for being home to a large Benedictine monastery and posh Catholic boarding school. Uh, it was quite a large village in the Middle Ages and nearby is the village of Gilling. And this chap, uh, Snowball, who is a tailor, is travelling one winter's evening between the two. Very interesting that he's travelling at night, I always think. You know, you wouldn't really have thought of people wanting to make a journey at night along unlit roads and things. We take these things for granted, let's not forget, the safety of travel at night, uh, the modes of, uh, transport, you know, getting yourself into a medieval mindset can be quite difficult. And he has a terrifying haunting on this journey.

• 19:48Speaker 03

  And I think it's ducks, first of all, then a raven which attacks him and comes to ground and sparks are flying off it. Then he sort of gets his sword. Quite a posh guy is on a horse and he's also got a sword. That tells you that even though he's a tailor, he is a man of means. And he holds the sword like it is a cross. He conjures the ghost, commands it to appear. It speaks from its intestines, we're told, and tells him that, gosh, you've got to do these extraordinary things so I, I can escape.

• 20:22Speaker 03

  Must be from purgatory, there's no way out of hell. And you know, you've got to get me absolved. I've been excommunicated. Ooh, gosh, outside the sacraments of the church, that's not a good place to be. And this Snowball accomplishes at great expense, five shillings, that's two weeks wages is shelled out to pay the necessary fees to get this parchment with basically kind of certificate of absolution on it. And buries it in a churchyard. The story goes on to describe how there were fearsome demons watching him as he does that. The ghost is indeed redeemed and along with thirty other souls. Whoa, well done, Snowball. What can I say? All that suffering you have.

• 21:06Speaker 03

  And then the ghost, whose name we are never told, does a good deed for Snowball. And he tells him that, you know what, mate, that cloak that you you got from your mate up in Amick, you better give it back to him, because you've got that sin on your soul. Also says to him, you know what, you need to move as well because you're going to end up poor because of consorting with ghosts and that's going to destroy your business. And then he's done his good deed and his reward for that is he's left seriously ill in bed for several days. Well, you know, talk about thinking about your Christian duties. Snowball really discharged his at the expense to his pocket and expense to his health.

• 21:51Speaker 03

  But he's done what's right and he is also saving himself from purgatorial pain as well. And the story I think is fascinating as well because it provides some real insights into developments in medieval religiosity, the kinds of expressions of religious devotion at the time. It mentions devotion to the blood of Christ. Other stories mention devotion to the holy name of Jesus. And these are very important late medieval cults. And I think it's actually some of the Bylan stories provide very early evidence indeed of the growing importance of the holy name of Jesus in medieval belief. And the St. John monks were great promoters of that veneration.

• 22:37Speaker 03

  The Snowball story also mentions or alludes to the images of the three living and the three dead adorning churches. So we've got medieval art in them as well.

• 22:49Eleanor Janega?

  So you've hit on something there, Michael, that I think is really interesting. So there's this art motif that is incredibly popular, especially from the 14th century onward, that we call the three living and the three dead. And it's popular enough that you could just say the name of it in this ghost story and the audience is supposed to know what it is. But for the benefit of our listeners, can you explain what it is?

• 23:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think it's a story that should strike terror into your soul if you are a medieval posh boy. And that's what involves the three members of the medieval 1%, well, probably 0.1% or something. And they go off for a lovely day hunting and hawking and they encounter three cadavers. Three rotten, vile corpses, animated corpses, and they basically say to these posh boys, as you are, once were we. As we are now, so shall you be. It's

• 23:52Speaker 03

  a kind of memento mori. The vanities of life are so fleeting that the sinfulness of life that you can be tempted into, that your posh clothes, your concern with your worldly status, it ultimately doesn't matter because you, like everybody else, are going to end up like us and you better think on your end. And it is an incredible leveler that the medieval world was incredibly unequal. It was those stratifications in wealth and status. And even like, you know, the whole concept of being trying to buy salvation.

• 24:35Speaker 03

  If you were one of those medieval posh boys, you would already have made provision in your will. Well, if you were clever, you would have made provision in your will for the saying of possibly thousands of requia masses, probably endowing a chant trick where these masses would be sung for all eternity if you were very rich.

• 24:59Speaker 03

  But everybody is gonna die and you need to think about what comes next. And the most humble medieval person, well, it was a Christian duty of all, of all people to pray for the salvation of their souls. And was it that these posh boys would have to think especially about their end? Because if, you know, the mighty you are, the greater your sins are gonna be. I, I mean, I work for English Heritage and Battle Abbey is one of our staller sites. It's founded by William the Conqueror on the very spot where he wins his blood soaked victory.

• 25:37Speaker 03

  And boy, did he need those prayers because he had committed the most appalling violence. And we have a very Game of Thrones view of the Middle Ages and violence at times that it kind of takes place in a moral vacuum. It doesn't. Your sins have consequence and doing bad, slaughtering lots of people is a terrible stain upon your soul. And there's a story that really does always make my hair stand on end when I tell it or I think about it. And it really does appeal to the residual Catholic within me as well, I have to say.

• 26:18Speaker 03

  It's a story of a Norman knight called Rhinefrid and he has taken part in the harrying of the North. That is William the Conqueror's genocidal campaign in Northern England to put down a rebellion. And we're told in various neo contemporary chronicles how Rhinefrid encounters the holy places of ancient Northumbria, Anglo Saxon Northumbria, including Whitby Abbey. And he's so overcome by emotion that he puts down the sword and embraces the cowl.

• 26:55Speaker 03

  And that sounds to me, possibly slightly anachronistically, of a soldier having post-traumatic stress disorder. He has seen and he has done the most appalling things. And it also speaks to the attendant spiritual needs, that Reinfried needs to find salvation. He needs to find some kind of spiritual comfort. And he's thinking of his ends and thinking of making amends. And the medieval church and the monastic life was a root of doing that. And that is a leveler, that those posh boys are all destined to the grave where they will rot and be consumed

• 27:38Speaker 03

  by worms. And I'm thinking, you know, of these transitumes as well, Eleanor.

• 27:43Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, I love transitumes. Sorry, I shouldn't get so excited about, you know, the, the, the image of a rotting corpse. And yet, here we are. I'm clapping my ass.

• 27:53Speaker 03

  And we have these, you know, these bishops in their full episcopal regalia, what's called their pontificalia. I always loved that word because it sounds a bit like pomp as well, you know. And there they are, it means expression of the majesty of the church and also of the greatness of God. But underneath, layer underneath, you can see this naked, decomposing corpse. And sometimes it's shown with worms or frogs crawling upon it. This is your end. And, you know, without being too morbid, I sometimes think this still has lessons for today. We

• 28:35Speaker 03

  do live in a very now obsessed society. And very good things about emphasis on health and fitness. But I have to say that sometimes when I have been lazily sat in the gym and I see people obsessing about working that tiny little muscle in their transect, and I think, well, perhaps I should be a little more self-reflective when I'm thinking this, that you know what, mate, you're gonna lose that. And all of us will age. And all of us.

• 29:11Speaker 03

  Are gonna face our end, those last moments on earth, we are all gonna have an hour of our death. And what are we going to be thinking of when that happens? And I also think there's some, another message from the Middle Ages is that if there were great, great differences in wealth and status, how are you going to be remembered if you were very rich? You know, and what would you do to try and secure your salvation? You'd found a monastery, you'd endow a Oxbridge College, you would found scholarships at places, you would fund an almshouse.

• 29:53Speaker 03

  Okay, there's, it's transactional, but you are doing something good. And some institutions founded in the Middle Ages still flourish to this day because of the generosity of their medieval founders. And the intention was that the fallows of a college, the brethren of an almshouse would pray for the soul of the founder. But isn't that a better way to be remembered than someone who dodged their taxes and things that, you know, to some extent, we all want more immortality, don't we? And didn't medieval Christianity provide a brilliant way of both, first of all, the spiritual immortality, but also the immortality of being remembered?

• 30:37Speaker 03

  You had done the right thing. I, I, it really does touch me, to be honest, as well, when I think about that. And I often think that as well, in the context of scholarship as well. I mean, you've sometimes penned an article and send it off to some obscure journal, which I'm very glad exists. But let me just say, and it will be read probably immediately by a handful of people. But hopefully, if we're still around, in 200 years' time, somebody may encounter that article, think, who was this person? Find other things you wrote about. You are living on because of a contribution you have made, and it is contributing that's

• 31:18Speaker 03

  that I think is at the heart of so much of the giving in the Middle Ages. It's about, yes, you are getting, the selfish side of it is, you're trying to get a quicker passage to heaven, but you've done a good deed in the process.

• 31:34Eleanor Janega?

  Well, I think that this is a really interesting point, Michael. And when we look at a lot of the medieval ghost stories that survived to us, they really hinge on this, you know, in particular, you've done something wrong during your life, and so you've ended up in hell. And, well, purgatory, but you know, like, let's be honest, purgatory is hell with a timer. It's fine. You know, in particular, when we look at kind of classical tropes, there's a one in particular, I'm really interested in, which are the Harlequin haunts, or the Harlequin hunts, where, you know, to a priest, usually, suddenly, a

• 32:12Eleanor Janega?

  large procession of dead people will appear, and they're usually experiencing ironic torments that correspond to what it is that they had done wrong in life. And the very first recorded one we have that comes to us out of France, we have the priest say that one of the tormented comes up to him and says, you know, I'm in hell right now, unless somebody does something, it could be turned into purgatory, but currently it's hell. Because I took a mill off a miller, and I made more money off of that mill subsequently than the miller ever owed me. And now my whole family is going to go to hell if they don't take care

• 32:56Eleanor Janega?

  of this. And so we do have this real, specific discussion of wealth, and inequalities, and what is and is not acceptable for the powerful to be doing. And I suppose that it's not lost on me, though, that the major way that a lot of these ghost stories come to us is, of course, Through members of the church, you know, so it's a priest that sees this harlequin haunt. It's monks who are writing down the byline ghost stories. And I mean, I don't think that we can discount the fact that these are a bunch of people who are talking to an incredibly privileged subset of society. You know, this isn't a neutral document, right? I'm sure that they do believe that you could go to hell if you don't act appropriately,

• 33:40Eleanor Janega?

  if you don't give charitable alms, if you don't look in on the church and take care of what needs to be done, if you don't take care of your neighbors, if you're taking meals off of poor innocent millers, obviously that that would be part of it. But also, it's very convenient, isn't it? For the church to say, oh, yeah, and I'm afraid you're going to need to buy, oh, you're gonna have to buy like, what, 90 masses? Think that's gonna come out at five shillings? You know, like, this is, is it not also something that we could look at as a shakedown?

• 34:10Speaker 03

  Definitely, and you know, the whole concept of buying salvation is definitely there. I'd just add as well that every single religious, large religious institution would have had what's called a book of life, a libervitae. And yet, the kings are in there for giving their incredible gifts and are remembered. It would be placed on the high altar during every single mass, once a year, read through in its entirety. The grateful community saying prayers for their benefactors. You would have a place in the libervitae if you gave the tiniest gift to that monastery. And also, there's this core biblical message, isn't there, as well?

• 34:53Speaker 03

  And I'm trying to remember my gospels from my childhood scholarship of them, that Christ comments on people being ostentatious, saying their prayers, giving all this lavish thing. Who does he think most favorably of? It's the person who's humble. They can barely afford to give their gift to the temple, which costs virtually nothing. But, boy, they have made the effort. There is that message there as well, I think, that everybody's gift will be esteemed and giving according to your means. Now, also, let's remember that, you know, given another side of the, monks all in the whole are from a kind of middling sort of people.

• 35:36Speaker 03

  But getting to be the head of a big monastery, you're getting a sort of pseudo aristocratic status, and you are hobnobbing with these people.

• 35:47Speaker 03

  Byland Abbey, related that occurs in an extraordinary court case in the Court of Chivalry in the late 14th century, about the same time that the Byland stories are written down. It's because two medieval posh boys, Sir Richard Scroop and Sir Robert Grosvenor, have realised to their horror that they are using the same coat of arms and this just isn't on. And, you know, oh, you know, England in the 14th, late 14th century, not a happy place. What do they do? They convene the Court of Chivalry so to decide who has the right to use this. And it's very well documented. And one of the things that's very interesting is it talks about the placement of coats of arms around monasteries. And those

• 36:32Speaker 03

  coats of arms have been placed there to show the social reserve of these monasteries that this guy, this powerful family are historic benefactors of my monastery. Don't you dare think about taking us on because he's on our side. And then another side of it is it's a visual record of who has been a benefactor. And the Scroop and Grosvenor case mentions coats of arms in various places at Byland Abbey, including a gatehouse chapel dedicated to Mary Magdalene, often a place where, actually, there is, there's a Chancery chapel established in there. I think that's very interesting. But it's, the monks are taught how to recognise

• 37:16Speaker 03

  these coats of arms so they know who to pray for. So I think there is definitely that thing of, if you are rich, you're gonna have a bit of advantage in terms of prayers. But let's remember, Christ is gonna look so favourably upon you if you are poor, that the sins of the, of the powerful will often be so much greater that perhaps they need that extra help to, to, to, to buy their salvation.

• 37:59Speaker 04

  Hey, it's Adam Grant from TED's Rethinking Podcast. As businesses scale, success depends on how well knowledge is captured, shared, and kept up to date. Camtasia Pro turns teams' expertise into engaging training, onboarding, and documentation. No professional editing experience required. With the industry's best screen recording, video editing, and AI-powered workflows, you can train faster and boost operational efficiency. Get over $100 off your first year at camtasia pro.com and start building a smarter way to educate customers, onboard employees, and ensure valuable expertise is shared across teams.

• 38:34Speaker 05

  After civil war, regicide, and Cromwell's Republic, the monarchy returned. But Britain would never be the same. I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb, and this month on Not Just the Tudors, we're transported back to the age of Restoration royalty, from Charles II to Queen Anne and the birth of the Empire. Join me on Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 39:17Eleanor Janega?

  You've mentioned something here that I just wanted to hit on as well, too, which is, you know, the Bylond ghost stories report to us all these varying incredible chapels that have been endowed by wealthy people. But there's also a Bylond ghost story about a member of the Revenant dead who comes back one winter because he's paid to be buried in the abbey. But he was not a very nice guy, and it doesn't do him any good.

• 39:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, that is one of the Bylond stories that it kind of stands outside the other ones, which is, they show the efficacy of prayer. And this one is about a guy called James Tankley. And he's a local priest, a place called Cold Kirby, just over the moors from Byland. And as you said, he's been buried in a very advantageous place at Byland Abbey. He's got an intramural burial, actually, he's been buried in the East Cloister Walk before the entrance to the chapter house. Now, there were few better places to be buried in a medieval monastery than that. It's very, very visible to the community as they go to their daily chapter meeting and hopefully say prayers for the salvation of your soul.

• 40:29Speaker 03

  And he would probably, we don't have a will, in actual fact, it's been very difficult to track the guy down in medieval records. But he would probably have had to have made a very substantial gift to a monastery to secure that privilege. And it becomes very apparent from the story that Tankley did not deserve to be buried in such a brilliant location. And how he rises bodily from his grave, he is an animated corpse, he is a revenant, one who returns. A night walker, or as they are often described in medieval chronicles as satellites of Satan. You know, it gives you an idea, bloodsucker, they're sometimes called, a shroud chewer.

• 41:14Speaker 03

  And he walks across the moors to Cold Kirby. And it is obvious from the story that he has been living a life of sin. Because he goes there, encounters his former concubine and gouges or blows out her eye. And then returns to his sepulcher, Byland. And unsurprisingly, the monks are much troubled by this occurrence. So they decide to exhume the body, they put it in an ox car and they take it down to a local lake called the Gormire, which at that time was thought to be bottomless. And extraordinarily, it's not fed by streams, it's fed by underground springs as well, which I think probably added to its sense of mystery.

• 41:59Speaker 03

  It's owned by the monastery, it was given to the monastery as a gift in the 13th century. And they throw Tankle's body into it. Now, that's a way of dealing with a revenant, that throwing them in deep lakes. And think about those bog bodies that are often encountered, they're often thought to be people who were on the edge, transgressive in some way. And there are other stories of supposed revenants being thrown into boggy and wet depths.

• 42:27Speaker 03

  The oxes dragging the cart are said to be terrified and they almost bawl. The person who copied down the ghost stories then says, well, have they done the right thing? Was he truly beyond salvation? Because they have effectively condemned him to hell. And he said, well, if he wasn't really among the damned, may God forgive my brother monks who did this. And I think there's a reminder in that story that monks were meant to be in the business of saving souls, not damning them for all eternity. And I mean, I think the story is, you know, it's quite a late revenant story.

• 43:08Speaker 03

  Most of the revenant stories we have are from the 12th century into the 13th century. They do come up later in the Middle Ages as well. But the Byland one there is about the moral ambiguity as well. But it also shows that those who fall from the highest places fall farthest. And a lot of revenant stories do involve people who should have known better. Nearby to Byland, there was Newborough Priory and a guy called William of Newborough, writes for the Abbot Erb Revo, a chronicle of English affairs. And it's peppered with revenant stories.

• 43:46Speaker 03

  And one of those involves a priest buried at Malrose Abbey called the Hound Priest because of his love of hunting. And he'd lived, he comes back as a revenant and has lived a very evil life. And then the Lanacross Chronicle from the 14th century describes a Benedictine monk who comes back as a revenant. And again, he's lived an evil life. So there's something consistent there that, you know, are you going to be a nightwalker, a satellite of Satan? If you have sinned so much that the devil may well animate your corpse at night? And You're not going to be saved. You know, okay, there's the odd story of a revenant being saved by having a certificate of absolution buried with them, but most of them are exhumed,

• 44:31Speaker 03

  have the heart ripped out, head struck off, dismembered limb from limb, and their remains thrown on a fire. Kind of reminding you of vampire stories there indeed. And John Blair from Oxford has just published a brilliant book called Killing the Dead, where he discusses the belief in revenants over millennia.

• 44:52Eleanor Janega?

  I think that this is a really interesting point, though, because a lot of the ghost stories that are told or that survive to us are very different from modern ghost stories in that the ghosts are often corporeal. You know, even if they aren't necessarily the revenant dead, they can they can touch you, they can be seized. That is something that happens quite often. Or in the case of poor Snowball, he gets very ill, right? You know, there are physical effects as a result of consorting with ghosts, which I think is quite interesting, especially in terms of stories that we're telling in the winter, right? Like the cold hand on the shoulder, the the physical unwellness. You know, these

• 45:32Eleanor Janega?

  are all things that tie together to paint us a picture of this world where, you know, there are actual consequences. This isn't just about seeing, you know, a little boy in Victorian clothes run through a wall. These are things that they are touching and feeling.

• 45:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's really interesting, these Bylin stories. They they're kind of a melding of tradition in them. They are unmistakably Catholic monastic ghost stories on by and large. You know, they underline the efficacy of prayer for the salvation of souls. No two ways about it. But some of the even quite pious ghosts that they want to be saved do take corporeal form. And there's one of them of somebody thrusting their hand into this corpse, of someone carrying one on their back. You know, it's a they're pious ghosts, but they're still taking kind of revenant form. And that thing of ghosts leaving you very ill, several of the Bylin stories.

• 46:33Speaker 03

  Describe how people are really, really physically affected by this encounter with the dead, the returning spirit. And I think as well, the Dialogue of Miracles of Cesareus of Heisterbach, another Cistercian, a couple of hundred years earlier, and some of his stories talk of people having encounters with ghosts and how they subsequently, they expire. It has been such a profoundly shocking experience that they too go and meet their maker. And I'm sure that they go and meet their maker with all their unconfessed sins shriven and you have

• 47:15Speaker 03

  a very, very short time in purgatory as they've done their Christian duty as regards these ghosts. And there is something there about, you know, do we have resonances today in ghost stories, stories about people's hair going white on encountering a ghost, of having it really taken out of them. There's one of the Bible stories I'm always intrigued about, and that involves a monk, well, he's a canon, you know, I'm going to get nerdy here, he's an Augustinian, and he's stolen six silver spoons from the monastic refectory. You know, you see inventories from medieval monasteries and silver spoons are singled out. And I think that's because they're paid for by benefactors. So when the monks are having their pottage, or probably by

• 48:00Speaker 03

  that time, something much more tasty, the monastic diet does improve significantly over the Middle Ages, that you're saying prayers for the salvation of the soul of the benefactor. Anyway, he's nicked these six silver spoons and he's never been absolved by the prior for doing that. So he appears to this workman, and I think it is on a cold winter's day in a field, and scares the hell out of him, tells him what he's got to do, go find the spoons, restore them, get absolution. And then he comes back, the workman does that for him, again at great time and some financial expense. The ghost comes back and rests in his black

• 48:39Speaker 03

  Augustinian habit and says, thanks, mate, in heaven. And the poor guy who has done all these wonderful things, sickens, you know, he has to take to his bed, that these ghosts are, you know, the physicality of them is extraordinary. It is such a topos, isn't it, that an encounter with a ghost will, you will have a physical sensation with it, the coldness, the hair standing on end, sort of resonances over the centuries of that.

• 49:10Eleanor Janega?

  Absolutely. I mean, I find it quite interesting, too, because we see a very similar thing in Japanese ghost stories, both from the period and moving forward, where, you know, ghosts, they can come grab you, you know, and they can, and they can make you ill, like, you know, ghost sickness is a specific thing that is talked about both within the Japanese Buddhist and Shinto traditions, where, you know, if you are too in contact with a ghost, it can just make you ill and then slowly kind of leech the life out of you. And I find it so interesting that we have this direct link in the medieval ghost story, very particularly that we tend to lack in the modern. One can be shocked, one could perhaps be frightened to death, but there's less of this idea of the kind

• 49:53Eleanor Janega?

  of leeching quality of a ghost, I suppose.

• 49:57Speaker 03

  Hmm. And that's really interesting, again, thinking of going back to the snowball story and how the ghost advises him. So, you know, do you want to be rich or do you want to be poor? If you want to be poor, you stay where you are. And it's because you have been consorting with the dead. People know you have been digging in my tomb and things like that. Is it that you have somehow become tainted? And, you know, I'd almost hesitate to use the word, but unclean because of your association with a troubled spirit? Very interesting indeed.

• 50:45Speaker 04

  Hey, it's Adam Grant from TED's Rethinking Podcast. As businesses scale, success depends on how well knowledge is captured, shared, and kept up to date. Camtasia Pro turns teams' expertise into engaging training, onboarding, and documentation. No professional editing experience required. With the industry's best screen recording, video editing, and AI-powered workflows, you can train faster and boost operational efficiency. Get over $100 off your first year at camtasia pro.com and start building a smarter way to educate customers, onboard employees, and ensure valuable expertise is shared across teams.

• 51:20Speaker 05

  After civil war, regicide and Cromwell's Republic, the monarchy returned. But Britain would never be the same. I'm Professor Suzanne Lipscomb, and this month on Not Just the Tudors, we're transported back to the age of Restoration royalty, from Charles II to Queen Anne and the birth of the Empire. Join me on Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 52:03Eleanor Janega?

  Listen, Michael, we've been talking a lot about all of the incredible ghost stories that one tells round fires in the winter in the medieval period. But that isn't necessarily a tradition that's died out. As I say, I think people tend to now think of October as the spooky season, and I'm not mad about that. And anytime anyone wants to get spooky, I'm happy. That's fine. But the tradition of the winter ghost tale was still alive and well, at least at the turn of the century, and with, I hasten to add, one of your favourite medievalists and mine, M.R. James. And we have on Gone Medieval before talked about M.R. James really extensively.

• 52:48Eleanor Janega?

  But he is so interesting to me because he has this medievalism. We call it when there's a medievalism is when you're trying to do something that is kind of medieval. For example, Tolkien's stories are medievalisms, right? But he's got this life medievalism, which is that he tells ghost stories every Christmas. And he gets the boys in at Eton, or he brings in the residents of kings, and they all sit round the fire, and they all turn out all of the lights, and they all hear his spooky stories. So he's doing this medieval thing, but he's also oftentimes telling stories that very specifically involve medieval ghosts, in that these ghosts have come through from

• 53:32Eleanor Janega?

  the medieval period and are now terrorising... Well, let's face it, a series of Cambridge Dons, because the man can only write about himself. But I find that really, really interesting.

• 53:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, really interesting. I mean, I think, you know, one thing that I always think about is ghost stories is we talked about them reading them around the campfire. The Byland stories and things like Cesareus of Heystabat would have been read in a freezing cold cloister. And again, I think there's a, you know, there's something there about feeling, what that, what's that in the back of my neck? But James is extraordinary. Now, James has a direct connection with the Byland Abbey ghost stories. He transcribed them and published them in the English Historical Review in 1922. And it's thanks to James that I think they have become probably the best known of all English medieval ghost stories.

• 54:26Speaker 03

  And he writes a little commentary about them. He didn't do, he didn't translate them. They were translated in the Yorkshire Archaeological Journal a year or two later. And that is an excellent translation, I would add. And there's other translations available as well. But James talks about the stories as having something of Scandinavia about them. And there are definitely these revenant stories. Some of the ghosts do have resonances with pre-Christian Scandinavia. And James was very, very interested in that as well. And you mentioned his medieval ghosts, you know, like Canon Albrecht's scrapbook.

• 55:06Speaker 03

  Well, it involves this extraordinary collection of plundered leaves from a chapter library at some batram de Camargue. And James describes the cathedral, the cloister, exactly as it is. A few, about 20 odd years ago, I, we went on what was meant to be a walking holiday in the Pyrenees. And I just dragged my mates around to places of medieval interest instead. But, I mean, that involves a 17th century cleric who has basically conjured a dean. The medieval manuscripts, the topography of the medieval cathedral plays a key role. Then you have a whistle and I'll come to you. And probably his most famous story, and certainly I think the best ever adaptation of one of his

• 55:50Speaker 03

  stories, nineteen sixty nine, directed by Jonathan Miller, starring Michael Horden. But the story involves a whistle discovered in the ruins of a Templar preceptory on the East Anglian coast. It's blown and we, again, we tie into folk traditions along the Yorkshire coast and into Scandinavia. And it summons a ghost of some sort. And then there's this character in it. He's a kind of figure of fun, a retired Colonel, secretary of a London club and possessive opinions of a distinctly Protestant type. But it is the Protestant good sense of this guy who saves the day.

• 56:31Speaker 03

  And I think there's a little bit of a theme of anti-Catholicism in James's stories. That in The Treasure of Abbott Thomas, it's stained glass windows that provide the inspiration for it. Stained glass windows, which you can still see to this day, incidentally, in the V and A, most of them in the V and A, from the monastery of Seinfeld in the Ife. And which James studied, he encountered them in a, formerly, they'd been in a private chapel. They'd been taken out of their context at the French Revolution, bought here and, you know, and then came to James's attention. The abbot of the story is a necromancer who has set this guardian, this awful beast, to defend his treasure.

• 57:15Speaker 03

  Then there's his Scandinavian tales. Both of them involve some way or another, something deeply, deeply sinister in Catholicism. There is the number thirteen, there's a bishop who's basically defended the devil himself. Count Magnus, okay, it's a seventeenth century story, but there's something Catholic in that as well. There's the three crowns of East Anglia in A Warning to the Curious. And then one of his, I think, you know, Casting the Runes. It's not explicitly a medieval story, you know, but runes are very interesting, actually. There is a manuscript from Byland Abbey with runes in it, incidentally, which, you know,

• 57:57Speaker 03

  another kind of connection, I suppose. But the guy, Carswell. Is described as being the abbess of Lufford, his house. And there was indeed a monastery called Rufford, and I do wonder if that is a coincidence. And yet Carswell is a terrible character. He's guilty of terrible scholarship. Oh, gosh, he's downright evil. Then there's a view from a hill. Oh, I love that. Which someone looks through dead eyes. He exhumes bodies from a monastic cemetery and gallows hill to see through their eyes and seen through these dead people's eyes.

• 58:39Speaker 03

  He can see the magnificent tower of a long demolished medieval monastery. I mean, I argued in an article publishing Notes and Queries about 15 years ago, that the guy who is the bad guy in a view from a hill, a guy called Baxter, he's described as being a clock on watchmaker, a great antiquary, an excavator of a Roman villa, whose most perfect examples are now in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, might have been partly based on a guy called Thomas Inskip of Sheffield, who was a clock and watchmaker and whose accomplishments in his obituary

• 59:18Speaker 03

  in the Gentleman's Magazine, sound extraordinarily like those attributed to Baxter as well. So there is a lot of medievalism in James's story. He knew it. But there's also, let's be honest as well with James's stories, some villains from later centuries as well. He's very interested in the 17th and 18th century and some thoroughly nasty characters there, untainted by medieval Catholicism or later Catholicism. And the stalls of Barchester Cathedral, it's a medieval cathedral, it's its modernisation, it's its Gothicisation at his time, you know, which James was really, really against. And but the stalls that are

• 1:00:02Speaker 03

  ripped out, they're not medieval stalls, they're kind of, you know, they're more classical in design. And the real villain in that story is an archdeacon in the Church of England. So he was ecumenical in his religious approach to them. And also in his personal life, James showed, although he described Algar's dream of Drontheus as papalistic nonsense. He was very, very generous to Roman Catholic scholars and gave gifts to Roman Catholic charities and hard up Catholic boarding school. And I think there's another insight into James at the end of Canon Albert's scrapbook.

• 1:00:43Speaker 03

  It ends with a Presbyterian, the guy who's experienced the haunting, basically saying that he has paid for the singing of Requiem masses for the soul of the eponymous canon. And I think that's a good way of ending. It's prayers for the dead.

• 1:01:00Eleanor Janega?

  Listen, you're never going to get too far from prayers for the dead in any medieval ghost story. You're just not. It's kind of the panacea of the medieval ghost. And, you know, I think that also it's something to think about when you are shivering in the cold, when everyone's coming around the hearth. That is something to warm the soul itself. This idea that there is something that one can do, even when presented with these horrors, you know?

• 1:01:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, that is a great thing with the medieval ghost story. You have agency within them. You are not helpless. And altruism, you're committing an altruistic act and altruism makes you feel better about yourself. There's a very, very strong Christian message in them there. And they're also, you know, so many ghost stories are psychological, you know? Boy, I mean, there's a whole raft of scholarship on James's psychology as well. And, you know, ghost stories have endlessly subjected to psychological analysis. But, you know, there's something there as well, I think, about doing good and doing good by the dead as well.

• 1:02:12Speaker 03

  Sometimes the stories, I, you know, my mum, my mum was Irish and we grew up on her knee being told ghost stories and especially in the winter months. And occasionally she realised she might have gone a little bit too far.

• 1:02:32Speaker 03

  And there were four of us and she'd say in her accent, which was this wonderful mixture of Dublin and West Yorkshire, "Oh, boys, it's not the dead you need to be frightened of, but the living." And I think the reason why these medieval posh boys I'd been talking about earlier needed so many masses saying for them underlines that point, the evil that man will do to other men.

• 1:03:01Eleanor Janega?

  Well, Michael, on that cheery note, thank you so much for coming along to talk about my very favorite thing in the world.

• 1:03:10Speaker 03

  Well, I hope all the listeners have a happy and haunting Christmas.

• 1:03:18Eleanor Janega?

  The medieval winter ghost story tradition that Dr. Carter has worked to preserve and illuminate continues to influence us today. As we face our own long winter nights in the northern hemisphere, these stories remind us that winter has always been a season of darkness and wonder. When the boundary between the living and the dead grows thin, and when gathering together to share tales of the supernatural brings both delicious shivers and profound comfort. In keeping these stories alive through his research and public engagement, Dr. Michael Carter ensures that the voices of the medieval dead and their ghostly subjects

• 1:04:02Eleanor Janega?

  continue to speak to us across the centuries.

• 1:04:07Eleanor Janega?

  Thanks once again to Dr. Michael Carter and to you for listening to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Remember, you can enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries, including my new film about winter ghost stories and my recent film about The Trials of Joan of Arc, as well as ad-free podcasts by signing up at historyhit.com/subscription. You can follow Gone Medieval on Spotify, where you can leave us comments and suggestions, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to all your friends and family that you've gone medieval. Until next time.

• 1:05:02Speaker 04

  Hey, it's Adam Grant from TED's Rethinking Podcast. As businesses scale, success depends on how well knowledge is captured, shared, and kept up to date. Camtasia Pro turns teams' expertise into engaging training, onboarding, and documentation. No professional editing experience required. With the industry's best screen recording, video editing, and AI-powered workflows, you can train faster and boost operational efficiency. Get over $100 off your first year at camtasia pro.com and start building a smarter way to educate customers, onboard employees, and ensure valuable expertise is shared across teams.