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The Undead: Ghosts and Revenants
Linköping University, Department of Culture and Society, Division of Culture, Society, Design and Media. Linköping University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences. (COMPASS)ORCID iD: 0000-0003-0496-3093
2021 (English)In: A Companion to Death, Burial and Remembrance in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe 1300–1700 / [ed] Philip Booth, Elizabeth Tingle, Leiden, Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers, 2021, p. 418-438Chapter in book (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

This chapter examines the role of ghosts and restless corpses in medieval and early modern texts. It argues that the undead were employed by the narrators to convey a certain message and that different roles were assigned to ghosts and to restless corpses. Thus, ghosts were usually used in the narratives where a dead person was portrayed to return to warn the living about hell and purgatory, as well as to ask for help to facilitate the soul's progress towards heaven. At the same time, one's turning into a walking corpse usually appeared in a 'cautionary tale' type of narrative where an individual was portrayed to be punished for their sins. Therefore, this chapter examines which types of offences were considered as leading to restlessness and why. It also presents the evidence against the popular assumption that being buried away from the consecrated ground was believed to cause one's turning into a restless corpse. On the contrary, in many sources, as this chapter demonstrates, the individuals who later turned into revenants had received a proper burial. Finally, the chapter examines the actions taken by the living in order to get rid of ghosts and wandering corpses, such as prayers, burning a corpse or dumping it into water, as well as the meaning attached to these apotropaic rituals. 

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Leiden, Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers, 2021. p. 418-438
Keywords [en]
History, Medieval, Death, Early Modern
National Category
History
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-194395Libris ID: fxrjj26ccw78j177ISBN: 9789004361232 (print)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:liu-194395DiVA, id: diva2:1762910
Available from: 2023-06-05 Created: 2023-06-05 Last updated: 2023-08-24Bibliographically approved

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Ignatova, Polina

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CiteExportLink to record
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Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • oxford
  • Other style
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Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
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