0:00

This is the BBC.

0:07

Well,

0:30

spook us all. We have two seriously

0:32

spooky guests. In History Corner, he's a senior

0:34

properties historian with English heritage

0:37

and is an expert in medieval monastic and religious

0:39

history. Lucky for us, he's also writing a

0:41

book all about monasteries, ruins and ghost

0:43

stories. It's Dr

0:44

Michael Carter. Welcome, Michael. Hello, it's a real

0:46

pleasure to be here to talk about three of my very

0:49

favourite things. Monks, monasteries

0:51

and the macabre. Excellent. And a literate

0:53

of two. Perfect. And in Comedy

0:55

Corner, he's a multi-award winning writer, actor

0:57

and actual ghost. Sort of. You'll

1:00

have seen him star in The Wrong Man's Yonderland peep

1:02

show Quacks, plus my old gig Horrible Histories.

1:05

And he's played Shakespeare himself in the movie Bill.

1:08

He'll soon be sharing a screen with Willy Wonka, but

1:10

you will definitely know him as tragic romantic

1:12

poet Thomas Thorne in the smash hit

1:14

BBC

1:14

sitcom Ghosts. It's Matthew Bainton.

1:16

Welcome, Matt. Thank you for having

1:18

me. So we spent five years

1:21

working together on Horrible Histories. Do

1:23

I therefore get to consider you a history knowledge

1:26

person? Good on the history. Well,

1:28

this is a mistake that many people make

1:31

in my life, is that they presume because

1:33

of Horrible Histories that I, like

1:35

you, am going to know an awful lot about

1:38

history. And what it turns out I

1:40

know is a few things about how people

1:42

use toilets. And

1:45

even of that, I tend to have

1:47

forgotten a lot of stuff. My memory

1:50

is like a sieve. So I can barely remember

1:52

what I did last Tuesday, let alone what

1:55

King F.L. Red did in the century.

1:59

Who's white? The ninth century? You

2:02

know how far off? Within a standard

2:04

deviation, within 150 years give a sake. So

2:09

you and your BBC Ghost cast mates are

2:11

about to launch the final series. I'm

2:13

heartbroken that it's the final series. You've also written

2:16

a lovely book, Flashing Out, the backstories

2:18

of your beloved inhabitants of Button House. But

2:20

today we're talking about actual ghosts, proper

2:23

real ghosts. So stuff about ghosts,

2:25

not written by ghosts. So what

2:27

do you know of medieval ghost stories?

2:29

Do you know any?

2:31

Well you've just confirmed that they're real.

2:33

So you solve that debate immediately.

2:36

You hit it here first. I'm

2:39

amazed by that. Medieval

2:41

ghosts. The idea of ghosts,

2:44

you just feel like that must be ancient.

2:47

The idea that maybe we stick around

2:50

in some form beyond our body. So

2:53

I presume that ghost stories have been around

2:55

for as long as stories have been around. But

2:57

I could be completely wrong about that. It's a good presumption.

3:00

The ghost stories are there in the earliest literature we have from

3:02

the Bronze Age. So you're absolutely right. And they are

3:04

global. They go around the world. But today we're

3:06

going to be just doing European medieval ghost stories.

3:09

So what do you know?

3:15

This is the So What Do You Know? This is where I have a go

3:18

at guessing what you, our lovely listener, might

3:20

know about today's subject. But I'm going to assume,

3:22

like Matt, you've heard of ghost stories. You've

3:25

probably read them in your time. You've got Casper the friendly

3:27

ghost. You've got your moralising messengers. And

3:29

Charles Dickens is a Christmas carol. And you can go

3:31

all the way to the hair-raising horror hauntings

3:34

of The Conjuring. There really is a ghost story for

3:36

everyone. But what about medieval ghosts? Maybe

3:38

you're thinking of scary headless spectres floating around

3:41

creepy castles or gruesome ghouls hanging

3:43

around murky monasteries. But I'm guessing you're

3:45

not that well versed in how they were understood 800

3:48

years ago. So

3:50

what did medieval Europeans in Christendom

3:52

think happened to your soul when you died?

3:55

Why were monks so often on ghost watch duty?

3:57

And what should you do if a dead nun named Margaret...

4:00

starts haunting you in your bedroom. Let's find

4:02

out! Right, Michael,

4:05

ghost stories, as we said, they're global but

4:07

we're doing European medieval Christendom.

4:10

Which centuries are we looking at here? Because

4:12

medieval history is quite big. Yeah, we're

4:15

going to be looking at stories written between

4:17

about the year 1100 through to the

4:20

middle of the 16th century. It's what nerds like

4:22

me call the high and late middle

4:24

ages. But it's only around the

4:26

time of the first millennium that you start

4:29

to get ghost stories written down in

4:31

any kind of number. And they come from

4:33

all over Europe. Now there's

4:36

a real talent for writing ghost stories

4:38

in medieval England and a lot of

4:40

them come from up in the northern counties.

4:43

So medieval England, northern England, home

4:45

of the ghost story and Matt, what do you think

4:47

the medieval Catholic Church says

4:50

about the existence of ghosts? Where do they stand

4:52

on the subject? Is it heretical?

4:55

It's not strictly a Christian Pregatory's

5:03

not even in the Bible, is it? That's a sort

5:05

of... Right. Isn't that a sort of subsequent

5:08

tacking on of an idea? Michael's

5:11

giggling. No, my giggling

5:13

is completely wrong. That those

5:15

ideas about hell and the devil

5:17

were sort of post-bible

5:20

ideas. Maybe to shame people

5:22

into behaving better. Oh.

5:24

Well, I was giggling with delight because all

5:27

those years of horrible history have rubbed

5:29

off on you. But you've

5:31

picked up a bit of English Protestant propaganda

5:34

on the way. Now we'll get to that later.

5:37

Now there's a kind of definite

5:39

chronology to medieval ghost storytelling

5:42

and the world of late antiquity

5:45

shaded into what is called

5:47

the Middle Ages by scholars today.

5:49

Well, the Church authorities took

5:52

a kind of dim view of ghost storytelling

5:54

and that's kind of because of the culture wars

5:57

then raging. They were all a

5:59

bit too close.

5:59

ghost stories to the pagan beliefs

6:02

of the Romans. You know, we need to get

6:04

away from that. And the actual fact,

6:07

party boy turned church

6:09

father and bishop of Hippo,

6:12

Saint Augustine, took a very, very dim

6:14

view of ghosts indeed. And he said, the

6:16

dead by their very nature are

6:19

not able to involve themselves

6:21

in the affairs of the living. He

6:24

wrote that these were only a spiritual

6:27

image of a dead person that had appeared

6:30

in an apparition, but that demons

6:33

liked also to put these images into

6:35

people's minds. And so

6:38

many ghostly visitations,

6:40

or what would be lead to be ghosted by the saints, would in fact

6:42

have been the work of the devil. Although

6:45

he did concede very

6:48

occasionally these spiritual

6:50

images of the dead might actually

6:53

be genuine visions

6:55

in dreams, and they were mediated

6:58

by the powers of angels. So

7:00

he basically said, yeah, ghosts can be

7:03

real as long as it was God who said so,

7:06

as long as it was somehow his

7:08

work along the way.

7:10

But also the devil doing bad trickery,

7:13

naughty, deceptive, satanic apparition

7:16

bringing to people to tempt them, to scare them,

7:18

to spook them. I think what we can say from this is St Augustine's

7:20

version of Ghostbusters would be a lot less fun than

7:22

the Hollywood movie. And St

7:24

Augustine's one of the biggest heavy hitters

7:27

of the early church. He's like one of the

7:29

great writers. He's debunking

7:32

ghosts, Michael. That means that someone must be

7:35

bunking them. There must be someone

7:37

going around going, ghosts are real, right? So it's

7:39

really from the 12th century onwards. And

7:42

many authors around the time actually do comment

7:44

on how many of these stories have been recorded

7:47

at the time. And there's a chap called

7:49

William of Newberg from a

7:51

monastery up in Yorkshire. And he just said it

7:54

wouldn't be believed if they were not

7:56

being recorded by really reliable

7:58

witnesses. So I believe. them and so

8:00

should you. It may well be

8:03

related to new

8:05

commemorative rights gaining importance

8:07

in the church, a whole elaborate

8:09

liturgy for the dead which really starts

8:12

to spread from the 9th century onwards.

8:15

And then you start to get formalisations

8:17

of the concept of purgatory. And

8:20

yeah we've already had that word mentioned and

8:22

that really kicks off in the 12th century.

8:25

So purgatory, you're right Matt, comes in

8:27

late in the 12th century but

8:29

I wanted

8:29

to ask in your show Ghosts

8:32

the sitcom, is purgatory

8:34

what you were thinking when you're putting your ghosts

8:36

stuck in a house? Not necessarily.

8:39

We sort of thought about almost

8:42

more the Sartre idea of hell is other

8:44

people just if you're stuck

8:46

in a place seemingly

8:49

forever with the same bunch of people

8:51

then you don't need fire

8:53

and torture that would be bad

8:55

enough. And then over time I suppose

8:57

this sort of the message flipped

9:00

itself not really with us trying

9:02

too hard but we actually just found

9:05

naturally that the characters just

9:07

wanted to soften towards each other somehow.

9:11

So it actually kind of ended up being

9:14

a message of tolerance I suppose

9:16

that if you're forced to really really

9:18

commune with people and see each other

9:21

eye to eye even if

9:23

you've got differences you're going to see the humanity

9:25

in each other eventually. Because what's

9:27

interesting for people who haven't seen your wonderful

9:29

show and they should see it it's absolutely brilliant and there's an American

9:32

remake as well both of which you can watch on the BBC

9:35

but your ghosts are trapped in Buttonhouse they can't get

9:37

out of the ground they've died at different times in history and

9:40

occasionally they get sucked off which

9:43

is not what you think it is Radio 4 listeners it's

9:45

where they go into some sort of afterlife. They suddenly

9:47

go they move on where we

9:49

do not answer what it

9:52

kind of amused us to sort of have

9:54

a concept in which ghosts exist but

9:56

then present that plane of existence

9:59

with this same complete

10:01

lack of conviction about what anything means

10:03

or what happens next that we are

10:06

stuck with here on earth where we've

10:08

all got different ideas about what happens when you

10:10

die. It's just a metaphor

10:12

for life really. You're born,

10:15

you look around and think I don't know what any of this

10:17

means or what I'm supposed to do or whether

10:19

that person is right or whether that person is right

10:22

but they're certainly arguing very passionately

10:24

about what they believe and then one

10:26

day you move on and you don't know why.

10:28

It's a

10:31

very compassionate universe you've created.

10:34

What do you think purgatory means

10:37

in a medieval context? So we've heard that it's coming

10:39

in in the 12th century as a new concept.

10:41

What do you think it's for? How

10:43

do you think it feels to be in purgatory? What's

10:46

the vibe of the purgatorial? Was it a

10:48

sort of wage of sin, a measuring

10:51

up of how sinful you've been in your

10:53

life? If you've done this, this and this

10:55

then that's going to be red hot pokers. That's

10:59

my possibly

11:01

wrong understanding of it. I think you're close

11:03

there. Yeah I think you really

11:05

do have the makings of the theologian. A

11:09

second calling. Matthew of Bainton. Well

11:14

medieval Christians and it still remains part

11:17

of Roman Catholic dogma to this

11:19

day, believed that after death

11:22

you're going to be judged for what you've done and you

11:24

actually get judged twice.

11:26

When you die you're going to go to either

11:29

heaven hell or purgatory and then

11:31

you're going to go there and you're going to get judged a second

11:33

time. If you've been really sinful

11:35

it is the red hot pokers and if you

11:37

have died getting a little bit nerdy

11:40

with unconfessed mortal

11:42

sin. That's very very serious

11:44

sin on your soul. You've had far

11:47

too many good nights out with all that that might

11:49

entail or got a bit too

11:51

medieval for the wrong reasons

11:54

and I felt very sorry about

11:56

it. Then I'm sorry there is one place

11:58

you are going and one place.

11:59

place only and that is not a good

12:02

place. Flowl. Oh, sorry. Hell, sorry.

12:06

And then, well, if you'd be very virtuous,

12:09

you're going straight up to heaven. Most

12:11

of us, however, would be going to

12:13

the third place, that's purgatory, an intermediate

12:16

state where your souls are

12:19

scrubbed clean of lesser

12:21

things. And you ought to have died

12:23

in what's called the state of grace that you've got

12:25

to have been genuinely sorry for all

12:27

these sins you have committed. But

12:29

there's only one way out

12:32

and that is to go upwards.

12:34

Now, the concept of purgatory, there

12:36

is something there in the Bible that seems to

12:39

suggest its existence. It develops

12:42

over the Middle Ages and as I said, it gets formalised in

12:44

the 12th century. Some people

12:46

have argued that it's really the church

12:48

trying to latch on to what was

12:51

a pre-existing folk popular belief

12:53

going back right to the times of

12:56

classical antiquity. I'm not that

12:58

persuaded by the argument, to be honest. I do think it has

13:01

solid justifications in Christian theology.

13:04

And the word purgatory comes from the Latin

13:07

pogare? That's right. And it's, you

13:09

know, and I don't think you need a first

13:11

in classics from Oxford or Cambridge

13:13

to work out that that just means to purge.

13:15

To purge. So you're purging a sin.

13:18

You're working them off. It's almost

13:20

like, you know, burning off the calories. It is

13:22

a really, really bad day at the gym and

13:24

the punishments

13:27

inflicted on souls in purgatory

13:30

to burn those souls clean

13:34

every single bit as horrific as

13:36

those inflicted on souls

13:38

in hell. But it is a temporary state.

13:41

It might be quite short, but it could be

13:43

until the very eve of the end of

13:45

time. When they say the eve of the

13:48

end of time, there's not an end of time

13:50

to heaven, is there? You

13:55

get let in just

13:57

as they're shouting last order. You've

14:02

been through purgatory almost

14:04

forever and then you get into heaven and

14:06

they go shut. See why you go

14:08

off, you've been to the schools

14:10

in Paris, I was like we've been to the school

14:12

in Paris. You are a school in Paris.

14:15

Fulfilling with questions like that. They just got earthly

14:17

time kind of thing. Right, end of earthly time,

14:20

yeah, sure. So Matt, in the 12th century we get

14:22

the theological development of the idea of purgatory.

14:25

We also start to get people ascribing

14:27

it to a real place on earth. They're

14:29

saying that purgatory is an actual physical

14:32

thing you can see and visit. Do you

14:34

want to guess where on the planet they

14:36

think purgatory might be? The South

14:39

Pole. Other

14:41

way, go north. Not far

14:43

off, it's Iceland. Oh, okay.

14:46

Yeah, do you know why? No, frankly, no.

14:50

I thought Iceland was meant to be quite nice and beautiful.

14:53

Yeah, but it's got volcanoes. Oh. Lava,

14:57

flames, burning rivers of molten

15:00

stone, right, Michael? It's scary

15:03

and gothic and smoky. And also it hasn't

15:05

been settled for that long. Some Irish monks

15:08

might have gone there early on because they really did

15:10

like sort of travels to purgatory. They

15:12

make life as hard as possible and then the Vikings

15:15

picture. But the 13th century

15:18

Lanecoste Chronicle in the library

15:20

of the monastery of Lanecoste, of Incumbria

15:23

near the Scottish border, that records

15:25

that a Scottish bishop, William

15:28

Orkney, said there was a place in

15:31

Iceland where the sea burns for

15:33

a mile, leaving a trail

15:35

of black and filthy ashes. In

15:38

other places, he said, fire

15:40

bursts from the earth and burns down

15:42

whole towns, and it can only

15:44

be extinguished with holy water,

15:47

which any good medieval Christian would want

15:49

to have by them at all times. And

15:52

what is more wonderful, he said,

15:55

is that you can clearly and plainly

15:57

hear amidst the fires, the sun, the sky, the sky,

15:59

the sky. souls of the tormented. Hang

16:02

on. How

16:04

did they think people got there when they

16:06

died then? Did they

16:08

think they just sort of just appeared

16:11

in Iceland? You

16:13

left your body behind in Yorkshire or

16:15

wherever and then you just found yourself

16:18

in Iceland. I've gone to Iceland.

16:22

You're right, it's a spiritual portion of you. I

16:24

guess so. Yeah. You can see that

16:26

the purgatory is underneath the earth

16:29

and you can see the cracks in the top. So

16:32

you could get there by boat but you wouldn't see

16:34

purgatory itself because it's underneath. Yeah, you could

16:36

hear it. And it wasn't just here in medieval

16:39

Britain that they thought that Iceland

16:41

was purgatorial. You also find it in

16:43

some 12th century French texts as well. Was

16:45

that by coincidence? Or do you think they

16:47

were talking to each other? I think it may well

16:49

have something to do with the fires

16:52

and the radio association of molten fire and

16:55

noises as well. And then also as

16:57

I said, Iceland didn't have the best of reputations.

17:00

Clearly. It's

17:03

a bit remote and not that much

17:05

is really known about it. And Vikings. Evil

17:07

comes from the north in medieval

17:09

belief and some of that does have to do with the

17:12

Vikings. Interesting. These

17:15

ghost stories have a purpose, Michael. They are. They're

17:17

creepy and they're sad and they're touching. We mentioned

17:19

in the introduction Margaret, the nun called Margaret,

17:22

she visits someone and says, help, I'm

17:24

in purgatory. But that is again,

17:27

she's asking for help. The living are still

17:29

responsible for the souls of the dead. And

17:31

so your job as a living person is to help them

17:33

out, Michael. Is that right? Absolutely.

17:36

Yeah, good work. So you sort of send

17:38

some nice treats on a boat. You

17:43

send the very, very best

17:45

treats in medieval belief. Delicious

17:47

biscuits. Yeah. Yeah. And

17:50

in actual fact, you know, in a spiritual

17:52

sense, yeah. What

17:56

is the very best kind

17:58

of medieval biscuit? Well it's the communion

18:01

wafer. Ah, nicely

18:03

done Michael, nicely done. And what

18:05

indeed are the prayers being said

18:08

for soul's languishing in

18:10

purgatory of being like water

18:14

touching the parched lips

18:16

of people dying of thirst. So prayers,

18:19

masses and charitable

18:21

giving, arms giving were all

18:24

thought to help speed the passage

18:26

of a soul through purgatory. Now

18:29

this is one of the reasons why monasteries,

18:32

monks and nuns were so important

18:34

in medieval society. They are prayer

18:36

factories for the dead. Monks

18:39

and nuns prayed for the souls of dead

18:41

people and people could actually

18:43

make donations, pious donations,

18:46

so that prayers and masses

18:49

would be said for the relatives,

18:52

for their dead relatives. And indeed all Christian

18:54

souls, it was one of the great acts of charity

18:56

to pay for these for someone you've never

18:58

even heard of, never encountered in your life.

19:01

And the more that we said, the more prayers and masses

19:04

that were said, the quicker

19:06

the soul of somebody is going to

19:08

get on that express elevator and you've

19:10

got these brilliant medieval manuscript eliminations

19:13

showing souls being plucked

19:16

out of purgatory by angels and on their

19:18

way up and you've got these little ones languishing

19:20

there in the flames going, ah me next, me

19:22

next, me next. And how can you make that

19:24

be me next as well? You get really posh

19:27

people would pay for loads

19:29

and loads of masses to be said, they found

19:32

what are called chantries. I was reading a will

19:34

the other day and some lady

19:36

to posh made a request to

19:39

pay for 13,000 masses

19:42

to be said for her

19:44

soul. That was for her own soul. Consecutive

19:46

or concurrent. They would

19:48

have been said at various foundations. Nothing

19:53

bad about that. So,

19:57

you know, there's a transactional nature.

20:00

to it. Monasteries do benefit

20:02

from this. Now after about

20:04

the year 1030 or so, people also celebrated

20:08

an annual feast day on

20:10

the 2nd of November, that's all Souls

20:12

Day, and it remains part of the Roman

20:15

Catholic liturgical calendar to

20:17

this day, and it's recently, more recently as it's come

20:19

back into the calendar of the Church of England. And

20:22

it was a day of prayer and remembrance

20:24

for the dead, particularly the day in Purgatory. Now

20:27

people who weren't rich also

20:29

got remembered. It's an obligation

20:31

as a Christian to pray for

20:33

the souls of everybody. A lot of ghost

20:36

stories are about ghosts

20:38

in Purgatory who are coming

20:40

back because they want these

20:43

kinds of spiritual services

20:46

to be performed a lot. Yeah, so they sort

20:48

of row back over from Iceland and say,

20:51

I'm having an awful time

20:53

over there. You won't believe the

20:56

food. Honestly,

20:59

I'm going to say it, a nightmare over there,

21:01

it hurts. Please.

21:04

They don't just appear to family members, they

21:06

will also appear to complete

21:09

strangers because you will

21:11

have to, as a good Catholic Christian,

21:14

perform these good works on behalf

21:16

of this poor soul languishing

21:18

in Purgatory. And it's also in your own

21:20

interests as well to commit these acts

21:22

of Christian charity. Because one of these deeds in itself might move

21:25

you closer to heaven, right? Yeah, and also that, you're probably

21:28

going to be ending up

21:30

every time in Iceland. Yeah, exactly. You're

21:32

going to be ending up there yourself. You're going

21:35

to have a, well, instead of 3,000

21:37

years, it's 2,800, every little helps. That's

21:39

not Iceland,

21:44

is it? That's not right, sorry. So

21:46

monks are telling these ghost stories, you're

21:49

finding them in monastic collections. Monks and nuns writing them down,

21:51

so it's less the conjuring more than the non-juring. It's

21:53

more like, you know, these are kind of stories

21:56

by religious communities, but involving

21:58

ordinary people who supposedly are not. coming back from the

22:00

dead and saying, oh, woe is me, please

22:02

help my soul. And we have Caesareus

22:05

of Hachtabak. He's got a

22:07

good name. Where are you from? Hachtabak. Yeah,

22:10

good. But he's giving us a dialogue

22:12

of lots of ghost stories, but the most famous

22:14

is English collection is called the Byland Abbey

22:16

Collection in Yorkshire. That's

22:18

right. Yeah. It was a Cistocian monastery in

22:21

what's now North Yorkshire. And they date to

22:23

around about 1400. We don't

22:25

know the name of the monk who wrote them down, but he found

22:28

a manuscript in his monastery's

22:30

library and had some blank pieces

22:32

of Valam in them. And monks could never resist

22:35

filling pieces of blank Valam

22:37

with doodlings of sometimes

22:40

it actually is the most interesting bit about it. You know,

22:42

monks often had terrible gastric complaints

22:45

and they are endless

22:48

recipes for the treatment of

22:50

diarrhea or constipation annotated

22:53

in manuscripts from medieval

22:56

monasteries. But no, this chap decided

22:59

to record 12 local

23:01

ghost stories and they're very, very

23:03

famous collection. And one of the reasons

23:06

they're so famous is because the

23:08

great Cambridge medievalist

23:10

whose works on illuminated manuscripts

23:12

stained glass are still read to this

23:14

day, Montague Rhodes James, came

23:17

across them and published them in the English

23:19

Historical Review in 1922. Now,

23:22

he didn't do anything quite so vulgar

23:24

as translate them into English, but he

23:26

transcribed them. You know Latin. We all

23:29

know Latin. Of course we do. And he commented

23:31

archly that the Latin

23:33

was refreshing, which meant really

23:36

bad. So

23:39

he cut his maul out and they get published in the

23:41

English Historical Review. A really tough writer.

23:43

This is M.R. James. You've called him Montague,

23:46

whatever, fancy, fancy, academically. But M.R.

23:48

James, one of the great ghost story writers. I

23:51

would argue the greatest ghost story

23:53

writer ever. And indeed, reading those ghost

23:56

stories as a teenage boy,

23:58

the reason I became a medievalist. I found

24:01

them so captivating, those descriptions

24:03

of monasteries of discovering

24:05

illuminated manuscripts in a small French

24:07

town or stained glass

24:10

in a chapel in the English countryside,

24:12

utterly, utterly captivating. Yeah, and he is best

24:14

known today for his ghost stories. There

24:17

we go. He's finding a medieval source for the Byland Abbey. Amazing,

24:19

I did not know that. Everything good is medieval,

24:21

Matt. That's basically the rule. Okay. I

24:23

mean, we've already covered a few fairly

24:26

bad things that were medieval. Yeah, that's all right,

24:28

that's fair. Everything interesting is medieval. Yeah.

24:31

I mean, occasionally we've got slightly bizarre legal

24:33

records. Very, very quickly, there's one where someone claims

24:35

a ghost told him in a legal trial, the

24:38

judge is like, what's happening here? He's like, a ghost told me

24:40

that someone else should give a house back? And the judge is like, did

24:42

that happen? He's like, no. We've

24:45

got one of those stories, which is quite fun for legal history.

24:47

But what was interesting about watching your sitcom,

24:49

Ghosts, Matt, is that your ghosts

24:51

are all lovely and there's no horror. It kind of is

24:54

horror initially through the

24:56

eyes of the person who can first see

24:58

them. And then we have them try

25:01

to sort of haunt them out of the house.

25:03

Yeah, but they're so lovely. Yeah, but it's that

25:05

idea, right? And there's sort of the

25:08

overlap with ideas about

25:10

poltergeists and devils

25:12

and evil spirits and stuff. And ours are

25:14

very much just the idea that a

25:17

person's soul might linger on. And

25:19

so they're only going to be as evil as that person

25:21

was in life. And also we

25:24

liked the idea that they would have next to

25:26

no skills really to be able to affect

25:28

the living. So the sort

25:30

of most they manage when they try and

25:33

haunt them out of the buildings to move a vase

25:35

about a centimeter that

25:37

they're attempting to smash. So horror,

25:40

it's not there in every medieval story.

25:43

Some ghost stories, as you said, are religious and theological.

25:45

And it's about someone returning from the dead and saying, oh, please

25:48

pray for me. I'm having a horrible time in Iceland.

25:51

And that's not that particularly traumatizing because

25:53

it's someone you love. I mean, most of them,

25:55

they follow a formula. A diphtheria spirit

25:57

appears sometimes in really old form.

26:00

a bale of hay or a flapping

26:02

piece of canvas. Flapping canvas is

26:04

my wrestling name, by the way. Yeah. I

26:09

like the idea. I mean, how do

26:11

you decide a flapping piece of canvas?

26:13

It's the spirit that's gone to peace. Oh,

26:16

is it? It's the way it's flapping. Yeah. It's

26:18

very... And it annoys you for a very, very long

26:21

period of time as well. Yeah. And

26:23

it leaves you in no doubt. And it will often shape shift. It

26:25

will often go from being a flapping piece

26:27

of canvas, or to being a rearing horse. Well, that definitely

26:29

is a red flag. Yeah. A

26:31

fearsome, like, rearing horse. And then you command it, you

26:33

know, to reveal itself. And it will go,

26:36

oh, yes, you know, my name is such and

26:38

such. Trevor. Yeah. And

26:41

I was a hired hand at Revo

26:43

Abbey, and I really need your help because

26:45

I'm languishing in purgatory. All right. Thank

26:48

you. Now,

26:50

they are scared. The people to whom these

26:52

apparitions appear do report

26:54

being really, really quite scared. But they will say

26:57

something like the name of Jesus. And

26:59

you know, that's a

27:00

reflection of a very important

27:02

medieval devotion called the holy name of Jesus. And

27:04

saying the name of Jesus in itself is just a prayer,

27:07

and it's very protective. And then in other stories,

27:09

you often get, you know, people with holy

27:12

relics. They use those to give them

27:14

some kind of comfort. But there are some

27:16

genuinely, genuinely

27:19

scary stories. And one

27:21

of them is in the Alanikos

27:24

Chronicle. And it involves a happily married

27:26

young couple who on a winter's

27:28

day are returning from

27:30

markets. And they've got to cross a

27:32

stream. And the husband's ridden on

27:34

the head to light the fire. And

27:36

she's got to cross a river. And

27:39

there is this demon

27:41

child there. Oh. Seven

27:43

year old girl who

27:46

seizes the woman from her horse,

27:48

drags her down. And it's said with her

27:51

hands like hooves, she does it.

27:53

And she rips the flesh from

27:55

this poor woman's hands and

27:57

then causes such a terrible

28:00

wound in her back that it said

28:02

that a man's fist might go

28:04

into it. And as you can imagine, she's really

28:06

rather badly hurt by all this. And,

28:09

you know, hubby comes back, gets

28:11

her back to the house where she dies

28:13

a couple of days or a couple of weeks after. Does

28:15

actually have, in medieval terms,

28:18

quite a happy ending because she takes

28:20

the last sacrament, is shriven

28:23

of her sins and therefore will

28:25

find eternal peace in heaven. But there is

28:27

a moral message there as well, not just that

28:29

there's this evil in the world and this demon

28:31

child, but also to be prepared

28:33

for your death. It's the husband

28:36

I'm suspicious of. Yeah,

28:38

he's the one who's gone out and told

28:40

this story. I went to

28:42

get the fire ready. I wasn't

28:44

even there. It was a demon child.

28:47

So you've gone from theologian

28:49

in the skills at

28:51

Paris to DCI. Yeah,

28:55

I'm afraid so. Yeah, I got the Chris together here. I'm

28:57

fairly cynical about that. So that's

28:59

a terrifying horror children in Hollywood cinema.

29:02

It's like the shining twins. Yeah, classic

29:04

scary thing, isn't it? Because it's something that's

29:06

meant to be innocent. Yes, right.

29:09

Yes, it's meant to be adorable and safe. And so

29:11

the evil in the form of something that's meant

29:14

to be pure is always

29:16

an unsettling uncanny thing. Yeah.

29:18

So that's quite harrowing. So when I said that some of these

29:20

stories get horrific, that's pretty horrific. Yeah, he's pretty

29:22

bad. She's a mauled to death by a kid of

29:25

the ghost stories. That is one of the most

29:27

chilling that I think of. And we've got

29:29

some of the ones that sort of listen to what are called revenant

29:31

stories. And there are different kind

29:33

of ghosts. Most of them we've been talking about, these

29:35

ethereal spirits that want

29:38

pious services performed on their behalf.

29:40

And revenants, which I think you touched on in

29:42

an earlier episode. We did our Vampire Gothic Literature

29:44

episode. We sort of mentioned them briefly. They're

29:47

kind of more zombie stories almost.

29:50

Yeah, but they're kind of, they're not

29:52

just these animated corpses. They got

29:54

malevolent will and they call them in

29:56

the middle ages, not revenants.

29:58

That's a modern term. They call them satellite. of Satan. Brilliant.

30:02

And these satellites of Satan are often... I'm sure

30:04

I've heard that burn. Yeah. They support

30:06

a slip knot and melting teams I think. Yeah.

30:11

And these satellites of Satan, well they're normally

30:13

guilty of doing really quite bad

30:16

things whilst alive and often

30:19

these bad things involve

30:21

some transgressive sex in some

30:24

way and they very much die with

30:26

unconfessed mortals on their own and

30:28

they get animated after their

30:30

death and they rise from their graves

30:33

bodily to do harm to

30:35

the living and now this isn't a case where Pius'

30:38

prayer is going to intervene

30:40

and you know these things are rotten

30:43

to their core and one of them was written by

30:45

the violent monk. It involves the case

30:47

of a local priest called James Tankaly.

30:51

He's buried in a really really

30:53

top-notch place in

30:55

the monastery. He's normally reserved

30:57

for people who've a dead important

30:59

pun, ha ha ha pun intended, or

31:02

have been very very holy and

31:04

well Tankaly was never neither of

31:06

those things and he rises

31:09

bodily from his grave at night,

31:11

wanders six miles over the moors

31:14

to the nearby village of Cold Kirby and

31:17

there he encounters his former

31:19

mistress or contrabine and gouges

31:22

out her eye. The violent

31:24

story then says well the monks were much troubled

31:26

by this occurrence, you will

31:29

be surprised to learn. So they decide

31:31

to... You won't believe what happened last year,

31:33

they're much troubled. They decide to

31:36

exhume the body as you

31:38

do and they put it on a cart and

31:40

they take it to a nearby lake

31:42

called the Gormaya and they throw

31:44

it in there. In the middle ages it was believed to be bottomless

31:47

and another way of dealing with revenants is that

31:49

you cut out their heart, chop

31:52

them up, chop the heads off, take the limbs

31:54

off and things like that and interestingly

31:57

there's a deserted medieval village on the

31:59

Yorkshire Wall. War and Percy, right? War and Percy,

32:01

yeah, where they excavated

32:04

various disarticulated human remains

32:06

and recent analysis of them showed

32:08

that the way the remains were treated

32:11

isn't consistent with crisis cannibalism

32:14

but much, much more consistent with medieval

32:16

descriptions of what you did to a revenant.

32:19

A ghost village! Wow. Yeah.

32:22

And

32:24

then there's evidence of revenant Billy

32:27

from all over Europe of

32:29

bodies being pinned to their graves.

32:32

Bricks in their mouths. Yeah. We

32:34

see like a brick put into their jaw so they can't bite anymore in

32:36

the grave. Right. Buried so they're

32:39

facing downwards so they claw

32:41

downwards rather than out of their graves.

32:43

This would all have been subsequent to them

32:46

first being buried. Oh yeah, they're dead. This

32:48

is like they're dead, they're buried and then

32:50

they have gone up and

32:52

done stuff. Oh no, not necessarily.

32:55

It's like if you die suicide,

32:57

if you're some way transgressive.

33:00

So you've got enough grounds to suspect

33:03

they're going to be a satellite of

33:05

Satan. Yeah, there's a poor

33:07

prior of Windham in

33:10

Norfolk in the 13th

33:12

century I think it is and he gets sent to Binham prior

33:15

nearby and he's gone mad from

33:17

over study. He's going to be bonkers because he's

33:19

done too much buck learning. No, he's freezing.

33:21

And he... Do you though really, let's

33:23

be honest. No, not... It's been

33:25

a while. And

33:28

they're not very nice to him. They

33:30

whip him and they sort of put him

33:32

in a cell and things like that. And then

33:34

when he dies they bury him in

33:37

chains in the monastic

33:39

cemetery. They don't actually explicitly

33:42

say that they fear he's going to be a revenant but that

33:44

is the way that they did. Right. So

33:47

you know, mad scholar, I think,

33:49

you know, to get up and try and get to the monastic

33:51

library. Oh no. They're

33:54

stopping from reading all the books. These

33:57

aren't just stories anymore. We have archaeology at the bottom.

34:00

Yeah, I seem to have been treated in a suspiciously

34:03

Macabre way we've also got Moralizing

34:06

ghost stories so we when I think of ghost

34:08

stories I tend to revert back to Dickens and I think about

34:10

yes the fact that Marley returns

34:12

and says look what happened to me This

34:15

will happen to you Scrooge. You've got to change your

34:17

ways. You're gonna be visited with three ghosts Yeah, that's

34:19

a medieval thing as well Michael. We get these

34:22

visitation ghosts from those

34:24

in hell or those in in poetry saying I Have

34:28

been pulled down into the flames of torment

34:31

save yourself. Oh, absolutely

34:33

I'm the often involved monks and it's often a way

34:35

of getting people to become a monk now There's

34:38

a 12th century monastic chronicle called William

34:40

of Momsbury And he describes

34:42

the sistertians who were like that boot

34:44

camp back to basic monks Has

34:46

been the surest roads to heaven and

34:49

a number of stories Tell

34:51

of a couple of mates who might

34:54

have sins together And that

34:56

kid you know, yeah, don't be to 21st century

35:00

You know But

35:02

and and they'll make a pact that should

35:04

you pre-decease me? Come

35:07

and tell me what the next world's like one

35:09

of them involves two priests in

35:11

the French city of Nantes and They

35:14

don't want to do the hard work of being

35:16

priests But one of them pre-deceases

35:18

the other dies quite suddenly and he comes

35:21

back from the dead And it hasn't

35:23

it isn't after 30 days as they've been expected

35:26

Much later and he said well what took you so bloody

35:29

long? Well, you know if you can hear now It's a well actually

35:31

I'm in hell and it absolutely horrific

35:34

and I am now utterly hopeless

35:37

I've got that no way of saving myself

35:40

You can save yourself and you've got

35:42

to go and become a monk Marmutei

35:44

and his mate said what you are out of your

35:47

mind what me a monk and he goes no I am

35:50

being deadly serious if

35:52

you don't not do as I say you will

35:55

end up as me I mean, of course

35:57

he does as it's old and there we are dragged

35:59

back to hell. Yeah

35:59

He gets raised on a hill and his mate goes off and

36:02

becomes a monk. That is a very Dickensian

36:04

device, right? Yeah. Your old friend

36:06

comes back to warn you. It seems sort of baked

36:08

into the idea in the first place, really,

36:11

especially if ghosts are tied up with

36:13

the idea of purgatory, is that it seems

36:15

like your conscience talking

36:18

as a Christian, that that's where those

36:20

stories would kind of naturally

36:23

emanate from that sense of wanting

36:26

to live a good life and fearing the judgment

36:29

of your misdeeds, you know?

36:32

Yeah. There's another story that I quite like

36:34

that's a 12th century monk. He's considering

36:37

leaving the monastic life. He's like, this

36:39

isn't for me. I'm not going to. Bit

36:42

boring. Bit boring. Don't love all the handwriting or terrible

36:44

digestion problems, whatever it was. And

36:47

he is visited by the founder of his

36:49

monastic order, St Bernard of Clairvaux, who

36:51

beats the crap out of him. He

36:55

basically just kicks him down the stairs

36:57

and says, you leave and I will come for

36:59

you. And so he's like, all right. All right. I'll stay.

37:02

I'm staying. Yeah. It's a terrible

37:04

thing to do to denounce your monastic vacation.

37:07

But imagine if the ghost of Christmas past had just

37:09

done the same to Scrooge, just kicked him down the stairs and beaten

37:11

him with a cricket bat and gone. Yeah. It's a shorter story. Two

37:15

pages. Yeah. Sort it out.

37:17

Smash. All right. All right. All right. I'll change my mind. Dickens

37:21

had... He was paid by the word. To

37:25

stretch it out a bit. So we've got moral

37:28

messengers. We have these ghost stories give us terrible

37:30

hauntings, scary children attacking women.

37:33

We've got friends returning from the grave who say we

37:35

did bad stuff together and I'm in hell and you're going to do

37:37

the same. We've got the punishment

37:39

of monks who might want to leave the church or leave the monastery.

37:42

So there's a variety of these stories that

37:44

ultimately they're always about you've got

37:46

to save your soul. That's always the fundamental

37:48

purpose, isn't it? But we also sometimes

37:50

have prophecies, right? We've got Gerald

37:53

of Wales, our 12th century

37:55

favorite. We mentioned him in our

37:57

medieval Irish folklore episode because

37:59

he's a... Weird. But he tells a story

38:01

of a guy called Walter, I think, who is visited

38:04

in a dream by his mother, who's

38:06

dead. And the mother says, don't

38:08

go to battle tomorrow, you'll die. And

38:11

he goes to battle,

38:12

and he dies. I'm

38:14

just wondering who he told

38:16

that his mum had come. That's

38:19

a fair critique of the genre device, isn't

38:21

it? Yeah. What

38:23

did she say, don't go to battle? Why are we

38:26

both on our way there right

38:28

now, as you tell me this? Just

38:30

remembered, we have something for you to read, actually. I

38:32

don't want to forget it. So I'm going

38:35

to pass you this. Pop my reading glove.

38:38

This is a story from the Dialogue on Miracles

38:41

by our favourite Caesareas of Heisterbach.

38:44

Do you want to tell us this story? In

38:46

the Diocese of Cologne lived two

38:48

knights,

38:49

one called Gunther,

38:51

the other Hugo.

38:53

Gunther?

38:55

Gunther, yeah. In

38:58

the Diocese of Cologne lived two knights,

39:00

one called Gunther, the other Hugo.

39:04

One knight, when Gunther was overseas,

39:07

a maid took his sons, just before

39:09

they went to bed, into the court, who

39:11

answered the call of nature. As

39:14

she stood by them, behold,

39:17

a woman's shape in a white dress

39:19

with a pallid face looked straight at them.

39:22

Saying nothing, but frightening the maid

39:24

by her appearance, the monster went

39:27

to Hugo's land, looked over the

39:29

fence, and then returned to

39:31

the graveyard from which it had come.

39:34

Beautifully written. Oh, that was lovely, properly

39:37

spoken. And this story is chilling,

39:40

because Gunther's children

39:42

all die, and then the mother

39:44

dies, and then the maid dies, and then Hugo

39:46

dies, and then the son dies. What's

39:49

the moral message here, Michael? You

39:52

are gonna die. Okay. There is a very

39:54

good message, and I see it's really fascinating as well,

39:56

isn't it? Going down to the courtyard,

39:58

and to the call of nature. nature. Yeah, and

40:01

it's really interesting the

40:03

details these stories provide as

40:05

well, not just of being about medieval belief,

40:07

but about the practicalities of life in

40:09

the Middle Ages. You can learn so much

40:12

about them from about the art and

40:14

architecture of monasteries, about how they're arranged,

40:16

but also just the mundane things of

40:18

like taking two little boys down

40:20

into what in the Middle Ages would have been called

40:23

the nesarium to where they would develop

40:25

with the necessities of nature. So anyway, there we are.

40:27

That was something that was like

40:29

that. But here we go. You know, we got

40:31

the ghost coming from the graveyard as well. A

40:34

panafaced lady ghost as well.

40:36

Yeah, and it is the inevitability

40:39

of death and to be prepared for

40:41

your end. Now Caesareus is

40:43

a very good historian

40:46

because he gives his sources and he also

40:48

gives you details as well to

40:51

lend credibility to the stories. And he

40:53

said, you know, so he tells you who

40:55

has told him these stories and

40:58

he'll say, well, it's a trustworthy person. William

41:00

of Newburgh does this in 12th century Yorkshire

41:03

and so does the Byland

41:05

chronicler, the Byland Abbey ghost story writer as

41:07

well. They

41:09

tell us who told them this

41:11

story and it's somebody who you

41:14

should believe because they're a

41:16

reliable witness. That sort of really

41:18

hung around in ghost storytelling, isn't it?

41:20

I mean, we put in, there's an episode of ghosts where they,

41:23

where Pat tells a ghost story and he starts by

41:25

saying, this is a true story. It happened to my friend and

41:28

it's always done that way, isn't it? It's always happened.

41:31

If you say it happened to you, you're

41:34

going to be interrogated. If you say it happened to

41:36

a friend, it still has that immediacy,

41:38

but it's got a sense of,

41:40

well, okay, well then I guess it's

41:43

true. It's a reputable thought, but it's passed

41:45

on from somewhere else. I can't answer all your questions.

41:47

Exactly. I find that

41:49

story particularly chilling. That one feels

41:51

to me much more Victorian in the gothic-y.

41:53

Like everyone dies for no real reason. One

41:56

by one, this old ghost

41:58

lady just murders all the kids for no reason. It just

42:00

feels chilling, whereas the other stories felt

42:03

like they had a sort of simplicity soon.

42:06

But what I think is quite interesting is that we

42:09

move into a different era when you get to Henry

42:11

VIII. Do you remember this map? We did

42:13

a sketch, I think, sort of kind

42:16

of Thomas Cromwell's home to the Hammer-style

42:18

parody of the dissolution of the monasteries.

42:21

Do you remember what that is? Was

42:25

it Henry sort of deciding,

42:27

well, he needed a divorce and

42:30

the Catholic Church wouldn't grant him one, so he

42:32

founded the Church of England so that he could have a divorce.

42:35

The monks all just got turfed out.

42:38

Yeah. And all their stuff

42:40

was just sort of taken and

42:42

sold. That's pretty much it, yeah.

42:44

So that's going to become a major transgression.

42:47

This is what's called the dissolution of the monasteries

42:49

as well. Because whether the actual monastic land, the

42:51

buildings, these abbeys, these homes

42:53

for monks and nuns, they're stripped

42:56

of their value, they're stripped of their land, people are

42:58

turfed out. It is the end in some ways

43:00

of an hugely important part of society,

43:02

Michael. And you get Protestantism

43:05

coming in. Yeah, absolutely. They move away from the

43:07

Catholic faith, a kind of pushback. So it's the reformation.

43:10

And that's changing ghost

43:12

stories. Now, actually, quickly, do

43:15

you think Protestants believe in ghosts at this

43:17

point, early Protestants, 16th century? Well,

43:19

I'd have presumed not. You

43:22

associate Protestantism with, let's

43:24

take away all of the sort of decorative

43:27

stuff that the Catholic Church has done

43:29

and strip it back to the basics of what

43:32

is Jesus' message and

43:34

what's there in the Bible. So that

43:36

would be my presumption. It's a good answer. I mean,

43:38

I think it's a complicated answer. I don't think

43:40

it's a yes, no. But I think Matt's sort of right there

43:43

that ghost stories are not going

43:45

to be embraced in the early Protestant Church.

43:47

No, absolutely not. And then in later

43:50

Protestantism as well. And it becomes one of the big

43:52

dividing lines between Catholics

43:54

and Protestants in the 16th and

43:56

17th century is a belief in ghosts.

43:59

Catholics still retain

43:59

the belief that ghosts are coming back

44:02

from purgatory to request spiritual

44:04

services. There's a brilliant diary

44:07

written in the 18th

44:09

century by a Catholic gentleman on what's

44:11

now the outskirts of Liverpool. His name's

44:14

William Blundell. And he,

44:16

in his diary, includes the case of

44:18

haunting, which could have been written

44:20

by a medieval monk. And it shows how current

44:24

and how immediate those beliefs still

44:26

were for early modern Catholics. Protestants,

44:29

however, well, they have to come up with rather different

44:31

explanations for apparent supernatural

44:34

events. And the supernatural very much

44:36

has a place in Protestant theology

44:38

and worldview. Well, it has to have an altogether

44:42

more sinister explanation. Is this

44:44

where sort of witch superstitions

44:46

and stuff then comes in? Because you have to

44:49

explain it through malevolent

44:51

sort of dealings with the devil instead. I

44:54

mean, I think the 17th century is the era of witchcraft,

44:56

right? We tend to think of it as medieval, but it's the 17th

44:59

century, 1600s, where the European

45:01

witch craze really takes off.

45:04

And that is the era of the religious wars in Europe.

45:06

And so I think there's something to that

45:08

complex. They are,

45:10

I mean, so for instance, as demonic.

45:12

I think there are ones who say, well, absolute nonsense.

45:15

You know, what the hell were you eating? I mean, that's Stilton

45:17

again, wasn't it? Come on.

45:19

How many times have I told you to lay off that? Cheese

45:22

dreams. But it also is this thing. Oh,

45:24

well, it's the devil. It's

45:26

the devil himself. Which is back to St Augustine. So the

45:29

beginning of the episode, he talked about the Augustine going to

45:31

get it right. You sort of people

45:33

are always going to see things and hear things and

45:35

believe they've seen and heard things. So you've

45:37

got to find a way to justify

45:39

that within your framework. Yeah.

45:42

He at the beginning, we talked about he was like, like, it's

45:45

mostly going to be Satan, right? It's mostly Satan.

45:47

It could be God sending an angel, but it's mostly

45:49

Satan, which I guess is where we're back to with

45:51

the Protestant Lutheran Reformation, where they're saying

45:54

similar that this is not how the system should

45:56

work. And we've got sort of

45:58

spooky stories as the stories. Howard, Sub-celerator

46:01

of Wally. Yeah, it's a fantastic

46:03

story. I'm Wally, Abby. Wally, sorry.

46:05

Thank you. I gave a lecture on

46:08

the dissolution of the monotheists once, and all the way through, I

46:10

said Wally,

46:11

Wally, Wally, Wally. And this woman came up

46:13

to me at the end of it, she said,

46:15

I sat there with my mouth shut for 45 minutes.

46:19

It's not Wally, it's Wally. Don't

46:24

make that mistake. And she was a ghost. Well,

46:26

you know, she was certainly fearsome. But

46:29

no, actually, it's recorded towards

46:31

the end of the 16th century, a

46:33

generation or two after the Catholicismic

46:36

events of the mid 16th century. And it actually

46:38

comes from a manuscript from a nearby Catholic

46:40

manor house. It records how

46:43

in 1520, the ghost of one Edmund Howard who

46:47

had been sub-saller at Wally,

46:50

Abby in Lancashire. And he died

46:52

on the 7th of May that year. And shortly

46:55

afterwards, he appears as a ghost

46:57

to Abbot John Paslew,

47:00

who is then full of his

47:02

pomp, he's just being granted papal

47:04

permission to wear the mitre and

47:07

other ornaments normally reserved for bishops.

47:09

And Wally, Abby's a really important

47:12

monastery. And Howard says

47:14

to Paslew,

47:15

you are gonna live 16 years

47:19

and no longer. And

47:21

this manuscript records that this does indeed

47:23

come to pass because in 1537, on

47:28

very, very weak evidence indeed, Paslew

47:31

is executed after his monastery

47:33

becomes tangentially involved

47:35

in the pilgrimage of grace, which is a great

47:37

Northern rebellion against the dissolution

47:40

of the monasteries. And indeed, the early Sussex,

47:42

who's Henry VIII's commander in the North says,

47:45

there's no way I can convict Paslew.

47:47

He gave them a horse after

47:50

they threatened to burn down his monastery.

47:52

And he's thought very well

47:54

of. And he goes into the dock, the

47:57

interior again, and he says, yeah, fess up, I did

47:59

it. an implication in this later

48:02

16th century source that it was this story,

48:05

the prediction that this was going to happen

48:08

that had prompted him as well the game's

48:10

up. Death's in to die, he's watched

48:12

Final Destination, he knows he can't escape. Then

48:17

you get what are called sacrilege narratives, starts

48:19

to be written in the 16th and 17th centuries,

48:21

which is a kind of early kind

48:24

of heritage preservation kind

48:27

of attempt. And it's like if you

48:29

try and destroy the monastery, something

48:32

evil will happen to you because there's a kind

48:34

of, often a ghost or a spirit protecting

48:37

the monastery. And so everyone's just like, nettly

48:39

abbey down in Southampton, someone tries

48:41

to nick some things and war falls and then kills

48:43

them. Kind of unpaid voluntary

48:45

night security. But

48:49

also ghosts protecting their home sounds awfully familiar

48:51

for many from a BBC sitcom I've seen recently. I mean

48:53

that's the premise, right? I

48:55

was actually thinking back to when we filmed Horrible

48:57

Histories in sort of National Trust properties

49:00

and we had to go outside to spray,

49:03

hairspray, things like that. Yeah, so

49:05

please don't ruin our lovely walls. No.

49:08

Yeah. They're very unrightly, they're very

49:10

careful about that. Yes they are. It's

49:12

a nation's heritage and we're a bunch of idiots. Well

49:15

there we go, so we've had all sorts of chat about medieval

49:18

and early modern ghost stories and I think

49:20

we can conclude. Spooky and

49:23

interesting. Yeah, absolutely.

49:25

And I think I stand by what

49:27

I said at the beginning which is that ghost

49:30

stories feel just inherently there

49:32

in the fabric of the human

49:35

imagination and so they will

49:37

move and change through and reflect

49:39

at whatever time they're told in. But

49:42

there's such a basic human sort of

49:44

fascination with

49:45

what happens when we die that of

49:48

course we're always going to tell those stories.

49:50

The nuance window!

49:56

Well that brings us to the nuance window,

49:58

that lovely bit of nuance from Matt there. This is

50:00

where Matt and I lie quietly in bed

50:02

and hope we're not visited by unearthly apparitions. Oh

50:04

God. And Dr Michael,

50:07

you get two uninterrupted minutes to tell us something

50:09

we need to know, so my stopwatch is ready.

50:11

Without much further ado, the nuance

50:13

window please.

50:15

Bile and Abbey and its ghost stories have

50:17

featured prominently in this Halloween

50:20

special.

50:20

It's therefore appropriate

50:23

that it was on the vigil of the Feast of All

50:25

Saints, that's Halloween to you

50:27

and me, that its white-clad monks

50:29

arrived at this rural monastery almost

50:32

exactly 850 years

50:34

ago. The austere life of a

50:36

Cistercian monk was believed in the words

50:38

of one 12th century author to provide

50:41

the surest road to heaven, and

50:43

it was this vision of eternity that

50:45

shaped the art and architecture of the Abbey

50:47

and countless other medieval monasteries.

50:51

But how do you evoke this belief system?

50:54

How do you start to explain its coherence

50:57

and relevance to the shattered ruins of

50:59

Byland and other monasteries in

51:01

a Britain which is ever more distant in

51:04

time and faith from the Middle Ages?

51:07

Well, in my job as an English

51:09

heritage historian, I spend a

51:11

lot of time thinking, talking

51:13

and writing about death and commemoration.

51:17

That's because medieval monasteries

51:19

were in a very real sense communities

51:22

of the living and the dead, where the tomb

51:24

of a long deceased Holy Abba or

51:26

Abbess was as potent a reminder

51:29

of the ideals of the religious life as

51:31

any ghostly tale of purgatorial

51:34

pain. They

51:36

belonged to a moral system where actions,

51:38

good and bad, most definitely

51:41

had consequences, where

51:43

obligations to the living and the dead

51:45

transcended earthy degree.

51:48

Popes, princes and paupers alike

51:50

would ultimately be judged for their actions.

51:53

In medieval monastic belief,

51:56

your eternal life and enduring

51:58

memory was in large

51:59

part determined by your good works.

52:03

I think there are potent lessons here for

52:05

some Silicon Valley billionaires and

52:07

their quest for immortality. Beautifully

52:10

done, thank you, and very punctual too.

52:14

So what do you know now?

52:20

All right, well that was lovely, thank you Michael, and

52:23

it's time now for our quiz. This

52:25

is called this, so what do you know now? This is where

52:28

we fire 10 quickfire questions at

52:30

a lovely Matt to see how much he has learned.

52:32

Matt, are you feeling confident?

52:34

Have we spooked you too much? Are you shivering in

52:36

fear in the corner? I'm

52:39

nervous, of course, I'm nervous. Okay,

52:41

we've got 10 questions. I think we've talked about most

52:43

of these things. I think maybe one or two of these things that we snuck

52:46

past quite quickly, so

52:48

I might have to be generous in

52:51

the scoring. Let's see, let's see we go, but 10 questions,

52:53

here we go. Question one. Purgatory

52:55

was the fiery place between heaven and hell where medieval

52:57

Christians thought they could work off their sins, but

53:00

which modern country was suggested as

53:02

its location? Iceland. It

53:04

was Iceland. Question two. Which

53:06

group of people wrote many of the medieval

53:08

ghost stories that Michael was telling us about? Monks.

53:11

It was monks. Question three. Which late

53:13

Roman church father, who'd been a party boy in his

53:15

youth, was skeptical of ghosts? Oh,

53:20

Saint, was this Saint Augustine? It was, well

53:22

done, Augustine of Hippo. Very good. Question

53:24

four. When was All Souls Day

53:26

celebrated where people prayed and gave offerings

53:29

for the souls of the dead? Is this Halloween? Just

53:32

slightly after. Oh, November

53:35

the second.

53:37

Yay, very good. Question

53:40

five. Name one way that medieval Christians helped

53:42

the souls of the dead get out of purgatory.

53:46

Praying for them. Yeah, absolutely. Arms giving prayers,

53:48

masses for the soul. You could buy in advance as well, all

53:52

that stuff. Question six.

53:54

Which famous ghost writer based his

53:56

story? Emma James. Oh, I hadn't even finished

53:58

the question, but you're absolutely right. on the Bailen Abbey collection.

54:01

They only covered one. Question

54:03

seven. In the 13th century, German

54:05

story of Gunther the Knight and his unfortunate

54:07

children, what happened when the maid took the kids

54:10

out to the toilet room before bedtime?

54:12

They saw an apparition

54:15

of a lady with a pale face. Yeah.

54:18

And did nothing, but then they all died. But

54:20

then they all died. Absolutely. You're doing so

54:22

well. Question eight. What were medieval revenants?

54:25

They were the satellites

54:27

of Satan. Oh, very good. And

54:29

they were people who had done stuff

54:32

so bad in life. Sometimes

54:35

sexual stuff. That

54:38

they wrote their bodies rose

54:41

and came and did bad stuff

54:43

to the living. And then you had to

54:45

turn them face down or chain them up or

54:47

cut them into pieces to stop it

54:49

happening again. Perfect answer. Look

54:52

at you medieval historian. Question nine.

54:54

In a 12th century French story. Ask me any of this

54:56

tomorrow. He's scoring

54:58

very different. Classic axis brain, right? Question nine.

55:01

In the 12th century French story, why did Bernard

55:03

of Clairvaux's ghost beat up a monk?

55:06

Because he was thinking about leaving

55:08

the monastery. Very good. A bit for a perfect 10.

55:11

What major religious event in the 1530s led

55:14

to a change in the style of ghost

55:17

stories? Dissolution of the monastery.

55:19

Very good. That is spot on 10

55:21

out of 10 perfect score, Matthew Banton. And

55:24

only one of them did you have to hold up your fingers

55:27

and tell me to say. In

55:31

my defense, I like you

55:33

and I want you to do well. I didn't

55:35

want you to get off track early. I wanted you to

55:38

power through. You knew the answer. Yeah,

55:40

you were. Maybe I'd have got there. If

55:42

you'd allowed me to name every number

55:44

from one. But

55:46

listen up, if you want more medieval stories, more medieval

55:49

literature, check out our episode on Old

55:51

Norse literature, plus we've got episodes on medieval

55:53

animals and medieval Irish folklore. We're good at

55:55

medieval over here. And remember, if

55:57

you've enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review, share it with

55:59

your friends. friends make sure to subscribe to You're

56:01

Dead To Me on BBC Sound so you never miss an episode.

56:04

I'd like to say a huge thank you of course to

56:06

our guests in History Corner. We had the dreaded

56:09

Dr Michael Carter from English Heritage. Thank

56:11

you Michael. Thank you. It was real

56:13

pleasing terror to quote Am I James? And

56:16

in Comedy Corner we have the macabre Matt

56:18

Bainsen. Thank you Matt. Thank you

56:21

so much. It was a pleasure. Go check out Ghosts

56:23

on BBC. It's a wonderful, wonderful show. And buy

56:25

the book. And buy the book. See which you can.

56:28

And to you lovely listener, join me next time

56:31

as we crack open the crypt and exhume another

56:33

historical subject. But for now I'm off to go and

56:35

haunt Elon Musk. Build a hospital you loser.

56:37

This

56:42

was a production for BBC Radio 4.

56:44

The episode was written and produced by Emmy Rose Price

56:46

Goodfellow, Emma Nigguss and me. The researchers

56:49

by Emmy Rose Price Goodfellow assisted by John

56:51

Mason. The audio producer was Steve Henke, the production

56:53

coordinator with Tothin Hobbs. The senior producer

56:56

was Emory Nigguss and the executive editor was

56:58

Chris Ludgell.

57:05

Hello your Deadzemy fans.

57:07

If you enjoyed this special episode

57:10

you're gonna laugh inside

57:12

ghosts. You're insane. Tush

57:14

tosh. The fifth and final series is here

57:17

and we'll be following our favourite phantoms

57:19

and the spooky stories that unfold

57:21

episode

57:22

by episode. I met the elephant man.

57:24

What was he like? Another boring consider-fist?

57:26

I'm Nathan Bryan and Jamie for ghostly

57:29

gossip with the stars from the show. What the belly

57:31

heck is going on? I'm taking exclusive

57:34

peek-a-boo behind the scenes. Now

57:37

beat that. Inside ghosts. Listen

57:39

on BBC Sounds.