The Demise of the Walking Dead: the Rise of Purgatory and the End of Revenancy

THE DEMISE OF THE WALKING DEAD: THE RISE OF PURGATORY AND THE END OF REVENANCY A Master’s Thesis by EL İF BOYACIO ĞLU Department of History Bilkent University Ankara September 2007 To my family THE DEMISE OF THE WALKING DEAD: THE RISE OF PURGATORY AND THE END OF REVENANCY The Institute of Economics and Social Sciences of Bilkent University by EL İF BOYACIO ĞLU In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS in THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY BILKENT UNIVERSITY ANKARA September 2007 I certify that I have read this thesis and have found that it is fully adequate, in scope and in quality, as a thesis for the degree of Master of Arts in History. --------------------------- Asst. Prof. Dr. Paul Latimer Supervisor I certify that I have read this thesis and have found that it is fully adequate, in scope and in quality, as a thesis for the degree of Master of Arts in History. --------------------------- Assoc. Prof. Dr. Cadoc D. A. Leighton Examining Committee Member I certify that I have read this thesis and have found that it is fully adequate, in scope and in quality, as a thesis for the degree of Master of Arts in History. --------------------------- Asst. Prof. Dr. Berrak Burçak Examining Committee Member Approval of the Institute of Economics and Social Sciences --------------------------- Prof. Dr. Erdal Erel Director ABSTRACT THE DEMISE OF THE WALKING DEAD: THE RISE OF PURGATORY AND THE END OF REVENANCY Boyacıo ğlu, Elif M.A., Department of History Supervisor: Asst. Prof. Dr. Paul Latimer September 2007 Folklore and popular belief strongly affect human behavior in any age, showing how people think, what they fear and how they react. The belief in the existence of the walking dead, that is, revenants, is no exception. Here, the possible reasons for the prevalence of the belief in the walking dead, as well as its comfortable existence within human culture are examined. The existence of the belief in these very corporal monsters, persevering at least into the thirteenth century in north-western Europe, cannot be disputed. However, subsequently, it diminished and then virtually disappeared. What force could be effective and widespread enough to remove this perception of the very physical threat of the dead bodily walking again among the living? Here, it is argued that it was the effects of the emergence of Purgatory that lead to the extinction of the revenant. Using various texts mainly from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries, this study aims to capture this process of change within the folkloric beliefs of the people, to follow the procession of revenants into oblivion. Keywords: Walking Dead, Revenant, Revenancy, Purgatory iii ÖZET YA ŞAYAN ÖLÜLER: ARAF İNANCININ DO ĞUŞU VE YA ŞAYAN ÖLÜLER İN SONU Boyacıo ğlu, Elif Yüksek Lisans, Tarih Bölümü Tez Yöneticisi: Yrd. Doç. Dr. Paul Latimer Eylül 2007 Folklorik ve popüler inançlar ku şkusuz ki insan davranı şlarını her ça ğda etkilemi ştir; ikiside, insanların dü şünce biçimlerini açıkca yansıtır, nelerden korktuklarını ve nasıl tepki verdiklerini açı ğa çıkarırlar. Ya şayan ölülerin varlı ğına yönelik inanç da bu ba ğlamda bir istisna de ğildir. Bu tezde ya şayan ölülere inancın yaygınlı ğının olası nedenleri ve insanların inanı şları içindeki konumu incelenmi ştir. Bu cismi canavarlara inancın Kuzey-Batı Avrupa’da en az onüçüncü yüzyıla dek sürdü ğü tartı şılamaz bir gerçektir, ancak bu noktadan sonra yaygınlığı azalmı ş ve kaybolmu ştur. Ölülerin fiziksel olarak bedenleri ile ya şayan insanların arasına geri dönebilece ği tehdidini yokedebilecek kadar geni ş ve etkili bu de ğişimin ne oldu ğu önemli bir soru olarak kar şımıza çıkmı ştır. Bu çalı şmada, Araf kavramının ortaya çıkmasının ya şayan ölülerin soyunun tükenmesine neden oldu ğu fikri ortaya atılmaktadır. İnsanların folklorik ve popüler inançlarında meydana gelen bu de ğişim süreci ve ya şayan ölülerin giderek yokolması, özellikle onikinci ve ondördüncü yüzyıllardan olmak üzere çe şitli kaynaklar üzerinden ara ştırılmı ştır. Anahtar Kelimeler: Ya şayan Ölüler, Araf iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First of all, I want to thank my family for bearing with me while I ranted and sulked although this study, knowing me as they do, they helped me get through all the obstacles that I myself placed in front of myself. I would also like to mention my friends who alone with their presence made my life easier; my best friend Pelin especially for proving that a thesis was writable, and that one could survive the process. Similarly I would like to acknowledge my year mates, as it were, especially Seda and Özden for suffering alongside me albeit with more grace, and managing to be supportive. Lastly I want to thank my supervisor Paul Latimer. Though at first he did look at me askance about my subject of choice, he was incredibly supportive and involved in the whole creation process of this thesis. He is the one person who had the misfortune to encounter me when I was most irritating, and had the patience and self control not to strangle me, for I know he felt the urge once (or thrice). And thank you Cadoc, your praise was very welcome and needed. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT………………………………..………………………………………iii ÖZET………………………………………..……………………………………...iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………..……………………………………..v TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………………...vi CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION……..…………………………………………..…1 CHAPTER II: THE LIVING, THE DEAD AND THE LIVING DEAD..………...12 CHAPTER III: SOURCES ON REVENANTS IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY: WALTER MAP’S DE NUGIS CURIALIUM AND WILLIAM OF NEWBURGH’S HISTORIA RERUM ANGLICARUM ……………………32 3.1 Walter Map and the De Nugis Curialium …………………………...............……35 3.2 William of Newburgh and the Historia Rerum Anglicarum ……………....…...…49 CHAPTER IV: THE SOUL OTHERWISE ENGAGED IN PURGATORY...……73 CHAPTER V: THE DIALOGUS MIRACULORUM BY CAESARIUS OF HEISTERBACH AND THE BYLAND ABBEY GHOST STORIES..…...99 CHAPTER VI: CONCLUSION………………………………………………….139 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………..…………………………………………………….147 vi CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION On the big screen the sight of a half-decomposed corpse crawling out of a grave is a common enough event nowadays. Zombies and groaning, virus-infected corpses stumbling around, targeting the few left living have come to comprise a specific genre within the horror industry. There is a reason why these commercial representations of the walking dead are such a success; they manage yet to instill a certain fear and disquiet within their audience. The walking dead and their representation speak to a very primal and deep set fear in human beings, a fear that has probably existed as long as man himself has done. Imagine a time when people actually believed in the existence of revenants, that is, the walking dead; there are records of people having heard them, seen them and partaken in countermeasures against these monsters, or at least those who recorded the stories fully believed the people who said that they had. The threat of the walking dead was very much present in the mind of these people: “Belief in corpses coming back to life is well attested for parts of medieval Europe, most notably Iceland, but also England, the Low Countries, northern France and parts of Germany,” 1 though the belief was by no means limited to these areas. It is important 1 Nancy Caciola, “Wraiths, Revenants and Ritual in the Middle Culture,” Past and Present 152 (1996): 15. 1 to emphasize that for the people of the time these accounts represented an actual belief; “all these stories, without exception, were told as being absolutely and historically true.” 2 The question here is not whether revenants actually walked in Europe in the early and high Middle Ages; it is the fact that people believed them to have done so and acted accordingly, leaving behind evidence of the belief, some physical, but most explicitly written. The current study will focus mainly, but not exclusively, on the British side of the story. This is more a matter of convenience than anything else, the majority of sources available to me having come from this area. It should not be taken for granted that belief in revenants was most active there. The thesis will also primarily concern the period from the twelfth century to the end of the fourteenth. This again, in one sense, is partly a matter of sources, but I shall also argue that it is a period of profound significance for the belief in revenants. The fact that folklore, popular belief, has been transmitted to the present mostly through written sources complicates its study considerably. Arguably at least, the lore itself was essentially oral in nature. Thus, what one gets from written sources is generally at least second-hand information and, what makes it even more problematic, second-hand interpretation of the phenomena. Still, as the “sources for the written tradition of the Middle Ages lie overwhelmingly in the sphere of oral tradition, folklore,” 3 there is a possibility of extracting the properties and nuances of the belief from the sources, which are sometimes obscure in their revelations and sometimes quite direct. 2 R.A. Bowyer, “The Role of the Ghost-Story in Medieval Christianity,” In The Folklore of Ghosts, ed. H.R. Ellis Davidson (Cambridge: St. Edmundsbury Press, 1981), 178. 3 Aaron J. Gurevich, “Oral and Written Culture of the Middle Ages: Two ‘Peasant Visions’ of the Late Twelfth-Early Thirteenth Centuries,” New Literary History 16, no.1 Oral and Written Traditions in the Middle Ages (1984): 52. 2 These properties must be borne in mind with respect to all written sources about revenants. The authors function as commentators and interpreters of the tales that they “heard” from “reliable” sources and collected. Thus what the sources offer comprises not only the tales themselves, but also the authors’ own interpretations. These interpretations should be regarded as equally important to the stories themselves.

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